Digital Communication, Part I

For anyone who is in education, it’s impossible to avoid references to the “six Cs” of 21^st century education. In case you’re not familiar, the “6 Cs” refers to the skills and knowledge that educators and business leaders have deemed necessary for the future success of our children in the world marketplace. The 6 Cs are:

1.     Collaboration,

2.     Communication,

3.     Creativity,

4.     Critical Thinking,

5.     Cross-Cultural Competency, and

6.     Character

For this blog post, I want to focus on communication. Lately, I’ve been think a good bit about how we communicate in today’s digital world, how that communication has changed since I was in school, and how we best go about teaching communication to students who are “digital natives.”

To start with, I think there are some very good things about our connected, digital world of communication. Social media certainly has its utility. For example, I have 1,989 “friends” on Facebook. Through Facebook, I’ve been able to reconnect with former students, friends and acquaintances from high school, and relatives who live in other parts of the country. I’ve also met people online who have common interests I never would have met, otherwise. Here at HA, we have Skyped with job candidates and hired teachers from as far away California, Minnesota, Utah, China, and Latin America. My children still keep up with their friends from Tennessee, where we lived five years ago. 

Furthermore, I have almost unbelievable access to information. When I first graduated from college, I subscribed to a half-dozen magazines in order to get my news. I don’t subscribe to ANY magazines anymore; I read them on my tablet and phone. In fact, my cell phone gives me access to more information more quickly than I could have EVER imagined when I first started teaching. Additionally, the novel I just finished reading was on Apple’s iBooks. I didn’t have to go to the bookstore or even order it online. I wanted to read it, and POOF, it was on my iPad AND my phone. I could have bought it at the bookstore, or I could have ordered it on Amazon for much less money, but I didn’t want to have to wait for the actual book to arrive. After all, I now live in a world where I demand and receive instant gratification.  

Similarly, I can give feedback to students and parents almost immediately through email and through my web-based Google Classroom. My students in my AP Economics class have a free, online textbook, with links to relevant primary sources and websites, and I can post announcements and changes to my students in real-time, after they leave my classroom. I have to say, as a teacher, it’s pretty awesome.

So, I suppose all of this is good – or at least it’s not bad. But I can’t help but think that in the history of mankind, we have never been so connected, yet, so disconnected. I find myself asking the question: “Is the communication in which our children are engaged authentic.” For example, have you noticed that when you go on vacation that our kids don’t seem to miss each other?

I can remember that when my family went on vacation, I missed my girlfriend and my buddies. I couldn’t wait to see them when I came home. Plus, my girlfriend and I would spend hours and hours on the phone, actually talking.

Not anymore. 

After we returned from fall break this year, I asked my kids if they wanted to get together with their friends, and the response was condescending. “DAAAD!”, they snarled (with a hint of an eye-roll), “We’ve been TALKING the entire time we’ve been gone!” There was no sense of urgency to see their friends. In fact, they told me stories about some of the funny things that went on during break in the cyber-world of Instagram. It actually occurred to me that the kids tell stories of happenings on the internet in a way that resembles the stories I’ve told about my fraternity days. But the kids’ stories aren’t about wearing a goofy costume to a date party or swimming in the campus fountain. Their stories are about clever memes or “LOL” retorts.

Moreover, it’s not just the fact that our children are communicating online, but the amount of time they are spending “plugged in” is worrisome to me. A 2015 Pew Research Center report indicates some not-so-shocking data about teenage social media and electronic usage. 92% of teens (aged 12-17) go online, daily, and 24% report being online “almost constantly” (Lenhart, 2015). Still further, 88% of all teens have cell phones or smartphones at their disposal (Lenhart, 2015), and according to the Common Sense Media, teens spend an average of nine hours per day using media online (Tsukayama, 2015).

So, I’m posing the question, to which I honestly don’t know the answer. Is today’s communication real or even healthy?  To me, something seems very wrong, but maybe it’s just a bad idea whose time has come? Maybe I am just old-fashioned? Maybe, I’m like my grandparents who thought rock and roll (and Elvis Presley, in particular) was the source of all evil in society? I mean, to our children, Snapchat IS authentic communication. Our children DO feel connected and DO feel they are engaging in genuine dialogue. Just because I don’t think it’s authentic doesn’t mean it isn’t. 

In my next blog post, I’ll delve into some of the research on social media and screen time, and also talk about some of the ways we can use online tools to our educational advantage.

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It's Showtime!

When I first arrived at Houston Academy in 2012 someone told me, “We’re not an arts school.” First of all, that wasn’t true. We already had an incredible band, a fine chorus, a vibrant lower school music program, an award-winning visual arts program, and a talented dance team. What we lacked was a theater program. Secondly, though, that statement angered me. Why wouldn’t we want to be known as an “arts school”? Very few offerings in a school can more positively impact students’ competency in the 6 Cs[1] than participation in the arts. Moreover, people acted like it was a zero-sum game – that we could be good at the arts or we could be good in athletics, but you couldn’t do both. Frankly, that’s nonsense.  Given the caliber of our student body, we can and should be good at everything we do, and our students should have the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of activities.

