Thursday, June 28, 2018

Summit Learning Platform and Personalized Learning

At Cristo Rey De La Salle, we are using the Summit Learning Platform as our personalized learning instructional system and model.  The decision to use this system and model was made after extensive conversations between our President and Principal which involved ending the 20th century factory model of high school education.  When I was appointed Assistant Principal, I had a fairly steep learning curve as I had to get acquainted with the platform as soon as I could in order to support our teachers.

Personalized learning has been a buzz phrase for some time in educational circles.  By leveraging the use of technology, it is entirely possible to meet the individualized educational needs of the young people entrusted to our care.  But, it's not entirely about the technology.  The entire system is predicated on positive relationships between teachers and students, or, mentors and mentees.  Through the use of check-ins, teachers are able to support students by coaching and giving feedback in addition to offering scaffolds to ensure student success in meeting their goals.  The whole system, then, highly encourages students to become agents of their own learning and to become self-directed in the process. 




















The Summit Learning Platform has four pillars: (1) Cognitive Skills; (2) Content Knowledge; (3) Habits of Success; and, (4) Sense of Purpose.  All four of these areas needs to be developed, but at the top of the pyramid are the development of 36 cognitive skills that are at the apex of so-called 21st century learning.  Content Knowledge is personalized depending upon student interests and aptitudes.  Habits of Success push students to acquire the necessary strategies to become successful in college and in life.  Finally, students acquire a Sense of Purpose which give students an opportunity to become self-efficacious.  These four pillars are research-based, teacher-tested, and student-centered.

We are the first Cristo Rey Network School and Lasallian Institution in North America to adopt the Summit Learning Platform.  Properly deployed, this system and model has the capacity to even the playing field for young people from economically disadvantaged circumstances.  Somehow, I think Saint La Salle smiling upon us from somewhere with a wink and nod of approval.  


Friday, June 22, 2018

Stillpoint | 06.22.18

Stillpoint is the mini-retreat time that our president Mike Anderer has designated to take an intentional break from the business and the busyness of the day-to-day operations of the school.  During Stillpoint, we gather in council and sit in a circle.  The guidelines of the council are simply to speak from the heart, to be lean of expression (which is another way of speaking our own truth and story and not the truth or story of others), and to be present. 

After recalling that we're in God's holy presence, and dedicating our council, we begin with a reading. This was our reading for today:

Beginnings, Community, and Seeing Reality
"It is quite easy to found a community.  There are always plenty of courageous people who want to be heroes, are ready to sleep on the ground, to work hard hours each day, to live in dilapidated houses.  It's not hard to camp -- anyone can rough it for a time.  So the problem is not getting the community started -- there's always enough energy for take-off.  The problem comes when we are in orbit and going round and round the circuit.  The problem is in living with brothers and sisters whom we have not chosen but who have been given to us, and in working ever more truthfully towards the goals of the community. ... True community implies a way of living and seeing reality; it implies above all fidelity in the daily round.  And this is made up of simple things -- getting meals, using and washing dishes and using them again, going to meetings -- as well as gifts, joy, and celebration.

Community is only being created when its members accept that they are not going to achieve great things, that they are not going to be heroes, but simply live each day with hope like children, in wonderment as the sun rises and in thanksgiving as it sets.  Community is only being created when they have recognized that human greatness is to accept our insignificance, our human condition, and our earth, and to thank God for having put in a finite body the seeds of eternity which are visible in small daily gestures of love and forgiveness.  The beauty of humanity is in the fidelity to the wonder of each day." -- Jean Vanier from Community and Growth

We then sat in stillness for a few minutes and we began with a brief check-in consisting of three words describing our current state.  We then practiced gratitude by declaring what we are or have been grateful for.  Finally, we glanced again at the reading and picked several words or a phrase which had particular meaning for us at that moment in time.

For me, the words were "courageous people."  I shared with the circle that I see before me a group of courageous people.  And the word courage etymologically refers to the heart.  The references to heart like seeing with the eyes of heart, or listening with the heart, or hearing with the heart is a reminder to get us out of our heads and into a different space.  Our role as courageous people is to give heart, or to encourage, especially those students who will be entrusted to our care so that they can, in turn, become people of heart for the people in their own communities and for our world, which in such desperate needs of heart-filled people.