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The Ten Common Principles in Theory and Practice
In the eloquence and simplicity of the Ten Common Principles, where the idea of knowing students well, of placing them in the center of their education and working to ensure their active involvement in the cultivation of their intellect, where the notion of “less is more” challenges educators to create a deliberately spare academic program, and to create an intentionally democratic community, the Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School finds its clearest mission and its greatest challenge. At a time when increasing responsibility is assigned to schools and school staff to provide all that will be necessary to remedy every situation—and fast—determining what we will not do, and determining as a group what we will and will not teach, is a complex dilemma. While the Ten Common Principles lay out everything an Essential School may need in terms of critical considerations and a sturdy philosophical framework for our best thinking, they deliberately do not provide a roadmap. Just as no two schools are exactly alike, no two Essential Schools bear the same fingerprint. In fact, the space between the principles intentionally leaves room for school communities to interpret and translate the thoughts there into a set of unique practices that work exquisitely and exclusively for that community. In this way, we at Parker experience a kind of double edge to our sense of identity; we know who we are, but this does not guarantee that we know what to do. This work is as necessary and slow in a school that has been built from scratch as it is in a school that is intentionally dismantling and rebuilding itself after decades of existence.
The focus of this Ask a Mentor session is the space between theory and practice. This session is intended to open a dialogue around the important conversations that emerge when we agree about the underlying ideas within the Principles but find ourselves asking each other, “Great… and now what does it really look like in practice?”
| QUESTIONS with Answers |
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What is our responsibility in making education valuable to society (since they pay for it) by teaching their standards and responsibility to the student to allow them to grow in the areas they choose? Are these mutually exclusive?
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Before I try to address this first question, I would like to welcome everyone to this panel, and to say a bit about Parker School and the context in which we operate. Parker School is a public, independent charter school located in North Central Massachusetts. We serve students in grades 7-12, though our school program does not organize student groupings in this way, but rather in divisions that roughly correlate to grades 7-8 - Division 1, 9-10- Division 2, and 11-Graduation, Division 3. Parker is in its eleventh year of operation, having opened our doors in the Fall of 1995. Parker is a CES school and this vision was central to the founding of the school. In fact, knowing that the school's design and "life" would be centered on the Ten Common Principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools, as articualted by Dr. Theodore Sizer was just about the first "known" thing about the school. This knowledge has been a guiding force in the development and the evolution of the school; our structures and practices are our community's ongoing translation and expression of the meaning we make of the Ten Common Principles.
I guess maybe this is enough to segue to this first question, which makes we immediately want to ask (in all sincerity), who are "they"? The extent to which "they" are defined as those who would stand apart from the work of schools and mandate (or judge) from afar, determines to an extent the potential schools have to do the work that teachers and leaders and parents and students themselves know is critical and meaningful and real. If they can be "we", then schools will serve society only when they serve the needs and hopes of the community.
At Parker School, our academic program is constructed around major academic domains ( Arts and Humanities, Math/Science/Technology, Spanish, and Wellness). The curriculum is crafted around a school wide essential question, which is determined through an inclusive process resulting ultimately in an all school vote. The students determine the lens through which the curriculum will be expressed year to year, yet the organizing principles ( interdiscplinary, heavily skill-based, performance based) do not shift from year to year. This is an example of the relationship between student voice and institution "givens". All this to say, in my experience at Parker, "valuable education" and learning that is relevant and meaningful to students cannot be mutually exclusive if we are to succeed as a school and as a respectful community invested in helping young people to think out loud and grow based on new learing. I think the critical factor is in insisting that there is no "they're there"- because to believe that society is somehow out there and not within us is to abdicate our responsibility to kids.
I think that if our constituencies have no voice in our schools, we risk losing everything ; school becomes just another thing that happens to kids. I think we need to, and can do better than that.
But it does takes energy to invite and sustain voice. Sustaining that energy, I think, is part of our responsibility.
