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The final day of the Journey for this year

Today, July 1, marks the beginning of summer for us in the Miracle Grow School District. As we begin to make plans for a few weeks of rest and relaxation, we reflect upon the steps we have taken to reach the point we are at  today.

Through the collaboration between Miracle Grow and Dedicated to Discovery, we realize the strength in and the power of change. When we began our journey, we were two districts working independently. We have since realized the power of teamwork in the change process. 

Our districts have focused on the development of six specific areas: the six engines of change. While each of us have the same vision in mind, we have each dedicated ourselves to an area of change. Throughout this process, our main objective was to share with you where we began. Through our blog entries, we have provided you with what we have accomplished. Please (CLICK HERE) to visit the engines of change each of us have developed over the year. Now, we will give you a glimpse of where we are going.

Building citizenship

After deciding upon our focus for our engine of change, we asked ourselves the following questions:

How can we use discipline to develop citizenship?

How can students gain an appreciation for behaviors that are appropriate in a democratic society?

How  can we measure positive and negative behavior in school?

How can we promote correct behaviors within the school community?

Once these questions were compiled, we decided where we could find information to assit us in finding the answers to these questions. We wanted to include the school and the extended community and therefore decided that next year, we will devote the first few months to using interviews of students, parents, principals and teachers, surveys given to community members, various policies and procedures from other districts and statistics found through research. Once we have collected the data, we will present it in graphs, reports from surveys and analysis of internal data. We will share our results with the community in an information session where parents, community members, teachers, students and administrators can meet and discuss steps for future action. We look forward to continuing in the process of change with your feedback and your suggestions. Thank you for your patience and support as we venture into the change process and together look to make the students of today our leaders of tomorrow.

Day 8 of the Journey

How can you begin to change your perspectives on discipline? The following website can help in understanding how to begin the enforcement of discipline for citizenship at home:

http://www.hpedsb.on.ca/smood/Dicipline.htm

Day 7 of our Journey

I begin my entry tonight with some insightful words from Nel Noddings, a professor of education at Stanford University.

Noddings' book, The Challenge to Care in Schools, stresses the importance of restructuring the curriculum of our schools and focusing more on life long learning and development of skills to be used in adulthood. As you know from my recent entries, our group of district administrators is focusing on discipline as it relates to cultivating a sense of citizenship in our students. Nel Noddings echoes our intentions since she shares that the education she envisions " prepares students for citizenship and future learning." She stresses the importance of involving students in "governing their own classrooms and schools. " She sees the need for  "helping students to treat each other ethically in giving them practice in caring." In essence, Nel Noddings believes that "teaching students to care in every domain implies competence; since when we care, we accept the responsibility of work on our own competence, the recipient of care is enhanced." She explains that "it is right for students to understand the power of community; members of a community act to preserve and improve it, and we are both supported and constrained by it." In essence, "we bear the marks of the community in which we are raised." Nel Noddings' words clarify the approach to discipline that our group shares. We believe that through community involvement and student self-responsibility, students can learn to correct their behaviors for intrinsic and extrinsic reasons. Students will understand their role in the community and seek to improve themselves in their behaviors toward others. In reflecting on what we want for our children, we realize the importance of giving them an education that can prove useful in interpersonal and professional situations; we aim to provide students with internally driven desires to improve the environment around them and see the importance of their role as an individual in a democratic society.

Our team looks forward to investigating different perspectives on discipline that community members have and researching the effectiveness of disciplinary procedures at work in other districts.

I am hopeful that through these excerpts from Nel Noddings' book and the insights I have provided over the past few weeks, you can better understand the reason for our desire to seek alternatives to traditional disciplinary practices. As Nel Noddings adds in the final lines of her book, "we must start with a vision of ourselves as wise parents of a large heterogeneous family and ask, What do I want for all of them? For each of them?....Then we can commit ourselves to enacting this vision for all our children."

Day 6 of the Journey of Change

Our two districts have met and decided upon the final names of our engines of change.

