Vince’s Learning Log

I have been really enjoying the Harvard Leadership Blog, detailing the learning experiences from the perspective of a group of Scottish educators participating in a 10 day summer leadership institute at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The reflections on the blog are coming thick and fast and collectively they have given me the experience of participation in the institute albeit in a vicarious sense. A number of the postings have prompted personal reflection on my own personal practice eg Great Boss? Great Leader?

Great Boss? Great Leader?
July 14th, 2007
How do you lead your organisation? Does everyone look to you to solve the current problem? Do you jump in and use your ‘leadership position’ to solve every query no matter how small?
Are you a great boss or great leader?

The questions I ask myself are ‘Do I foster a culture of dependency where I have to have the final say on everything as the Principal/Boss?’ or ‘Do I try to build a culture of inclusivity and interdependency and involve all as a Principal/Leader?’ Also ‘How do I regularly elicit quality feedback from others on my Boss/Leader traits and behaviours?’

Another posting that interested me was the reflection on Millie Pierce’s presentation on the purpose of public schooling. The concept of the new ‘Three Rs - relevance, rigour and relationships’ in the curriculum and indeed all facets of school life resonated strongly. These three Rs are, I believe, articulated strongly in the NSW Quality Teaching Framework and also in the Sydney Catholic Schools Learning Framework. The QT framework is underpinned by three pillars or principles, Intellectual Quality, Quality Learning Environment and Significance.

Rigour, as I see it, relates to Intellectual Quality - a pedagogy focused on producing deep understanding, deep knowledge and higher order thinking.

Relatonships relates to Quality Learning Environment - classrooms where students and teachers work productively, where there is mutual respect and there are no negative personal comments or put downs.

Relevance relates to Significance - where learning activities include and value the participation of all students, where the activities are related to real-life contexts and where there are opportunities for students to share their work with audiences beyond the classroom and school.

The successful integration of learning technologies and associated web 2.0 applications into schools will be a significant factor in making the schooling experience relevant for today’s students.

It’s been quite some time since I last posted - the busyness of the last couple of weeks of term with countless student reports to read and sign, celebrations of student learning, parent meetings, staffing to organise and so on leaving little time for writing. Added to this was the fact that I was preparing for an interview for a new position - Principal at Sacred Heart School, Mosman, in the Sydney Archdiocese. The last time I was interviewed for such a position was over 8 years ago when I was successful in gaining my present position at St Clare’s.

Despite being like a boxer who has not been in the ring for some time the panel nonetheless invited me back for a second round the following evening where much to my relief I was offered the position. In somewhat of a daze I was invited along to Sacred Heart the following morning where the Executive Director of Schools made the announcement to the staff and gave me a welcome to Sydney. I was presented with a bottle of champagne and a bunch of flowers - a nice touch I thought and much appreciated. I take up the position at Sacred Heart in January so now I am feeling a bit like Tony Blair with six months to make my departure from St Clare’s.

Since my last posting a couple of my colleagues, St Clare’s teacher librarian Colleen Collins and Wollongong Learning Technologies Senior Education Officer, Gary Brown have both attended conferences in the US, Colleen attending the Educomm Conference in Anaheim and Gary the NECC Conference in Atlanta. It was great that they kept in contact with me during their time away and it was an amazing feeling for me to be able to straightaway download podcasts from both conferences and listen to sessions that they had both attended courtesy of Wesley Fryer at Moving at the Speed of Creativity. I am finding more and more that reading blogs and listening to podcasts created by people with a passion for learning in today’s world is an effective way of keeping up to speed with what is happening in the world of schooling, learning and education. Right now I am following with a great deal of interest the Harvard Leadership Blog of Don Ledingham and a number of other Scottish educators who are currently attending a 10 day Leadership Course at Harvard Graduate School of Education. I was fortunate enough to attend the Project Zero Classroom at Harvard in 2004 and can attest to the quality of this experience. One of the great things about reading quality blogs such as the Harvard Leadership Blog is the quality of the comments that they provoke - take a look at Ewan McIntosh’s comment and link to his own posting on July 12th - really powerful stuff as he lays out the challenges for all leaders who seek to make the schooling experiences relevant for those they seek to serve.

