Interdisciplinary Skills for Today's Jobs: A Workshop Activity

Summary
Today's jobs are increasingly interdisciplinary. A recent workshop activity emphasizes the kind of skills that a modern curriculum should address, in order to prepare students for their future.

 Tim Gauntley, 2012 

Crescent School Presentation
Recently, I had the honour of presenting a workshop to the Conference of Independent Schools Librarians Network (Greater Toronto Area) at Crescent School in Toronto. In preparing for the session, I had identified topics on which I speak (as reflected in this blog); the convening committee then chose a few to blend for the morning. For the record, my current workshops address such topics as:

1. library advocacy/leadership
2. challenges in school librarianship
3. excellence in curriculum design
4. the learning commons: ancient and modern
5. effective technology for learning and teaching
6. guided inquiry across the curriculum
7. interdisciplinary studies and habits of mind
8. poetry across the curriculum
9. the tao of school librarianship

Interdsicplinarity
This blog has previously discussed No. 7 interdisciplinary habits of mind. At Crescent School, I asked the participants to consider these habits as skills necessary to prepare students for future jobs, jobs that are often described in employment classifieds and job descriptions as interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary.

The slide above was one of our activities which you might like to try with your staff or students. You can do each of the steps individually or with a partner or group.

1. Identify what each of the coloured icons suggests as a skill for life or the workplace. For instance, the first icon might represent the ability to ask questions, seek new solutions, or reflect on the causes or effects of a situation or event.
2. Choose an occupation that interests you from the list at the left and briefly describe what kinds of activities that occupation entails.
3. Match the skills from the right with the occupations on the left and explain the reasons for your matching.

Findings
Key words like collaboration, questioning, vision, communication, creativity, and connection may arise from this exercise. This is the easy part.

However, the real test is subsequently to challenge your group or class to find examples from their teaching and learning which are developing these skills. The group gathered at Crescent School were an exemplary team of interdisciplinary seekers and doers, eager to analyze their practice. Teacher-librarians, in particular, have a singular opportunity to connect disparate curriculum themes, topics, and approaches in the partnering work they do with all teachers and disciplines.

It will be interesting to see if the Independent Schools Librarians Network can harness the power of social networking and integrated curriculum to offer exemplary interdisciplinary leadership to their schools.

Note: This slide is adapted from my work in Making Connections: A Guide to Interdisciplinary Studies, Toronto District School Board, 2007 which is available by emailing curriculumdocs@tdsb.on.ca.

This bi-weekly blog appears usually on a Monday. 

All content is for free and public use. As the author, Tim Gauntley retains full intellectual property rights to the content. 

Pageviews all time history as of 9:13 Monday 28 May, 2012 is 31,881

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The Modern Syllabus: A Cautionary Verse

SUMMARY

The author offers a satiric verse about the growing utilitarianism in education.

In his novel Hard Times, Charles Dickens satirizes a utilitarian approach to education, an approach that seems to be gaining ground again. His schoolmaster, Mr Gradgrind, is not evil so much as single-minded and has become synonymous with those who seek only the facts.

Recently, I've noticed another educational trend that disturbs me: governmental misuse of the argument for high standards by maximizing control over the way teachers teach the curriculum and minimizing their ability to create and share  resources. Put this together with other issues and it's a wonder I sleep at night.

I am coping by writing satire. Share it if you like it.

The Modern Syllabus

Ten Rules from A Senior Education Official

The best way to ensure reform

In education? Here’s the norm:

Stop our kids from being fools

And simply teacher-proof our schools.

To implement the Newest Learning

It does no good to be discerning.

No teacher needs to over reach,

For students learn what teachers teach. 

We need a modern syllabus;

New back-to-basics and no fuss.

I’ve taken time to write it out.

Ten simple rules to leave no doubt:

1. Seek high achievement for each one, 

    At lowest cost to everyone.

2. Underfund all but the Core. 

    Who needs music anymore? 

3. Shout equal opportunity, 

    But never let the kids run free.

4. Don’t let teachers (it’s so dumb)

    Write their own curriculum.

5. Apply the standards — no hesitation.

    (No standards without standardization).

6. Stick to facts and raise the scores. 

    Assess, assess, assess some more.

7. Keep teaching methods, resources too, 

   Down to a controllable few.

   

8.Use technology when you’re able, 

   But bolt it firmly to a table.

9. Keep subjects separate. Be ever wary

    Of those who are interdisciplinary. 

10. Make sure librarians are passé; 

    They’re far less dangerous that way.

So as you start on your profession

Go forwards to a new regression.

I got where I am today

Because I found the simpler way.

