I have been greatly inspired today !
This morning I attended a familiarisation session with other parents of Yr 6 pupils at the primary school (Puketapu Primary School) that our daughter attends in Hawke’s Bay. The purpose of this session was to provide parents with the opportunity to see firsthand how this well-regarded school is approaching the delivery of teaching Yr 7 and 8 pupils.
What an uplifting experience ! Essentially, two adjoining classrooms (with a sliding door divider in the middle) is being used to teach Yr 7 and Yr 8 students using a contemporary delivery approach that encourages:
a) A high level of collaboration and cooperation between students.
b) Open sharing of ideas between students in order to address a specific subject matter/ topic/ exercise/ goal.
c) Students making choices about “when” they learn what they learn – to a certain extent.
d) Independence and self-management.
Fundamentally, each student has scope to set significant elements of their learning timetable for each day of the week, and students cycle/ rotate between teacher delivery stations in the adjoining rooms in order to participate in the given scheduled lesson.
Where a student is up-to-date in a particular area (subject/ topic/ assignment), when the relevant scheduled time-frame for that event rolls around, they then have the opportunity to choose to spend that time working on an alternative option (e.g. learning a language).
It was very rewarding to see this generation of student acquiring the skill of collaboration. What was more rewarding was the response of some students to conversations that I held with them on the topic of “collaboration being the most difficult – yet the most important – skill for a person to develop”. Two young ladies in particular volunteered their views that although they each “liked to be the boss”, they also understood how a leader could be more effective by listening to and taking on-board the opinions of others around them in order to be inclusive and make a well reasoned and informed decision. I marveled at the maturity of this understanding – remarkable.
From what I witnessed today, it has given me great hope that this generation (currently aged 11 – 13 years) could well turn-out to be the most mature well-rounded people that modern society has seen yet. I was astounded at the level of quiet, focused engagement with fellow students being displayed – there was not a single child in the room who was either dominating discussion or competing for teacher attention or arguing. Rather, the modus operandi of this room of 30 or so children was about calm (level-headed) sharing of ideas and a quiet respect shown by students towards one-another.
Hats-off to this progressive school for developing such well-rounded respectful people. You may not fully realise the positive impact of this approach that you’re taking with these students on their relationship successes later in life, but knowing what I’ve witnessed in adult workplaces during my lifetime to date I can say with some certainty that these teachings are going to make a considerable positive difference to the shaping of the modern work environment and cultures within.
Ka pai !