What Would it Look Like if All Students Felt Included 2

Part Two: What Would It Look Like If All Students Felt Included?

This is the second of three articles about the formation of a small school within a larger school.

by Carol Frodge

In the first article I explained the sequence of events that led to the formation of the Small School at College Place Middle School in Edmonds, WA. There are 240 7th and 8th grade students and 9 staff in the Small School. It is roughly one third of the total school.

Last spring and at the beginning of this school year, the Small School staff used the process of Appreciative Inquiry to develop our focus and direction for the Small School. Appreciative inquiry is an organizational development strategy in which you choose a central question and then focus on what works well with your organization toward that question and concentrate on doing more of that rather than focusing on what doesn't work. As the year moved on, it was increasingly apparent that the time spent initially in creating the common focus and direction was crucial. On a regular basis we revisit our fundamental question: How can more students feel included?

This central question motivated us to take action in several directions. We looked for systemic changes that would help students understand how they learn, to think about their interaction with staff and other students, and then their place in the community. We believe that if we focus on systemic changes that affect all students in a positive way, then the number of students that will need intervention on an individual basis will be reduced. In the past, without success, we have focused on the students who exhibit behaviors that are disruptive to other students or students who struggle academically without addressing the system within which they operate. We posed the following question: will we have more success changing the system to meet individual student needs or changing the student to function within the existing system? We decided to focus on the first, not because it's easier, but because we believe it will have a lasting impact. What could we do differently in the Small School to impact student learning? We decided that we could impact student learning the most by looking for ways to increase the sense of community; to have more students feel included.

We started the year with the 8th graders by introducing Kolb's Learning Cycle http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-explrn.htm. In James Zull's book The Art of Changing the Brain, Zull makes a link between brain structure and Kolb's learning cycle. We thought that by introducing students to how the brain is structured and how learning happens that they would take more individual responsibility for their learning. We take every opportunity to embed the discussion of learning and to create a culture of learning.

We decided that each student needed to regularly talk about their academic progress with a teacher. Elementary schools have a long standing tradition of parent/teacher conferences, but typically this is dropped in middle and high school. With students having many teachers in middle school, there often isn't anyone looking at a student's total academic picture until they have not been academically successful. We decided that each student in the Small School should have regular individual conferences with their "homeroom" teacher about their academic progress. We have a 30 minute period midday that is primarily used for silent reading but is also used for some more traditional "homeroom" activities. We decided to expand the role of that teacher to an advisor because that teacher has these students for one of the core classes as well. This teacher/advisor became the monitor of students' academic progress.

Over the course of the year, each student has accumulated a file with this advisor containing their midterm progress reports and trimester report cards. At midterm and end of term reporting time, each student has a short conference with this teacher to discuss their progress. We looked for ways to give more depth to these conferences, so we also had the students complete Mel Levine's Concentration Cockpit. The Concentration Cockpit gives the student a picture of how well they concentrate in various situations. This tool gives the advisor an opportunity to help the student see the relationship between their concentration level and what is required for good learning at school. The result is that all of our students have had more individual attention from a teacher focused directly on their progress with rich discussion drawn from several tools. For many students these conferences are the only time an adult talks with them about their academic progress.

Students look forward to these conferences. I usually go down my list of students alphabetically when I do the conferences. One of my struggling students who's at the end of the alphabet was absent for a few days during conferences and when he came back, one of his first questions was about when his conference would happen.

The individual conferences are one way we connect our students to the school community. We wanted to expand on the concept of community during the course of the year. We wanted to create a progression of understanding and belonging in the school community then move to the larger geographic community and then finally to the international community. During the first trimester we organized activities that would encourage the development of the sense of community within the Small School and our larger school. In the second trimester we are focusing on the larger community through an interdisciplinary study of Homelessness and then in the third trimester we will be looking at the international community.

