3 minute read
SHARING OUR EXPERTISE
The Crescent Centre for Boys’ Education Discovering How Boys Learn Best
CCBE CCBE The Crescent Centre for Boys’ Education Discovering How Boys Learn Best SHARING OUR EXPERTISE
National Association of Independent Schools Annual Conference, March 2022
Nick Kovacs
Schools exist to serve the needs of students. And yet, rarely in our school reform efforts do we ask students what they need. What does it look like when students have a voice in shaping the policies and practices at their schools? How might we elicit the experiences and perspectives of all students – not just a token few – so that the changes we enact result in richer learning, deeper engagement, and a shared sense of belonging? Over the past 18 years, Challenge Success, a non-profit organization affiliated with Stanford University, has worked with countless schools that tend to treat students as beneficiaries and not necessarily collaborators of their school reform efforts. Involving students can feel onerous. Adults and students may not know how to listen to one another in productive ways and how to include all students in the data gathering and analysis process. Questions of power abound, including what to do when there is a clear divide between what the students desire and what the adults believe is feasible.
Despite these challenges, the research is clear about the benefits of including students in classroom and school-based decision processes. Students have lived experiences that allow them unique insights, and they can foresee how a change may inadvertently hamper their learning or wellbeing. For instance, when one school was working on a new schedule, it was the students that realized that the shortened lunch period would lead to untenably long lines. At another school, students shared that the proposed homework policy wouldn’t address the issue of busywork, which was their primary concern. Engaging students in systems-level decisions has also been shown to increase student agency and belonging, especially for students from historically underrepresented populations in independent schools. Including students in this process helps to support real-life skill development such as collaboration, communication skills, creativity, and adaptability. Finally, including students in the change process can increase student buy-in and support for the change, which ultimately improves chances for the initiative to be successful.
Using Crescent School as a case study, we modelled how the school centered students in the school reform process. We explored how Crescent School used student surveys, focus groups, and other listening protocols to identify a number of potential reform efforts, including the implementation of a semester-based course schedule. In this session, participants heard directly from Crescent students and leaders – both to understand the power of student voice and to highlight the real advantages and challenges of using this model. We then asked participants during a self-study exercise to consider where in their own schools or classrooms they might begin to include student voices to improve the school change process.
The Crescent Centre for Boys’ Education Discovering How Boys Learn Best
CCBE CCBE
The Crescent Centre for Boys’ Education Discovering How Boys Learn Best
Dr. Sandra Boyes
Dr. Boyes, together with her colleagues on the IBSC Board Research Committee (Caitlin Munday and Hugh Chilton, The Scots College (Australia); Ross Featherston, Brighton Grammar School (Australia); Peter Coutis, Scotch College (Australia); Kim Hudson, St. Christopher’s School (United States) presented a workshop on developing a research centre.
During the session, team members defined research investment as it exists within IBSC member schools and explored the role of the IBSC Research Committee in supporting and enabling it.
International Boys’ School Coalition Annual Conference, June 2022 Using Young Adult Literature to Form and Inform a Path to Manhood
Trish Cislak
Mrs. Cislak, along with colleagues, Andrew Stark from The Southport School (Australia) and Pooja Mathur from The Kings’ School (Australia) presented a workshop promoting the value of books and libraries in the lives of our boys. Our school libraries are multi-faceted, spaces for learning and growing. The resources offered and promoted provide boys with the opportunity to positive pathways for self-realization and academic success. This interactive workshop featured three librarians from Australia and Canada, and explored the valuable contribution literature can make to develop young men of character. Their presentation reinforced Dr. Rudine Sims’ theory of windows and mirrors in literature and the role this paradigm plays in a boys’ personal development. With direct reference to specific examples of literature, they explored the notions of Identity, Othering and Tribalism and how they form and inform a boy’s Path to Manhood. Mrs. Cislak also presented this workshop to her Crescent colleagues.
