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Shaping moral character: What stories are our boys living?

8/2/2022

 
In his landmark 1981 book, After Virtue, philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre describes two people, separated by centuries, looking up at the night sky: 

‘The twentieth-century observer looks into the night sky and sees stars and planets; some earlier observers saw instead chinks in a sphere through which the light beyond could be observed. What each observer takes himself or herself to perceive is identified and has to be identified by theory-laden concepts.’

This is not a comment on advances in science or the merits of the empirical method. Rather, MacIntyre’s point is that the way we perceive the world and act in it is inextricably bound up in the theories we have about how the world works. Or to put it another way, how we think and what we do depends on the ‘big story’ we carry around in our heads.

And this really matters. For, as MacIntyre argues, “I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’” 

That was the question put to our staff as we began 2022 with our Term 1 All-Staff Professional learning Day on Thursday 27 January. We continued in our journey over the last few years to see how we might put our Brave Hearts Bold Minds philosophy of education into practice and become experts in ‘teaching for character’. This year year we focus on the ‘moral character’ qualities we aim to form in our boys: Our Faith and Tradition which inspire truth, honour, loyalty and commitment. Helping boys reflect on their understanding of right and wrong, of their place in the world, and their calling within it, starts with surfacing the stories that they (and we) believe about the world.
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To help us do that, we were joined by Dr Justine Toh, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity and author of the new book Achievement Addiction. Dr Toh engaged staff in a crash course in cultural criticism, sketching out four powerful stories that shape our culture and considering their appeal and their shortcomings. First, there’s ‘the meritocratic story’, which says that you are what you achieve — so be sure to try harder. There’s the ‘infinite browsing story’, where as in Netflix, so in life, we keep our options open but are plagued by FOMO — the fear of missing out. Then there’s ‘the technocratic story’, where everything can be 'solved', except, of course, it can’t! And last, there’s the Christian story of people created in the image of God with infinite dignity and special purpose, a story which challenges the reductive view of the human condition so often presented to us. 
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Dr Toh challenged our staff to consider the ways in which we reinforce various stories about the world as we talk with our students. Making a high ATAR the de facto goal of learning in the senior years can teach boys that success is about hard work, and not also a result of the blessings of their birth and opportunities, leading them to look down on those who ‘didn’t make it’. In undertaking group work, we can spell out how to relate well to those who we don’t necessarily like, and so tell a story about how relationships across differences are more valuable than tribalism. In encouraging boys to immerse themselves in the humanities and creative arts (even if they tend to be more drawn to mathematics and the sciences), we can help them see that life is more about asking good questions than trying to find neat solutions. 

Opportunities to teach character are everywhere. The great challenge that lies before us as teachers, and much more as parents, is to get beneath the surface of boys’ behaviours to the beliefs that drive them. And it starts with asking that question of ourselves. What story am I living?

In coming weeks I look forward to sharing more about how we are helping our staff understand and practice expert character education at Scots, that our boys will go on to live ‘a better story’.


Dr Hugh Chilton
Director of Research and Professional Learning

AARE Conference Presentation on 'Research-Invested Schools'

3/12/2021

 
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“...teachers and principals are cast as technicians who have the technical skills to implement the ideas of others but not the professional expertise to engage in the exciting task of theorizing and designing curriculum” Reid, A. (2019) Changing Australian Education.

Research-Invested Schools (of which there are over 30 in Australia) are challenging this story in new and compelling ways.

Dr Caitlin Munday and I enjoyed presenting on this yesterday at the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) Conference with Prof Peter Twining, Prof Allyson Holbrook, and Dr Carl Leonard (University of Newcastle).

We will soon publish short pieces on Research-Invested Schools in Teacher ACER magazine and EduResearch Matters (the blog of Australian Association for Research in Education). And we look forward to some exciting research and collaboration among research-invested schools in the year ahead.

