Introduction
One of the ‘silver linings’ of the last few, challenging weeks has been the many collaborations and conversations I have enjoyed with educators all over the world. It seems we have all stepped up our collaboration game in an effort to “Apollo 13” our way through this challenge and the degree of sharing and global conversation has been amazing! Last year, I began a conversation with Becky Carlzon - an early years teacher currently working in Bangkok. Becky co-authored the book “Powering up Children” with the wonderful Guy Claxton. She continues to explore ways to embed the Learning Power Approach and inquiry into her work with young children. Like all of us, Becky has had the unforeseen challenge of doing all of that - from a distance. I was delighted to be able to talk this through with her again last week. This is a long read. - but worthwhile - so stick it out!
Kath: Hi there Becky! It’s been a while since we last ‘spoke’ for this blog. And hasn’t the world changed since? It has been great to chat with you via zoom a couple of times but I really wanted to both continue and to document our conversation for the blog - particularly given the changed circumstances. Perhaps I could start by asking you to remind our readers who you are and a little about your current teaching role and location?
Becky: Thanks for that introduction, Kath, and, yes the world has changed somewhat! I’m living in Bangkok and teach in Early Years in an International school here. Our learning approach is a blend of play-based learning, inquiry, Reggio Emila and Learning Power, so it’s a really exciting place to be and learn (both for adults and children!). My “specialism”, if there is such a thing, is the Learning Power Approach (LPA), which focuses on developing independent, inquisitive, empathetic, collaborative learners - All of which I feel are of particular importance at this time! I also co-ordinate an international online community called “Learning Power Pioneers” which connects educators across the globe to deepen our understanding of the LPA and pave new ways forward together.
Kath: That positivity is powerful Becky. There is such a range of responses and experiences out there. It sounds as if your context means it is more possible to BE excited and motivated - combined with your natural inclination to be a ‘glass half full’ person methinks!
Becky: Well, I like to look at ‘challenging’ times like this as an opportunity and time for reflection and growth. I’m not saying this has been easy - I’ve definitely had my wobbles and moments of disbelief - but there is always much to be learned from situations like this and they are often a force for growth and good. Adrian Bethune, well-being expert, recently wrote a blogpost about this. We’ve all heard of post-traumatic stress, but, he writes, there is also something called “Post-traumatic growth” - So, I wonder, what are we learning from this time? What will we learn? How are we doing things differently? And, moving forward, how can we distill the positives from this and use them to plan a better future?
Kath: Yes - that term Post-Traumatic growth has been around a while and is an interesting one! The wonderful Fiona Zinn also wrote about this recently in her blog . It’s well known that we can learn a lot from adversity and I am sure this situation is no exception. I do wonder, though, whether the concept of growth in this time is something of a privilege...for some the trauma is perhaps so severe that there is much more lost than gained? As everyone is saying at the moment - inequity is amplified right now.
Becky: I agree and this is one of our many challenges as educators - how can we support and empower the most vulnerable members of our communities? How can we find ways to connect with empathy and understanding? This is one of the key areas in which we are focusing in Learning Power Pioneers.
Kath: I know you have been doing the ‘remote learning ‘ thing with your 5 year olds longer than we have here in Australia. What are some of the things you have learned? What have you changed since you first started? I keep thinking of this whole thing as a giant, shared, professional inquiry, I know you have already changed your thinking and your practice as each week goes by, so what’s your current recommendations for others working with this age group?
Becky: This is a time to share, be generous, help one another out, pave new ways forward together, imagine and re-imagine another way. I love especially what you touched on in “#inquirybythefire” where you mentioned trying to take the time to “chill out”, step back, not try to “do” everything and “fix” everything - that this is an unsustainable approach and that, perhaps, stepping back, stripping back and simplifying is what we should do and could have been doing all along.
So, in reflection, some of the first steps we took at school turned out to be very useful: We kept things simple to begin with - It’s much easier to “add on” later and much more difficult to “take away” once things have been started. I think parents, too, really appreciated the “permission giving” to settle in, re-adjust make things work for them. In hindsight, we could have made that even more clear to parents - You’re not expected to “do” everything, adjust as you need to with your family in your context, take the time to breathe, take stock and connect with your families - I think the more clear and explicit we make this message, the more empathy and understanding we are building and the stronger ground for building up in partnership with families and parents.
