Concerns about toxic stress, deep childhood/youth anxiety and trauma are in the spotlight in schools and communities, not because they are new issues but because we are beginning to come to grips with the impacts and outcomes for so many kids.
​
Reports in Canada and the U.S. suggest that one in five youngsters is “suffering from” anxiety.  Note that it doesn’t say “is effectively coping with…or has developed strategies to overcome anxiety.”   These kids are in all of our classrooms and their capacity to learn and to thrive is compromised. Their mental and emotional energy is being drained dealing with a barrage of inputs, experiences and perceptions that make survival a much more pressing priority than learning. Looking ahead, what can we expect?  Our schools are changing: we are welcoming more immigrant and refugee children, some of whom have very fresh and terrifying images and experiences of war, destruction and famine.  We also know that a larger number of local kids have been impacted by trauma.  This year, we have youngsters arriving from a summer of fires and floods, feeling a sense of dislocation, fear and loss.  For these students, the capacity to cope may be very different in September than it was in June.​

There was a time when social-emotional and mental health issues were directed to counselors or district staff for attention from those highly trained specialists if such resources were even there.  In other venues, an old belief system was still operating, one that revolved wholly around expectations of self-control and willpower – a flawed and inappropriate way to address dysregulated behaviours and overwhelmed children.  For still others, the whole topic was pushed outside the frame of a school’s focus because those things should be dealt with at home.  

In light of what we know today about how our minds function and in keeping with our commitment to every child, every chance, every day, it is no longer responsible to rely solely on specialists or on believing that “just get over it” is a remedy. Nor can we count on the home or external agencies to “deal with” the impact of social-emotional stressors on the children we teach.

It’s true that the number of organizations focusing on mental health is growing rapidly.  It is essential that in concert with such work, we are full participants (and leaders) in a universal call to action.  Everyone working in the schoolhouse should be aware of and in tune with their unique role in impacting the trajectory of kids’ mental health, safety and long-term success. Children at the center of such a commitment should see evidence of coordinated support surrounding them.

Because we know that kids who are overwhelmed can’t learn, more and more schools are creating safe and reassuring environments where those children can begin to experience what it’s like to let down their guards and participate in the learning journeys we have designed for them.  Sanctions and negative consequences don’t create that possibility.  The bus driver, playground supervisor, classroom teacher, education assistant and everyone else who interacts with kids during throughout the school day understands the profound influence they can have: deliberate or unconscious; positive or negative.  Take a moment to watch this brief video from the Atlanta Speech School.  It illustrates exactly what this looks like.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxyxywShewI  The video is under 4 minutes long – a tiny (and powerful) investment of time to remind us of what school can look like through the eyes of the learner.

Where’s your school in this journey?  Take a look at the three generalized types described below to consider whether school mental health is out of the closet and has become central to your professional mission and journey.  Given what we know about learning, the learner and our roles in providing safe, healthy and nurturing environments, the path forward should be evident. 

School #1:  Unhealthy - Out of Touch, Out of Order and Out of Time
•Increasingly tougher standards/no nonsense                        
•Zero tolerance leading to more exclusions.  Many challenging & challenged kids disconnected from school
•We’re ready to teach when you’re ready to learn
•Increased security and restrictions/less community engagement      

​School #2: Well-Intentioned But Not Sustainable 
•    Evidence of commitment to all children
•    Culture of compassion embraced by staff
•    Frequent access to specialized school-based resources outside the classroom
•    Well developed referral system to external agencies with hope and confidence that they can make a difference

School #3: The Places We Are Becoming
•    Universal positive strategies for kids at risk.  It’s everyone’s job

• Intentional staff-wide capacity building on social-emotional health  Professional development day focus, lunch and learn sessions, on-demand webinars, enquiry teams…all created to support progress along the continuum from awareness…to engagement… to implementation

•    Encouraging students to learn about themselves and their social-emotional dimensions.  This work is done with them and for them, not to them
•    Monitoring and celebrating successes based on sustained positive changes for our most vulnerable populations​

Prioritizing social-emotional health and safety as foundations of our learning environments may cause some to say “Where will we find the time?...I’m already trying to jam too much instruction into an already crowded day…” To those objections we say that when one in five kids is overwhelmed and unable to learn and reach her potential, we have to make changes.  We ask ourselves, “Without learning, has teaching occurred?”  Let every school work to become a place that fits the kids rather than one that expects the kids to fit the school. 