I am looking forward intensely to the challenges of working in a new system next year and in a new school community next year. I was interested to note that Sacred Heart School, like a number of Sydney CEO schools, is using interactive whiteboards in an increasing number of classes. Coming from an Apple school with approximately 90 laptops and teachers and students clamouring for more all the time this will be an interesting learning experience for me and I am keen to see the level of ‘interactivity’ in the use of whiteboards and to explore what the research says about good practice in their use. Ewan McIntosh noted the following in a posting last year:

“I don’t like interactive whiteboard use. Interactive whiteboards I like, but the way they are used by 90% of the teachers is uninteractive. With the new tool old teaching is reinforced, with more teachers leading lessons from the front and children using the interactive nature for barely 5 minutes a day. It’s like giving someone a shiny whiteboard and telling them to continue using their chalk on it: we don’t see where it’s going, we can’t learn.

So give more training, pay for teachers’ cover so that they can observe good use of this ubiquitous tool, film lessons and put it on the web! These are all great potential solutions, and we’ve made a start on the MFLE, but I wonder how much more can really be done to improve on a pedagogy that has been labouring for around six years to get to a decent benchmark. While keeping boards for those who use them well, the vast sums spent on renewing poorly used IWBs could be money spent on devices such as iRivers, video and sound-editing software, cameras and Bluetooth adaptors for aged school machines would mean a lot more varied resources and activities that lead in an easier way to more engaging collaborative learning. Am I off the mark here?”

No argument with the technology here, just the way it is often uncritically used as a 21st century blackboard to support a 19th century (or 20th at best) pedagogical framework. At the end of the day, computer technology aside, I firmly believe that the abilities of thinking and questioning, the software of the human mind if you like, are the most powerful of all ‘technologies’ and no amount of money spent on interactive boards or laptops will compensate for schools that fail to focus on developing these ‘habits of mind’ in our students.

Research suggests that, no matter what pedagogical model or strategies teachers choose, it is ultimately the quality of the teaching that is the greatest determinant on student learning. It is important to never lose sight of this simple fact as we enter into debates about qualities of leadership necessary for school improvement, open plan versus traditional classroom environments and so on. Dr Ken Rowe, ACER’s Research Director of Learning Processes, writing in the current edition of the Australian Educational Leader, is critical of what he terms inferior teaching methods being used which cast aside the use of direct or explicit instruction in favour of self-directed and constructivist approaches. “It’s all very well having these lovely, very rich constructivist activities in the classroom but, without first teaching kids basic skills in maths and and reading, many won’t be able to engage properly in these useful activities. Its like being expected to go round an 18 hole golf course with a putter in your hand.”

I believe that the educational dialogue around what constitutes quality teaching practice is an important one in which to engage staff and it is critical to develop a shared understanding around a common set of principles. At a recent staff meeting we considered Ken Rowe’s thoughts before breaking into learning stage groups to identify what we believed were the ‘habits’ of good teaching practice and reflect on the things we do as teachers to promote quality learning.

We then briefly looked at what the research on Quality Teaching says, and saw some clear correlation between the elements we had identified and the research. Finally had a look at some new data showing our school’s performance in State Basic Skills Tests relative to the State Sector, the Diocese and finally to ‘Like Schools’ ie schools with similar demographics to ours. We concluded that good BST results would come from an emphasis on teachers focusing on the very ‘Teaching Habits’ and qualities that we had collectively identified and that were supported by the research rather than on a narrow focus on ‘Teaching to the Test’.

I have been spending some time looking at the qualities we identified at that meeting and matching them up more closesly with the research findings. I am particularly keen to explore points of connection between the ‘Habits’ of quality teachers and the ‘Habits of Mind’ that we are seeking to embed at St Clare’s.

The following represents our thinking on this journey so far:

Quality Teaching at St Clare’s

We believe that teacher quality is the single greatest factor explaining student achievement is teacher quality and that quality teaching will be achieved through an unrelenting focus on the following teaching habits or attributes.

Who We Are: The personal attributes or habits that we bring to our teaching are critical. Like it or not our personalities impact on our teaching. We believe that as teachers the following are critical.

Who We Are – Personal Dimension (Habits of Mind)
Exhibiting Passion and Enthusiasm (Responding with Wonderment and Awe)
Exhibiting a Positive Attitude (Finding Humour in all Situations)
Exhibiting Good People Skills (Listening with Empathy and Understanding, Working and Thinking Interdependently)
Exhibiting a Flexible and Adaptable Approach (Thinking Flexibly,
Creating, Imagining and Innovating, Taking Responsible Risks)

What We Believe In: The values and beliefs that we hold are also critical to our teaching. They are the bedrock or foundation of our practice as teachers. We believe that teaching practice underpinned by the following values and beliefs is critical.

