Photojournalism Project

Check out this article in today’s Leader Post — Photo project looks at life in North Central Regina

What the story fails to mention is all of the hard work of the staff at our school on this project! Our art teacher and one of our English teachers created an entire integrated project that taught the students about photography and journalism while meeting all of the outcomes for ELA A30 (Canadian Voices) and Visual Art 30. This is no small feat! So hats off to you, the unmentioned heroes of the project.

Minneapolis Reflection: Cristo Rey Jesuit High School

Cristo Rey Jesuit High School is part of the Cristo Rey Network of schools that was started in Philadelphia. It is in the area of Minneapolis affectionately known as Murder-opolis. Fielding-Nair International, the same company contracted to design our new shared facility, designed Cristo Rey. It has a massive shared gymnasium on the north side with room for 8 basketball courts. Apparently on Friday nights all courts are used and the place is electric. Check out the physical layout of Cristo Rey.

The neighbourhood has a lot of Spanish speaking students, and all promotional material for the school is in both English and Spanish. Cristo Rey is a private school, with the students working one day a week (job-sharing with other students) in order to pay for their schooling. On any given day, 20% of the school population is at work. Local corporations and organizations hire students, however, because of this all students must be in the USA legally and have the paperwork to prove it. This precludes many vulnerable students from attending Cristo Rey. (This is a problem we’re tackling here, as many students only have a health card – no SIN, no photo ID, no Birth Certificate – and can’t have their SIN reissued.) Students and  staff follow a dress code.

The learning model at this Cristo Rey wasn’t fully developed, but it was still interesting to see the allocation of space on the inside. There were many informal learning spaces and wide corridors with sitting areas as opposed to traditional classrooms. Where there were separate rooms, there were garage doors to open them up if a space needed to be larger.

As we toured around once again it struck me how important it is to have collaboration on staff. A building like Cristo Rey wouldn’t be functional if staff didn’t have a shared vision of education, and weren’t planning together to enact that vision. So, as we move on with creating a new community learning centre here, the question remains – how do you ensure all teachers (and partners in the building) are on the same page? If I had the answer, I sure wouldn’t be writing a blog entry – I’d be speaking to millions of people.

Minneapolis Reflection: “Zoo School”

Over the next few days, I am going to be doing some reflecting on my trip from last week. I went down to Minneapolis with a team of teachers to look at some alternative learning models. I say alternative just because they are different ways of looking at how we can engage students – not to marginalize what is being done.

School of Environmental Studies – “Zoo School”

The first school we visited was the School of Environmental Studies. Since it is located on the grounds of the Minnesota Zoo, it is affectionately known as “Zoo School.” Students are drawn from four neighbouring high schools – they are actually still technically students at those schools, and return for some classes and extra-curricular. All students in those schools have the option to apply to come to Zoo School for their grade 11 and 12 years. Students are chosen based on a lottery, however, due to the neighbourhoods that feed Zoo School, most students are middle class.

Though it is over ten years old now, and starting to show its age, the physical layout of Zoo School was striking. You enter into a large, open space with massive south-facing windows is used as a whole school meeting space, the theatre, the cafeteria, and to dry out tents (to name just a few uses.) While we were there, tables were being set up with displays students created for Earth Day.

Organizationally, the students are broken down into 4 houses – each with about 100 students. The houses are on the second floor, and are broken down into a large meeting space (which can be divided smaller as needed) and a workspace for each student, including a lockable cabinet (to avoid the need for lockers.) Off the larger space is a computer lab, a teacher-work area (there are no teacher’s desks in the other spaces) as well as one Science lab shared by two houses.

What was most interesting about Zoo School was the collaborative, project-based approach to learning. Each house has a group of teachers dedicated solely to that house. This creates a smaller school environment within the larger school. Teachers use the State standards and outcomes to decide upon big questions to be answered by the students – mostly, they relate to the environment and Science. These questions then inform everything the students do in the curricular areas. Teachers representing all core subject areas work together in a house, and each teacher is responsible for making sure that the standards and outcomes in their area are being covered. The students are very independent (they are grade 11 and 12) and have a lot of say in how they attack a specific question. One question one house was exploring was “What is the relationship between water and organisms?” Students were given the freedom to consider the question from many different angles, using different sources and media along the way.