With a tip of the cap to Dr. Stuart Shanker, Canada’s renowned self-regulation author, speaker, clinician and researcher, I have been thinking about how the chicken and egg riddle fits with schoolhouse norms.  Stuart raises heritage chickens at his home in the country.   They are beautiful birds, wonderfully self and co-regulating, laying rich, organic eggs…and tasting really good as a main course.  They also remind us of the age-old debate about the chicken or the egg?

Now from the farmhouse to the schoolhouse.  Which comes first, dysregulated and dysregulating students who disrupt the learning environment or the environment that causes some children to tip into dysregulation.  Let’s look at a few important aspects as we consider this puzzle:

• From (and even before) birth, each of us is in the process of developing a range of capacities, including the 5 domain model articulated by Shanker.  Some capacities “come on line” earlier and others later.  It is a life long journey; never a straight-line progression.  We all have moments when our capacities are activated in powerful and positive ways.  There are also other instances, where more primitive and basic drivers take over.  CSRI extends Dr. Shanker’s 5 domain framework by adding three other capacities:  Perspectival, Inspirational and Aspirational (see diagram below), based on the work of other leaders in the fields of psychology and social sciences;

 

• we know we are all as unique as individual snowflakes or fingerprints, based on the assets and challenges we were born with and those that develop through our interactions with our world.  Therefore, it is impossible to create an environment where “one size fits all.”  Schools were organized on that factory and conveyer belt model from the way courses were constructed to the shape of the school day and the student timetable.  For many kids, it didn’t work – and for lots of those kids, they were labeled as the problem;

 

• the ability to activate capacities and develop potential is, from moment to moment, influenced by what’s in our personal “backpack” that we carry throughout life’s journey.  Are there tools and nourishment there, allowing us to navigate difficult circumstances?  Is the backpack filled with rocks, slowing us down and draining energy?  The youngster with a backpack full of assets is often able to smoothly and nimbly overcome challenges; his classmate who is toting big rocks has significantly more difficulty.  He might display as being rattled, overwhelmed or disruptive.  He is often identified as the problem;

 

• for a long, long time, the schoolhouse was organized as a place that kids were required to fit in for their own good.  One result of that industrial model/compliance and control approach to education was that the students with the asset-filled backpack (based on life experiences, home circumstances, nurture, nature and other variables) could address and overcome stressors.   They navigated quite easily or made the necessary adjustments when required.  They recovered quickly from tough moments and were ready to deal with the next ones.  Doing that led to them being acknowledged as resilient.  When the student two rows over seemed to be responding inappropriately to the same conditions and spiraling downward, there were labels re. lack of willpower, poor self-control and even judgments about good kid/bad kid.  In a world where students had to fit school, we didn’t factor in what was in the backpack and its profound influence on outcomes.  Fit and win; don’t fit and lose; and,

 

• from curriculum design to classroom layout to school schedules, we have begun to remedy old school rigidity and its inadequate approach to supporting learners.  Today, we focus on building capacities and creating situations where every learner can experience success.  Problem behaviours cause us to ask Why rather than to simply initiate sanctions.  Students with challenges are invited to work in partnership with their teacher as detectives, exploring what led up to an incident and figuring out how some of those conditions could be mitigated.  Co-regulation leading to self-regulation is part of the learning design as is increased choice and variety.  In short, we have moved from requiring the student to fit the school to having the school – and all of its components – fit the student.  We get it right when every learner’s journey is individually scaffolded with supports, some obvious and other subtle; some basic and others intricate and complex.

Back to the riddle: chicken or egg?; behavior or environment? By encouraging more curiosity and less old school certainty, our kids are supported to explore their assets and we get closer to fulfilling our mandate in education: We Build Human Capacity. 