What We Believe In – Values and Beliefs (Habits of Mind)
The Importance of High Expectations (Perseverance)
The Importance of a Classroom Culture of Success (Perseverance, Taking Responsible Risks)
The Importance of a Happy, Cheerful, Stimulating Classroom (Gathering Data Through All Senses, Finding Humour, Responding with Wonder and Awe)
The Importance of Knowing our Content and Being Current in our Educational Thinking (Being Open to Continuous Learning, Creating, Imagining and Innovating)

What We Do: The lesson by lesson, day by day, week by week habits and practices that characterise our practice in the classroom have a big impact on our students. We believe that the following teaching practices are critical to the promotion of quality learning.

What We Do – Habits of Teaching Practice (Habits of Mind)
Being Highly Organised (Striving for Accuracy and Precision)
Teaching Actively, Engaging the Students & Pacing Instruction (Listening With Empathy and Understanding, Questioning and Posing Problems)

Establishing Successful Classroom Management (Questioning and Posing Problems, Thinking Flexibly)
Communicating Clearly (Striving for Accuracy and Precision)
Questioning Effectively (Metacognition, Questioning and Posing Problems)
Differentiating Instruction to meet Individual Needs (Apply Past Knowledge to new Situations)

I am keen to ‘unpack’ these elements further, maybe through brainstorming some indicators for each of the Quality Teaching Habits and exploring connections between the Habits of Quality Teaching, our principles of Quality Learning (Open, Collaborative, Engaged and Innovative Learning) and Habits of Mind.

The second day of our retreat was facilitated by Fr Richard Leonard, a Jesuit priest with the enviable position of being Director of the Australian Catholic Film Office. As Richard himself says about his work, “I have the best job of any priest in Australia - it’s part of my ministry to go and find God in the cinema two or three times a week.” I was inclined to believe Richard and when he mentioned he was off to the Venice Film Festival shortly I was convinced. Richard proved to be an inspiring and entertaining speaker and a true exemplar of the Ignatian spirituality that continues to form and shape him throughout his life. In many ways his message paralleled that of Marco Torres who recently spoke to a number of the Wollongong principals. Richard emphasised Marco’s message on the power and influence of the media in shaping the lives and attitudes of our young people today. These young people, on average, will spend three times as long before a tv set in their lives as compared with the time they spend in formal education and they are currently averaging over 4 hours a day on the internet.

Our young people today are arriving at school in the mornings visually and aurally stimulated through a technological cocktail of internet, tv and the ubiquitous ipod and the upcoming launch of the new iphone in Australia on December 1st this year will add an extra dimension to all this. Richard’s message to us was that we need to ‘embrace’ the use of media in our schools and furthermore we need to ensure that our use of media matches the quality of our students’ use of it at home. Additionally we need to connect with our students by getting into their world and watching the tv programs they watch. Now personally I am somewhat challenged by this - while I am not ashamed to say I am somewhat of a closet Simpsons fan I cannot reach for the remote quickly enough once I hear the signature tunes of those epic Aussie soapies, Neighbours and Home and Away. The reality of the matter is, however, that we teachers and principals need to be aware of the content that our students so readily engage with and the value-laden messages it promotes. Only then can we be effectively counter-cultural and present alternative life-giving values to the messages promoted on such instant celebrity shows like Big Brother. In short our goal should be not to ‘bail out’ of the culture in which our children are immersed but to actively engage in it viewing it through a Christian perspective.

Richard’s message loud and clear was for school leaders to become players in the media marketplace where minds and hearts are won and lost. There is a need to challenge those ‘traps of human behaviour’ outlined by 13th century theologian Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica and commonly known as the 7 deadly sins or vices. Ignatian spirituality, rooted in the real world, emphasises the Gospel being in dialogue with the real world. Ignatius himself rejected the cloistered life of the monasteries in favour of finding God in all things in the real world. And so we too are challenged to meet people where they are at in life’s journey, always ready to judge but never to condemn.