The first trimester activities were "low ropes course" types of activities like Hot Chocolate River. In this activity students are divided into two groups that have to cross a hot chocolate river (a section of a classroom) using only marshmallows (small carpet squares and blocks) while sharks (the teachers) try to steal the marshmallows which will prevent them from crossing the river. There are other rules but for the class to be successful they have to talk to each other, share ideas, cooperate, and include everyone. They love these activities. The shared experiences give us common vocabulary about how we work together. For example, when a student is being disruptive, other students will tell them that they are being a shark and stop it. When someone contributes to the group we call them marshmallows. Everyone knows exactly what is going on. The debriefing that follows these activities is rich with discussion relating the activity to how we need to operate in the classroom and school so that everyone can enjoy and make the most out of their education.

The second trimester has focused on a cross curricular study of Homelessness. This has turned out to be a very powerful study. Lori Armstrong Lynass, our Special Education teacher in the Small School, is the coordinator of this project. We chose Homelessness because it is a social justice issue that we can study in our own community and it's a vehicle for developing empathy and being able to see other perspectives on the human condition.

Lori opened the study with several activities designed to raise the students' awareness of their preconceived ideas about Homelessness and general commonly held misconceptions. She had them decide what they thought was the most important component of a home. She helped expand their knowledge with several readings of personal stories of homeless people. They began to see that speaking of the Homeless population as a group with common characteristics is misleading as there are many reasons why a person becomes homeless. Then they began to discuss the responsibility that society has for its members.

In Seattle there is a newspaper, Real Change, which is written by the homeless community. They use the paper as an income source. Wes Browning, one of the editors, came to speak with our students. Our students sat with intense concentration as Wes told his story. In the hour he talked to each group he dispelled every myth we held about the homeless. He is highly educated, very articulate, has worked every day of his adult life, and does not use drugs or alcohol. However due to some circumstances beyond his control he has been homeless at several points in his life.

Our students' reaction to Wes's powerful and compelling story led us to expand our study. The students collected travel size toiletries and organized them into baggies to distribute to the homeless. The 7th graders took a field trip to Seattle Pacific University which was hosting Tent City. Tent City is literally a small community built of tents that houses a homeless population. Tent City moves every month to a new location. The students listened to a panel of members of tent city tell their stories and delivered the toiletries packs. Then they visited various homeless shelters and food banks. These students are in the final stages of writing public officials, writing poetry, or entering the Peace Action Essay Contest. They will be making a display in the front office sharing different aspects of their experiences.

The Real Change website also has a game you can play that simulates the choices a person may have to make when trying to end being homeless and the consequences of those choices. One of our students had a confrontation with a teacher the day before he played the game. The next day he wrote a letter of apology to the teacher and explained that he didn't want to end up homeless so he was going to make better decisions about his education now.

The 8th graders will also take a field trip except that they will break up into groups of 10 students, and along with an adult will travel by public transportation to a community service organization. They will do a few hours of community service and then return to school by public transportation and debrief about their experiences.

The 8th grade Small School has an additional activity. One of our students was recently diagnosed with leukemia. We entered the Climb for Leukemia in his name. Students both entered the climb and conducted fundraising.

When we first organized the Small School we really had no clear idea about where we would go with it. We just knew we wanted to try something that would make a difference. We have too many students that are not thriving in our current system. Through the use of Appreciative Inquiry we were able to find our focus and we have maintained our commitment to the focus. Despite limited resources, the possibilities for the Small School now seem unlimited.

References

Levine, Mel. A Mind At A Time. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002.

Zull, James. The Art Of Changing The Brain. Virginia: Stylus Publishing, 2002.

About the author

Carol Frodge is currently Assistant Principal of Alderwood Middle School in Lynwood, WA. Carol is an active participant in Leadership for Learning, http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/lfl/ a Carpe Vitam project though Cambridge University, England. Her main interest is in implementing Appreciative Inquiry in a small school setting. Carol may be contacted at cfrodge@msn.com.

©September 2005 New Horizons for Learning
This information is provided by:
Office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Special Education
P O Box 47200
Olympia, WA 98504-7200
(360) 725-6088
Fax (360)586-1631
E-mail: dgill@ospi.wednet.edu