Learning about our responsibility to others

On October 26, St. Theresa grade six students and students in the Me to We Club made sandwiches for the Shepherds of Good Hope.  We began our day by looking at an image of the "Homeless Jesus" statue.

 

We talked about how everyone in our world should be looked upon as the face of God.  We talked about how our sandwiches could be the only food that a person without a home might have for that day.  Mrs. Hopkins encouraged us to make the sandwiches with care because the sandwich might also be the best part of the person's day.  In order to make the sandwiches, every students was asked to bring in bread, meat and cheese.  We all had to make 10 sandwiches.  We made 750 sandwiches which is almost enough to give each person visiting the Shepherds of Good Hope one sandwich for one day.  Making sandwiches really made us feel like we were being helpful and that we could be bright lights in someone else's day.  Below you will see pictures of our group making sandwiches and delivering the sandwiches to the Shepherds of Good Hope truck.

Blog Post by Anthony Bathurst and Amy MacDonald

Progress Reports

The progress report card will go home very shortly.  Receiving a report card can be quite anxiety inducing for both children and their parents.  How can we work with our children to have them understand that the any report card is a measure of what they are able to do at a specific moment in time and not a permanent evaluation of their capabilities?  How can we, as parents, help our children to understand that it is OK not to be perfect in every aspect of the report card?  The work of Carol Dweck on Mindset (see previous blog post on mindset) teaches us a lot about how to approach many things, including receiving a grade on a report card.  The fixed mindset will react to the report card in a way that will lay blame for why a specific grade has been achieved.  The fixed mindset will seek to fault the teacher or some other external factor for the grade that has been given.  The growth mindset will understand that the student has not YET learned to do a specific thing or must continue to work on practicing skills in order to improve.

It is SO VERY important for our children to understand that learning is a process and a continuum.  When a teacher indicates, either through a grade or a comment, that a child needs to work on specific aspects of the curriculum or learning skills, it is because they are continuing to learn. 

Here are a few tips on using the report card as a catalyst to further learning.

1.  Focus on the comments that are given as they will usually provide next steps and clarify why a child has received a given grade or evaluation.
2.  Ask your child to explain what the next steps mean and how these next steps will help them to continue learning.
3.  Praise your child's efforts, particularly if there have been improvements since the previous report card. 
4.  Avoid praising intelligence.  Continually telling a child that he/she is smart invites a fixed mindset and often makes a child averse to taking risks and learning for fear of not being seen as smart.
5.  Remember that your child's teacher assesses your child against benchmark standards based on professional judgement and based on the learning of other children of the same age level in the same grade.  If your child receives a C or a N(needs improvement) or an S(satisfactory), it means that there is need for growth and learning.  This is where you should begin the learning conversation with your child....making it about how to continue to learn and grow as opposed to being focused on the letter grade or letter comment.

An educational partnership

     This cartoon regularly makes its way around educational circles. It depicts a pendulum that seems to have swung from one extreme to the other.  Neither of these two depict a healthy approach to learning.  Learning needs to be a partnership between a child, his/her teacher and the child's parents.  Neither of these two images represents a partnership, both represent power, influence, misplaced responsibility and blame.  Both represent a win-lose situation.  In the first, the teacher is the winner as the child is blamed for lack of success.  In the second, the child is the winner as his parents blame the teacher for the lack of success.  Neither represents a healthy approach to learning.  

     It is the year 2016 and learning is about so much more than the grade that a child receives on a test, assignment or report card.  School is about so much more than delivering specific content expectations and then measuring the success of each student.  The job that we have as parents and teachers is awesome and at times overwhelming because we are charged with the responsibility of preparing our children for a future that we cannot really define.  Success will be defined by the degree to which our children can be:

• creative, 
• global citizens, 
• effective collaborators,
• effective communicators, 
• of good character
• critical thinkers.

     It is time to change the cartoon above to reflect the current practices and realities of our schools, empowered learners who know exactly why a specific assessment result was obtained and who know exactly what they need to work on for improvement. 

     Parents play an important role in the partnership and can greatly assist by developing an understanding of their children as learners.  For some great questions to assist in establishing communication focused on learning for your child, visit the link below.  

19 Meaningful Questions to Ask Your Child's Teacher  (This is an American site therefore some of the information might not be relevant to the Ontario education system)