The Mary McKillop Centre in North Sydney was a fitting venue for this year’s retreat which focused upon Ignatian spirituality. Retreats like this provide a welcome break from the busyness and complexities of school life and the principalship. They allow participants the opportunity for reflection on our ministry in the supportive company of our peers and give us a space in which to nourish and refuel our own sense of spirit so that we better serve others in our own school communities. On Thursday we were fortunate to have Fr Ross Jones, rector of St Aloysius College in Sydney, as our spiritual guide and in his two sessions with us Ross helped us discern something of the beauty and depth of Ignatian spirituality and how it can engage a school community and enrich the personal lives of those who practise it.

As leaders in Catholic schools we seek to lead schools that provide all who enter them to experience God/Jesus in some way. We need to be asking ourselves the question ‘Where are God and Jesus to be found in our schools?’ The practice of Ignatian spirituality, developed by St Ignatius Loyola in the early 16th century, provides an effective means of addressing this question. It is a spirituality of discerning the presence of God active in the world in all things. It means that in every moment of every day there are traces of God for all of us who are sufficiently attuned to sense them. There is wisdom in the Ignatian adage, “Go in by the other person’s door and lead them out your own.” That is to say, explore the lived experience of the students and then take it with them to a deeper level to discern the divine within. One powerful Ignatian tool or method of growing more sensitive to your own spirit and developing an openness to receiving the support that God offers is the Examen - a spiritual exercise aimed at raising the consciousness of participants. Below is an example of an Examen that might be used productively with students daily.

Being aware of God’s presence today…….

1. What was the best thing I heard?
2. What was the best thing I saw?
3. What was the best thing someone did for me?
4. What was the best thing I did for someone else?
5. What can I do to improve tomorrow?

Thank You God.

This simple prayer in which one is able to find God in all things is as adaptable and effective for the young student as for the seasoned mystic. As teachers and leaders in Catholic schools we need to lead our students to see God and Jesus not only in religious icons but in the faces of the people they interact with daily. We need to let them see God and Jesus in the classroom, the playground, in nature, in themselves, in ourselves and in each other and not just in the church. The centuries old wisdom of Ignatian spirituality provides a range of entry points for Catholic school leaders and teachers seeking to tap into their own spirituality and the spirituality of their students in ways that are both relevant and meaningful.

“Prayer is like the air you breathe. If you don’t breathe you die, and if you don’t pray you die spiritually.” (John Paul II)

Day 2 of the Animation workshops proved to be yet another relaxing, reflective day providing us all with an opportunity to consider the nature and purpose of prayer as well as some interesting ways to ‘animate’ our school communities through some ‘new’ models of prayer (which have incidently been around for many hundreds of years). We started off with some gentle Tai Chi type exercises, getting ourselves in tune with our bodily and spiritual selves. It was very pleasant as we limbered up outside with a warm late- autumnal sun gently beaming down on us through the cloudless atmosphere. “Pretty enjoyable,” I thought, “but not really praying - least ways not praying as I understand it.” The longer the day progressed the more I thought about the notion that just as there are different learning styles for the children (and teachers) in our classes so too there must be different ‘praying styles’ also. As educators, cognisant of individual differences, we strive to accommodate the range of learning styles of both students and staff by using a variety of approaches as we seek to provide quality learning experiences. It seems good then that we should likewise provide a wide range of prayer experiences to tap into the spiritual reservoirs of children and staff. If our Catholic schools are to truly be places where we seek to give all who are in them the experience of meeting God then we need to provide a wide range of experiences because not everyone is going to meet God along the same pathway.

Throughout the day we experienced two reflective model of prayer, the Lectio Divina which is rooted in the Benedictine tradition and also the Examen model from the Ignatian tradition. Both of these models promote active listening, meditation, conversation with God and contemplation. The Animator group at St Clare’s left at the end of the day inspired to click into the ‘prayer styles’ of staff and give them some opportunities for experiencing some of these different models of prayer.

On a personal note I was challenged by the Ignatian concept of finding God in all things and all people. Its easy, I believe, to see God reflected in all people and things that are ostensibly good but not so easy to see God in the flipside. I am further challenged by the admonition:

“When you stand to pray, forgive anyone against whom you have a grievance.” (Mark 11:25)

At the same time I am confident that as school leaders we would go a long way towards building more ‘peace-filled’ schools if we could model and seek to embed this value within our communities.