It all comes down to this in essence:

Spoon feed schools to indolence. 

No doubt, no mess, no obfuscation.

For basic, modern education!

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Twelve Great Poems: Music

SUMMARY
The author continues his poetry anthology project with twelve celebrated poems about the theme of music. Fifteen of the best poetry sites on the Internet are also listed.

Twelve Great Poems: Music

For my next poetry anthology, I have selected a set of "old chestnuts" that either reflect on the beauty and power of music in our lives, or use music as a metaphor for poetry itself. As always, you will find the text of these new poems in my Pages section of the blog. If you would like a classroom ready .pdf, go to lcommons.org and join the "Integrating Learning Commons" group.


If Music Be the Food of Love
Whatever your definition of poetry — verbal music, rhythmical speech etc. — poetry has a clear affinity with music in all its forms. In fact, poets incorporate all of the arts in the way they use words to express their thought and feeling. In the hands of a great poet, words dance, voices sing, forms sculpt ideas, and images paint pictures. Any child knows this in the playful rhymes danced and sung in the schoolyard (until poetry is often shelved in senior grades).


As I have suggested before on this blog, poetry should be integrated into every subject of the curriculum. Poetry's themes cover the full range of human experience. The enjoyment and skill in reading, listening to, and writing poetry should be part of the common learning and the learning commons of every school. 


Curriculum Redux
Unfortunately, there are other connections between music and poetry in modern education: anxiety, inexperience,  and lack of knowledge.  We see an increasing trend to minimize the importance of both poetry and music curriculum in a science/math/literacy driven agenda. Waldorf (Steiner) education is an exception. Here children dance their letters, sing their numbers, and paint their natural world. 


If you are anxious about using poetry in the classroom, I recommend two books: Poetic Metre and Poetic Form by Paul Fussell and The Sounds of Poetry by Robert Pinsky. Fussell's book concentrates on how poetry's rhythmic form helps shape our experience of the poem: "The empirical study of poetry will convince us that meter is a prime physical and emotional constituent of poetic meaning." Pinsky's work examines poetry as a vocal and bodily art: "The medium of poetry is the human body: the column of air inside the chest, shaped into signifying sounds in the larynx and the mouth. In this sense, poetry is as physical or bodily an art as dancing."


Poetry on the Internet
Finally, there are many wonderful Internet sites about poetry  — traditional and contemporary. They often contain great free content or new works of astonishing power. Below are some of my favourite.


Bartlebly.com Poetry Anthologies and Tens of Thousands of Poems
Contemporary Poetry Review
Everypoet
Fiction Press
Favorite Poem Project
Poem Hunter
Poetry Archive
Poetry Daily
Poets.ca The League of Canadian Poets
PoetryPoem
Poetry Lovers’ Page
Poets.org
Project Gutenberg
Young British Poets
Your Daily Poem

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Great Museums of the World: Symabaloo Links for Pleasure and Study

SUMMARY
Links to great museums of the world with significant online content or portal information are organized into a new Symbaloo web mix. The author discusses the benefits of the virtual field trip as a resource in schools.

Location, Location, Location

As the school break approaches, I get the urge to visit great cultural locations, at least virtually. I remember a creative Grade 10 teacher who partnered with me on a Travel and Tourism library project. We decided to highlight online museums from around the world. Students were to act as tour guides and present the collections from multiple perspectives: historical, artistic, cultural, and literary. These wonderful digital locations did what physical travel promises: to enlarge the mind.

Symbaloo, Again

To provide an Internet itinerary for different subjects and inquiry activities, I have used Symbaloo to create a web mix of links to Museums of the World. Come along with me from your easy chair!

Museums of the World on symbaloo.com

timgauntley.blogspot.com

All links are to English-speaking sites that provide deep content or act as portals to multiple links.  I have exploited Symbaloo's colour, spatial, and iconic mapping to organize my selections by country or region (United Kingdom in green, Canada in red, USA in blue, Europe in black, etc.) Portals are in white at the bottom.

I have tried to find sites of quality and richness but would love to hear from you if I have missed your favourites. You might like to extend this by having students create themed web mixes such as regional museums, the silk trade, and special exhibitions being held in a particular month in different museums. The possibilities are endless.

By the way, Symbaloo is free and fun to use. I described its features and advantages in an earlier blog.

The Virtual Field Trip

I increasingly hear stories of how bureaucratic protectiveness is preventing many classes from organizing field trips. While virtual travel is no substitute, both such adventures help students to:

• expand the mind 
• experience new and exciting cultures
• explore different perspectives 
• foster an inclusive world view
• read rich and nuanced sites carefully
• enrich vocabulary through image and story
• develop interdisciplinary habits of mind by navigating convergent fields of art, history, culture, and literature

Of course, whether students are setting out on an inquiry activity, or just bumming around the inter web for pleasure, it would be far better for them to create their own web mix itinerary than to be restricted to mine.