Today, we know a lot more about the intellectual, social and emotional development of the child than was ever understood by past generations.  This relatively new learning is essential given how we are experiencing increased diversity in our classrooms.  We also know there are students who are expected to engage and succeed at the cognitive level (at a pre-determined time – thank you Mr. Taylor) without having the necessary growth experiences and supports at the preceding steps in the hierarchy. It’s essential we don’t fool ourselves into thinking that we can create optimal learning conditions if our hightest priorities continue to be system efficiencies or to old school behaviourism?  ​

There’s work to be done in this area.  While lots of schools are well along the road to reshaping learning cultures, there are other places that are more Taylor and Skinner than Maslow.  We haven’t yet managed to fully focus on what kids need rather than to perpetuate a system that was based on other priorities.  It is a work in progress – meant both ways.  Here’s a brief video clip to inspire that journey: http://dalailamacenter.org/educate-heart/watch-video

We can also reference and borrow from the Olympic Games motto of Faster, Higher, Stronger.  It isn’t a directive or a command, but a shared aspiration – a beacon to guide our path, a challenge to which we can aspire.  What’s our schoolhouse version of Faster, Higher, Stronger and how do we help every learner achieve that?

We might consider Maslow’s Hierarchy and particularly the high bar of self-actualization (personal growth and fulfillment) as our own version of Faster, Higher Stronger.  It might be stated in a commitment like Every Child, Every Chance, Every Day, and we now have a much clearer understanding of what it takes to get there. As the opening bell rings, let’s take a look at how our schoolhouse shapes its structures, cultures and norms to meet that test.  As with all important questions in education, it isn’t simple or easy – just essential.

Those of us of a certain vintage grew up with “Space: The Final Frontier” opening each episode of Star Trek. We embraced Captain Kirk’s certainty that space was the final frontier.  He was Commander of the Star Ship Enterprise and he was out there among the stars.  Everything else had already been discovered, or so we thought: the earth’s surface and its oceans explored, mapped, named and claimed; ancient civilizations uncovered; countless mysteries solved…
But what if he was wrong? Now, more than ever, we are fascinated by another frontier – the human mind and all of its elements. Over the past decade or so, we have benefited from a golden age of neuroscience, one that provides unparalleled opportunities for educators to gain a deeper understanding of how the brain learns and how the mind works through a dynamic integration of mind, brain and relationship, combining to create physical experience, cognitive experience, emotional experience, relational experience.
This emerging nexus between neuroscience and education is fertile ground for huge growth in interest in self-regulation and an uptake in schools and districts across Canada and beyond. At the Canadian Self-Regulation Initiative we support schools and systems in looking with fresh eyes on 150+ years of schoolhouse habits and rituals, many of which were based on old and insufficient understandings of how the mind and the brain function and how learning occurs.
With that knowledge, we no longer believe that:

• intelligence is pre-determined and fixed;
• the formation of neural pathways ceases at a relatively early age;
• specialized parts of the brain, if compromised, will cause specific functions to be disabled permanently;
• kids should be batched based on birthdate and moved through a mechanistic learning process aimed at doling out pre-determined doses of information on the same day at the same rate;
• order is maintained thanks to behavior modification as reward & punishment rule the day.

All of those old certainties (and many more) from bygone eras formed pillars of educational practice that are being replaced, not just repainted. This change isn’t about blame or shame, but it is a commitment that ensures what we know impacts what we do.
It’s both an exciting and challenging time to populate this nexus between neuroscience and education. Thankfully, there are many, many great resources to inform the journey. Here are a few that help to guide our work:

• for a brief tour of the human brain and the breakthroughs in neuroscience understanding, read Dr. Norman Doidge’s books: The Brain That Changes Itself and The Brain’s Way of Healing. They are full of remarkable examples of neuroplasticity that we are just beginning to understand;
• follow The Nature of Things series on the brain. It has made the science more accessible and very popular, prime time, riveting television viewing;
• Stuart Shanker has been a champion of the education and neuroscience connection across Canada and beyond. His book Calm, Alert and Learning  is an essential resource in many schools. Stuart’s newest book is another gem for parents and for educators. Its release date is June 21, 2016 and the title is Self-Reg: How to Help Your Child (and You) Break the Stress Cycle and Successfully Engage with Life;
• Learn with Michael Merzenich’s world class work around brain plasticity
• Dan Siegel’s observations and clear thinking enlighten us about the whys and the wherefores of the human condition, with particular focus on the formative and teen years;
• Carol Dweck’s work on growth mindset is affirming and is helping to change the learning relationship for many kids and, in doing so, their life trajectory. If you haven’t seen her TedTalk, invest the time. It is a great resource.

At CSRI, we share a belief about the potential of Every Child, Every Chance, Every Day. For that commitment to be realized, we are exploring and amplifying the nexus between neuroscience and education…and we believe that Captain Kirk might not have had it exactly right. This new frontier is even more complex and more important than the previous “final” one.

