Are We Starting a School Year or a Learning Year?

School starts here in Iowa this week, so an EducationWeek article, written by Tyrone C. Howard and published on August 12, 2022, caught my eye. Dr. Howard is a professor of Education at the University of California, Los Angeles and the director of the university’s Center for the Transformation of Schools. Howard is also president-elect of the American Educational Research Association.

In his article “Start the School Year With Purpose. Here Are 5 Priorities,” Howard lists the following five pressing issues that should be at the top of mind as we head into the new school year:

1. Students are struggling academically and emotionally
2. Adults are struggling, too
3. Enrollment is dropping
4. Politics remains in our schools
5. Schools need more joy

That’s it? Those five are the most pressing issues facing our public schools as we begin the 2022-23 academic year?

And Dr. Howard is the director of the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools? I’m sorry, but I don’t see much “transformational” in his purposeful priority list.

Let me give Dr. Howard a little help here. Instead of titling an article “Start the School Year With Purpose. Here Are 5 Priorities,” we might want to begin with something like this – “Start the Learning Year With Purpose. Here are 7 Priorities.”

And, although students struggling academically and emotionally, adults struggling too, enrollment dropping, politics remaining in our schools, and school needing more joy are all “nice to talk about” topics, we need to start focusing on “have to do” topics.

Like:

1. Young learners need to learn to read better.
2. Young learners need to learn to communicate (write) better.
3. Young learners need to learn to problem-solve better.
4. Young learners need to learn the characteristics (habits) of becoming a smarter and stronger learner.
5. Young learners and their families need individualized learning plans to help them chart their learning journey.
6. Young learners need coaches who will help them define, plan, execute, and evaluate their own learning.
7. Young learners need to be part of a peer-based cohort so that they feel supported in their learning, even though they have an adult learning coach and an individualized learning plan.

While we’re at it, let’s stop dividing learning into these periods of time known as school years. I’ve never understood the difference between the 2021-22 school year and the 2021-22 school year, versus the 2022-2023. Learning should be a constant activity, practice anywhere and anytime.

Learning time should be used to allow young learners to follow their personalized learning plans, with lots of time devoted to personal interests, reading, writing, problem-solving, and learner character activities and practice. Learning time should be filled with continuous feedback from a young learner’s coach, and from their cohort peers. Learning time should be flexible, but learning should be constant.

I wonder how many school principals will begin their learning time this year by asking their young learners what they want to learn, and then start the learning process by building a learning plan around those “wants,” while including some time to work on skills the young learner might not realize they need to work on – yet?

I wonder how many school principals will ask their adult learning leaders to stop behaving like “teachers” and begin acting like “learning coaches?” There’s a big difference, you know, between the “teacher” and “learning coach.” Teachers focus on the distribution of knowledge and skills, with some sort of summative assessment usually planned to see how much the student has learned or not. Learning coaches, on the other hand, are relentless in their pursuit to see their young learners attain their individualized learning goals and use formative assessment practices like conversational feedback constantly.

I wonder how many school principals are forming cohorts of young learners, not based on age or grade, but on interests, strengths, and areas of growth?

Sadly, I’m guessing very few principals are committing to work on my 7 priorities. Instead, they’re probably choosing to follow Dr. Howard’s advice and focus on strugglers, dropping enrollment, politics, and joy.

Don’t get me wrong. One must believe that if adult learning leaders focus on my 7 priorities, then strugglers improve, enrollment increases, politics wanes, and joy explodes.

If only we had the courage to work on the 7 instead of the 5.

Have a great school year (whatever that means)!

Til tomorrow. SVB