See below our abstract:
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It is no longer especially novel to think of schools as sites of research, or to hear calls for teachers to be ‘research-engaged’ or ‘research-informed’ professionals. The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers require all teachers to ‘structure teaching programs using research and collegial advice about how students learn’, and ‘engage with professional teaching networks and broader communities’. It is well recognised that practitioner research is an effective way to enhance professional learning and cultivate a climate of experimentation and review.  In addition, Government-backed education research institutes devoted to influencing policy and practice have proliferated in recent years, among them the Education Endowment Foundation in the UK, the What Works Clearinghouse in the US, and the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. The Gonski 2.0 Report recommended creating a national evidence and research institute, and with $50 million of federal seed funding, the Australian research education Organisation launched early in 2021, while the Q Project located at Monash University seeks to understand the use of evidence in Australian schools. Alongside these top-down approaches, a bottom-up movement is also in evidence as schools increasingly strive to embed ‘research-informed practice’ as a key part of their professional learning and improvement agendas. In the last 7 years, more than 30 Australian schools have either established a research centre or institute of some description or appointed a ‘research lead’ to explicitly focus on research. This paper seeks to distinguish the characteristics of this group of what we have termed ‘research-invested’ schools, where research engagement and the professional growth research skills development and knowledge creation affords become embedded in school goals and institutional identity. The paper traces the growth of this phenomenon and how research-invested schools have evolved within the increasingly fluid landscape of research development and training in Australia.

Teachers as Experts, Not Technicians

19/11/2021

 
PictureScots teachers undertaking higher degrees (Masters and PhDs) by research share their progress at the recent termly ‘PhD coffee club’.


​In the past week, you may have noticed two long-running education debates resurfacing on the lips of politicians and the pages of the popular press, raising questions about how to best ‘do school’. Their concern involves both what students are taught (the curriculum) and how they are taught (the pedagogy). The first is about teaching history, and specifically the approach teachers should take in addressing western civilisation’s good and bad aspects. Please read a very fine analysis from Dr David Hastie, one of our key lecturers in the Teaching Schools Alliance Sydney here.


The second is about teaching reading, and whether this is best done through phonics (systematically teaching words through their composite sounds and parts) versus whole-language teaching (teaching words in the context of sentences). There are many other debates in education – some new, some very old. Yet what is common to most debates is the subtext that to fix education, we need to be told ‘what works’ by academics and policymakers out there, beyond the school, and be held accountable for implementing it. It is as though teachers are fundamentally technicians, and if we can just refine their technique, then of course good outcomes will follow.


At Scots, we want to challenge this notion that teachers are merely technicians who ‘deliver the curriculum’ and reclaim a regard for their experience and expertise in the noble vocation of human formation. We have outstanding teachers at Scots who do not just deliver the curriculum but debate it; who do not just implement a pedagogy but adapt it to their context. Moreover, we are encouraging teachers to not only consume knowledge produced elsewhere, but to play their part in creating it through original research.


One aspect of this vision for reinventing the professional regard of teachers is encouraging further engagement in research. All our teachers are, to some degree, engaged in research through our Teaching for Character Program. In the program, teams design, implement and evaluate a new approach to teaching that deliberately develops one of our graduate qualities, such as creativity or service. Read more about it here. Over the years we have also seen a small number of staff undertake higher degrees by research (Masters and PhDs) connected to and supported by the College. This is a long and hard journey, but one that transforms the way teachers think about themselves and their roles as leaders in educational thought and practice.


This week our staff ‘PhD coffee club’ met online to share progress on various research projects. We celebrated the newly-minted PhD of Learning Enrichment Teacher, Dr Caroline Basckin, whose thesis explored ‘Evidence-based practices for students with special educational needs’. Coordinator of Student Experience, Mr Jeff Mann, shared his current focus on leading a global team to write a systematic review of research in outdoor education. Visual Arts Teacher, Mr Michael Whittington, reflected on a paper he is writing for his PhD about how COVID-19 has reshaped blended learning in the visual arts. Director of Cricket, Mr Greg Clarence, shared the exciting news of his submission to commence a PhD at The University of Notre Dame Australia, exploring how character can best be formed through sport. And Technology and Applied Studies Teacher, Ms Yogi Sewani, is at the point of inviting parents from the College to participate in her master’s research about cultural influences on parental perspectives of learning support – a project comparing Taiwanese and Australian parents. Read more about their projects and those of other staff here.


In October, we held a gathering of over 25 leaders in such schools around Australia to explore this phenomenon of schools taking ownership of building a research culture. Next week, I will be co-presenting a paper at the Australian Association for Research in Education Conference entitled Accelerating Evolution? The rise of research-invested schools, in concert with my Scots colleague Dr Caitlin Munday (who also serves as Director of the Teaching Schools Alliance Sydney) and our partners at The University of Newcastle, Professors Peter Twining and Professor Allyson Holbrook.