It was great to have the opportunity to be invited to listen to a keynote address and particate in a subsequent workshop delivered by Marco Torres who came to Campbelltown last Friday to address staffs of three of our high schools, Mount Carmel, Magdalene and John Therry who are all in preparation for embarking on a ‘one-to-one’ laptop program for their various classes of Year 7 in 2008. Marco was literally on a whistle stop visit and just passing through on his way to Adelaide. Despite not feeling well, suffering from lack of sleep and admitting to not exactly feeling at home, perched on a stage, in front of a podium above the gathered audience and with a camcorder trained upon him he nonetheless delivered a powerful address that challenged and inspired in equal measure. What came through loud and clear was that Marco was first and foremost a teacher. Throughout the whole morning both in his keynote and in his workshop his pace never slackened and he exhibited a passionate enthusiasm as he showed that teaching can be fun. His enthusiasm was quite infectious as he spoke about how he built success into his classes, held high expectations of success for his students, worked flexibly, differentiated instructions and tasks for students according to their needs and aptitudes and above all created a pleasant atmosphere grounded in quality relationships and connections with his students. There was so much to take away and reflect upon from Marco’s presentations and the following points resonated strongly with me:

• Consider the question What does it mean to be a literate person today? For those of us who went to school and uni during the 60s, 70s and 80s our principal technologies were pen, paper, cassette and record player. To be literate was to be able to engage with text in a book - to be able to read in the traditional sense - a notion that still largely holds sway in our schools where the definition of literacy has not really changed for decades. The technologies available now, like it or not, to today’s students challenge us to redefine literacy. As David Warlick has said - if all we do at schools is teach children to ‘read’, albeit capably, in the traditional sense then we run the risk them being illiterate when they leave school. We need then to redefine what we mean by literacy for today’s learners.
• Today our schools focus too much on the ‘Medium’ at the expense of the ‘Message’. Marco told the story of a student given a lengthy assignment to write on a persuasive message encouraging people to exercise their civic responsibility to vote in elections. Rather than construct a 15 page paper that would have little or no impact upon anyone and would only be read by a teacher the student instead constructed a simple but powerful film that could and did make a difference. The point is that as teachers we focus primarily on the medium, that is the construction of the written text but for today’s students the message is more important. Such a film, as demonstrated by this student, was, as Marco put it, ‘relevant, meaningful and applicable’ in a way that the written text could never be. Images and sound are so important for communication and just as important if not more so than writing.

• Marco told us about a principal who delivered an interesting set of options to teachers who came to him with problems over his stance on school improvement and creating 21st century learning environments for all. “You have three options - Quit, Complain or Innovate. I’m not going to listen to your complaints so you are left with only two options!” Well, no beating about the bush here. There is sometimes something to be said for the direct approach.
• As teachers we need to be fearless risk-takers and ‘Be the first one out onto the dancefloor and be prepared to be booed off!”
  
• We need to always be mindful of the fact that our schools exist first and foremost for the learning and wellbeing of our children and not for the comfort of the people who work in our schools.
• The goal of schools should be to ‘infect children with curiosity to make them want to come to school tomorrow.’
• ‘Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts’ This begs the questions - Should we value everything we can measure? Can we measure everything that we value?

All in all a great day and a tremendous opportunity to be in the company of a truly inspirational educator. Marco can be contacted at torres21@mac.com. He has a podcast page at flickschool.com and you can view some of his student movies at sfett.com.