Symbaloo makes it easy to be an informed virtual tourist and an engaging tour guide. Bon voyage!

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Here's My Card: The Teacher-Librarian 2012

SUMMARY
Teacher-librarians are invited to create a business card that introduces their present roles and future vision. The author presents his own model and describes a process that fosters ideas and applies results for innovation, invention, inspiration, and integration.


Your Business Card

Pretend that as a teacher-librarian or school media specialist, you carry a business card. Not just the usual card that describes what you do now but one that promotes your plans for the future. Your card should be both a professional and personal vision statement. An extension of your handshake. Your best first impression. A cheerful and concise  introduction to you!

In becoming an educational consultant, I wanted to marry my background in school libraries to continuing interests in 21st century learning. My card had to be catchy and visually attractive. An arresting graphic was essential. I had to give out a card that said "This is what I believe I in and can do for you. I will help you to believe it when you see it and to see it when you believe it."

Why not make your own card. To start you off, I have reproduced my card's logo above on a slide. You can work on your own or work as a group. Have fun and take your time. Remember to get vital and sobering feedback from your partner, friends, children, and strangers before you rush off into production.

A Useful Matrix

To make my card's logo, I examined my past and intended practice. What emerged were the four key visionary terms of my graphic: innovation, invention, inspiration, and integration.

Then I put them into a matrix to clarify my thinking according to the four types of activity I was trying to foster: personal, interpersonal, professional, and program. I then completed the matrix with statements of purpose using operational verbs. The result is the chart below.

In my consulting work, I apply the results differently depending on the context and contact. Of course, you will have different ideas, contexts, and contacts according to your situation and vision. In any case, such a matrix should help in your quest to make the perfect business card.

Sharing Our Best Selves

Why not send me examples of your final business card. I will post them on my pages section of the blog. We can respect copyright but truly inspire each other.

Like a good vision statement, you will want to use your card, message, and graphic in many ways: as a signature in your email or social network, as a logo on correspondence and presentations, and on posters and displays in your library space.

It's time to introduce the new teacher-librarian!

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Learning Commons Episode 9: Two Questions About Sharing

SUMMARY
The idea and characteristics of the learning commons are emerging, as shown in a survey of ancient libraries, examples, and web applications. Questions arise around what is common learning, how we share it, and what resources are useful.  


Emergent Design
The idea of a "learning commons" is emerging, from both the re-evaluation of traditional concepts of what a school and library should be, to what technologies (print, media, digital) will inform it.

I have been exploring the concept of the learning commons through the year.  (Please use the labels at the right to find these articles directly).

First, my series on ancient libraries tried to put the debate into context and identified seven characteristics of the learning commons that have emerged from the development of the library:

1. storage of universal knowledge for public access
2. classification of information for knowledge
3. use of knowledge for power and wisdom
4. building of knowledge for civilizing purposes
5. fostering of human imagination and inspiration
6. marriage of learning and aesthetics
7. social networks for sharing ideas

Then, I found examples from post-secondary settings to challenge secondary school notions. Subsequently, discussions about library floor plans, the role of beauty, and interdisciplinary collaboration suggested new ways of seeing the problem. Finally, investigations into a new web application invited participation in establishing an online learning commons environment.

Two Key Questions 
As teachers develop the theory and practice of the learning commons, the discussion seems to come down to two underlining questions:

1. What do educators actually have "in common." That is, what do they believe is common and commonly important, in teaching and learning.
2. To what extent are educators prepared to share and build this common learning and practice for the common good, in communal settings and through common experiences?

Question 1: Common Learning
The answer to developing ideas about commonality is simple: find its models, practice it in schools, and see where it takes you.

For instance, some staff begin by examining how teachers and the curriculum are fragmented and departmentalized. They risk and experiment with collaborative models found all over the globe. They might ask the teacher-librarian to galvanize teachers from different subjects to gather and plan deeper common knowledge-building activities. Such schools report students connecting the curriculum and better transferring personal learning for common purposes, in ways they had not imagined.

When we discuss what we have in common, barriers between teacher and learner, administration and parent break down. This process iinevitably leads to collaborating on ways to redesign physical and virtual spaces.

Question 2: Shared Learning
The answer to sharing learning is both simple and difficult: think differently about teaching.