One thing that really struck me as powerful was the way that staff members are placed at Zoo School. If a member of a specific house staff leaves, the other team-members are involved in choosing of a replacement. What a great way to ensure that staff will work well within a learning model.

You can read more about the program and school design here or check out their website here.

From this visit, I started to see how space can be used differently to meet student needs. I also am starting to see that for success in engaging students in a learning model, you need to have staff members who have a shared vision and work well together. The principal of Zoo School has been there since it opened – this longevity has helped create a culture of collaboration at the school.

Project – One Month Down

Time is flying in the project. We have 3 weeks until Easter vacation. Following our 10 day holiday (where I will be visiting my mom in Hawaii – poor me!) we have 9 days to finish the production. So, 23 days. Oh my.

So far, it has been challenging to build a sense of community and safety when the composition of the class varies every day. Now that we’re getting down to the crunch, I should have most of my students during all drama classes. Up until this point, they have been taking Entrepreneurship/English/Information Processing classes during some of my drama offerings. However, starting this week we’ve backed Commercial Cooking and Drama classes, so that I’ll have the majority of my students all the time.

Last week we worked on brainstorming ideas relating to the English themes. The idea was to give us a place to start when we look at building scenes for the collective. This process offered many insights into my students’ lives. They are so honest – it is refreshing.

I find the level of staff engagement to be very invigorating — we are all running at full speed, but we’re running the same direction. The professional dialogue is wonderful. Teaching is usually an isolating profession, each teacher working independently for 5 hours a day in their classrooms. However, the collaborative nature of the project has facilitated discussion about big educational questions, and enabled lots of collaborative problem solving. Also, our twice daily homerooms where we work with students to schedule themselves has enabled us to really get to know the students. After spending the first part of the year teaching grade 9, and now working with the grade 10s, I know almost all of the students in the school.

Life continues to march onward outside of the work day, and I have two assignments due coming up in my grad class — one is a “metaphor for teaching” where my wife and I will wow the class with the similarities between good improvisational theatre and good teaching. Also, I have an assignment on assessing using documentation, which involves a bunch of picture taking. I’ve also put the finishing touches on my ethics application, so I can use data from the project for my thesis. It’s a very tight timeline to get it approved, and I’m not sure if it will come back in time to use the students from the project, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to try.  I also had my second interview for an admin position for next year on Tuesday and I think it went well. I’ll hear within a week or so whether or not I made it to the next level – a panel interview. Alright, this should assuage the guilt I’ve felt about not updating the blog — now I’m off to metaphorize!

Project Week 1 – A retrospective

What a week! When I left at 4:15 this afternoon to get to a 5:00 inservice, the other project teachers were still hashing out the timetable for next week. This characterizes the week, I think – we were flying by the seat of our pants. However, we sure flew. We have 110 students enrolled, and we’ve had 100 of them come through the door (This is a ridiculously high rate for our school). We’ve had to photocopy more copies of everything, find more chairs, add shelving, and deal with way more students than we ever imagined. Now, the challenge will be to keep them coming.

So far students are engaged. In my drama class, we laugh a lot. Each class has a different composition. Since my class backs different classes in Commercial Cooking, Information Processing, English or Entrepreneurship every time, the students who come are never exactly the same. In spite of this, we’re building some rapport, and students are getting more comfortable with each other. We have a guest teacher (a local actor) coming in for 2 days next week, which I’m looking forward to.
Today students finished the week with a journal entry about their experiences thus far in the project. I read a few, and was very happy with what students are saying. There is one boy in particular who is easily distracted (and distracting) in class, and often gripes about being held accountable – however, in his journal, he said that he was enjoying school much more than last quarter. Another young woman wrote that she actually wanted to come to school now. These are the comments that make all the hard work worthwhile.

