A Celebration of Learning
For the past handful of months, I have been living in a heightened state of hope and anxiety as the finish line marking my doctoral degree comes more clearly into view. As one tends to do on such occasions, I have also spent considerable time considering the nature of graduate degrees, achievement, and what it means to “make it” in this field. Will the addition of “Ed.D” after my name confer that sense of having arrived? Or is it being published that will do it? Or sitting on a panel with other professionals whom I hold in high regard? How will I know when, or if, I actually make it?
This is a perplexing line of thought for an education professional who has been living the values of competency-based education for more than 25 years.
Since 2018, New Hampshire’s School Administrative Unit 16 (SAU16) has been an active partner with 2Revolutions to transform the architecture of our system for learners, but by working with the adults in the system. With a focus on educational excellence, and through the means of more learner-centered and equitable classrooms, school leaders and educators have worked to create a Portrait of a Graduate that anchors our strategic plan. Similarly, we have produced a Leadership Competency map that corresponds to the attributes and competencies that we want to cultivate in the very educators who will guide our students through this transformed system. We position our leaders as “lead learners,” who model engaged learning, citizenship, problem-solving, perseverance, resilience, confidence, and empathy – the characteristics that our community has identified as being essential to SAU16 graduates. We have also produced a Portrait of an Educator and made significant improvements to the educator evaluation process and tools.
We have learned that we cannot simply ask students to jump through endless hoops, fill in endless circles, and memorize endless lists, then expect them to emerge after thirteen years as critical thinkers and engaged citizens. On the contrary, the very students who seem to excel at this type of “learning” are the ones who are the least prepared for the problem solving and relationship building that comprise the basis of post-secondary school life in the 21st century. And if we are asking our students to be critical thinkers with the capacity for reflection and self-evaluation, then we must engage in those activities right on up the chain of learners, all the way to the lead learners. We must create the conditions where reflection and self-evaluation are not just something that we ask education professionals to do sporadically and in a vacuum. Reflection and self-evaluation have to be the building blocks of the system. They must be embedded in the architecture itself.
So where does that leave me, when I am poised to jump through the largest hoop of them all? I consider my accomplishments, where I’ve been and where I’m going, and whether I will know when I’ve arrived. It does not take me long to realize that I am essentially waiting to get back my paper with a check-plus or a check-minus to tell me if all of my work has been worth it.
Not long ago, I found myself sitting at an SAU16 board meeting as we worked our way through a typically packed agenda. This particular meeting followed closely on the heels of a round of Celebrations of Learning in one of our elementary schools. Parents and other significant people were invited into the classrooms, and students shared their learning, reflecting on the content as well as their own engagement with the topics. One of our board members had a third grader in this particular school, and their Celebration of Learning centered on a unit about Native Americans. For at least five minutes of the board meeting, I did not have to say a word about curriculum, assessments, or instruction. This board member recounted the confidence, clarity, and excitement with which the children were able to talk about the subject matter with the attendees. He concluded, “It was the best learning experience that I had ever had as a parent.”
When that board member was transported out of a meeting where, moments before, tensions had been running high over a contentious topic, to convey his own excitement and amazement at the depth of a Celebration of Learning, I knew that we – all of us – were on the path to making it.