As we near the end of another school year…the staff Cambie have started reflecting, like many other educators throughout BC and Canada, upon a most unusual school year.  There is so much to think about, the twists and turns of the 2019-2020 school year seem endless. There is so much about this school year that is different and reflecting upon it, presents us with opportunities for growth.  “Student experience” is one topic that seems to always be on an educators mind whenever we start reflecting about the year that was.  We have so many questions floating around in our heads: 1) did this school year build-up a student’s self-confidence or did it contribute to their fall; 2) what impact academically, socially and emotionally will this pandemic, the lockdown and subsequent online learning have on students in the years to come; 3) are students feeling more or less confident about themselves and life; 4) did we do enough to instill hope in students?

These are important questions we are considering for two reasons: 1) the answers will guide our school leadership and pedagogical practices for years to come; and 2) children with a strong belief in their abilities…. do better, learn more, and are generally more open to new ideas and activities in the future.  All educators need to understand the “student experience” during this “lockdown” in order to put in place strategies that will help students move forward. We don’t have the answers to these questions yet, but We have started to formulate some thoughts, that have helped shape our practices over the past three months and will guide us as we move forward and build for the future.

Our thoughts over the last three months start and finish with ‘equity.’  This pandemic has magnified the inequities that exist in our communities.  Even after distributing thousands of dollars’ worth of resources, technology and learning materials, inequities exist. Some students have continued to grow and learn during this pandemic because their lives are full of resources and asset that allow them to succeed. Were as other students have struggled, their self-confidence has taken a hit.  Recently we heard Laura Tait speak about the experience of abuse that aboriginal people endured in past and continue to deal with today, reminds us that students and people in general don’t give up on the world, on schools, on relationships, on loved ones…… they give up on themselves. 

We know that self-confidence enables people to handle setbacks with ease. Instead of being crippled by challenges, resilient people/students get up quickly, learn from their mistakes, and try again. They accept that failure is a part of life and take more chances as a result – which makes them even more successful later in life. Surprisingly, lack of self-confidence is not necessarily related to lack of ability. Students that lack self-confidence usually have the same level of ability as successful students, they just don’t believe in themselves and generally give up on themselves. This lack of self-belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because they stop engaging and participating. What can we do to counter this?  Not only during this pandemic, but each school year, students that lack confidence risk less and less, learn less and less, engage less and less. So many students will see failing marks on assignments, test and report cards during the pandemic because of factors outside of their control…what can we do to counter this? What can we do to counter the inequity in our communities now and in the future? 

Before the “pandemic lockdown” started, about a third of the teachers at Cambie had started down the journey of removing percentages and letter grades from student assignments and report cards. This new approach  (Student Report Pilot Project) felt transformational.  We feel good about this “Pilot Project.” We felt like we were teaching differently; students were learning differently; and we were reporting differently on the learning successes of those students involved in the “pilot.” The pandemic lockdown clearly informed us that the “Pilot Project” was not enough, more students deserved this approach to teaching and learning.  In the fall of 2020,  Cambie will attempt to remove even more percentages and letter grades for students in grades 8 through 12.  We will use a proficiency scale because it more accurately describes student learning and does not require busy work from students online or in-person. Cambie will be better prepared for a “blended learning” model in September 2020, when we engage students both online as well as in our traditional face-to-face teaching and learning.

“I believe we don't stop searching for freedom or stop playing because we grow tired and old; we grow tired and old because we stop searching for freedom and playing.”

Online learning is hard! Every time we add another hour to the time that children must spend online with homework, and every time we coerce or coax them into yet another adult-directed activity, we deprive them further of opportunities to play, explore, reflect, and experience the joys and frustrations of self-direction. This was never been more apparent than during the lockdown. Our pedagogical online approach has been pushing away more and more people who did not or would not engage because of the learning tasks.  Students got tired of all the busy work. Unfortunately, we were reinforcing the idea that learning is not fun and personal.  

At Cambie, we believe in the idea that ‘learning requires freedom’ and equity is gifting freedom to all.  Every one of us knows, if we stop to think about it, that the most valuable lessons we have learned are not what we “learned in kindergarten,” nor what we learned in university courses. They are, instead, the lessons that we learned when we allowed ourselves the luxury of following through on our own interests and our own motives to play, fully and deeply. Moving forward our agreed upon focus at Cambie is creating fewer but quality online tasks that require depth of knowledge and encourage experiential learning with self-directed engagement.  With this focus, we hope students will acquire skills, values, ideas, and information that will stay with them for a life time, not just for the next task or test.

An important lesson we have all learned about teaching and learning in a virtual classroom is it is extremely challenging, but not because the lessons are more complicated or the assignments are more difficult. What is missing in most virtual classrooms is emotion.  In learning, when mind and emotion are linked, learning is not only easier, but what is learned has greater depth, breadth and lasts longer.  Emotion has a substantial influence on the cognitive processes in a learner. Virtual learning and, for that matter, “face to face” learning requires emotion. Infusing emotion into learning is vitally important because of its influence on attention and motivation. When emotion is present in a virtual classroom, the learning that can occur can be on par with learning that occurs in classrooms. This process of capturing the attention of our students online is important, it is a challenge we are accepting for the fall 2020 as we become better online teachers.