When our ancestors believed the world was flat, their reference points and expectations were based on a flat earth reality.  They could rationalize whatever they saw on the horizon or in the heavens in relation to their flat earth.  It all made sense given the certainties of the era.  One indisputable fact led to another and reality was established.  At some point, a few brave souls began to consider and speak of different possibilities, ones that caused them some trouble as they challenged the infallibility of the flat earth truth.  And when their wondering took flight and their voices gained confidence, evidence became more visible and new realities emerged.  Goodbye old certainties as everything changed – and no one fell off the edge.
When the 4 minute mile and the 10 second 100 yard sprint were unconquerable feats, great athletes simply couldn’t break through those standards.  It wasn’t possible and many world-class runners tried and failed.  The certainty that it couldn’t be done, that it was beyond human capacity, defined  reality…until someone believed differently, someone ran faster and then it was done.  Once the records were broken, the “impossible” barriers were conquered over and over again. Now there are high school runners achieving those standards.
If a physicist from a millennium ago were asked about the possibility of traveling to the moon, the answer would have been that it couldn’t be done, never would be and such foolishness shouldn’t be spoken of again.  That was absolute, based on all the available science.  Eventually, new curiosities led to new theories that infiltrated old certainties and different realities began to emerge, born of a wonderful combination of curiosity and perseverance.
How does any of this resonate in our educational galaxy? How many “old knowns” continue to rattle around our corridors and how many have we finally stopped believing and relegated to the archives, just like a flat earth and the unbreakable 4 minute mile?
Here are a few to check on for starters:
–     there are smart kids and not so smart kids and “levels” of intelligence are pretty much set before we ever see kids at the schoolhouse door;
–     gender and ethnicity influence areas of strength: eg. boys are better at Math and Science than girls…;
–     the Arts are a nice frill if we can afford them but important learning happens in the core academic areas;
–     a school’s role is primarily to impart knowledge and content and to make judgments based on the ability to recall facts;
–     the 8 X 5 timetable rules supreme and learning has to be organized within that framework;
–     the bus schedule trumps any educational rationale for change;
–     the kid needs to fit the system rather than the system fitting the kid;
–     the reward and punishment dyad is central to motivation and the infallibility of school house rules;
–     discipline motivates.  Misbehaving kids are just being willful, not dysregulated;
–     if it can’t be measured by a standard test, it can’t be very important;…
…and so it goes. Your list may be different, longer or shorter. But there is a list and we work through it to create environments where new curiosities challenge old/stale certainties.  Here are two thought leaders who cultivate some rich conversation as we hold current practice up to the light of what human potential can achieve:

•  John Abbott’s Battling for the Soul of Education  http://bit.ly/1MDVwGM is a clarion call, worthy of study with a pencil and highlighter (real or digital) for margin notes and professional dialogue.  His perspective challenges us, and we have miles to go, even in places where we hold forward-thinking beliefs about every child’s capacity to thrive.  Abbott’s piece is both an affirmation and a reminder of the hard work ahead.  He takes us back in time to revisit some of the fundamentals of universal education and then forward to new times full of the authentic power of rich and meaningful learning environments;
• Another discussion piece presenting a very different look at system norms is Andreas Schleicher’s Five Things I’ve Learned http://bit.ly/1FaG01a.  It honours the spirit of curiosity and the potential of new understandings to shift old myths to the past tense.  Schleicher challenges assumptions that remain as building blocks of our education system even when flaws in their structural integrity have been exposed.

In educational renewal work, we are finding ways to nurture new curiosities and bid adieu to those old certainties beyond their expiry date.  Let’s continue to apply that when we engage in curriculum and overall system redesign; learner-focused assessment processes; multiple ways to engage kids’ interests and talents; relentless efforts to support our most vulnerable students; and, activating & applying emerging knowledge about neuroscience.  It’s a long journey, but we won’t fall over the edge.