Before we venture any further into our research, I wish to explain the reason our districts have begun the process of action research for the purpose of change. Richard Sagor, author of Guiding School Improvement With Action Research , stresses the importance for schools to strengthen themselves and their programs through the development of common focuses. Such development fosters a strong sense of unity among faculty, staff and administration. Through his research, Sagor has found that teachers who are involved in the action research process begin to reflect on their own teaching practices and see the role they play in the success of the school.

The idea of the Miracle Grow District and our neighboring district is for teachers, students and community members to take part in the change process so that we all can understand the vital role each of us plays in the continued success of our schools. The engines have been refined as:

Seamless Curriculum

Real Life

Meaningful Evaluation

Building Citizenship

Teacher Teamwork

Achieving Vision

Each engine of change will be explained as it links with the District mission and philosophy, offering exact decriptions of what each of these engines hopes to promote and support in our schools.

Again, I encourage your feedback and your support of our initiative. Stay tuned for further clarification of these topics and more information about the progress our district makes in setting these districtwide priorities in all of our schools.

Day 5 of the Journey of Change

Tonight, I wish to share with you one of the most important ideas in beginning the change process. I have received much feedback from many community members (parents, teachers, students) regarding their anxiety about "Change". I wish to clarify the importance of change and the need for it to constantly exist in schools for schools to thrive.

Firstly, the most important thing to remember is that change is a process. It is like a long, windy road with scenery that keeps improving with each mile. It involves patience, time, energy and self-reflection on the part of those in the driver's seat--- those involved in the change process---all of us. We began our journey by organizing a group of individuals (school leaders of the Dedicated Discovery and the Miracle Grow Districts) and decided upon the engines of change you have already become familiar with from my previous blog reflections. These engines will be researched, applied and carried out with the assistance of the community. All of us will carry forth the vision in order to improve the schools in our district overall.

Once we have become more comfortable with the meaning of each engine of change and how its implementation will  affect the school community, we seek to incorporate it into our everyday lives in order to best suit the needs of our school community. Through my blog reflections, I can best address any concerns, needs, ideas, questions and reservations you may have regarding this process of improvement and constant change. I assure you that this initiative is one that will constantly be revisited each year; we will reflect upon the data we collect and make sure the vision we have all dedicated ourselves to is supported and becoming a reality. We will do so by keeping the lines of communication open. Your voice is as important as are those school leaders with whom I meet weekly to discuss the initiative for change. I urge you to stay informed, to ask questions, to visit often and see for yourself the engines of change at work in our classrooms and spiraling out into our hallways, cafeterias and beyond our school yard walls.

Day 4 of the Journey of Change

Conflict Resolution, Anger Management and Peer Mediation

Many districts have invested time and resources to develop support groups for their students. Such outlets offer students the availability of counselors and/or trained peers to assist them in exploring reasons for negative behaviors while serving as avenues for the prevention and correction of such behaviors.  

Our research on Discipline focuses on changing negative behaviors to help students live in harmony with others (peers, teachers, parents and other community members) as members of a community. It will center around offering students who choose to express themselves through negative behaviors, services to assist them in setting goals, commiting to contracts and taking personal responsibility for their choices. We will investigate different approaches to discipline and ways to help students feel empowered to set personal goals, reach these goals and feel successful. 

Each member of our research team will discuss disciplinary policies and past practices that have been effective with members of different school communities and share their findings at our next meeting. Stay tuned for their feedback in my next newsletter.

Day 3 of the Journey of Change....June 8, 2004

Building Citizenship Through Discipline: Positive Approaches toTraditional Procedures

1. Character building through self-awareness and responsibility

2. Improving ability to participate cannot occur through the prohibition of participation (exclusion).

3. Purposeful contributions to the community which enforce accountability, foster an understanding of responsibility as a community member.

We continue further into our journey as we deliniate specific areas we wish to address as change relates to Discipline. Our approach is one that concentrates on the self-worth of the individual who breaks rules and aims to correct the behavior through relevant, meaningful and corrective means rather than solely through punitive action. Students will serve the community as retribution for their inappropriate actions. In turn, they are asked to self-reflect on the experience, taking responsibility for their actions and seeing the importance of appropriate decision-making as they grow to become more involved members of the community.