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In a dualistic society such as the one we live in, how do we deal with the fact that competing educational theorists and practioners constantly set up false dichotomies that set educators against one another, thus allowing the status quo to win the day?
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I am not able to say that I feel set up by conflicting views and visions, but more inclined to think that we can interpret ( and construct or disregard) dichotomies --as barriers to the work or as something else. Maybe as thinking out loud and an inroad to agree, disagree, change our minds. Perhaps this is idealistic but I don't experience the set up.
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Teri,
We are converting a large comprehensive high school into five small, theme-based schools. I would like to know some of the strategies you have used to obtain an 80:1 ratio. What have been your sacrifices and how have you dealt with the political fallout of making program choices? Any other advice you can give to keep us focused on the "heart" of our reform - Teaching and Learning - will be deeply appreciated. Thank you.
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Parker is/was a new school, so we didn't face the challenges of transforming a comprehensive high school. We were in a position to design a school and write a proposal for a Commonwealth charter that placed the 10 Common Principles as the mission of the school. The structural elements of the school, therefore, encontered no tension in a process of "conversion" - ( a word that still strikes me as awkward). This doesn't mean we don't face challenges in translating the 10 Common Principles into practice and that we aren't faced with tough choices. For example, we sacrifice a great deal in order to live out the principles related to knowing students well. For us, this means we have an advisory program and dedicate significant time in the school day and in professional development to tending carefully to the ways in which we are effective advisors. We are committed to team teaching, two teachers with 24 students, and equally committed to teachers having common planning time (2 hours per day), in order to do good work around developing an academic program that meets the needs of our students. There is tremendous cost to all this- in that there things typically associated with school that we will never have and never do. We function with a very sparse adminsitrative "layer", for example, in order to protect our ability to construct a staffing model that dedicates our limited resources to teachers - to people, and to the work of knowing our students well. In our school, we do press ourselves to consider the ways in which the 10 CPs can instruct us when we face decisions about the dedication of resources or choices. We try to ask, " what difference will this make for kids? why do we believe this will be good for them?" - the 10 Common Principles provide the arena for that kind of talk, which we practice a lot, since there are always decisions to make about what's next, and what's not next!
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| Q: |
Teri, what form of student recognition (for citizenship, academic achievement, other?) is appropriate and remains true to the 10 Common Principles?
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At Parker, every student will have completed at least seven major, public exhibitions of their learning by the time s/he graduates. The first six of these are called "gateways", which is our word for what happens when a student promotes herself from one academic division to another. A gateway is a session where the student presents his or her learning to an assembled audience of parents, teachers, advisor, friends, and other invite guests. Although gateways look different from one division to the next ( the stakes increase based on the intellectual and developmental readiness of students as they grow), all gateways incorporate the elements of presentation of work, self-facilitated discussion and questions and answers, and a celebration. These gateways feel a little bit like "graduation for one", with people to know and care about the student gathered for an hour to mark and bear witness to the distance the student has come in order to move to the next division.
This is an intense form of recognition. The thing is, it is not reserved for a few students. It is what happens to every student at the school. I can tell you that I have seen something remarkable happen in the ten years I have been at the school, where students do not compete for a limited number of good grades or selected honors- but rather where all students come to know, trust , and believe that they are all eligible and destined for the good stuff. The lack of competition and angst gives way to a different student culture; they genuinely know they're in it together and therefore help, support, root for, and feel with one another as school mates. Witnessing this has been as profound a thing as I can ever recall. And these acts of recognition replace awards ceremonies - there is no prize night , no graduation awards, just diplomas and speeches made by any and all seniors who can comply with a timeline and render an idea into a two minute talk.
We also have a weekly community meeting, at which a student or a group of students are "featured presenters", and they show their exemplary work from a class (or from an endeavor outside school), and we cheer them. We also acknowledge advisories when they complete community service projects, and the successes we experience as individuals and as a community whenever they occur.