​Frederick Winslow Taylor, a standardization and efficiency guru, was a profound influence on industrial-age best practices in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The stuff of legend, he championed the effectiveness of uniform work stations, factory whistles to regulate employee movement, and specialized/rote tasks.  He deeply understood that by replicating processes in tightly controlled environments he could maximize business output/cost per unit and ensure product consistency.  These were laudable goals for making tractors a hundred years ago, but not so great for school system design.
But the ghost of Taylor did cross the schoolhouse door, as was evident in countless versions of “factory model” high schools operating over the past century. Efficiency ruled, meaning that students had to fit into the pre-cast mould called schooling rather than having education wrap around the student. The 5 X 8 timetable was king and kids were (and still are to a large extent) batched by birthdate, deemed ready to start at the same moment and required to finish at the final June bell, not earlier or later.
The appetite for standardization and efficiency also showed up in other ways: desk sizes in classrooms based on grade designation rather than student comfort (I remember those days), and text book titles ordered in bulk because one prescribed resource was deemed sufficient (and efficient) to meet a group’s instructional needs. There was also the matter of how the education rule book was written (contract language, board and government policy) as if there were uniformity across the system. Essentially, schools were configured, operated and furnished with the expectation that they would contain 30 similar-sized and similar-aged students all facing forward ready to “receive instruction.”  With the gift of hindsight, it was an effort to impose a two-dimensional framework on a three dimensional world.
Taylor would be shocked to see how far we have wandered from the mantra of uniformity, conformity and rules (see West Vancouver principal blog post link below). We aren’t all the way there yet, but many of today’s education spaces and learning/teaching rhythms are developed with a much richer understanding of the learner, her brain and the need for active engagement and individual challenge.  Facing sideways or even backwards is allowed now that an appreciation of self-regulation has replaced top-down compliance and demands for self control. Open the classroom door and you will see micro-environments designed to meet students’ needs and learning preferences. Furnishings might include beanbag chairs, SWISS balls, wobble cushions and standing desks.  Is that a spin bike at the back of the room?  Those choices may drive the school district’s Purchasing Dept. to despair, but they are becoming part of a new normal.  Take a walk down the hall to the Learning Commons, a far cry from the library stacks standing sentry to silence and isolation. See what creative teachers are doing to dissolve subject-specific silos to develop real-world interdisciplinary challenges for kids working individually and as members of teams. Check out the integration of nature into the classroom and the classroom into nature.  It is all part of an inspiring and transformational journey.  Unlike Taylor’s factory standardization, we understand that in our work, one size doesn’t fit all.
Read Principal Judy Duncan’s post here:  http://bit.ly/1lhG36Q as she reflects on some of her own “then and now.” Her school is orders of magnitude beyond a Taylor-designed factory or even its own realities of 5 or 10 years ago.  Fewer rules, more guidelines; less “No” and more “Let’s see how that might work.”  Pogo sticks in the playground?  Probably even different sized ones. Why not.  What would Taylor think?

Our recent CSRI (Canadian Self-Regulation Initiative) Round Table in Vancouver connected educators and other youth service partners committed to learning more together about various approaches to self-regulation and what it takes for neuroscience to influence our system norms. Very quickly, the session went beyond the specifics of self-reg to the fundamentals needed to adopt any significant change effort. As the Transformation Agenda overtakes the status quo, we better understand what’s needed to supplant long-held beliefs about how learning takes hold. It’s a “big tent” conversation and an essential one.
Following are a few observations from our CSRI gathering :

• Permission and policy directives aren’t the change drivers. Rather, there is a grass roots movement to refresh what we know to change what we do. It’s influencing how people invest professional and personal energy. Their commitment to being part of a change initiative is deep, wide and action oriented. That’s not a surprise; it’s evident that there are more and more people willing and ready to jump start change efforts through micro-networks of support and sharing;
• We know things aren’t going to get less complex any time soon. We also know our highest priority has to be to make the essential difference to support over-represented vulnerable populations: Aboriginal learners, Children in Care, refugee and other high needs immigrant groups. It isn’t a matter of asking everyone to work 10% harder. Professional effort isn’t the variable. Success happens when people build on what we saw at the Round Table: positive curiosity and energy throughout the room, building micro-networks, sharing stories, strategies and resources;

• Introducing good ideas without a diffusion strategy feels like a candle in the wind. We know how often those efforts have bloomed and withered and how difficult it can be to activate the next one. David Albury from the Innovation Unit in London innovationunit.org says it well. He has studied and written/spoken about what it takes for innovation to go deep and what it looks like when it flounders. It isn’t a matter of hierarchical endorsement or the amount of money committed or a number of well-worn but flawed approaches to initiating change. Take a look at the Innovation Unit website for enlightened commentary on how implementation thrives. David’s experience across education, government and industry shines a light on how to move beyond exciting “pilot” projects into the So What/Now What? focus required to go deeper and broader to sustain momentum. System transformation can’t happen without that.