New technologies have blurred the line forever between teaching and learning. While not always delivering quality experiences, deep thinking and common feeling, the world is connected, collaborative, social, and interdisciplinary. This is the world our students live and breathe in. But so do teachers! If you are feeling over-loaded or under-unappreciated, the vision and leadership of the library community can help. See Together for Learning for a blueprint that can start the sharing. The days of working on lesson resources in isolation, or even worse hoarding them in filing cabinet or hard drive, are over.

Resources
An emerging implication of the discussion about a learning commons—to be examined next time—is what now do we actually mean by a resource. What makes a particular resource useful, not just for the few but for the many, and not just for now but for tomorrow? I think that was a third question!

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Interdisciplinary Studies in Action:The Foundation Year Program at King's

SUMMARY
A trip to University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, finds evidence of a vibrant interdisciplinary first year for undergraduates. The program is described and its lessons for secondary schools suggested.

The King's Quad and Library

The Trip
As my daughter prepares to apply to university, she and I flew from Toronto to Halifax, Nova Scotia, this weekend to explore the University of King's College. She was attracted to King's because of the persuasive presentation made last month at her high school, particularly about the celebrated Foundation Year Program. So we came to see King's first hand.

The FYP
The Foundation Year Program (FYP) is an interdisciplinary program for first year students that introduces them mainly to Western civilization through deep reading, collaborative dialogue, challenging dialectic, and regular writing practice.
Rather than worry that FYP over-emphasized the Western Canon, I deeply admired the focus on critical and creative thinking and feeling.

At King's, all students attend the same four two-hour lectures a week. Each lecture is followed by two-hour seminars that develop ideas and opinions in cohesive, smaller groups. Every two weeks, students are set essays for assessment. There are other King's programs that modify or replace this format (e.g., in music, science or journalism) but most students choose to take the whole program or parts of it.

The lecture and seminars weave art, history, literature, philosophy, sociology etc. together for exemplary interdisciplinary knowledge and skill. Professors work collaboratively to ensure the flow and clarity of ideas. Expert instructors from other national and international institutions are invited to widen perspectives.

The Buzz
I was prepared for the Atlantic hospitality. I was not prepared for the buzz on campus. Whether in the lecture hall (we observed an engaging lecture on Machiavelli's The Prince) or the dining hall (we were treated to a nutritious lunch), I have rarely experienced students so united in mind and spirit. It was the unity and comraderie I had hoped for when I helped design the Ontario Ministry of Education Interdisciplinary Studies program twelve years ago. Such motivation and meaningful talk is a treat to see. Everyone was committed to their new life of ideas and reflection.

The Details
We should first accept that students are drawn to King's FYP partly because they are hungry for this kind of approach. It is not that only in university have they suddenly become "mature" enough for it. (This belief continues the patronizing and mediocre expectations often prevalent in secondary education). Students we talked to said that they had longed for such a program throughout high school.

How does King's do it and could high schools adapt the program in any way? The faculty, administration, and students are, above all, a learning community dedicated to both individual success and communal growth. Here are some details of how FYP is delivered.

• High expectations. Students read a lot, and the same books. Over 50 classic texts are on the reading list, from Gilgamesh to Simone de Beauvoir. Required reading must be prepared for lecture and seminar each week. Common and rich texts encourage common and rich conversations -- from morning to night!

• Learning rhythms. While lectures are formal and silence and note taking are required, after-lunch seminars are informal and encourage lively debate. There is a delightful, discernible rhythm that must help students pace themselves. 

• Continual support. Papers are not written in isolation. Every two weeks on a "FYP Monday", a paper is due at 9:30 sharp. However, the whole community is there to help you succeed. Since everyone at King's has had the same direct experience, a student has many people to turn to to test ideas, edit copy, and take risks. On the "FYP Sunday" before essays are due, the whole school goes into action. Upper years bring fruit and goodies to the hall at 6:00 p.m. and offer support and advice for first years. When the birthing is done, the whole school comes together again on Monday night to celebrate with theme parties and bean feasts. The social reinforcement is a natural outcome of the process itself: "Well done all; now on to the next!"

• Balanced assessment. Student assessment is both creative and demanding. Here is a typical set of questions for one section. Notice how simple and comprehensive the prompt is for most questions: "Discuss." If I were a King's student, I would feel confident to tackle the assessment of learning as well as motivated to further the assessment as learning by discussing all questions chosen by other students. Learning is continuous, independent of the marks frenzy often emphasized in high school.

• The whole student. The range of King's clubs or societies is exemplary and boasts many "oldests" and "firsts," from the Haliburton Society, North America's oldest literary society on a campus, to North America's most active undergraduate theatrical society. We watched an excellent adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad, a demanding and long work that engaged a full house. Had we stayed this eek, we could have heard the equally celebrated choir that is a fixture of both town and gown in Halifax.

