From the Principal
In a recent Note Day article I spoke of the importance of education in addressing issues of racism in society and the hope that is evident in our youth, who are keen to engage with and reflect on the big issues facing our globe. I have been so proud of our student leaders in recent weeks as they have grappled with how they can make a positive contribution. In our Prefect-led assembly this week, Service Captain Maya Auld shared a most thoughtful, mature and inspiring address in which she encouraged our students to be educated on the issue of racism and its impact and to be an ally to people experiencing marginalisation. The Prefects also decided to provide all Secondary School students with the opportunity (if they felt inclined) to take a knee together following Tutor period on Tuesday, in a show of solidarity and support. A simple but strong gesture. You can read Maya’s address in the Head of Secondary School section of Note Day.
Following an early morning ride this week, as I was enjoying actually having a coffee inside the café, I was dismayed as I flicked through an old newspaper to see yet another article sensationally stating that our school system is failing.
It has become far too common a sport to denigrate our education system and in so doing devalue and demotivate teachers. There is talk of wanting to attract the best and brightest into such an important vocation, yet those commentators do not stop to realise the negative impact that media representations have on the profession.
Similarly, I am often exasperated at the polarisation that occurs when educationalists debate the merits of an inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning versus more direct instruction. It is as if the two approaches are binaries and that teachers must make a definitive choice as to which end of the seesaw they want to occupy.
In my experience, outstanding teachers make use of a broad range of approaches and totally understand that for students to utilise higher level skills of critical and creative thinking, when problem solving in complex learning tasks, they require a solid foundation of literacy and numeracy skills, which are developed over time through specific instruction. Throughout a task that requires deeper and visible thinking, students will be utilising a broad range of skills and be guided and supported by their teachers.
Our new Head of Teaching and Learning, Matthew Bentley, distributed a discussion paper to the Academic Committee to reflect on and discuss this week. It was an excerpt from the book ‘In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake the American High School’ by J Mehta and S Fine (2019). I have included a key paragraph below that highlights the importance of a balanced approach and the key role experienced teachers play in providing rich, meaningful and engaging learning to flourish. Our Redlands Learning Platform, with its focus on the work of the Harvard Project Zero program, has at its core the goal of providing students with deeper learning opportunities.
In other words, the most powerful learning experiences we observed were neither at the progressive pole of self-guided learning nor at the conservative extreme of direct instruction. Rather, they assumed the model of apprenticeship or induction, in which students became motivated by a domain and worked to develop or make something within that domain, but did so under the watchful eye of expert mentors. Our findings are consistent with two recent syntheses of decades of work on project-based learning and problem-based or inquiry-oriented learning, both of which find that such modes can have strongly positive results if (and only if) they are organized with appropriate scaffolding and necessary direction from more knowledgeable others. John Hattie’s meta-analysis of practices aligned with effective teaching similarly emphasizes a number of the elements that we identify here, including the importance of feedback, deliberate practice, and scaffolding.
Mr Stephen Webber
Photo caption: Kindergarten students were excited to visit the New Learning Hub last week and had many excellent questions for our builder, project manager and Principal.