Feel free to visit the sites of my colleagues as we begin to investigate changes in the traditional approach to discipline:

James McCusker:                    http://edfolio.fdu.edu/McCuskerJ/

Maria McCusker                      http://edfolio.fdu.edu/McCuskerM/

Emily Corby                            http://edfolio.fdu.edu/CorbyE/

Day 2 of the Journey of Change....June 2, 3004 (Wednesday)

As we begin  to formulate our ideas on "Discipline", I feel it is necessary to share with you my philosophy of education as it relates to change. I also wish to tie in how this philosophy relates to the role of discipline in education...

I believe the purpose of education is for the development of each student; to provide stimulating and purposeful educational opportunities that guide each learner to become a productive, responsible, competent citizen and a confident, caring adult. In order to accomplish this, education should be geared toward the needs, desires, abilities and experiences of students and must invite school leaders, parents, community members, teachers and students to take part in the development of a rigorous and invigorating educational environment.

In short, I believe purpose of education is for all students to be well prepared to enter the world. I feel that my philosophy of education is one that allows for the individuality of the student(s) to shine, granting them the chance to celebrate their unique talents, interests and experiences. I also believe that education of the child is the responsibility of the entire community (parents, school leaders, teachers and community members). In working together, our students of today can become the leaders of tomorrow. 

In relation to the idea of change in discipline, I feel my philosophy explains the need for discipline to be a concern of the entire school community. My vision is for the community to join the school in offering alternatives for poor choices and inappropriate behaviors that not only aim to correct inappropriate behaviors, but to prevent them from occuring initially. I am eager to begin researching ways in which this can be accomplished with the members of my team and am looking forward to sharing with you our progress and ideas.

We begin the journey tonight...June 1, 2004 (Tuesday)

Tonight, a group of us educational leaders from within the district met with those of our neighboring district to discuss areas we feel are in need of the greatest change in our districts. Our brainstorming session resulted in seven separate yet equally important "engines of change." The "engines" we decided upon are:

Parental / Community involvement

Teacher collaboration

Curriculum and community connections

Discipline

Professional Development of Staff

Authentic Curriculum

Assessment / Testing

Each of us divided up based upon the area we are most concerned with and most interested in. I have teamed up with:

Emily Corby, Blosson Elementary School Principal,

Jim McCusker, Sunshine Middle School Principal,

Maria McCusker, Cherry Lane Elementary School Principal

and Amanda Zlotkin, Dean of Student Affairs at Sunshine Middle School.

Our mission is to research and discuss the district's disciplinary plan as it currently exists and decide upon the first steps we would like to take to improve upon it.  All of us are eager to collaborate and investigate effective ways to implement change into our current disciplinary procedures and are willing to share our own areas of expertise to futher enhance our discussion and concentrate on a topic for our research .

Our next meeting is scheduled for tomorrow evening. Stay tuned for more information on this exciting, invigorating and inventive approach to discipline across the district.

May 26, 2004 (Wednesday)

Annamaria Rigolio, HS Vice Principal of Curriculum and Instruction 

As you know, our district has a reputation of being proud of its strong roots and its flowering branches. We reach out to our students, nurture them as seedlings and provide them with the nutrients to develop personally, intelectually and  socially into responsible members of our community. The cycle continues since we all thrive on the nourishment we receive from our staff, our community members and most of all, from our students, the flowers of the garden. We have traditionally and consistently encouraged each other to grow professionally, to continue to blossom into the garden that unites us, with numerous rows of developing ideas and visions that become reality as the years unfold. 

It is a pleasure to work in such an environment that is dedicated to the continuous cycle of growth. In keeping with our vision, our district is about to embark on an exciting collaboration with a neighboring district to search for ways to improve upon our already thriving school culture.

I am hopeful that you will share in my enthusiasm since through this effort, all of us, parents, teachers, students, administrators and community members will have an equal part in this progression. We can think of it as a new form of fertilization on our already fruitful garden, an opportunity for us to grow even stronger and more united.

As the next few weeks unfold, I look forward to the opportunity to keep you involved in our collaboration. I encourage you to communicate your ideas, concerns and suggestions as often and as freely as you wish.