Lessons for Secondary Schools
I have not praised King's to sell their program. It is not my place and they do it themselves with grace and skill. Rather, I saw our experience this weekend as a challenge to the business of secondary education.

The FYP works because King's can design itself from the inside out. That is, the learning comes from a wholistic, interdisciplinary core of texts, teaching practices, and community experiences that are not bound by the fragmentation engendered by the credit system, timetabling, and emphasis on marks.

Here, of course, is the irony faced by even the most dedicated secondary school learning community. While universities are free to deliver such programs as King's Foundation Year, they may also be part of the secondary school inflexibility in focussing on number grades from a credit-based system.

In a subsequent post, I want to suggest ways that schools and universities in Ontario can use the existing  Interdisciplinary Studies curriculum to give students such an exciting experience as we had this weekend.

In any case, thanks to the staff and students of the University of King's College in Halifax for an exhilarating weekend. I wish I were enrolling myself!

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The Key to Collaboration: Interdisciplinary Habits of Mind

SUMMARY: To collaborate effectively, educators need to develop and apply interdisciplinary habits of mind. Observations and questions are provided around such concepts as connections, complexity, method, creativity, inquiry, diversity, innovation, and metacognition.


Collaboration: Just Talk?

Educators seek to collaborate with each other to improve teaching and learning. However, without the habits of interdisciplinary thinking and acting such collaboration is often short-lived and ineffective.

Interdisciplinary Habits of Mind

True collaboration is not merely collegiality,  cooperation, or consultation among teachers, teacher-librarians, administrators, and instructional support staff. It depends on shifting the mind away from a narrow subject-based topic to focussing on how learners learn. This shift requires a interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, or transdisciplinary approach.

In future blogs I will return with detail and examples to each of the qualities of mind in the diagram to the right. For now, I'll make some quick observations and ask a few pertinent questions.

Connections: What's a meta for?

The ability to make connections between apparently disparate phenomena lies at the heart of learning, let alone learning something new. The power of metaphor, comparison, and analogy can be harnessed at all grades and contexts. We are all capable of what some call "the poetic imagination."

How often do we build in connections from prior learning to new learning by referring to objects, people, ideas, and events outside our immediate discipline?

Complexity: How simple is simplicity?

It is relatively simpler to study the parts separately than connect them into a whole for deeper meaning. Synthesis requires analysis. The interdisciplinary mind deliberately woos complexity. Wisdom often comes when complex data resolves into unified insight.

How often do we encourage students to approach information as random data and to hold off developing a theory or conclusion for days or weeks?

Method: How systematic is your system?

Any system for initiating, testing, organizing, or processing information is limited by both the thinker's experience and his/her discipline's assumptions. Imagine the learning power from watching the music teacher "compose" a piece according to mathematical principles or the mathematician turn an equation into a musical sequence. Scientific method and poetic analysis have much in common.

How many of us master each discipline's method of inquiry and model them all with our students at the appropriate time?

Creativity: What was Leonardo's Secret?

Who knows! However, the ambidextrous, techno-scientist, military architect, and medical artist knew that curiosity -- a key to creativity --  is a process of the mind, heart, and body that is not bound by a particular discipline.

How often do we ask ask students to study the creative process of the men and women behind the particular disciplinary topic currently being studied?

Inquiry: Is it a process or destination?

To explore, investigate, process, and create is a bond among all disciplines in the curriculum. Elementary schools are more likely to promote school-wide inquiry activities that share interdisciplinary knowledge. Is that because we feel we need to "cover" the curriculum in secondary school and assess the product of learning above all?

How often do we plan a research project/product, only to be surprised that plagiarism, unoriginality, and lack of application to real-life has resulted in the student performance?

Diversity: Do we really share 50% of an earthworm's DNA?

Diversity is not just about ecology. A curriculum that encourages the continual studying of diverse opinion, perspective, or approach should not lead to facile agreement but to respect of the wider human experience. In the many, we find both similarity and difference. No one discipline can teach the whole person.

How will 21st century classrooms reflect the diversity of experience created by the social networking, and bridge the gap between school and a student's private life?

Innovation: What does new wine in new bottles taste like?

The interdisciplinary mind combines the exploration of recurrent problems within disciplines with the searching for new solutions across disciplines. Innovation often results when you are outside your comfort zone or beyond your initial assumptions.

How often do we actually expect students to exhibit new thinking or reward them for it?

Metacognition: Do only philosophers think about thinking?

