Staying True to the Mission of Schools: Learning

By Ben Calsbeek, Middle School Principle, Cayma International School

The Why: Impacting Lives Via Learning

A noticeable and positive shift in emphasis from teaching to learning has taken place in education over the past two decades. Look no further than the ways teachers spend their time: collaborating as professional learning communities, analyzing assessments and test score data in teams; aligning curriculum to learning standards; identifying specific gaps in students’ learning and creating specific interventions.

This differs significantly from how teachers traditionally spent much of their time in the past: working in relative isolation; primarily concerned with teaching the content they thought was best; assessing student learning in a subjective manner.

Despite this positive paradigmatic shift, the cart is still often in front of the horse. A foundational understanding and true shared vision for learning are often still missing in schools–even schools with the best intentions that say the right things about learning. How many schools, for instance, begin their work from an articulated, shared understanding of what learning really is and what it looks like, and then place every other issue within this context? How many develop, practice, and evaluate a shared pedagogy explicitly aligned to this vision?

Unfortunately, from personal experience, not the majority. Rather, even schools with the best intentions and talented teachers, spend countless hours on tasks like aligning curriculum to learning standards with only an assumed understanding of what learning actually is. How can time be spent productively analyzing learning standards to increase learning impact, without first an explicit, shared vision and definition for learning?

Persistent remnants of the “old way” are responsible. Teachers and administrators simply assume we know what learning is, what it looks like, and that it is somehow implicit in what we do. And to our defense, it usually is–in some way, at least. If everyone in a school wrote down and shared their ideas about learning, there would certainly be more similarity than difference.

Yet this isn’t good enough if schools aspire to be places that truly fulfill their purpose of impacting children via deep, intentional learning. Leaders and teachers must seriously engage in this critical foundational work before doing anything else if the commitment to learning is real.  

Learning must be defined; the definition must be shared; it must be the explicit basis for all the work that gets done before the work that so many schools slog through, (in the name of learning, no less) like aligning curriculum, writing common assessments, unit planning, and the rest. The place to start for schools serious about organizing learning and creating a connected learning culture is with a clear, simple shared definition and vision for learning.  

The following is an attempt to provide just that. There is nothing groundbreaking or best-selling in the ideas. Rather, they are common sense, foundational ideas made explicit in the sole effort to ensure schools stay true to their core mission: impacting lives via learning.  

The What: Defining Learning

The specific definition of learning a school lands on is not what is most important. There is no research-based, wholly agreed upon definition of learning. What is most important, however, is a shared understanding of, and commitment to, the definition on which a school lands. Putting this definition at the center of the school’s work is essential.  

My first insights into this came early in my career as an alternative education teacher. I became quickly and keenly aware the courses I was responsible for delivering only mattered if they were used as a means to some greater end. My students, most of whom had no high school credits and little hope for graduation, were not intrinsically motivated to care much about literature or history.  

They were, however, very interested in “learning,” as I was very easily able to demonstrate that all of their passions and pursuits required the ability to learn. I turned my attention, then, to teaching the process of learning and making visible the evidence of it in action. The various content we explored was simply the vehicle for something greater. A light bulb flickered: content was a means, not an end. For the next 14 years as a classroom teacher I refined my own definition of learning that was always the first “content” taught in every class, regardless of the course title. 

Before getting to the course description, my students and I spent days co-creating a shared definition and process of learning which framed and guided all our work moving forward. Once started, our inquiry into history, then, was equally an inquiry into learning, always making visible our definition and process along every step of the way.  

In part, it was this firsthand experience and insight into seeing the learning impact of clear parameters and common language for learning that fueled my passion to become a school leader. If it worked in the classroom, why couldn’t this simple idea be scaled up to an entire school?  

I have been fortunate over the last five years to be a leader at Cayman International School (CIS), a forward thinking school committed to transforming silos into systems, whose purpose is always crystal clear: impacting childrens’ lives via authentic, deep learning.  

At CIS, our definition of learning comes from our close partnership with the Common Ground Collaborative (CGC): “Learning is a process of growing, deepening, and sharing conceptual understanding, competencies, and character in lasting, impactful ways.” (This definition, both at CIS and the CGC is simply referred to as the “3Cs.”) 

To ensure that our definition was more than a flat, two-dimensional statement, easily recited and parroted, we articulated four learning principles that provide the conceptual foundation for our shared understanding of learning. From these principles, we next asked a simple question: what do they actually look like in practice–both in terms of teacher output and more importantly, student learning impact?  