Well, my message to you today is that we have reached a point where our theater program is first rate. This year, we have already put on our 4^th – 6^th grade play. If you missed our production of Aladdin, you really missed an outstanding performance. It was not just “cute;” it was excellent. Plus, it’s worth pointing out that each performance we have done in each of the the last three years has been more difficult and has had a higher production value than the previous one. Additionally, our participation rate has been consistently high. This year, 44 students participated in the play, which constitutes 43% of the student body in grades 4-6.

Tomorrow night, (Tuesday, November 8^th) at 6:30 PM in Dunning Hall, the Arts Department will be presenting its Fall Showcase. Admission is free, and you will get a chance to hear our jazz band, chorus, and the extracurricular chorus. Furthermore, the drama class will be putting on Café Murder, a family-friendly murder mystery that only YOU can help solve. Admission is free, and having seen the rehearsals, it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Finally, the 7^th -12^th grade students will be putting on a performance of Singin’ In the Rain. This will be an endeavor the likes of which we have never attempted at Houston Academy. It is full of intricate choreography and difficult numbers. From what I’ve seen in rehearsals, it should be outstanding. Singin’ in the Rain is a really entertaining and funny show, and it would be well worth your time to come see it. It will be performed in Dunning Hall at 7:00 PM from Tuesday, November 15^th to Thursday, November 17^th.

In short, in just three years, we have gone from having no drama program, to having one in which approximately 90 students are participating. Moreover, our program is of high quality, despite our lack of a facility. I should also note that our band has 54 members, our show choir has 13 members, our upper school chorus has 20 members, our extracurricular chorus has 20 members, and our dance team has 17 members. These students are not only doing outstanding work, but they are collaborating and learning in ways they would not do in any other environment. When we talk about 21^st Century Learning, this is what it’s all about.

See you on Tuesday!

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[1] Much attention has been paid in the educational literature and in the media to what has been termed “21^st Century Education.” Generally speaking, educators and business leaders have identified the competencies that our students will have to master to be successful in the workplace. Pat Bassett, former head of the National Association of Independent schools referred to these skills as the “5C’s plus 1.”[1] I’ve just started calling them the “6 Cs.” These 6 Cs are:

1.     Collaboration,

2.     Communication,

3.     Creativity,

4.     Critical thinking,

5.     Cross-cultural competence, and

6.     Character.

Personal Statement on Educational Values

Scott D. Phillipps, Ed.D.

21^st Century Learning?

In current educational literature the term “21^st century learning” is about as ubiquitous as the cell phone. The term is an impressive prosaism, which can make any professional educator appear to have his or her finger on the proverbial pulse of educational progress. Beneath this arcane terminology, however, lies an important underlying question: What does 21^st century learning look like, and what does it mean in practical terms?

I believe, for many schools, 21^st century learning means little more than pouring money into the morass of classroom technology. Recently, two local independent schools (one of which was the school where my wife teaches) became “iPad Schools.” In response, I went to several conferences and talked to a number of different schools who had implemented iPad programs to help determine if we should become an iPad school. At each conference and in each school, I asked the teachers and administrators:  “How do iPads improve student learning outcomes?”  Not one person was able to give me a clear answer. The best people could offer was that “iPads are fun” and “our parents expect us to do something.” Meanwhile, all of the students and teachers at my wife’s independent school have been given some nifty and expensive toys that have not, as far as she can tell, substantially changed classroom teaching practices in any meaningful way. This rush towards technology for its own sake is an unacceptable state of affairs. In every decision we make as educational leaders we must ask the question, “How does this decision affect student learning outcomes?” If we are unable to determine that a given decision positively affects our students, then we should seriously question our motives for that decision.

I do not mean to imply that technology integration is not important–it is. We need to give our students access to the tools they will need to be successful in college and in the workplace. We also need to try to pursue technology to find ways to engage our students. However, we need to make sure that our movement towards technology is fully integrated into the learning and skills that will help our students and teachers evolve as life-long learners.  Today, in the information age, our students are bombarded with so much information from so many sources, that it is difficult for them to discern truth from invention and validity from invalidity. To that end, we have moved into an era where our emphasis in school must be on finding information, synthesizing that information, and creating something new with our knowledge.

Even 80 years ago, Albert Einstein understood that “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”  Moreover, in the past 20 years, Bloom’s Taxonomy has been reordered to place, “Creating” above “Evaluating.”  Yet, where and how often do we test for creativity in our schools? How do we measure a student’s ability to evaluate? Few would argue that our students should not be operating on the highest levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, yet inexplicably, the United States’ education system has moved increasing towards emphasis on the very lowest levels of Bloom’s taxonomy: “Remembering” and “Understanding.”  The high-stakes testing regime that dominates public education is but one example of our educational priorities moving away from the types of learning our children need in the 21^st century.  Somehow, we have come to believe that by testing and re-testing and engaging in “drill and kill” teaching techniques, we can improve our nation’s educational standing. We seem to be ignoring the simple truth that is so aptly expressed in the old Iowa farm adage: “You can’t fatten a cow by weighing it.” What we need, in fact, is a different and dynamic approach to teaching and learning, not an approach that attempts to measure knowledge at the expense of imagination and that leads to schooling in which our students must “gear down” to function effectively in class.

