A Day in the Life -- Building Futures

Just a quick post today of a little video that we put together to showcase our Building Futures kids.  This particular video perhaps isn't the best example of how hands-on things can be for our kids.  Feel free to poke around the videos in the rest of my channel to see some examples that are even more involved.

It's Not About the House

I've blogged about the program in which I teach on more than a few occasions.  "Yeah yeah," you say "Your class is great. Whoop-dee-doo.  I don't teach in a class like that. What good is it to me?"  Today that is just what I want to talk about.  You see, the revolution is not about the class I teach or the project we're doing.  It's not about the house.  There are a lot of reasons why I like the spot I'm in, but today I want to talk about changing the spot you are in (assuming, of course, that you are a teacher).

I genuinely believe that an effective model of pedagogical change can be layered on top of just about any curriculum.  I say "just about" because I very much recognize the specter of high-stakes tests that loom over many jurisdictions.  At some point down the road, I'm going to try to make an argument for why teachers should stop putting so much energy in prepping kids for those things, even if nothing changes regarding their role, weight, value, design, or use in your jurisdiction.  But for now, let me just say that I understand where you're coming from in not wanting to let kids down on those tests.  Alberta Diploma Exams, for instance, are a real thing and we can't ignore their impact on our students.

Outside of that mindset, however, I'm going to challenge any teacher who wants to make an impactful and positive change for their students, for their career, and for their outlook for the future, to head in some or all of the following directions.

First...

Find a buddy, or maybe a few buddies that you think (a) are also looking to shake things up and that (b) you can work with amicably.  We'll deal with the non-amicable folks later.  For now, let's get people together who are drinking the same brand of Kool-Aid.

Sit down with your friend or friends over some coffees, perhaps some delicious baked goods.  If a bottle of wine or a case of beer is more to your liking, have at 'er.  Good food & drink always helps to make an experience even more rewarding.  Bring some pads of paper, or maybe even chart paper or whiteboards (perhaps now the title of this blog will make some sense -- whiteboards and a few tasty beverages are all you need to start your own corner of the revolution).

Where the conversation goes from here is up to you.  The goal: find an excuse to teach the same kids at the same time.  The "Next Level" goal: The excuse will offer a novel, engaging, meaningful experience that gives your students an opportunity to create something that is meaningful and relevant to them -- work that they can take pride in beyond just showing mom and dad the letter on the report card.  Maybe you look at ways to merge your classes for a large project or field experience.  Perhaps you see if team teaching all or part of course makes sense.  Maybe you think about a large-scale project that has tons of flash, redefines what it means for students to learn, and launches you into a completely new and exciting trajectory in your career.  Either way, put it all out there on the table.  Throw up the ideas on the wall and see what sticks.  Find out where your teaching spheres collide and crossover.  Find out where your passions and interests as educators and as humans crossover.  Ask yourselves how would you do things if you had the freedom to do it the way you wanted?  In the end, you'll hopefully have at least one idea that finds you impassioned and inspired to take the next step.

Before you take the next step, I want to add one piece of advice: It has been my observation that as the educational landscape shifts, stakeholders are carving out their individual niches whether it be within individual schools or educational jurisdictions at large.  Many schools and school divisions want to be able to demonstrate their forward progress and commitment to improving education for the kids put in their care.  The shinier the penny, the more easy it is to show off.  I'm not saying that you should do things just to show off.  But, frankly, if you want to get buy-in from the people you're going to need to ask permission from, you may need to give them a compelling reason to break from the tried and true.  You'll have to gauge the climate and culture of your own setting, but personally I'd rather err of side of ambitious.  If you offer them a plan that has the potential to showcase your school or division as exceptional, your chances of getting approval will likely increase.

Then...

Figure out what it will take to make it happen.  This is obviously a big step.  You don't just snap your fingers and marvel at the plan that appears before you.  But this is where some exciting stuff happens.  It's where these questions get answered:

• Who needs to approve the plan?  How do we convince them that it's good for kids and that it's good for them too?
• Who might we need to partner with in order to bring this plan to life?  Industry?  Small business?  NGOs?  Non-profits?  Academia?  A few parents?  Partners might not always seem essential, but I'd like to suggest that they certainly have the potential to be essential.  The greater your idea's scope, the more hands will be needed to bring it to life.  Finding essential partners will have to be a whole future blog post (these are really starting to accumulate).
• How do we find these partners and how do we ask them to get involved?
• How do we fit this work into the existing structure of our school (or do we need structures to change in order to make this work)?
• How do we make space within the work we already do in order to accommodate this new thing?

