EDUC 393 Cross-curricular Reflexive Writing #3
My concern for student engagement and performance is no secret. I have spoken freely, in class and in my essays, of the alarm I felt when I began teaching as an uncertified teacher in 2019. The number of students I witnessed that were disengaged from their learning was distressing and disheartening; those demonstrating low academic performance in literacy, numeracy, and across the subjects was shocking, with a staggering number of children failing to meet the expectations of British Columbia’s curriculum. As a new teacher, one that had not stepped into an elementary classroom since 1995 (when I graduated grade 7) and a secondary classroom since 2001 (when I graduated grade 12), I was genuinely concerned with student engagement, student performance, and the overall state of our education system. What I remembered of my education, and the educational institutions I attended, was nothing like what I was now witnessing as a teacher in our schools and classrooms on a daily basis.
My lens, of course, was different—I was not viewing my surroundings as a student, but rather as a teacher. Still, I hesitated to believe that schools were like this during my youth. Had I really been that oblivious to the number of disengaged and struggling students in my classes? To the number of students that could not read, write, or do grade-level math? To the number of students that could not function in classroom settings without overthrowing desks, cursing and yelling at teachers, classmates and administrators, and/or storming the halls uncontrollably? Was my memory going? Was I getting old? Speaking to colleagues—teachers, support staff and administrators, some with thirty plus years of experience—the answer was no: it was not just me, my memory was not failing me, and I was not “getting old.” Experienced colleagues testified that dramatic change had occurred. Each colleague had a different hypothesis as to how or why the change had occurred, with no consensus other than it had happened slowly (not suddenly)—that is, with each passing year, they had watched student engagement and performance decline.
Two and a half years of teaching experience later, I am still as alarmed and concerned as I was on my first day. Each and every classroom I have been called into, or have taught in for a significant period of time, has generated significant concerns with regard to academic, social, and intellectual proficiency. No school or classroom has been immune. My anxiety over the issues have improved (i.e. I feel more confident and prepared in handling disengagement, disruptive behaviours, and low academic performance) but my concern has not subsided. In fact, it has only grown. Some may say that I am entering the wrong profession if I am so concerned. I say that I am going into the right profession because of my concern. It means that I CARE. The problem lies with those that no longer care, have thrown their hands in the air, admitted defeat, and accepted disengagement and poor performance as the new status quo—not caring if or how it can be improved. If this was me, then I would be entering the wrong profession. But it is not me. I DO care. I care too much about students and education to let it go.
When I think about care and concern, I think about Hamish Brewer—the “tattooed, skateboarding principal” at Fred Lynn Middle School—and the speech he gave in the video: How radical love transformed a school (2019). Brewer’s concern and passion for education and his students transformed one of the toughest schools in Virginia—a school characterized by violence, poverty, trauma, drug and alcohol use, and the underachievement of the most under-serviced students (those from war-torn countries, incarcerated parents, and the lowest socio-economic status). Brewer took Fred Lynn Middle School from unaccredited to accredited; from hopeless to hopeful; from the darkness to the light.
Brewer’s message to those of us in education is this: raise expectations of students, teachers, classrooms, the school, and the community; teach collaboratively and relentlessly; look at students as opportunities, not obligations, and be all in for them, never negotiating anything less. He asks us to make students’ business our business; to show investment in them and their lives; to motivate, not alienate; and to inspire, not require. Brewer urges us to enroll students alongside their families, advocating for ALL, leaving no one behind. He asks us to be a voice for the silenced; to change the vocabulary of our buildings by focusing on pride, love, kindness and courage. He tells us to show students the “game changers” so that they can aspire to be game changers too; to instill in them a belief in themselves while showing that effort yields success. He reminds us that no accomplishment is too small and to celebrate every chance we get. Brewer is proof that we can help improve student engagement and performance when we passionately care.
Brewer’s belief in education, in his students, and in teacher-student relationships, manifested positive change at the student, school, and community level. How can I, as a new teacher, follow in Brewer’s footsteps? How can I manifest action and change? Where do I start? This semester’s coursework provided many useful concepts and approaches (including ample information on the importance of teacher-student relationships) that can help new teachers, like myself, take immediate action to improve student engagement and performance. Early literacy success (where all students are taught to read proficiently), personalized learning, and differentiated instruction stood out to me as key to the academic, social, and intellectual success of our students. If I am to improve student engagement and performance in our twenty-first century classrooms, this is where I start!
Early literacy intervention and support is vital to ensuring that all students can read and access information. The inability to read, especially in the “information age,” seriously limits a student’s success in school, as well as her success outside of school. As discussed in class, children who struggle to read are more likely to experience underachievement in school; to be less engaged at school; to drop out of school; to not pursue post-secondary education; to have internal and/or external behaviour problems (i.e. acting out, inattention, anxiety, emotional dysregulation, depression, and substance abuse); and, as adults, to have lower paying jobs, higher instances of unemployment, and greater risk of incarceration. Beswick and Sloat (2010) acknowledge the significance of literacy, framing it has a social justice issue:
Strong literacy skills are requisite to curricular access and academic achievement during the school years, to post-secondary education and training in young adulthood, and to participation in the cultural, economic and civic life of the community during the adult years. The attainment of strong literacy skills is fundamental to educational equity and is an essential first tier in the defence against social class segregation” (pg. 24).