The Five C’s + One

With great interest, I have followed the blog of Pat Bassett, the President of NAIS.  Mr. Bassett has elucidated a very clear and concise picture of what we should be emphasizing in independent schools of the future.  In a series of articles, he expounds on “The Five C’s + One.”  These C’s are: creativity, character, critical thinking, communication, cosmopolitanism, and collaboration. Suffice to say that I wholeheartedly endorse his epistle. Bassett asserts that “quality schooling teaches not subjects so much as a handful of essential skills and values that, when they stick, result in graduates who are ethical and successful contributors and leaders in their families, their communities, the workplace, and the world.” [1]

While explicating all six of these values would take up more space than this format allows, creativity and character deserve particular attention, because I believe those values are so very lacking in our educational system.

Creativity

As Pat Bassett points out, we need to pose questions which excite our students and then give them the time to answer those questions. That is when true learning takes place. Teachers need to reflect on what creative processes can be used to help students learn particular objectives. In fact, this emphasis on creativity should permeate everything we do as teachers. That is not to say that there is no place for basic knowledge—after all, if students don’t have facts, they will be unable to validly and reliably apply information. However, when possible, students should be allowed to explore, research, apply, analyze, and evaluate information they have acquired, and then generate something new from that process. I believe teachers, generally, do a good job of this in early childhood education, but in the rush to cover the curriculum, teachers move away from exploration and collaboration the further along students get in the educational process.

Fortunately, creativity is readily integrated with global education, technology integration, collaborative learning, arts education, and communication. Again, there is not room here to fully explicate this idea, but it is certainly crucial that our students work readily on the highest level of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy.  Moreover, it is important that students are allowed to learn deeply, as well as broadly.

Character

We are obliged to provide students with a firm foundation in moral and ethical character. Given that our children have a wealth of information at their disposal, the key question should be, “What will they do with that information?”  As a parent, what I hope most for my children is not that they win a Nobel Prize or a World Cup, but rather that they be decent, kind, and that they seek to serve others.  However, that notion is probably not shared with many of our parents who value status, wealth, and admission to the most selective colleges. Still, we must try to teach our students key components of character development: persistence, empathy, integrity, responsibility, fairness, and respect. As it turns out, though, it is not a zero-sum game. The research supports the notion that students with attributes that we associate with high moral character are also the most successful people in life.[2]

The best way we can teach persistence in school is to allow our children to fail, and to teach them that there is value in learning from our failures. Now, more than ever, what we must emphasize is that only those who do nothing make no mistakes.  We have to remind our parents that experience is what you get when you do not get what you want. Or as Winston Churchill put so well, “Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”

Relative to empathy, I firmly believe that character is about how one treats others.  Part of successfully educating our children is teaching them how others should be treated. Abigail Van Buren (“Dear Abby”) said it well – “The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back.” I believe that a major component of character development is teaching students how to treat those people from whom you have nothing to gain.  It is not how they treat their teacher, it is not how they treat their coach, and it’s not how they treat the captain of the football team.  It’s how they treat the classmate whose personal grooming habits annoy them.  It is how they treat that kid at the lunch table who doesn’t know how to end a story and just doesn’t seem to know how to fit in.   It is how they treat the people with whom they have nothing in common, or whose race, religion, or sexual preference they don’t understand. 

Included in this concept is the necessity of participating in the act of service.  I often tell the students at my current school that they need not feel guilty that they are children of privilege. What they need to do is recognize that they are privileged, and act accordingly. They are morally obligated, I believe, to use their privileged position to help others. Service, therefore, should be a real and tangible part of any school curriculum.

Summation

In short, there are a great many challenges facing independent school education in the 21^st century.  However, in this “Culture of Change”[3] we must be vigilant in questioning our educational philosophy and underlying assumptions, and we must be reflective in our practice. Fortunately, there is no better venue to exercise true flexibility and to embrace change than in the independent school. Truly, independent schools are poised to take the lead in helping our nation’s educational system regain its standing in the world. For any independent school that wishes to truly embrace 21^st century learning, embracing technology is not nearly enough. I believe the values of creativity, character, critical thinking, communication, cosmopolitanism, and collaboration must play an absolutely central role.

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[1] Bassett, P. F. (2011). The five C’s + one. Retrieved June 1, 2012, from http://www.nais.org/about/article.cfm?ItemNumber=155829&sn.ItemNumber=4181&tn.ItemNumber=147271.

[2] Heath, D.H. (1999). Schools of hope. Bryn Mawr, PA: Conrow Publishing House.

[3] Term coined by Michael Fullan