Enriching collaboration

Collaboration. What does it look like in schools and how can you measure the results of that collaboration? This has been an underlying theme for us during year one of our turnaround plan. I believe that collaboration, much like creativity, needs some structure in order to thrive. All voices must be given the opportunity to contribute, to lead, to question, to push, and even to disagree in order for collaboration to be truly impactful and effective. I said to my colleague this week, "Politeness is poison to collaboration," and suggested that we might have t-shirts made with that phrase. What does that phrase mean to me as a leader and as a developer of teacher leaders? It means that everyone must feel that they are engaged in the direction of the dialogue, the development of ideas, and the evaluation of effective implementation in order for collaboration to work. If teachers feel that they can only share their true thoughts when they leave the room, it is not true collaboration.

Our enrichment partner (part of our extended learning time aspect of our turnaround plan) has been provided STEAM based instruction for our students daily while our classroom teachers leave the classroom for Collaborative Team Planning. In the beginning of the year, we operated without connectivity between enrichment and classroom curricula,even though we saw some beautiful products of the enrichment programming early on, we were missing the collaboration between our two systems. Throughout the year, we have engaged differently and more purposefully around planning collaborative units and projects. Our enrichment staff has willingly worked with teachers, instructional coaches, and administrators to see connections between the curriculum areas and develop lessons and units that build on and expand upon concepts taught in classrooms. As we have gotten better at collaboration, the work has become more meaningful to our students and to our teachers. As teachers have seen the multiple ways that creative thinking can enhance their content and curriculum, they have been encouraged to collaborate more with their enrichment partners and have found even more connections and ways to engage our students. 

We just finished a three day Celebration of the Arts this past week. It was amazing. Over three days, our students worked with a composer on a commissioned piece and presented the world-premiere of a work composed for our students, performed musical selections that aligned to the theme "I am the future," presented dance and instrumental performances, and hosted an Open House Living Museum for parents and families that included students reading stories they had written, dramatizing stories of kings, queens, fairy tales, pirate ships, and lost treasure, and created space ships, solar systems, and geodomes. This was the result of collaboration - between enrichment and classroom teachers, between school and community, and between students and teachers. This collaboration allowed our students to engage with the arts in ways that showed them who they are and who they can be. The arts can bring out the best in us and collaboration in the arts can unite a school community. Enjoy the images of our collaboration and the amazing things that our students created. It was so powerful to be a part of this collaboration (that's me - sitting at the piano). I am in awe of the things that great teachers can do with students when they are given the autonomy, mastery, and purpose to make great things happen.

Enriching Learning

There is ever-increasing pressure for us to provide children with greater mastery of skills at a younger age. Parents expose their children to lessons and activities; we send our children to camps to provide them with experiences that make them "well-rounded;" and schools feel more and more pressure to increase the amount of content and levels of proficiency for children.

In urban schools, this can present a significant challenge - according to the NAEP reading test data, an average of 85% of urban students do not perform at the "proficient" level in reading  http://www.aecf.org/m/resourcedoc/AECF-Early_Warning_Full_Report-2010.pdf . My school is actually above that average - our baseline data for our turnaround is a 2% proficiency in ELA and Math. You read that correctly - 98% of our students are NOT proficient. The data shows that this puts them at a higher drop-out risk and an increased risk of living a life in poverty. And that does not even address the concerns that impact our community or our overall society and economy.

If our students are so far behind in reading and math, it may seem counter-intuitive to invest significant time and financial commitment to providing enrichment opportunities in the arts. We have, however, made a commitment to providing daily enrichment activities for the 800 students in our turnaround school. Our students are involved in 50 minutes daily of enrichment activities in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics). That includes 2D and 3D arts, design and architecture, poetry, dance, leadership development and social skills, photography, drama, and creative thinking.  According to multiple longitudinal studies by the National Endowment for the Arts, students who are considered "at-risk" are more likely to finish high school if they are engaged in arts education. Involvement in the arts and STEM fields increases background knowledge, builds a greater understanding of how our world works, develops vocabulary, and leads to greater curiosity and questioning. In Daniel Pink's book, A Whole New Mind: Why right-brainers will rule the future, he speaks about the importance of creative thinking in moving the future of American society and the economy. To summarize, we need to make sure that the next generations of Americans are curious, can think outside of the box, and can see the endless possibilities of the imagination. Enriching the curriculum with the arts provides that for our children.

This week in enrichment, our Kindergarten students did sink/float experiments with boats that they made out of a variety of materials in the pool (integration between PE, Science, arts, and engineering); our 4th grade students experienced ink rolling with a steam roller at a local university (arts, college and career readiness); and 3rd and 5th grade students worked in collaborative groups to build the tallest structure (engineering, design, architecture, cooperative learning); and 5th grade students planned to begin a Community Garden project that will involve work with a neighborhood community center and the construction of benches and a mosaic. While we are assessed on our growth in state assessments, particularly in ELA and Math, enrichment adds soul and dimension to the lives of our children every day.

It is said that when Winston Churchill was asked to cut funding for the arts during WWII, he refused and replied, "then what are we fighting for?" The arts are often the first thing to be eliminated from schools. In a turnaround school, it would be easy to increase time only for academics. We are fortunate to be able to enrich the lives of our children while we are working to improve their academic achievement. Adding enrichment to our day increases the value of the lives of our children - and that is what ultimately matters.