Read more about our approach to research here. We look forward to sharing more, in the coming weeks, about how Scots is leading the way in repositioning schools – and teachers – as research leaders, not just passive consumers.

Dr Hugh Chilton
Director of Research and Professional Learning


Forming the next generation of inspired teachers through the Teaching Schools Alliance Sydney

16/9/2021

 

Becoming a teacher | Brittany's story from The Scots College on Vimeo.

Ms Brittany Shapcott shares why she chose to undertake her journey into the vocation of teaching through the Teaching Schools Alliance Sydney.

Teaching is a funny business. It’s a science and an art, an activity that is not just complicated (like putting a man on the moon) but complex, with infinite variables shaping the way a child learns and grows to maturity. It’s also often a fairly solitary business, with much of what a teacher does happening on their own, in their classroom, with their students. This has some real strengths. Even when increasingly burdened with regulations and compliance requirements, teachers still have a lot of agency to work with their students in ways they see best. It also has some real weaknesses. It’s hard to get better when you’re rarely seeing the work of others and having others see your work. Teacher education and professional learning is best when it’s in what the sociologist Etienne Wenger called ‘communities of practice’ — environments where our work, our beliefs, our thinking is positively shaped by those around us.

That’s one of the big reasons why we have a Research Office, seeking to bring teachers together in communities of practice, and open up the classroom and the College to shape and be shaped by best practice beyond ourselves. One of the most significant projects we have been part of is the establishment in 2020 of the Teaching Schools Alliance Sydney. With five Sydney schools coming together to train their own teachers, the TSAS uses the time-proven Clinical Teaching Model to encourage bright and vocation-oriented Christians into the teaching profession and form their thinking and practice, not just in textbooks, but ‘on the job’ from day one. 

Trainees work 1-day per week with a Teacher Mentor while completing their Bachelor or Master of Teaching in an online and face-to-face cohort. Rather than conducting a few practicum placements, they graduate with up to 350 days of classroom experience, as well as all that comes with being part of a school community. We have been delighted to see four Trainee Teachers join the College since last year: Ms Brittany Shapcott, Ms Tara Harman, Mr Ian Kim and Ms Elena Petschack. They have all been a blessing to the students and teachers they serve, and will go on to significant careers in education.

Dr Caitlin Munday leads the TSAS in addition to her part-time role at the College as Research Fellow (Professional Learning).

To find out more about this unique program, please visit the Teaching School Alliance Sydney website.

The Alliance be holding its final virtual information session for 2021 via Zoom on Tuesday 22 September, 7:30-8:15pm. Details and registration can be found here.

If you know someone who would make an outstanding Christian teacher, please share the details and invite them to contact Dr Munday, Director of the Teaching Schools Alliance Sydney, at director@teachingschoolsalliancesydney.org.

Dr Hugh Chilton
Director of Research and Professional Learning

Shaping the conversation about boys, relationships and schooling

16/6/2021

 
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​It’s not an easy time to be a boy, and some would say it’s not an easy time being an educator of boys. With questions regularly asked about the relative merits of single-sex versus co-education, and a culture challenging the traditional binary view of biological sex and gender, it can be easy to lose confidence in the particular work of educating boys. Committed as we are to the substantial research-based and observed benefits of single-sex schooling, at Scots we seek to constantly challenge ourselves to collaborate with others in refining — even reinventing — boys’ education.

Last Wednesday, staff from across the College had the opportunity to join educators from boys’ schools around the world for the 2021 International Boys’ Schools Coalition (IBSC) Annual Conference. Bringing together over 280 boys’ schools from 19 countries, the IBSC provides a diverse and active network for sharing and shaping best practice in boys’ education. Scots has for several years been a key member of the IBSC, hosting conferences, shaping major research projects, and partaking in professional learning activities. Dr Lambert currently serves as Vice-Chair of the IBSC, leading the Australasia region, and chairs the Research Committee, of which Dr Caitlin Munday and I are also members. 