As a principal it’s good to be challenged from time to time and put in a position where you have to justify the values and beliefs which underpin the policies and practices of the school and help to create its culture. Nothing helps to sharpen the focus more than such situations. Sometimes it can be fairly straightforward - a colleague of mine had no trouble rebutting the complaint of a parent that there was ‘too much religion and praying going on’ in his school. The fact that my colleague was fellow principal in the Catholic system and that our system rests on the foundation of the person of Jesus and the traditions of the Catholic Church meant that the charge was easy to defend - religion and prayer are fundamental to our schools and in many ways are our defining difference from the many other excellent schools in the public sector. It is not always as straightforward in my experience. Just last week I was speaking with a parent who in a highly dignified and respectful manner said to me that I was asking her to ‘take a leap of faith’ as she listened to my justifications for advocating the ‘open learning environments’ we have here at St Clare’s. ‘Where is the research and evidence to justify this type of classroom organisation?’ she asked quite reasonably. I agreed with her that there was not, to my knowledge, a body of research that linked open-learning classroom environments with enhanced educational outcomes for students. This, however, should not be used as a justification not to do something differently and break away from traditional practices. While it is always prudent to adopt ‘evidence-based aproaches’ as justifications for our policies and practices if we do not periodically try to do things differently, based on our shared beliefs and understandings and after much consideration and professional dialogue, then we will never progress and build new knowledge around what constitutes quality learning and teaching.
Our Year 4 Open Area at St Clare’s consists of 4 hexagonal open yet defined learning areas, wirelessly networked and furnished with semi-circular moon-shaped tables that allow for a multiplicity of arrangements. There are 90 children in this area with three teachers. Last year these children were taught in traditional demountable classrooms. At the start of this year a number of our parents, quite reasonably, had concerns. After all this was not like school as they knew it. There were many questions - what about the children with special needs, the ones with challenging behaviour, the noise etc. These are very real issues but they are not, in our experience, in any way exacerbated by an open-area classroom. In fact the greater flexibility and space that such an open-environment offers diminishes these problems. Our other findings at this early stage have been:

• Communicate, Communicate, Communicate - via newsletters. This has been very effective especially in our Kinder Open-Area. Always keep parents in the loop and let them know what is happening in the rooms.
• Make parents welcome to visit and sit in on class or help at any time. This strengthens the parent/teacher partnership immeasurably. Also you can justify your beliefs about open-learning to parents till the cows come home but nothing will convince sceptical parents more than the opportunity to see for themselves at first hand what takes place in such a learning environment. This has worked quite brilliantly in our Kinder, Year One and Year 4 areas especially.
• Teachers have been ‘kept on their toes’ - quite literally you are always open to scrutiny in open-learning environments where your practice is opened up to the critical appraisal of your peers at all times. This promotes a truly ‘learning culture’ where craft knowledge is shared and feedback is sought and given routinely in a mutually-supportive environment where teachers learn from each other through ongoing peer observation.
• Teachers become more reflective and ‘open-minded’ in their practice, giving and receiving feedback from each other.
• Teachers value the flexibility that such environments offer in terms of teaching and the way that such environments better meet the needs of those children with special educational needs.

When all is said and done I fundamentally believe that the critical issue here is not ‘open-plan environments versus traditional classroom settings.’ Gifted teachers will create quality learning environments in traditional classroom settings that will always be more ‘learningful’ than the environments created by more mediocre teachers in future-oriented open-area environments and vice versa. The issue comes down to the quality of teaching in the classroom not the fact that the classroom is a ‘box’ or an ‘open-area’. It has to be said that the teacher quality is the single greatest factor in explaining student achievement, more important that the classroom related issues such as resources, curriculum guidelines and assessment practices or the broader school environment such school culture and organisation.

At St Clare’s we continue to focus upon school improvement through sharing and building ‘craft knowledge’ on quality teaching, emphasising collaborative, engaged, open and innovative learning.

Back in 1996 the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first century wrote the report, Learning: The Treasure Within to UNESCO in which it argued that in a changing, complex and interdependent world there was a need to move beyond traditional responses for education which sought to supply each child with a store of knowledge from which to draw. Accordingly the Commission proposed ‘four fundamental types of learning which, throughout a person’s life, would in a way be pillars of knowledge

• Learning to know - acquiring intellectual curiosity, understanding and a capacity to being able to continue learning throughout life.
• Learning to do - being able to put what one has learnt into practice even in uncertain times, being able to process information and communicate with others.
• Learning to live together - developing respect for others, their cultures, their values, their viewpoints; appreciating interdependence.
• Learning to be - developing the ‘all round persons’ who can understand themself and their world and solve their own problems.