The ability to think about thinking, learn about learning, and reflect about reflecting is deliberately and daily developed in interdisciplinary approaches. Students find it initially hard but ultimately liberating. The unexamined life is rarely an interdisciplinary one.

How often do we exhibit, test, and discuss our own thinking in front of our students?  

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Who Needs Teacher-Librarians?

A Steady Decline

I spent much of my professional life promoting, defending, and developing the role of teacher-librarians in Ontario schools. So I note that the well-respected organization People for Education has just released an important report School Libraries and Information Literacy. Unfortunately, the report tracks, yet again, the decline of the teacher-librarian in this province:

• 56% of elementary schools have a teacher-librarian, most are part-time; this is a decline from 80% in 1997/98.
• 66% of secondary schools have a teacher-librarian, just over half are full-time; this is a decline from 78% in 2000/01.
• 57% of secondary schools and 40% of elementary schools have a policy on social networking.

The media in Ontario is all over the story today. I was delighted to see that the report contrasts these findings with the research demonstrating that professional library staff and strong library programs improve student achievement. Unfortunately, many administrators and politicians ignore this evidence. 

Dangerous Thinking 

As I see it, there are three positions driving the decline in the numbers of school libraries and teacher-librarians:

1. The curriculum should emphasize discrete subjects and disciplines. The school library is, ipso facto, outside the curriculum. Such a position severely limits learning and teaching. Actually, more than many classrooms, the school library environment promotes a real world curriculum, where all  students build knowledge through the networking of experts, making connections among subjects, and individualizing learning.
2. Schools should emphasize public accountability through increased test scoring and lower costs. The school library is an out-dated, costly, and pedagogically ineffective frill in the present climate. Such a position is itself out-dated. A strong information-literacy program, led by the teacher-librarian’s timely instructional interventions, yields improved results in all subjects, through extensive reading support, better designed activities, and richer, coordinated inquiry processes.
3. Today’s schools should emphasize modern technologies such as the Internet with its superior access to information. Library staff and collections are now unnecessary. Such a position is dangerously misinformed. Librarians and teacher-librarians were generally the first to develop the potential of digital resources and learning opportunities. Public, school, and online libraries continue to provide essential leadership and innovation in teaching both specific digital skills and   generic learning skills that help us all adapt to changing conditions. The digital world has expanded libraries’ horizons, not contracted them.

Students always sense bottom-line thinking and narrowed perspectives in their school. It may be their school, not their school library, that they will eventually view as dispensable. Britain’s expert, Stephen Heppell, looks forward to the “end of schools and the beginning of learning.”

Further Decline

As I see it, there are three reasons why the situation for school libraries will decline further, if steps are not taken immediately.

1. Cost. Too many administrators and politicians are gutting staffing and resourcing in the school library. A side panel in the People for Education report quotes their seeming lack of choice. As the education pie shrinks, the school library is an easy target, especially when administrative and Ministerial neglect compounds poor performance, in a tragic self-fulfilling prophesy.
2. Territoriality. This is a complex problem. Cuts in staffing force teachers to make choices that pit one discipline against another. Some teachers continue to view the school library as a drop-in centre or a unnecessary alternative to their structured curriculum. Here, the “hybrid” teacher-librarian is perceived as one who has carved out a specious specialization. 
3. Vision. Few jurisdictions understand that the learning revolution is already here, requiring the building of a new form of leadership. Even though educators read about the social, digital, and economic changes outside the school, they do not conceive of the teacher-librarian as the one trying to implement that vision inside the school.

Two Choices

We can’t go one like this for an other decade. What is the answer to People for Education’s findings? We can either

1. Kill the school library now! Put everyone out of their misery. Just make sure every teacher and teacher candidate is trained in and tested on the knowledge and skills teacher-librarians have now. Infuse everybody’s curriculum subject with standards reflecting information literacy, social media awareness, advanced research and inquiry, reading for life, and connected learning. Make sure that this new curriculum is as rigorously tested, updated, resourced, and in-serviced as core subjects. Re-hire teacher-librarians as mentors, one for every school staff, and pay them a consultant’s salary.
2. Re-vision schools and school libraries! Develop a new vision for and through the school library as a learning commons for the whole school and whole learner. No one is saying that every teacher-librarian is exemplary or the only one with the time, skill, and dedication to be the visionary. However, they are on the ground and in the field already, with networks in and outside schools to offer tested and selfless leadership. Use them. Re-use them. Help them learn even more about what they love.

