Robskca: February 2009

1. Using the Circle of Courage Model or the Effective Practices Framework, identify several members of your school and interview them to get their perspective on how the school is “doing” in terms of promoting independence, mastery, belonging and generosity OR the 5 core principles and 6 effective practices of SchoolPLUS. Write a descriptive summary report of your findings (no more than 3 pages), including any anecdotes or narratives shared.

Teaching in a large suburban high school, I’ve been able to talk to three teachers about their perception of the application of the Circle of Courage in our school. The teachers include a male who teaches an advanced science class and who has been teaching for over 20 years. Another teacher is a woman who has been teaching for several years in Canada, after having been born and grown up in Switzerland. The third individual is a young man who has taught for less than 10 years in rural and urban Saskatchewan.

In the interview, the teachers were asked how they felt that our school exhibits and fosters the four quadrants of the Circle of Courage model: Independence, Mastery, Belonging, and Generosity. Because each of the teachers has different levels of understanding of the Circle, their answers were based more on their understanding of the words themselves or on their understanding of our school division’s shared values, knowing there were parallels between the two models. I hoped to glean, however, an overall impression of where our school stands in terms of instilling Circle of Courage values.

Independence
At our school teachers feel that of the Circle of Courage values, we tend to foster this value the best. Though at times we may tend to “spoon feed” them as one teacher described it, teachers do try to have their students develop traits that will lead them toward independence. The course selections at our school offer students such a wide variety of choice that the students are encouraged to begin to choose their own path in life. Granted, parents may step in, especially in the earlier high school grades to make those choices for their children, when students are put in charge of their own destiny, they tend to embrace it.

At our school we encourage independent thought in our classes. We try to avoid mere regurgitation of facts and figures and instead hope that students develop the confidence and independence to trust their own way of understanding to support their work. While not all teachers may do this rigorously, we feel that we make every attempt to have it happen. Also, since demographically speaking, a large proportion of our students will be going on to university or a technical institute, parents, teachers and students are well aware that we must foster as much independent thought as possible, since in order to be successful in these institutes, students will need to have this value deeply ingrained in their psyche.

Mastery
Students at this high school are undoubtedly encouraged toward mastery of their subjects. Since ours in not necessarily a technical school in which hands-on skills must be mastered, it does have aspects that do require mastery in all subject areas. Being an International Baccalaureate (IB) school, we have extremely high level classes in which the students work and they must strive to master more complex ways of knowing subjects than in regular classrooms. Our students are encouraged to want to know no matter what level at which they begin. Our languages core area strives to enrich students understanding both technically and conversationally in English, French, German and Spanish. Teachers have high expectations for their students and the students respond as they strive toward mastery.

Belonging
Since this is one of our school division’s four Shared Values, it has been adopted and is being pursued within our everyday life at the school. The Student Advisory Program at all Public high schools, is an excellent example of how this is being accomplished. Students meet each day for a 20-minute period in groups of 16 to 20, where they work on values-type lessons in order to foster the Belonging value. Our school is the largest high school in the city, however, we still run into the reality that students inevitably gather into smaller groups or clichés. These groups may be drawn from extra-curricular activities such as sports, music or IB courses. As well they may form from ethnic groupings in the school since these students often may encounter similar experiences, especially if they are recent immigrants to Canada. This may be yet another way, their own way, that these students feel the sense of belonging we are trying to instill.

Generosity
At our school, this may be the one value from the Circle of Courage that is the most difficult to instill in our students. Since so many of the students come from middle to upper-middle class families, the values already instilled may tend toward competition rather than generosity. As is the case in many high schools, sports play a large role in the development of school spirit. The competitive nature of this aspect steers many students away from generosity. Scholarship competition also directs students away from the real meaning of generosity, since tens of thousands of dollars can be obtained in a single scholarship. In one example, at the beginning of a semester a student asked a teacher how many “A’s” that teacher typically handed out each term. Somewhat taken aback, the teacher responded and the next day that student had transferred out of that teacher’s class.

We do foster generosity during the Christmas season by raising money for over 50 needy families in the city, but even that is done through a competition. Our school even sponsors another school in Africa, which could allow for students to experience altruism, but only a very few students take an active role in promoting and supporting this activity. True generosity is difficult to instill in students who lead such privileged lives. They oftentimes don’t understand what it is like to not have everything they ever wished for. If they don’t receive things from their parents, they simply get a part-time job and can quickly afford it. Even generosity between other students is difficult to notice, but when it happens, we applaud it.

Conclusion
While completing these interviews, it became apparent that these teachers had varying degrees of knowledge of the Circle of Courage model. The three of them were at different points in their careers and were from vastly different upbringings. Their teaching experiences were quite different too. However, what drew all of them/us together was our knowledge of our own school division’s Shared Values. It was from this place, a place of common understanding, that we were able to make the transition to the Circle’s values understood. A shared set of values, we all agreed, was an important foundation on which to build common understandings and direction of purpose among a group of people. The degree to which we measured up to the Circle’s values wasn’t as important to these teachers, as was the importance that we were all trying to infuse values into our students’ own value systems. It would be interesting to explore further a wider sample of teachers as the leadership at our school tries more diligently to actualize the First Nations goal in our school’s Learning Improvement Plan.