There is a lot of wisdom in such a framework and there would be not too many people who would argue with the elements it outlines for successful learning. Learning dispositions like Art Costa’s 16 Habits of Mind are easily accommodated within this framework as are thinking tools such as de Bono’s Thinking Hats and it is difficult to contemplate any future-oriented learning framework in which learning technologies are not firmly embedded. Learning technologies themselves provide a wealth of opportunities for our school communities to work towards the realisation of the above learning goals for students but presently these opportunities are often only slowly taken up by teachers who find the challenges of the ever-rolling technology juggernaut, combined with increasing accountabilities and responsibilities and pressures of working in today’s schools challenging to say the least. The reality, as I see it, is that unless we harness the undoubted opportunities offered by learning technologies we run the risk of widening the digital divide between teachers and those they seek to serve, the students for whom school will become increasingly irrelevant and indeed a barrier to their learning. Recently there have been a number of videos posted on the new Teacher Tube site that advocate in compelling terms the power of technology to engage today’s learners and encourage teachers to rise to the challenge. Such a one is the ‘Pay Attention’ video which is a powerful in its advocacy for teachers to use use mobile technologies such as ipods and mobiles. This video which is becoming quite ‘viral’ in the blogosphere in terms of its number of views is conceptually similar to the Did You Know video. Both videos present a series of facts presented starkly on a black background to the accompaniment of a haunting musical background. The net effect is to stir in the viewer the fact that our world is ‘flattening’ in many ways, both in the way our children learn in the case of Pay Attention and the new world order in the case of the Did you Know video which, from a US perspective, emphasises the rise of the educated class in China. Interestingly, from an Australian perspective, this weekend’s Sydney Morning Herald features some comments from erstwhile Prime-Minister Paul Keating, currently basking in the limelight of the musical comedy, Keating, dedicated to him and presently playing to packed houses in Melbourne. Keating has this to say of the educational policies of current Australian PM, John Howard, whom he unflatteringly caricatures as a ‘dessicated coconut.’ “……..The Chinese are pushing kids through universities devoted to mathematics and the sciences. Mr Howard’s policy is to get the kids into retail, keep ‘em dumb and cut their wages.” Challenging times for us all indeed and remininiscent of the Confucian curse, “May You Live in Interesting Times.”

Remove the sandals from your feet………you are standing on holy ground (Exodus 3:5)

Last Tuesday, braving the driving rain, Shereen (kinder teacher here at St Clare’s) and myself headed down the south coast to St Joseph’s at Albion Park for a workshop on ‘Becoming an Earthcare Active School’ and for the launch of the ‘On Holy Ground’ Document. Typically of late the rainfall has been plentiful on the coast and sparse to non-existent in the catchment areas inland where it is sorely needed. St Joseph’s has been something of a lighthouse school in terms of the way it has energised the whole community for many years around the principles of ecologically sustainable practices. This has been largely due to the efforts of teachers, Michael Douglas and Michael Leggett and principal, Peter McGovern. The three of them spoke to the assembled gathering of Diocesan principals and teachers and told the story of the school’s continuing journey along the path to ecological sustainability with a passion and quiet humility that was quite inspiring for all present. As the rain eased we took a tour of the school and observed, listened and learnt about the school’s ‘go organic’ philosophy that has permeated the whole school, their SEMP (School Environmental Management Plan) and the Fruitful staff development days promoting the theme of ecological conversion that have heightened the awareness of all within the school community.

The purpose of Ecological Conversion as promoted by Catholic Earthcare Australia is to increase our spiritual footprint and at the same time to lighten our ecological footprint. The Ecological Footprint (EF) is an example of how we can compare the consumption of of renewable natural resources between groups of humans, be it in a school, a country or the world. The EF for the average African or Asian consumer was less that 1.4 hectares per person in 1999, approximately 7.1 hectares for the the average Australian and 9.6 hectares for the average North American. The world average was 2.3 hectares or 20% above the earth’s biological capacity of 1.9 hectares per person for the planet’s capacity to sustain its consumption of renewable resources.

The passion and drive of the two teachers together with the committed support and leadership of a principal determined to make a difference has transformed the whole school community at St Joseph’s and it was heartening to hear stories of behaviourally-challenged students taking fierce pride in gardens they had been involved in creating - a ongoing example of transformational leadership in practice.

We left with a number of useful resources, most notably the On Holy Ground document itself which provides a wealth of support and ideas for schools seeking to embark on the journey towards ecological sustainability. Shereen and I came away humbled, inspired and on the way home threw around a few possibilities of things we could do at St Clare’s. We will make a start at our forthcoming working bee next Saturday when we get to work on the school’s gardens which could do with some tender loving care.

Within a single generation……

“It is not too late. God’s world has incredible healing powers. Within a single generation we could steer the earth toward our children’s future. Let that generation start now, with God’s help and blessing”

John Paul II and Bartholomew I

(Joint Declaration on Environment, June 2002)