Hanford’s podcast, What the Words Say (2020), reinforces the importance of literacy, specifically the ability to read, highlighting the difficulties faced by youth, particularly male youth in juvenile detention centres, who never learned how to read in school, struggled significantly (academically, socio-emotionally, and intellectually), were cast aside, pushed forward, and ended up turning to crime. As teachers, we must ensure that this does not happen to our students. We must teach students how to read so that they can succeed—both inside and outside of our classrooms; in the present and in the future.
Personalized learning is also critical to improving student engagement and performance. Taylor and Gebre (2016) provide a fantastic overview of what personalized learning entails:
Personalized learning involves instruction that is differentiated and paced to the needs of the learner and shaped by the learning preferences and interests of the learner. […] Important in constructing personalized learning environments is the understanding of the developmental needs and functioning of the learner and the environments and social forces that help shape the learners’ experiences and adjustments. […] Personalized learning is meant to enhance students’ motivation and engagement by increasing their autonomy and self-direction. […] Personalized learning includes teachers’ awareness of students’ needs and attributes in order to scaffold their learning to foster their self-direction and self-efficacy and enhance their social and emotional competencies” (pg. 205).
Taylor and Gebre draw upon Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory (1960s-1990s) to inform their conceptualizations of personalized learning, identifying important attributes in processes, context, and time; in students, their key social relationships, and in the primary factors that influence their social, emotional, and physical well-being—that is, in their microsystems, mesosystems, exosystems, macrosystems, and chronosystems. Embracing differentiated instruction aids the fulfillment of personalized learning. The Province of Ontario (2008) defines differentiated instruction as “effective instruction that is responsive to students’ readiness, interests and learning preferences” where “all three characteristics of the learner—readiness, interests and preferences—allow educators and students to build new learning through connections to existing knowledge and preferred ways of working.”
The more teachers know about their students, the more they can adjust the learning environment, instruction, assessment, and evaluation to meet the students’ individual needs. The more adjusted a student feels, the more engaged and productive they are: “a wide variety of research studies points to differentiated instruction as a manageable, creative, practical, and proactive response to the quest for enhanced student engagement and achievement in the face of significant student diversity” (Province of Ontario, 2008). Sokal and Katz (2015) argue that “learning environments have powerful effects on students’ responses, including their engagement, satisfaction, achievement, and their likelihood to graduate” and that “teachers and administrators need to pay attention to the classroom factors that promote engagement and support achievement” citing that their “three-block model had demonstrated the potential to engage students during their transition through adolescence by utilizing pedagogy that meets their needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness” (pg. 77).
Mentioned earlier, and reiterated here by the OECD, is the importance of recognizing student emotion and motivation as the “Gatekeepers of Learning” (2012):
Emotion and cognition operate seamlessly in the brain to guide learning. Positive emotions encourage, for instance, long term memory recall while negative emotions can disrupt the learning process in the brain—at times leaving the student with little to no recall after the learning event. […] Motivation ensures that students acquire knowledge and skills in a meaningful way. Like emotion, the presence of positive motivation towards a learning task markedly increases the likelihood that students will engage in deep learning. Helping students become aware of their motivation systems and how that influences their learning leads to them becoming effective learners (Dumont et. al., pg. 4).
Fostering an awareness of how emotion and motivation directly affects student learning will aid my ability to engage students, thereby improving student performance at school:
Emotions have diagnostic value for the teacher because they reveal underlying cognitions, commitments, and concerns. Teachers who are aware of their students’ motivational beliefs and are sensitive to their emotions can very usefully use this information in orchestrating the learning process (Dumont et. al., pg. 4).
Having grown up in Quesnel, attending School District #28, I am concerned with what is currently taking place in my district, my local schools, and in the classrooms I teach. However, I truly believe that teachers—teaching from a place of passion and care, focusing on early literacy success, personalized learning, and differentiated instruction—can reverse the downward trends seen in student engagement and performance, thereby improving the overall state of our education system.
References
Beswick, J.F., and Sloat, E.A. (2006). Early Literacy Success: A Matter of Social Justice. Education Canada, 46(2), 23-26. Retrieved from https://learn.ubc.ca/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/file?cmd=view&content_id=_249135_1&course_id=_12985_1
Brewer, Hamish. (2019, July 19). TEDxChristchurch. How radical love transformed a school. [Video] You Tube – TED. Uploaded on October 20, 2021 from https://www.ted.com/talks/hamish_brewer_how_radical_love_transfomed_a_schoolutm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare
Dumont, H., Istance, D., and Benavides, F. (2012). The Nature of learning: Using Research to Inspire Practice (Practitioner Guide) [Prepared by Jennifer Groff]. OECD. Retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/education/ceri/50300814.pdf
Hanford, Emily. (2020, August 6). APM Reports. What the Words Say. [Video] EDUCATE. Uploaded on October 26, 2021 from https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2020/08/06/what-the-words-say
Province of Ontario. (October 2008). Reach Every Kid Through Differentiated Instruction. Retrieved from http://www.edugains.ca/resourcesDI/Brochures/DIBrochureOct08.pdf
Sokal, L. and Katz, J. (2015). Effects of the three-block model of universal design for learning on early and late middle school students’ engagement. Middle Grades Research Journal, 10(2), 65-82. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/docview/1728219343?fromopenview=true&pq-origsite=gscholar
Taylor, R.D., and Gerbre, A. (2016). Teacher-Student Relationships and Personalized Learning: Implications of Person and Contextual Variables. In M. Murphy, S. Redding, and J. Twyman (Eds)., Handbook on Personalized Learning for States, Districts, and Schools (pg. 205-220). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University, Centre on Innovations in Learning. Retrieved from www.centeril.org
