Good schools celebrate strengths, not deficiencies

By Robert G. Peters

This is the latest in a series of "Voices of Education" articles prepared by various professionals in education in Hawai'i who hope to drive the conversation on education reform. Contributors to this series include preschool-through-college educators who seek to identify areas of consensus within the profession and then to inform policy makers on their ideas. For more information online, go to: www.hawaii.edu /voice.

Good schools are carefully designed to enhance human relationships and to build a community of learners.

Whether in the public or the private sector, good schools can be defined by five shared qualities: a clear purpose and vision, a dedicated and professional staff, students who are engaged in learning, a community that values and supports education, and a facility that offers a sense of place.

First, schools must clearly define why they exist and determine what kind of graduates they are seeking. For most of our schools, access to the skills and understandings required of democratic citizens is a primary and worthy purpose.

Good schools also recognize that visions of what their graduates should look like must consider the future into which they will graduate.

Good schools encourage faculty and staff to act as professionals and to pursue their craft as educators with an eye toward constant growth and improvement. Principals and heads of such schools are educational leaders who set the context for the dialogue and guide the conversation about quality curriculum, instruction and assessment.

They ensure that the resources needed to deliver a quality program are provided whether they be human, financial or physical.

Teachers at good schools find themselves asking, "How can we increase the learning of all of our students?"

This central question guides faculty meetings and professional development experiences. Teachers in such schools talk about how they can build on the strengths of their students rather than focusing on student deficiencies. These schools provide adequate time for teacher planning and opportunities to meet to discuss student growth.

Another feature of such schools is that all the staff members are assumed to be teachers of children and are committed to the school's mission and vision.

Children are by nature curious about their world and try to figure out how it works. In good schools, teachers build upon this natural curiosity and try to enhance it by opening up new opportunities for students to raise questions and make connections. Instructional techniques that support constructing meaning about the world lead students of all ages to be engaged learners.

Good schools capture the contagious energy of their students and offer compelling topics about their world and varied methods of instruction to create interest and encourage passions.

In such schools, learners are recognized as individuals with particular learning styles, needs and readiness levels which affect how teachers plan and instruct. Assessment, then, becomes a means for determining where to go next rather than identifying who has failed.

"High stakes testing" is not an obsession and, therefore, not the content of the classroom. Instead the high standards of achievement encouraged throughout these schools create conditions which promote good performance on such tests.

Good schools rely on community support and a general valuing of education to be successful. Parents are the primary community support group. In good schools, this is a shared responsibility.

While a positive relationship is sought between home and school, it is not an equal relationship: The parent must advocate for a single child, and the school must be mindful of all children in a group and the school itself. Yet, they can both work together on behalf of each child's success in school.

Parents must support the school's expectations and the school must work to educate parents about how children in general learn and how their particular child learns.

Finally, good schools consider the issue of school size and its impact on their effectiveness. More and more educators recognize it is more difficult to promote caring and a sense of identity in large schools. In such settings, students seldom have a sense of place because they are not known.

Smaller schools offer a more personalized and manageable sense of place where people know each other by name and all adults can assume responsibility for all students.

Students in smaller schools or small communities within a larger school feel a responsibility to adopt the norms of behavior of the school and eventually a stewardship toward it as well. The combination creates a positive environment for learning and graduates who have a sense of purpose and a commitment to learning.

Good schools seek to create such a sense of place by ensuring that students find themselves in settings where learning can be nurtured and they can be known.

Robert G. Peters is headmaster of Hanahau'oli School.