In relation to learning with younger children, as a team, we have recorded lots of “anchoring” videos that the children can thread into their day. Pre-recorded morning “welcome” videos, songs with our music team, stories from familiar adults. This has been very successful in helping the children feel connected and also giving teachers the space to adjust to their new reality, working from home and learning with their children. Once we had this up and running, we looked at ways to connect “live” with the children. This was new to everyone, so collaboratively we began to find models that worked - bring a piece of learning to share with your friends, tell us about your favourite part of the week, show us something you love from your home. One boy took us to his fish pond, which got lots of gasps from the other children - The key goal of these “live” videos was to create connection.
Moving forward, we are looking at ways to thread in play-based and investigative learning. Our children were very much inspired by Dominic Wilcox’s “Little Inventors” who are posting a “Daily Invention challenge”. One of our team members had the brilliant idea of continuing this theme with “Little Engineers”, “Little Scientists”, “Little Designers” - and starting the week with a provocation to inspire a longer and deeper learning project. I am excited about building on and developing this with our team, children and parents.
Kath. It sounds like you have been doing a great Job. I must check out the Little Inventors! Since our last conversation and before the ‘shutdown’ you were working hard on embedding the Learning Powers in your classroom. (see our previous conversation here…) At the time you were working on two things in particular – giving kids more ownership of their learning environment and making the LPA accessible to language learners. What progress have you made? What have you noticed and what have you wondered?
Becky: It’s quite hard thinking back to the classroom at this time! Since our last conversation, we led an “inquiry” line with our children. As a provocation, we took them to our “outdoor classroom” which is a wild, outdoor area with a pond and all sorts of interesting artefacts, creatures and discoveries! The children loved it and were brimming with questions. It was really obvious that some children “came alive” during this provocation and inquiry - they loved getting involved, exploring, getting mucky! There is a real deep value in providing a range of contexts, provocations, environments and approaches to create a motivation and connection and spark with children and their learning - without this, what’s the point?! This relates directly to the first “learning powered design principle”, which is co-planning interesting and exciting things to learn. So, this sparked our children’s natural curiosity - again, one “element” of the LPA is to develop, encourage and deepen children’s questioning skills - the tricky bit and the challenge was guiding the children and collectively deciding which avenues of inquiry to go down. Different children were very motivated by different inquiries and questions and the challenge was to know which ones to go for first, how to go about empowering children to follow up on their own inquiries, how to “seize the moment” whilst juggling the rest of the busy school day - This is what experienced inquiry teachers will have learned to do naturally and I am full of admiration! For us, this was new territory and something we are still learning to “get right”. How to scaffold and build independence as we went? How to make sure the children had absolute ownership and we were the coaches? How to include all children and value all inquiries and investigations? How to thread in and make explicit when children are exercising and strengthening “learning muscles”, such as reflection, planning, growing from mistakes and collaborating.
Kath: The elements of LPA you are describing are also, of course, elements that have long been of the inquiry based approach. You are also experiencing some of the most common challenges...words like ‘juggling’ and ‘balance’ and ‘scaffolding’ and ‘inclusion’ come into almost every conversation about inquiry based pedagogy. It is not for the faint hearted! Have you found the learning powers have helped with remote teaching and learning?
Becky: The LPA aims to deepen, strengthen and broaden children’s understanding and application of learning dispositions such as perseverance, resourcefulness, planning and collaboration, so in theory, if you have “strong” learning muscles, you should be able to adapt to and thrive in any learning situation.
We are in such a new and unprecedented learning scenario, we may have all felt well-equipped before, but now we may feel like we are “at sea” (adults and children alike!). We are all “in the learning pit” together! What I like to think is that those children and adults who have worked on their “mental fitness” in class, will have more resilience “in the bank” to cope, and eventually thrive in a new situation - “knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do”.