Whatever alternative (perhaps both) schools, boards, and Ministries choose, the goal is is to face new learning challenges, not just for now but for life. I for one, don’t want to continue reading reports on the demise of the teacher-librarian. It’s like admitting that the whole system is broken. It isn’t, but the fragmentation in schools will accelerate without the strong partnership and collaboration of teachers and teacher-librarians.

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Art as an Interdisciplinary Activity

Just a few observations this week as my wife and I are visiting England, seeing friends and enjoying as much art as we can. I want to talk briefly about three performances that have taken our breath away: All's Well That Ends Well at Shakespeare’s Globe, Akram Khan at Snape Maltings, and the Royal Wedding in London.

Watching these artistic creations reminded me of the interdisciplinary nature of art. We stood as groundlings for All's Well and were treated to an intimacy that is the hallmark of the Globe. Here the actors connect with the audience in the acting, dancing, and singing, welcoming the viewers into the action before beginning. All of this in a magnificent architectural recreation.

Akram Khan combines east and west music, classical and contemporary dance, and mythology in a performance that defies the limits of the human body. I was moved as Akram spoke with the audience about spiritual values through art in a growingly “me” centred world (e.g. IPod, IPad, IMac).

You either loved the Royal Wedding or you didn’t bother. We joined 150,000 people in Hyde Park to watch the proceedings on giant screens. Imagine us all singing "Jerusalem"with one voice! As a piece of art it was impressive. The choral beauty, sense of history, and the fashion exuberance, were all choreographed to perfection.

Each of these pieces succeeded because they celebrated different arts and technologies equally, in a whole more splendid that merely a sum of parts. 

In education, much is made of “performance-based assessment.” Don’t let us forget the basic interdisciplinary elements great performances need to move us.

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Essential Interdisciplinary Questions for Curriculum Design

Let’s say you are a teacher of science, about to design a curriculum unit on light. Wiggins and McTighe (Understanding by Design, ASCD, 1998) would argue that one of the first things you should do is to identify the essential questions, key understandings, or chief learnings, about light. For instance, I remember Grant saying that one of his favorite questions was “Is light a particle or a wave?” 

Let’s extrapolate. Such a question also suggests an essential understanding that lies at the heart of science as a discipline: “How is a scientific hypothesis formed from apparent opposites?” 

Let’s go even further. Such a question also suggests an essential understanding about inquiry itself: “Which methodologies and perspectives are best applied to resolve apparent opposites?” This last understanding or question is interdisciplinary. In fact, as Jamie McKenzie points out: 

Most essential questions are interdisciplinary in nature. They cut across the lines created by schools and scholars to mark the terrain of departments and disciplines. 

Helping to design Ontario’s Interdisciplinary Studies curriculum a decade ago, I established several key concepts and goals that were at the heart of interdisciplinary work. In hindsight, I would now synthesize them into the following eight questions that, by extrapolation, a teacher could use to strengthen and focus any curriculum unit, at any grade.

1. How does this unit connect concepts and skills from different subjects and disciplines for deeper understanding?

2. How does this unit help students analyze and evaluate complex information from divergent sources?

3. How does this unit develop students' abilities to plan, work, and communicate independently and collaboratively?

4. How does this unit encourage students to develop inquiry and research methods from diverse disciplines to solve problems and to find solutions?

5. How does this unit develop students’ abilities to use different perspectives and challenge their assumptions about significant issues in their life and world?

6. How does this unit harness students’ higher-level critical- and creative-thinking skills and technologies from a variety of disciplines to implement innovative solutions.

7. How does this unit help students to synthesize insights form different disciplines and extend them to new contexts and real-life  tasks?

8. How does this unit foster students' love of learning and an understanding of how to learn?

So my essential question for today is “How can you use interdisciplinary questions to deepen the design of your next disciplinary unit?” 

Can you use your interdisciplinary knowledge to identify who wrote one of my favourite interdisciplinary quotations?

[It was] an initiation into the love of learning, of learning how to learn, that was revealed to me by my BLS masters as a matter of interdisciplinary cognition—that is, learning to know something by its relation to something else.

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A Little Passion on Valentine's Day

It’s Valentine’s Day and time to think about passion — for learning and teaching! In adding arts-based strategies to my evolving list of teaching/learning strategies (see Page 1), I want to honour exemplary, passionate colleagues who either taught the arts or integrated the arts in their own curriculum. 

I remember RB, who left aircraft design to teach music and who could captivate both the student studying the cello privately, and the bewildered soul handed one on her first day in high school. There was RW who saved Friday afternoons for a cultural exploration of art and architecture with his wood technologists. And there was AH who celebrated folk and popular music in his academic history courses.