• It’s time to end the “silo” metaphor in our work with kids. Silos are great for keeping the grain dry and the rats out. Apparently, they are also essential in long-range missile operations. But in our work, they just don’t fit. The Round Table included professionals from outside the school system whose work is focused directly on dysregulated/resource-poor children and their families. These colleagues operate in government and non-government agencies with a mandate to change the life trajectory of our most vulnerable young people – the very kids who need a coordinated systems response that is thoughtful, research-based, strategic and aligned. Their work is our work but there is a palpable frustration that we haven’t yet figured out how to share and initiate joint work plans, specific strategies, access to resources and communications protocols.

Statements of good will aren’t enough. It is time to take a single table approach to human capacity development. In doing so, we are far more likely to create the aligned and sustainable impacts our vulnerable populations need. No more silos. It’s time for deep operational linkages and commitment to a common focus.

• System self-regulation has many of the same attributes as individual self-reg. Dysregulated systems don’t create environments where students are calm, focused and ready to learn. It makes sense that neurophysiology applies to groups: our organizations are made up of people. Here’s the link to my blog and a previous post on that topic: http://mikemckay.ca/?p=2223

• Celebration is a positive contagion in the work of educators and other human services professionals.   It is fueled when people are willing to open their professional practice to colleagues and give selflessly of their resources and their experiences. We saw and heard that at the CSRI Round Table. Here is one lighthouse example of what that looks like: energy, reflective professional practice and a belief in the difference we make. Enjoy the regular blog posts from a West Vancouver teaching team. http://theselfregulatedteacher.com

Shared learning builds momentum and creates knowing/doing potential. More to come from www.self-regulation.ca

Before September school bells rang, many educators were engaged in a complex and productive dialogue about THE WHAT/THE PURPOSE of public education. That narrative continues; it revolves around curriculum revisions that go far beyond updating learning outcomes and changing resource materials.  It is about the commitment to deep transformational learning rather than tired efforts to sustain the status quo by cycling through minor  tweaks and calling them significant/game changers.
Why is this so crucial? There is a “real-time” global context in today’s classrooms, courtesy of social media, 24/7 news cycles, increased social conscience, and competing pressures and priorities. That should compel us to design learning pathways that maximize engagement by addressing those complexities.  We live in an  “Ethical Dilemmas Are Us” society, so currency and relevance are essential.  Simply put, it’s not a black and white world, so we can’t have a black and white curriculum with the answer key at the end of the chapter.
Today’s learner acquires and demonstrates knowledge, skills and attitudes in very different ways than when the schoolhouse foundations were laid more than a century ago.  The 19th and 20th century framework was built to accommodate yesterday’s certainties, social norms, communication capacities and beliefs about learning.   Compliance and memorization were highly valued. But yesteryear doesn’t equip young people to deal with tomorrow, and a simple binary construct of right and wrong answers laid out in old school print resources doesn’t cut it. Real learning doesn’t link to worksheets, quizzes & tests and rewarding out-of-context retrieval of facts is so “Pre-Google…”
A key condition for transformation to take hold is our acceptance that we (the system) can no longer “sanitize” the school experience to keep John and Jane insulated from controversial, values-laden, politically or culturally sensitive issues.  If they don’t grapple with those matters at school, in a scaffolded, skillfully supported environment, where and when will they confront what really matters.
While our approach to a curriculum/learning framework is transformational, it’s not all new.  The difference today is that skilled teachers are encouraged to keep doing what they have always done, but now with system support. They need that as they build from the what of the core competencies to the how those skills are applied in ways that are light years beyond answering the questions at the end of the chapter.  The problems or challenges students engage with are far more real and important than the old standbys. Remember this one?:
A train traveling on the track from Toronto to Vancouver departs at the same time as a train heading from Vancouver to Toronto.  At what point will the trains pass each other, moving at an average speed of 95 km/hr?
Challenging problem?  Maybe.  Interesting/engaging?  Not so much.  There better more relevant and topical ways to demonstrate core skills.
Today’s newscrawl can lead to tomorrow’s lesson and followup problem-based activity.  It’s not a stretch to see how we can teach and reinforce all of the CORE areas through artful navigation of real-world themes like these:

• environment and global warming;
• world responses to the refugee crisis in the Middle East, Africa and Europe;
• intergenerational damage done to the Aboriginal people following First Contact;
• post-industrial workforce realities;
• economies and realistic expectations of home ownership for an emerging generation;
• impacts of social media on a civil society…

You can see numeracy and literacy, science and social studies, the Arts, economics, social justice and more in those few examples.
Of course, bringing real world issues into the classroom requires sensitivity and skill.  It’s not without risk, but inertia is an even greater risk if we want to change the perspective shared by students quoted in John Abbott’s Battling for the Soul of Education.  In Abbott’s call to action, he cites a forum where students commented to their teachers:
“You treat education like a TV dinner. You tell us to go to the freezer, pull out a box, read the instructions carefully, take off the wrapping, puncture the cellophane, then set the microwave for the right time. If we’ve followed the instructions carefully, we’ll get full marks.”  Full marks for honest perspective, anyway!
We know better.  We have to do better.  That’s at the core of transformation. Quite a journey.

…but it never did make the grade as a call to action for an education system needing something more authentic, substantial and current.  It contaminated a progressive concept of accountability, one that we are still refining to support real progress.
First, let’s acknowledge that no caring/compassionate society would tolerate the notion of throw away kidsor abandoned cohort groups. Communities of integrity don’t ignore, punish or marginalize struggling populations under the flawed assumption that “motivators” like sanctions and scarcity will promote redoubled effort and a greater likelihood of success. It just doesn’t work. Never did.
We should also recognize that educators today more fully understand, value and nurture human potential in all its forms as we hold ourselves to the highest standard: every child, every chance, every day. It is tremendously challenging work, but that is the professional commitment educators make. Not for the faint of heart; absolutely for the big of heart.  Never simple to measure; always important to track.
Moving from the individual educator’s beliefs and passions to the systems level, it’s fair to say that 21stcentury learning organizations are becoming more nimble and flexible in designing, monitoring and adjusting the multiple pathways needed to activate, engage and extend kids’ unique intelligences and gifts. It’s a big task. It’s what we do. The discard pile is out of bounds.
While we are at it, operating as we do in a results-driven world, let’s finally get to a place where accountability isn’t a bad word, in spite of the angry reaction it still attracts from some people.  Yes, there’s more work to be done in moving beyond some stale understandings around it. But we are making progress: taking it far from the blame and shame, high praise/high punishment regime that was born in less enlightened times.  Accountability today  adds value as it has us declare our most important/highest priorities, share how we develop and activate plans to address those highest priority needs, and ensure that we monitor, adjust and inform about our progress. Those three simple declarations are at the foundation of accountability going forward:

• What’s most important?
• What are we doing about it?
• How do we know how well we are doing?

We use those questions to focus individual and system accountability on identifying the ends we commit to and the means we use to get there.  Further, declaring priorities and developing a game plan to achieve them invites more openness, transparency and accessibility.  It isn’t so lonely when people in our communities – education professionals, parents and our public – understand and have confidence in what we are all about and how we are progressing. Such understanding builds support and momentum.  21st century schools need both.
In refreshing our approach to accountability, let’s make the first port of call our most vulnerable learners, those kids who are the outliers in a system that delivers many overall successes and positive trends.  In the “old” accountability process, we aggregated individual and cohort group stories into larger data fields, obscuring lack of success with the kids who need us most.  Accountability for progress with at risk learnerseliminates any ambiguity about our priority commitment to their life chances. Attention to those youngsters’ learning leads to us to activate research-based practices that are successful in changing learning trajectories. Monitoring and adjusting at the classroom, school and system levels helps us to refine our approaches so the environment fits the kid rather than the other way around.  It’s a pretty clear three-step approach, far more progressive and less convoluted than the myriad compliance-type accountability processes that have tied schools and districts in knots for too many years.
To those who are inclined to rally in support of making a first priority of “all the other kids” who aren’t in the at risk cohort, we have some good news. Just as a rising tide lifts all boats, it is equally true that application of quality practice, addressing individual needs and attention to learning science benefits all kids. Good learning design works across subjects, learning styles and abilities/challenges. No one suffers. Everyone thrives.
Focus…clear priorities…alignment of resources and efforts… adjusting practice in response to evidence: that’s how we activate human potential, one child at a time. It’s where we need to be and it’s happening.