To help answer this question we use a co-created continua of shared teacher practices that literally translates our principles into teacher competencies, and importantly into student learning impact. This articulation ensures our programs, policies, and procedures (the “whats” of our school) are tethered to our principles (the “why”) and flow with considerable freedom from them, not vice versa. Schools so often get this backwards and become places whose culture is defined by a frenzied, disconnected adoption of programs in the hope that somehow they will improve learning. They never will. 

By starting with a clear definition of learning and set of learning principles (see below), accompanied by four large questions that framed our ongoing work as a school, we were able to articulate an inspiring vision for a comprehensive and connected learning system. Like all visions, ours at CIS is in part aspirational and a work in progress with many of our systems still in their infancy.  

This is hard, ongoing, and complex work that takes years to realize, particularly in a growing school like ours. As a divisional leader, however, I work in confidence that while the future is unknown and change is a constant, the blueprint and framework that guides our work is clear and unchanging. Creating and developing programming and policies can happen in a sustainable, logical way; “whats” and “hows” of a school only take root and flourish when nourished in the rich soil of “the why.” Creating and unpacking a definition of learning is the logical starting point for any school serious about the same idea.  

The CGC offered brilliant guidance and imagery during this process for our school that included writing a new mission and strategic plan. Their articulation of healthy schools as learning ecosystems was clear and inspirational: schools framed by four key questions that can be scaled up and down the system, who are committed to answering them in systemic, connected ways, are schools that evolve over time into interconnected learning cultures. Schools that evolve into learning cultures fulfill their purpose of impacting children’s lives via deep, meaningful learning. 

In the January 2022 Newslinks, Ben explored”The Why” and “The What” of Learning You can read Part 1 here of “Staying True to the Mission of Schools: Learning.” Part 2 continues here. 

Rather, authenticity grows when subjects are approached holistically through the basic lens of inquiry. Other key features are that playing the whole game is never about content, but rather about “getting better at doing something.” It’s never routine, rather it “requires thinking with what you know and pushing further.” It requires “problem finding” which requires exploration. It’s not about rigidly and stressfully looking for “right answers.” It’s not “emotionally flat,” and it is never “done in a vacuum,” rather it demands use of many skills that come from many contexts. Notice within this construct of “playing the whole game” in learning, how the non-cognitive learning dispositions (character) are part of the DNA. 

Importantly, playing the whole game doesn’t require mastery. Once again, consider the student who chose an activity in which she wasn’t very good, something she just started. Despite being a novice, at say, writing poetry, this student is engaged in deep learning when writing poetry wherever she is —  as long as all the components are at play. This is its beauty: there’s no contrived “end of the chapter test,” and no requirement necessary to “get started” when it comes to deep, authentic learning.  

Perhaps a good non-learning analogy is the amusement park. There are requirements to ride certain rides. But those children under a certain age or height aren’t relegated to only watch the bigger kids ride the fun rides. Nor are they forced to study the rules or read accounts of what someday it will be like for them. Rather, they get to ride the kiddie rides. They get to play different games, appropriate for their developmental level.  

Similarly in learning, a new horseback rider isn’t going to jump on a thoroughbred race horse. But he also isn’t going to just watch instructional videos on how to someday be able to, or worse, be told why he can’t ride one now! Instead, he rides a ten year old quarter horse on a lead. But he’s still engaged in deep learning for all the same reasons the Kentucky Derby jockey is. This is very important to keep in mind, and again Perkins provides great insight in what he calls developing the “Junior Game.” 

Provided here has been a sketch of one definition of learning and how it can live within a clear, practical pedagogical framework. Is it reasonable to believe schools can be places that foster and develop this in our classrooms and sports fields and laboratories?  

Clearly, the answer is yes. Of course it would be foolish to believe every lesson in every class provides students with the same feelings they have when engaged in their favorite things. Schools are charged with a specific academic mission, after all; reading primary source documents or solving for x are not quite the same as unwrapping the newest video game, lacing up the cleats, or cooking a gourmet meal in the kitchen. This, though, shouldn’t deter us.  

Rather, it should inspire and encourage us to approach learning as a much larger enterprise than narrow content pursuits carried out in disciplinary silos. It should give us confidence that true learning is transferable, and that transference is more likely to occur when we are made aware of the learning process itself. It should encourage us to pursue “whole learning” in our schools, as doing so is also a pursuit in “making us whole” as humans. 

In short, for any school serious about organizing learning for maximum impact, it is imperative that we start with the most basic step: defining learning and ensuring this idea is at the heart of all that we do.