Schools that Learn

"Learning is at once deeply personal and inherently social;it connects us not just to knowledge in the abstract, but to each other"(Senge,2000,p.4).

If I look back over my life as both a student and an educator, Senge's understanding of learning rings true for my life and I believe for the lives of the students with whom I was fortunate enough to connect. Why is it that we connect with some students and not with others? Why was it that I connected with material that was taught by teachers who connected with me? And did not connect with material taught by teachers who did not notice or pay any attention to me? Learning truely is personal and social. This insight is critical for educators in trying to create learning environments where teachers say to their students, "Sawu bona" and students enthusiastically respond, "Sikhona" (p.11). Moving learning from four walls of the classroom to the reality of the community surrounding the school also brings meaning and relevance to the learning at hand. Great partnerships can be built if members of the surrounding community (business, civic, and religious leaders)are encouraged and welcomed into the inner sanctum of the school property. Significant opportunities for learning that is both personal and social can enter into the life of a student and teacher when the "outside world" is brought into direct contact with the "inside world" of the classroom. Several studies have shown that when students are engaged in the outside community during their high school years, they are more likely to be both civically and socially engaged in works of service far beyond their high school years. What I enjoyed about this section of Senge was his approach to making connections to other disciplines of learning, once again, proving that what happens in one classroom should not be considered separate from "real life", but becomes authentic when connections and bridges can be made to other classrooms, disciplines, or world events. In this way, learning does become deeply personal and social at the same time.

Outcomes, outcomes, outcomes...

My apologies to everyone for posting late. I was snowbound in Newark, NJ for the past two days and while there was email access at the hotel there was a timer on each of the computers as to how long one could be on it. I finally arrived back in SF at 11pm after an 8 hour flight (I know I should have been in Hawaii by the time I left the plane!)

I am really excited and intrigued by Ozar's notion of student learning being tied to outcomes. It is actually more difficult than it appears. In her own work she cites the National Congress on Catholic Schools for the 21st Century (p.64) that violates her definition of outcomes, "stated from the student's point of view and indicating observable behavior"(p.27). If top members of the NCEA can't seem to stay away from goals, how are we to do it? With the exception of students will, "speak at least one second language" (p.66), all the other outcomes are actually goals! Stating outcomes, rather than goals, is really more difficult than it appears.

One item that Ozar talks about at the end of the chapter links student graduation outcomes to something that many of us struggle with in Catholic secondary schools- Service Learning. I know in my previous school we always had a service requirement which was linked to number of hours in a given year. Goals seem to push for quantity. Outcomes may open the door for quality. Rather than marking hours in a given year, a culminating service project which synthesizes the "doing" with the "learning" would more accurately reflect what many of us state in our school mission statements- to be caring and participatory members of society, Church and the world. One downside to this notion is that now many states require a particular number of service hours for public school graduation and other scholarships. Moving to a culminating service project may put our students at a disadvantage for funding, but I think we are smart enough in Catholic circles to "play the game" for the sake of student learning.