​What do Screen Time, Sitting Time and Adolescent Marijuana Use have in common?  And how does it all connect with self-regulation and youth mental health?
I often bump into my When will what we know change what we do query. It has had a fair bit of play over time and yes, it’s easier to say than to activate. Sometimes it’s not that important when we know something and choose not to act on that knowledge (this cookie is too tempting to resist even though I know it isn’t good for the body’s chemistry…) But there are other times when it’s far more important to act on knowledge, even when it means challenging routines, beliefs and comfortable norms.
Here are three areas to explore because action on them can and should make a difference.  Stuart Shanker says “There is not a single kid whose trajectory we cannot change,” but that change can’t just be founded on hope and optimism. It has to involve us individually and as a society making different decisions, establishing new norms and acting on current science and research. Then, it really does become possible to increase healthy brain function, good mental health and a capacity to self-regulate for that kid and that kid and that kid…
1) The Screen: In a world where TVs, tablets and laptop computers have become part of the standard furnishing in bedrooms, helping us to “relax and unwind,” we now know more about their impact on our brain function than we did when they first moved beyond the living room. Screen time and the absorbed light rays – more intense in a darkened room – play havoc with our brain patterns and our ability to go into a deep and healthy sleep. Experts suggest that it takes up to 90 minutes after the screen is shut off and your head hits the pillow for the brain to “quiet down.” That’s 90 minutes subtracted from an already too brief sleep time. It’s 90 minutes when the brain doesn’t get into its repair and growth cycle that happens during restorative sleep. What is that doing to the developing brain of a young child? Is the iPad as a toddler’s bedtime companion a good idea? For older brother or sister, the impact is equally significant. Think about an already late, frequently re-negotiated bedtime. Add in screen time resulting in shallow sleep, interrupted by an alarm clock that jolts the adolescent up for a too early school day. For good measure, throw in a “no breakfast scramble” to get out the door. Think about the cumulative impact on a kid’s brain health and growth. And then the school day begins.
We know that healthy brain development is the most precious down payment we can make in a youngster’s trajectory. We now know more about what screen time – its amount and timing – does to brain development. I wonder how many screens will come out of bedrooms and how many bedtime routines will be adjusted when what we know collides with what we do.   Need more evidence?  Read this: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mental-wealth/201402/gray-matters-too-much-screen-time-damages-the-brain
2) The Seat: You have seen the brain scans of kids who are active versus those who are sedentary. It’s a pretty remarkable contrast and the areas of the brain that are firing during physical activity include those that light up during learning. Knowing that, let’s think about what the school day typically looks like. We take the most energetic and kinesthetic segment of our human population (our kids) and put them in seats for 5+ hours/day, with occasional, standardized breaks. We sustain a social reward system, represented in report card comments that laud kids for sitting still and paying attention and call out those kids who are otherwise disposed. If children “misbehave” (perhaps acting out because of the prolonged lack of physical action??), a traditional penalty has been to keep them inside and sedentary during recess or lunch time when energy expended and restored could help bring a more balanced state of self-regulation and calm.
Eric Jensen’s Teaching With the Brain in Mind (yes please), does a wonderful job of making the case for physical activity and sounding a call to action: http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/104013/chapters/Movement-and-Learning.aspx
We are now also seeing research that gives adults some bad news about our own sedentary habits. If you spend an hour in the gym or on the track every morning, the good outcomes of that commitment are more than undone by hours of sitting – as many of us do for much of our day. Take a look: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/prolonged-sitting-may-increase-risk-of-certain-cancers/
With that new knowledge, are we making serious attempts to restructure our learning day, our work day and the routines and furnishings that enable healthier environments? Have purchase standards changed for schools and for office spaces to allow for standing desks and more mobile work stations and classroom layouts? Is the stand up or walking meeting just a fad in a few “out of the box” organizations? Such options aren’t neat and tidy, but if health trumps uniformity, it seems like a pretty good investment.
3) Adolescent Marijuana Use: Another in the Knowing/Doing connection. No comment here.  Just an opportunity to think about this current science, laid out in a series of Globe and Mail articles with the attention-grabbing headline Your Kid’s Brain on Pot. It’s an interesting read and a good survey of the issues related with the intersection of drug use and brain development.  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/your-kids-brain-on-pot-the-real-effects-of-marijuana-on-teens/article21127612/
Knowing…Doing. It’s hard work to stay current and to implement change, but surely we owe it to our kids at home, at school, and on the playing field. They are our future.