This may start with a period of feeling lost or uncertain - knocked sideways - but as the dust starts to settle, we can brush ourselves off, look around and wonder, “How can we make this work?” “How can I use the resources available to plan and find new ways forward?” This is what I feel the journey has been for the wonderful educators I am learning with in Learning Power Pioneers and, with our guidance and support, can also be the way forward and journey for the students and families we serve. I believe this is our key and most important question: “How can we support and guide parents and children to come out of this as more resilience, self-aware, resourceful learners, not as weaker ones”. The LPA provides a roadmap to navigate this.
Kath I think one of the keys to this is to really notice and name those ‘powers’ for ourselves and with our kids. I am encouraging teachers to amp up the language of learning right now - it's a perfect time for kids - especially older ones- to be asked ‘what are you noticing about your learning right now?’ So Becky, You have been keen to bring a strong inquiry stance to your teaching – and this is where Guy and your work interweaves with mine. How has that been going?
Becky: Wonderfully! The more I read about your work, the more I watch and connect with webinars from inquiry leaders, the more inquiry resonates with my core as an educator. Children are natural learners. Curiosity is the driving force for learning. Learning and education should be a “warm”, joyful experience of discovery. Learning is holistic, inter-connected, organic and ever-growing. An inquiry-approach to learning is based on all of these principles and that excites me to my core. I’m excited that next academic year (provided I can get on a plane!) I will be teaching in a PYP school in Switzerland with a focus on developing child agency. Inter-weaving this with the LPA over the course of a year will be a very exciting endeavor indeed!
Kath: Of course, your intentions have now had to shift to the remote context. What are you working on now with your kids? Have you shifted your “wonderings” as a result of this change?
I whole-heartedly agree with you that empathy, connection and inclusion are absolutely key at this time. This starts with ourselves - are we being kind to ourselves, are we being boundaried with our time and making time for the things that fill us up in life? Are we connecting with our families and friends and reaching out to those who might be on the fringes? Once we have this established in our own lives, we can extend it to our schools and communities. How are we connecting with and listening to families and students? How are we empathising with them and showing compassion? How are we putting their well-being first? And isn’t this what we could and should have been doing all along? How are we going to carry this forward?
Kath Such great questions Becky. I have been playing with this notion myself - what will we restore? What will we relinquish? What will we renew? (see my ;post about it here) The ‘restore’ question is interesting to me. I am hearing people talk about the importance of things like relationships, reflection, personalisation, ‘checking in’ and having an iterative approach to planning all in the remote context and I find myself thinking: ’But shouldn’t we be doing that anyway? What is stopping some from including those things in their ‘bricks and mortar’ practice?’ Maybe for some it will about returning to restore...or to renew.
Kath: Finally, you were setting up the Learning Power Pioneers Group when we spoke last time. How is that going? What is it offering teachers that you think is powerful?
Becky: It is going fantastically! The community is buzzing and thriving and the shared “inter-thinking” (concept explained here) we are doing is really purposeful and meaningful.
I think the power of the group is in the amazing minds in it and the generosity in sharing ideas - we inspire inspiration in one another - this grows and escalates and gets translated into our practice (now in remote learning).
Here’s a recent example of what we get up to:
Having recently had a “watch party” where we all jumped online to share thinking from #inquirybythefire (you’ll be glad to know we all had cups of tea and slippers!), we plotted out a “remote learning” plan for the term from the team’s discussion and ideas. In an uncertain and potentially difficult time, we are pro-actively planning what we want for our families and students over the coming weeks and sharing strategies and ways forward. We are therefore replacing uncertainty and worry with an assurance (because we have a purposeful plan) and optimism. This is deeply empowering for all our members - we now know what to do when we didn’t know what to do! By creating this connection, we are uplifting and supporting one another in a turbulent time. I guess it’s like our own little online cosy and safe “campfire” - where we can share, take risks, lift one another up and learn together. We will happily share the plan we have put together for others to adapt and use - I will attach it to the bottom of this blogpost. We also still have a few spaces in our community if any other buzzing minds would like to jump on board - here’s the link - if this resonates with you, you will be welcomed with open arms! (closing Friday 1st May)
Thanks so much for your time Becky, I am sure may teachers will connect with your ideas and reflections..