This year’s Annual Conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Australasia region was invited to host the first of four successive online sessions. I had the privilege of hosting a panel conversation on ‘Boys and Relationships’ featuring Dr Rob Loe (CEO, Relationships Foundation), Professor Nancy Hill (developmental psychologist, Harvard University) and Maree Crabbe (co-founder and Director of the Australian violence prevention project, It's time we talked). In a wide-ranging and fascinating discussion, we explored key questions such as:

  • What exactly are relationships and why are they so important?
  • What are the key research-based ingredients for flourishing relationships?
  • But how do young people learn what it means to relate well together? 
  • Is there anything particular about that learning journey for boys?
  • How is pornography and a sexualised culture distorting how boys learn about healthy relationships?
  • What sort of messages should we be taking to our parents about helping their sons grow into great relational men?

Scots staff also contributed four presentations to the conference, including:

  • The Applied Entrepreneurship Program: Boys' New Pathways to the Future of Work (David Todd, Andrew Potter, Dr Ian Lambert)
  • The Real Impact of Experiential Education: Practical Insights from Major Research in Boys' Education (Dr Hugh Chilton with Dr Mathew Pfeiffer, MMG Education)
  • Future-Ready Boys' Schools: IBSC Research and Innovation (Dr Ian Lambert, Dr Caitlin Munday, Dr Hugh Chilton, with the IBSC Research Committee)
  • Becoming a Strong 21st Century School of Character (Dr Ian Lambert, with CIRCLE Education)

Beyond the Annual Conference, we were delighted to play our part in the release of a major report with University College London on boys and technology. In December 2020, the IBSC Research Committee contracted with Professor of Learner Centred Design Rose Luckin, of UCL Knowledge Lab in London, to explore Building Learning Relationships Through the Use of Technology. The goal is to design a program of future research that aims to explore how new and emerging technologies are impacting pedagogy, relationships (especially pupil-teacher, but also pupil-pupil), and the areas of overlap between these two.

This report covers the following themes:

  • Presence and how to create presence in virtual learning environments;
  • Connections and what it means to know in relationships;
  • Belonging and bringing together in community and classroom cultures;
  • Identity and how identity impacts agency and efficacy in learning—and in relationships; and
  • Learning environments, including home.

We look forward to helping shape the next phase of this significant global research.

For more about the International Boys’ Schools Coalition, please click here.

Dr Hugh Chilton
Director of Research and Professional Learning

Shaping a culture of civic character in our staff

5/2/2021

 
128 years ago last Thursday, late in the afternoon, a distinguished group of leaders from state, church and community, including Lord Jersey, the Governor of New South Wales, gathered on the shores of Botany Bay to open The Scots College and welcome its three staff and thirty-five boys. Among the speakers was the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in New South Wales, the Right Reverend Dr James Smith White. A leader and scholar of substance, Dr White ended his stirring address about the purpose of this new school by talking about its teachers:

‘The Principal and teachers are Australians who have won the highest honours in the University of Sydney, have had long experience in teaching Australians, and to whom teaching is a work of faith, a labour of love, and a patience of hope. May their most sanguine hopes be fulfilled in the success of The Scots College; and what greater success can be desired than that its alumni realise the aspirations of its motto: “Utinam patribus nostris digni simus”.’

Teaching and schools have changed a lot since 1893. Yet those who teach and lead the College well over a century later follow the same sense of vocation Dr White evoked of the founders. They are men and women of character who teach not just knowledge and skills, but character and values, not chiefly in what and how they teach, but in the overflow of who they are. 

The Scots College Research Office exists to inspire our staff to continue to pursue expertise in their calling of developing the brave hearts and bold minds of every Scots boy.

We began our year doing just this with our annual Staff Culture Day on Friday 22 January. Picking up our College value of ‘Leadership Through Teams in a spirit of service, compassion, humour and community’, staff engaged in a range of experiences to help them reflect on their own character and how to best develop it in the boys. 

We heard inspiring stories from those who’ve put leadership and service into action, including a grandmother who has fostered 75 children over the last 45 years, and the Captain of the Wallaroos, our own staff member Ms Grace Hamilton. We welcomed representatives from over a dozen charity partners, including Jericho Road (the Presbyterian Church’s mercy ministries), the Salvation Army, Bushcare, and more, to talk with staff about what compassion and service looks like and how they might engage their boys. And staff competed in the world-first blended XVenture Mind Games, tackling physical and online challenges across our campus. 

We will take these experiences as inspiration for our work across the year of embedding character formation further into our teaching and learning, and our culture as a staff team. Dr White would expect nothing less.

Dr Hugh Chilton
Director of Research and Professional Learning

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