WAPPA Conference Day 1

The Western Australian Primary Principal’s conference is held once per year at Burswood. This year the key note speaker is Professor Ben Levin who comes from Canada and is a respected leader in school change from a system level.

 

In his recent book ‘How to Change 5000 Schools’, Ben Levin, former deputy minister of education for the province of Ontario, draws on his experience overseeing major system wide education reforms in Canada and England to set forth a positive, pragmatic, and optimistic approach to leading educational change at all levels.

Professor Levin shared a key note address on ‘Real and Sustainable Change’. Some of the notes that I made included:

• Education matters – it has very real implications for the outcomes of a persons life.
• There are problems that we need to address:
• there are too many that don't benefit from education
• the achievement gaps between to successful and unsuccessful are too great
• there are too many other factors that impact on education
• Schools cannot solve social problems but they can make a difference by helping to reduce them
• Blame for failure of the system cannot be placed on the learners or their parents
• We need to get out of the ‘who’s fault’ blame mentality and avoid deficit thinking when it comes to changing our schools for the better
• People can turn their lives around, even if they come from the worst of circumstances. Education can help them.
• What teachers do and say can either enable students to believe in themselves or add to the self-disbelief that they already feel.
• He used the example of Arnie Boldt who is a one legged high jump champion. Ben pointed out that when at school his teachers could have focussed on Arnie’s disability or they could have seen his potential and desire to succeed.

• Professor Levin suggested that, as a system, we need to stop talking about ‘better teachers’ and focus more on creating ‘better teaching’.
• Good teaching is about developing better teaching skills. Teachers need to have a mentality of ‘I can be better at teaching tomorrow than I have today’.
• As a school system we need to stop thinking ‘When will we get better kids?’ and instead think ‘How can we apply our skills to help the current students we have to learn and be successful?’
• There is a lot of room to improve teaching practice in schools.
• Parents can be both a challenge as well as a resource in the educational process. It is their role to advocate for their kids.
• There are no unmotivated kids. We need to find what motivates them and use it to help them learn new and greater things.
• Curriculum is not as important as good teaching!
• The way we organise, structure and timetable our schools does not improve outcomes.
• The three keys to success are
• RELATIONSHIPS
• TEACHING PRACTICE
• COMMUNITY
• We need to infuse equity into education i.e. knowing every student, their needs, their situations, and apply good teaching
• How to make all this happen in a school system
1. Have 2 or 3 clear goals and high expectations
2. Build capacity – through the collective development of skills and by working wit the people you have
3. Be positive – use a three to one ratio with giving out positives
4. Develop strong partnerships within the community
5. Use data and research to inform areas for focus and improvement
• FAILURE DEPRESSES EFFORT WHILE SUCCESS LEADS TO EFFORT

I will be sharing the content of Professor Levin’s message with staff as part of a process of school reflection in order to challenge thinking and set challenges for the future.