Those last couple questions are ultimately about pedagogy -- about re-framing what you already do into what needs to be done.  For some teachers, it's going to be the most significant barrier.  There was certainly a point in my career where I simply couldn't have done this kind of work.  Finding teammates who are already headed in this direction -- whether they're in your school, jurisdiction, or web browser is also part of the process.  Last question: Who can help me?  Don't have an answer to that one?  Start here.

Lastly...

Make your pitch.  Whether its a department head, a principal, a superintendent, a learning specialist, a parent council, or a politician, someone probably needs to hear the proposal.  There are probably a whole host of things these folks will think they want to know in advance.  Cost, manpower, time frames, impact on other areas of the school or school system, etc.  Ultimately, though, three things are going to win you their approval:

(1)  A compelling emotional reason to get on board.  Who will this make an impact on and how big could that impact be?  Tell the story.
(2)  A degree of certainty that their own jobs aren't going to be made substantially more difficult by the change.
(3)  A plan of action.*

Congratulations!  You've got an exciting new project under way.  Now the fun really begins.

Does it all seem like far more work than you've got time to manage?  Objection noted.  In my next post, I'll try to explain why I think the more you do this, the more you'll be able to shift your work load away from the ever mounting prep & grade cycle toward work that is more meaningful to your students.  Don't get me wrong: there will be some hours invested on the front end to be sure.  But crafted properly, the kind of projects that will have the most meaningful positive impacts on your students will also have the most meaningful impacts on your work/life balance.  Done right, the revolution can work for your students and for you.

TL;DR:  Join the revolution! Find friends, brainstorm, smash together your classes, design a project at the intersection of your subject matter and/or your interests, take time to plan, pitch it to your gatekeepers, profit!

Vive la resistance!!

* Credit where it's due: Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip & Dan Heath is owed for helping me to understand this.

What is Building Futures?

In planning out my first handful of Blog posts, this one was originally at the end of the 4 or 5 ideas I had loosely jotted down as topics to write about.  I didn’t initially feel that talking about my own class and my teaching assignment would be necessary when examining some very broad topics in education to start of this Blog series.  Start big, and slowly work toward the details I figured. 

But as I started to write those other pieces, it quickly became apparent that trying to explain why I have a particular view without the context of what I do serving as a backdrop would be occasionally challenging.  So this post is getting an early call-up while the others hang out in the green room a bit longer.  To be fair, I also think that there may be some inherent narcissism at play.

What Is Building Futures?

A quick glance at my About the Author box will tell you that I teach high school science and math and that the class I teach is a little different.  But that five-sentence blurb does nothing to convey how different my classroom is.

Each year we take a group of Grade 10 students from across two or three different high schools, and for 4 of their 5 school days every week they show up at a garage behind a showhome in a residential housing development instead of to their schools.  The garage itself is actually a one-room schoolhouse.  There are lockers along one wall, whiteboards and a projector screen opposite them, and tables and chairs throughout the space.  Rolling shelves store school supplies, a metal lab cart houses a coffee maker, a kettle, and a microwave.  A wireless router tucked in a windowsill provides a blinking LED symphony of data for kids who are all expected to have their own laptops or tablets in tow each day (for those who can’t manage the cost of a device, their school arranges a loaner).

Directly across the alley from the garage are two single-family homes that will start as little more than empty lots in September, and by May will be fully constructed houses ready to be sold as spec homes by a small, local residential builder.  During the course of the construction our intrepid group of 14 to 16 year olds will spend half days in groups of 2 to 4 on these work sites learning how the various components of these houses get assembled to make a finished, livable home.  Part of that learning includes hands-on assembly of those components.  Students will frame walls, hang doors, pull wire, cut drain pipes, screw on drywall, install hardwood, mortar stonework, lay tile, and paint walls.  By the end of their school year, they’ll be able to say they helped to build two houses all the way from hole-in-the-ground to keys-in-the-hand.