The disciplinary and interdisciplinary power of the arts to promote creativity and critical thinking is undeniable. And whether you use a tableau to create a timeline of the American Civil War, a collage to juxtapose cause and effect in early childhood education, or a storyboard to sequence a scientific experiment, you are applying those artistic elements held in common with all subjects: movement, language, rhythm, pattern, composition, gesture, characterization, and sequence. Through the arts, you and your students experience the unique contribution that dance, art, drama, and music can make to a life of learning.

In retirement, I am enjoying a new artistic phase: establishing a musical instrument business in our home in Port Stanley, Ontario. I have my product in mind— affordable and beautiful string folk instruments. But it is the interdisciplinary process that is so engaging and demanding. I must research and design a range of instrument models with mechanical pencil and plastic templates, submit my financial plan for review to the local business association, search the Internet for the best quality woods and glues, read the flyers for deals on tools, learn how to make my own strings, set up an economical and ergonomic workshop, and market the fruits of my labour. Some sleepless nights later, my shop is assembled and I’m ready to go.

In attempting to become a passionate luthier, I am relearning to learn. I hope that on this Valentine’s Day you enjoy a passion for learning, even if it gives you a sleepless night or two!

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Thinking-Skills Strategies

Today’s blog continues the posting of more teaching, learning, or instructional strategies which I began last week. Please see Page 1: Evolving Glossary of Teaching/Learning Strategies. Today’s listing focusses on thinking-skills strategies as a teacher resource for effective curriculum design. 

However, when it comes to thinking strategies, I am of two minds in defining terms and promoting such a resource. 

On the one hand, most teachers believe that “higher-order” thinking is a bedrock of their work with students. So, in the hustle and bustle of daily delivery, I'm hoping that teachers might enjoy reviewing the variety of strategies from different disciplines to supplement their usual subject-oriented toolkit.

On the other hand, a few teachers might reformat these strategies into a instant assessment spreadsheet and superficially track evidence of student “thinking,” as if they were shopping for groceries.  Even worse, after a cursory study of “thinking-based curriculum,” some teachers might point to their checked lists and make bloated claims of improving the cognitive nutrition of their students.  

When it comes to thinking skills and cognitive development, there are no short cuts. I remember Grant Wiggins’ seminar in Geneseo, N.Y. when my feeble assumptions about what constituted an effective seminar were questioned by his razor-sharp mind. To teach thinking well, we must be prepared continually to develop our own. 

Grant’s insistence in Understanding by Design on probing the essential and recurrent ideas that structure inquiry in a subject or discipline is a strong reminder that at the heart of deep curricular design is a continuous focus on deep thinking and feeling. 

However, the blog goes forth with good intentions. My work with school libraries and interdisciplinary studies curriculum in Ontario convinces me that teachers who are aware of the diversity of thinking-skills strategies are better able to

• model clear and effective thinking processes 
• assess student cognitive development over time
• motivate students to transfer recurrent thinking strategies across the curriculum
• encourage interdisciplinary metacognition (i.e., thinking about thinking)

By the way, it is tempting to separate those thinking-skills strategies that concentrate on organizing data and analyzing information in graphic or visual ways. Current curriculum in many jurisdictions has encouraged teachers to create and share a growing variety of “organizers” in order to help students

• collect prior knowledge about topics and ideas
• jump-start an inquiry into essential discipline learnings
• gather and sort subject-based data
• initiate higher-order thinking such as comparing similarities and differences

The visual display of information is one of the trends for teachers to watch, particularly in traditional media such as newspapers and text books. Take a look at Amanda Cox’s work at The New York Times, which Nora Young's  Spark January 9 podcast highlights. In a later blog I will be discussing visual display of information as a vital interdisciplinary theme. 

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New Blog, Old Questions

Technology continues to bring innovation to education but the process of rapid change requires grounded pedagogy to ensure exemplary practice. As I join the blogosphere, questions that have challenged me throughout a 36 year career in education continue. They include:

• how can strong standards-based design improve curriculum delivery 
• how can engaging resources support effective teaching and learning
• why are principled assessment practices vital to school improvement
• how can we put the process of inquiry at the heart of learning
• what role does the school library play in cooperatively planning, delivering, and assessing student learning and achievement
• how can we harness the power of educational technologies wisely
• why will interdisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning be so important in the future
• what will 21st century teaching and learning look like (how can we know?)

I will enjoy adding regular commentary on these and other current curriculum issues, while sharing resources from previous work or new activities. I am particularly pleased to be working with and inspired by Shore Consulting of Toronto, one of Canada's leaders in curriculum access and resources for teachers.

My posts will begin in earnest in the new year. Cheers. Tim

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