Next week should be calmer, because we’ve worked some things out. This week, we were spending an hour at the end of each day compiling 6 periods of attendance for 100 students. Starting Monday, we’ll be using a card with check-boxes for each class over the next 2 weeks that students will carry in their yellow duotang/hall pass, and get stamped at each class. This will make tracking individual attendance much easier, and result in less collating at the end of the day. Also, our admin has given us more staff — we have a teacher who spends the first hour of the day calling students who were absent the day before. To track this calling, the board office tech folks have created a secure online database that all staff can access, where he enters information. Click on a student’s name, and up pops all communication made with the family. Invaluable, and it will save us from what happened this morning – I called a young man who was absent, only to be informed that he was ill, and that I was the third person to call home within the hour. Also, we have another time teacher assigned to us every second day for 2 hours. This will allow for some team teaching, as well as enable us to take an hour of prep a day, which no one has had thus far. Our preps this week were spent in “The Pit” (our home base) tracking students, calling home, or dealing with an influx of late students.

There has been some stress on staff caused by the influx of students. We only have 2 classrooms in addition to The Pit, and, as such, are constantly needing to use the library and computer lab. So far, the Info Pro 20 class has moved to a classroom, and are using a cart of laptops, which frees up a room for a couple hours in the morning. However, any time you’re sharing space, it is stressful. The Pit is also much too small — we meet at the beginning and end of the day, and it is standing room only. Now, if only we had a new building with adequate space

We are tracking student perceptions of learning and school in this project, but I think that the project will have a profound effect  on staff as well. So far we are working our butts off – and really enjoying it. We are connected to each other, and having a great time in spite of the stress (we laugh a lot). Also, we are connected to students (and a lot of students!) and the project enables us to feel accomplishment. To Control Theory it, our power, belonging, freedom, and fun needs are through the roof! To Circle of Courage it, we’re experiencing Mastery, Belonging, Independence, and Generosity in spades.

At the Response Abilities Pathway Training I took tonight (and take tomorrow and next Saturday) I was reminded that we retain things in our mind that are emotionally significant — and this project is definitely emotionally significant for us. Now, the challenge will be to ensure it is for our students, as well.

Project Day 1 – A Retrospective

It is 6:01 and I am ready for bed. If only I didn’t have so much work left to do. Oh, and supper to eat. And clothes to iron.

But, enough whinging.

Today was a CRAZY BUSY day! We knew this coming in — we planned it this way. The goal was to engage the students right away – have them doing doing doing so that at the end of the day it didn’t even feel like a day has passed, and they had many positive memories from the day.

We began with a pancake breakfast, and an overview of the day. Students received their tracking duotang, and filled in the schedule for the day. Then, we went down to the gym and did two team building activities –gym mat surfing and “walk the line” (similar to what they do on Oprah I’m told.) We were pretty happy with the level of commitment — the students really engaged in the activities. Okay, not all of them, but the majority. I snapped some pics in the poorly lit gym which I will post in the classroom first thing tomorrow.

From here, we went back to the classroom for some reflection — we’re trying to pitch the project as a fresh start for the students: a chance to move on from past behaviours, patterns, and failures. So, they completed an activity where they wrote a “Toast for Change.” We had a 15 minute break, continued with the toasts, and then went back to the gym at 12:00 and students worked in groups through four different initiative tasks. Then, lunch came, and we had an hour to catch our breath. For the afternoon, students completed a pre-survey for us to gather some data to assess where students were at prior to the project in terms of commitment to and satisfaction with school, preconceptions about learning, etc. Then we were back in the gym for mini-activities from each of the classes, to help students decide where they want to focus their energy.  We finished back in the classroom, hoisting plastic wine glasses with sparkling apple juice, finishing the day with a “Toast for Change.”

Now, I know you’re thinking – but Chris, that doesn’t sound so bad. Why are you so tired?