So where do I fit in to all of this?  Firstly, I’m responsible for supervising while our students work alongside the tradespeople building the houses.  It’s essentially a year-long field trip, and as with any field trip, supervision is a necessity.  This is especially true when the field trip includes circular saws and compressed air nailers.  However, students are only ever on the jobsite in small groups, as they take turns throughout the week working on the homes.  The rest of the class is typically back in our one-room school garage.  There, I work alongside a humanities teacher to make sure that the rest of their grade 10 curricula get covered over the course of the school year.  One day a week is spent back at one of the schools in a regular classroom.  Science labs, physical education, and anything else that doesn’t work well in a garage gets handled on those days.

On first examination, it already seems pretty progressive – hands-on learning, real-life relevance, and an immersive environment.  But those pieces are really only the tip of the iceberg that makes the Building Futures program special.  Here are some other non-trivial differences as compared to a “normal” grade 10 experience:

·      We teachers are with the same class of 30ish kids all year.  5 days a week, 10 months in a row.  That’s a pretty big departure from my previous life in a regular school setting, where I would often see over 100 kids in a day, some for no more than 9 weeks in a term before getting new sets of faces.  It’s not uncommon to encounter high school teachers in our jurisdiction who interact formally with 150 or more different students over the course of a single school year.

·      There are no bells and no scheduling blocks.  Some days Math happens in the morning, others in the afternoon.  Some days we don’t do Math at all.

·      We have a full year to cover all our curricular objectives, not just a semester.

·      The program accepts all levels of student academically.  On first blush, it sounds like the kind of schooling one would only put a vocational student into, one eventually bound to work in the industry the program is aligned with.  In fact, we get all kinds of kids applying – some who just want a different school experience and some looking for some practical life experience whether they’re interested in the trades or not.  Some kids hear that the teaching and learning looks a lot different that what they’re used to, and they’re attracted to the program for that reason alone.

·      The diverse group necessitates that we teach a variety of levels of course material simultaneously.  I deliver an academic science course (Science 10 for you readers familiar with the Alberta system) and a vocational course (Science 14).  The same is true for Math (10C, 10-3, and 10-4), English (10-1 and 10-2), and Social Studies (10-1 and 10-2).  This demands both creativity and flexibility in terms of the ways that lessons, assessments, and projects must be delivered.  The one-room schoolhouse of years gone-by is probably more comparable to what our environment looks like than most modern classrooms.

·      The other teacher who I work with occupies the same space and works with the same set of kids.  That means we have opportunities to be collaborative at an unparalleled level.  We essentially get to team teach every grade 10 course.  The opportunities for cross-curricular connections and projects are totally unparalleled.  And that’s to say nothing of the value of having another professional set of eyes on your practice as a teacher.

·      Our students meet over 40 different “teachers” throughout the year in the form of trades professionals, construction supervisors, sales and marketing staff, service providers, and company owners.  Not only do they get a very real opportunity to discover a variety of professions and learn from the people who work in them, they also get to make connections with those professionals, connections that can lead to summer jobs, apprenticeship placements, work experience, and possibly future careers.

At this point, I feel it’s necessary to give credit where credit is due.  I did not invent this program.  I am, at best, an opportunistic thief.  Two educators in Airdrie, Alberta (Jarrett Hooper and Greg Rankin of George McDougall High) conceived the program over the course of a number of morning commutes together four years ago.  A year after forming a partnership with McKee Homes of Airdrie and completing their inaugural year of Building Futures Airdrie, we picked up the program, in partnership with Kingsmith Homes of Cochrane.  The Airdrie school is currently in its third year, while we are in our second.  To say that those two gentlemen have my admiration and gratitude would be a gross understatement.

It’s certainly not a perfect program nor the model upon which I think all education should be crafted.  We encounter challenges in one form or another daily, and I look forward to writing about some of them here.  Nonetheless, it’s been an educational game-changer in my opinion.  Over the course of the next few blog posts, I hope to make a convincing argument that the crux of what makes Building Futures successful should form the backbone of high school transformations in any building where the path to progressive pedagogy is unclear or resisted.  

TL;DR: I teach in a really cool program that is hands-on, authentic, cross-curricular, collaborative, and worth sharing.

Vive la revolution!