Building Strength Based Ecologies- In our Schools
Our current view of education and schooling continues to focus almost all our attention of fixing and remediating what is deficient in both the students and the teachers within our buildings.
Walk into any school public school system in our country and you will see frantic adults pouring over endless amounts of performance data ( test scores ) finding those students with-in their walls that do not “measure- up” and creating yet another plan to remediate and fix them.
At the same time, in the majority of our states, we have instituted teacher evaluation systems that in effect are designed to use student test scores along with “best practice” rubrics to find what is wrong with their instruction and fix them.
In practice our public schools, because of our current federal and state policies, have everyone with-in our public educational system endlessly probing and finding what is wrong with the human beings that come together there and then attempting to “fix” them all!!
This view of education and schooling has lead us to more and more standards, more prescriptive methods of teaching and more testing then at any time in history of mass public education.
The entire system is now build on deficiency and remediation.
This view of education and schooling is wrong, it has lead us all to a dead end!
We must find ways to break away from this deficit view of teaching and learning.
Learning is the most natural things human beings do. Our species would never have survived if this were not the case. Watch any young child for even a small period of time and you will find a creative, inquisitive learner! Human beings placed in good enough soil and given an adequate supply of nutrients will grow and flourish just like a seed does when give adequate sunlight and water and placed in the correct soil.
What ingredients are in the soil to grow healthy children and youth?
In Reclaiming Youth At-Risk, Brendtro, Brokenleg and Van Bockern identified the 4 Universal Growth Needs of Children and Youth.
They include: Belonging, Mastery, Independence and Generosity. When these growth needs are met our young flourish. You can use these needs and the following questions as a conceptual filter as you build strength based ecologies with-in your classrooms or your schools.
BELONGING- The need for belonging speaks to the power of attachment in human beings.
This need asks the question:
“Am I important to somebody here?”
We know that all long term learning takes place in the context of positive relationships. All our young need to be seen as important, seen and know by a special adult in their school. This becomes critically important for our most troubled and troubling students who simply will not learn from someone who they are not connected to.
Urie Bronfenbrenner put it this way years ago: "Every child needs at least one adult who is irrationally crazy about him or her." I am hopeful that that person will be you!
MASTERY- The need for mastery speaks to the power of achievement. This need asks the question: “ Am I good at something here?”
Children and young people are defeated by failure, yet often our schools allow children to fall year after year. It is not uncommon in some of our schools to have 17 and 18 year olds in our schools with only enough credits to be a freshman or sophomore.
If our young become too defeated they simply drop-out!
We cannot continue to allow this to occur. Simply put, if the student has not learned something we as the teacher need to find a different way to teach it.
We must build islands of competency for all our students and we must be able to teach in a way that allows them to experience success. Tom Rath author of StrengthsFinder 2.0 and Wellbeing, both geared to leading adults in the business world puts it this way: “ When we build on our strengths and daily successes- instead of focusing on failures- we simply learn more.” We must find ways to “force” success on all our students!
INDEPENDENCE- The need for independence speaks to the power of autonomy.
Can I influence my world here?
This need first kicks in at age 2. During this stage of our unfolding childhood overflows with wonder, questions and learning.
It becomes front and center again during early adolescents as young people begin to explore different ways they may want to be in the world.
All one has to do is visit any middle school and you can see the why the gift of this developmental stage has been referred to as “the gift of fire”.
Allowing room for structured choices will give our adolescents the ability to beginning to learn from the outcomes of their choices and yet still have the protection of caring adults to provide a safety net when they make poor choices.
As teachers and educators we can provide our students with choices in more and more areas as they explore their various gifts. In what ways can our young people influence their school ecology?
GENEROSITY- The need for generosity speaks to the power of altruism.
How can I share my gifts to help others here?
A ll our young people need to have the “felt” sense of being of value to others.
Providing our young with opportunities to be generous toward others and share their gifts develops a clear sense of empathy and caring, innate abilities with-in all human beings. We as adults can also model generosity to our students and provide them a sense of experiencing generosity of spirit between people.
Belonging, mastery, independence and generosity represent the 4 universal growth needs of all children and youth. This is the soil we need to cultivate in our schools to allow all our students to thrive and flourish.
As always..let me know what you think.........
Learning Specialist and Coaching to Objectives. Call me and find out.
6 年There is a lot you are trying put in here. I won't go into a number of points I agree with, so I just say I am positive towards your view and article. The problem you are looking at but have not come to see quite falls under the heading illiteracy. Before you dismiss, the way we use it have come to interpret what illiteracy means is the problem. Illiteracy is when someone doesn't understand what they read and can also do it or apply it. Our academia can read it, doesn't understand it and this can't use it ; some understand it but still can't use it. The test is the action and as soon as you marry up word/school with action/life, all the problems created by our current system vanish and the real learning barriers appear. Native learning does NOT apply to language/text!!!! Most misunderstood or overlook fact in history of education.
School Principal
6 年Education is changing the future generations not mass producing academicans. Am all for a better educational system. ??
School Principal
6 年Michael so perhaps like Confucius says the journey of a thousand steps begins with one simple step
School Principal
6 年This I would say would be the ideal.? However in this industry there's always the dollar signs versus expenses and profit esp in the private sector.? Much can be said It would take an entire educational dept to see the need to change educational system.? Much as we want to build a better generation, schools are not solely govern by educators and educators who have a heart and passion for education.? There's the corporate side of the management, the national policies that dictate how the boat will swing.? Again we try as principals we try our level best to bring out the best of our students so that they are better citizens and humans basically in the future.? Yet at the very core, we come back to the basic ideals of parents, how may A's will they get, how they pass their exams, how they proceed after their exams and we are measured against how may brilliant students we have sent out.? Results do count, and as long as results count, there would arises a need for stringent measurements for the results and how to categorize these results for other purposes.? It's a battle between I would say, the economic value of education vs the true nature of education.? I as a principal of a number of schools have always been passionate about the true value of education but when it comes to board meetings, results carry much more weight than how we have instilled confidence into our students, how we have changed and remedied our students, how we have brought families together, how we helped struggling students with their self-esteem, etc, etc.? All these bear no significance during such meetings unless it's someone of importance that we have touched and it can become eventually a marketing tool.? The less unknown will be kept unknown.? Only the grateful parents and students will remember us for what we have done. Perhaps Michael the first point of influence should be to convince those who have power to influence national policies and educational curves in the industry.? Otherwise the battle will continue.
Exceptional Educator, Bureau of Indian Education, Havasupai Elementary School
7 年Universal growth needs of all children and youth, utilizing these to create a foundation to grow and challenge students, certainly works far and above "trying to fix" students.