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You have created a mirco-community in which the students live a substantial part of their lives. If this community resonates with them, they will take their experience out into the larger community. How have you implemented the "judicial system" in this environment and how do you think it will influence your graduate's behavior in society?
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We have a governance aspect of the school called "JC", actaully, and it is comprised of students from each advisory whose work is part of our judicial system. Students on the JC learn about peer mediation and they also rule on certain disiplinary incidents by convening hearings and imposing consequences . How do I think this will influence our graduates' behavior in society?..... hmmmm.
I think based on my hopes.
I hope they will grasp and act on a real understanding of a democratic society as a series of rights balanced by responsibilities. I hope that they have had to wrestle with each in school and that they have felt heard, been fair in listening, and that the school has helped them to be hopeful and expectant, and NOT cynical, about living in a democracy. I think that even if students ave not been activists in high school they have had some practice grappling with the tensions inherent in a democratic society.
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Hi, I thought that what I saw in the video was amazing! The question That I have is; I work for the Boston public school system and we use a pacing guide(which I sometimes think is a racing guide) that forces me to push beyond a concept or topic much faster than I would have liked. How do I teach algebra the way Diane Kruse does in the video, while at the same time keeping up with the loaded pacing guide?
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I am trouled by the notion of a pacing guide, because it is yet one more device that takes away teachers' ability to use their professional judgment on behalf of their students. There is a part of me that wants to talk about the need to challenge anything whose purpose is to instruct or determine from afar, the what and, now, the when, of student learning. Because of course there will be a direct impact on how you teach and then, what the students learn. Moving on before you feel ready, I trust, means you find yourself moving on before you believe the kids are ready, which in some ways, traps you every day. And while I want to tell you to lay aside the pacing guide, I also realize that if you felt that was a real option, you would have already done so. In all honesty, I don't think you can teach the way you saw in the video AND still keep us with the pacing guide. But there may be some things you might think about as you plan your classes.
I know that Diane believes that students of math need time and space to wrestle with concepts and ideas that cofuse them, and she is not afraid to let students not know for a time. This time is essential in order for students to internalize, rather than merely memorize, the concepts she is instructing. I am guessing there is not a lot of time for this in the pacing guide. I would encourage you to lay aside that document for the next unit of study, and look at your curriculum and your students' most recent work, with a pen on one hand and a highlighter nearby.If you can get a colleague or three to do this with you, so much the better. If you read the curriculum deeply and talk back to that text by marking it up- use the margins of that document to ask your own questions , to write to yourself about where your students are with this material, or what you anticipate will be especially tough for them. Highlight the things that you believe will require your instruction to slow down, or where you can envision a class activity would enhance their grasp of the material. Use the work they've most recently completed to inform your specualtion. You'll end up with a mess, for sure, but you will also, perhaps, have clarified your voice and reflected back to yourself what you know your students need. If you can take your own questions to the students in some form, (create lessons that focus on a question rather than on presenting the material), and that give the students some time to grapple- together, with a partner, in small groups ( whatever they thing will be most helpful to them), and then bring them back together , not to see who got the right answer but to learn about how they were thinking about and approaching the problem, I think you will have restructured things somewhat and learned more about your students. Take the time you have with the kids to read their signals, but in order to do this, I encourage you to construct very delibereate lessons that give them some space to give off those signals.
If you can look at the skills you know your students need to develop and practice, and set the course in the context of some good questions, and get the material out of the realm of a list of content and a pacing (racing) "guide" I think you wil find some space to breathe- and some way for your kids to breathe, and learn, as well.
The bigger issue of the movement to teacher proof our schools, to imagine that a set curriculum in one hand and now a pacing guide in the other, is in anyway going to create the kinds of schools our children need, is at the heart of your question. I wish you well. You must not be the only one in your school? department? team?, to believe as you do. Are there ways for you to explore the ways in which you can work with others to deploy deeper instruction? It's hard to feel alone in the face of such rigid parameters, but maybe working with a colleague can help you find some open space to act on your knowledge, instincts, and determinations of what's good for your kids.
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