Well, we have students who are used to working independently on modules — there is very little direct instruction in our school. This is because of inconsistent attendance, which results in students being in different places at different times. Thus the need for independent, self-directed work. When working solely on modules, taking a break is common, and teachers are pretty understanding. Since our classes are an hour and 45 minutes, it isn’t unreasonable for a student to go to the bathroom during class, or, well, just go for a walk. However, though they are well intentioned, the teachers have enabled many of our students to develop the undesirable habit of wandering. With the project, nothing is ever longer than an hour, and most things last less than 45 minutes. This is to address the boredom that often occurs in the longer classes.
But our students were edgy today. They felt confined (and this was our fault, too – we had over 50 kids crammed into our room, which, though it is larger, isn’t exactly huge.) Even though we had every minute planned, there was down time — students completed things at different times, and students arrived sporadically all throughout the morning. So, next time, we would run the orientation as a class that students must attend, and rotate them through it, just like the other classes they are taking.

Tomorrow will be a great day – already today I started to see some of the characters we have in our project. I don’t doubt that it will be frustrating at times and tiring most of the time, but I know it will be worth it. What an adventure!

Project Planning

We are two weeks away from the launch of our integrated curriculum dinner theatre project (It really needs a better name than that — any suggestions?) We have finalized the list, and 132 students are officially ours starting February 4th. We have timetabled our first week, which sounds like no big deal, but is an arduous process.

Every day starts with an Advisory period in “The Pit” for all 5 teachers and the students. Here, staff work with students to create a personalized timetable for the day. We offer three different classes at any given time — this allows students to pick and choose what they do. For example, the first day, I run an introductory improv class, the commercial cooking teacher runs an into to food safety lab, and the English teacher starts a novel. A 4th teacher stays in The Pit to do continuous intake, and call students who have not yet arrived. A fifth teacher gets their requisite hour of preparation time.

In the second hour, I have Pit duty, the cooking lab continues, and students from my drama class can either start their English, or write sponsorship letters (part of Entrepreneurship, Tourism and Hospitality.) All of the lessons offered – whether grounded in Drama, Commercial Cooking, or Entrepreneurship, cover objectives from multiple curricula. This is what enables us to offer 4 credits, as well as accommodate students who struggle with attendance. We have a lovely 5 page master list of assignments and activities that is cross-referenced to the six different curricular areas covered (English A10, English B10, Entrepreneurship, Hospitality and Tourism 30, Information Processing 10, Drama 10, and Commercial Cooking 10.)

My introductory drama lesson repeats 4 times over the course of the week – as do most lessons and activities. This allows students plenty of opportunity to complete work, or review lessons they didn’t get the first time. However, you can see how it would be a headache to schedule. Luckily, we have a half-time teacher who is in the project in the afternoon, which allows more flexibility, and enables some team-teaching to take place, which was one of the goals of the project at the outset.

Further complicating the timetable is that some students will be finishing Math 10 at the same time. A section of Math 10/20 is being offered in the afternoon, and 20 or so of the students in the project who didn’t quite finish last quarter will be enrolled as well. They will still have the chance to earn 4 credits, however it is likely that they will earn less, depending on how long it takes them to finish their math. They will also have the chance to work on Math in the morning in The Pit if there’s an opening in their schedule. To accommodate, all classes in the project are offered in both the morning and the afternoon, so they would be able to keep up most of their project work even without the afternoons, if they attend every day.

We have broken each subject down into 10 tasks to be completed – and this task list fits on on one side of a piece of paper. This is in an effort not to overwhelm our students. Granted, there are sub-tasks under each task, however hopefully it will serve the desired purpose. We will take plenty of data on our students – both quantitative and qualitative – to support any success we have.

With teachers each teaching 3 hours a day, plus 30 minutes of Advisory, and an hour of time in The Pit, we’re over the 4 hours of teaching normally done at the high school level. However, the hope is that while in The Pit in the afternoon, teachers will be able to steal a bit of time for marking and preparation. And, the adrenaline that will be rushing for the 42 days of the project will no doubt serve to fuel us on. Or, as one teacher involved remarked this afternoon, drink a lot more.  I’ll keep you posted.