Getting Serious About Happiness

 "I did not put you here to suffer

I did not put you here to whine

I put you here to love one another

And to get out and have a good time."

-          The Rainmakers

A False Start

A few years ago, I presented to a group of education professionals at a university in Dubai on the topic:

“2020 and beyond: what our students need to thrive and survive”.

The brief was to focus on 21^st Century Skills, digital technology and entrepreneurship. “OK,” I thought – “should be easy enough to knock something together.”  But it wasn’t. It took me ages to write the presentation as I agonized over the thought that was nagging at me, gnawing away somewhere at the back of my brain. Of course, I dutifully produced lots of stats on the importance of SMEs, the rise of the entrepreneur and the importance of digital skills. All good so far, but the dreamer in me just couldn’t get away from the growing realization that this just wasn’t enough – not for my own children, not for any child.

The question nagging at me was one that so often crops up in many a visioning exercise, and it’s a big one:

“What is the purpose of education?”

It’s not a new question, of course and, put on the spot in another presentation once, I remembered saying something along the lines of:

“The purpose of education is to uncover every child’s gifts and to nurture those gifts into talents that will ensure maximum life chances.”

I knew what I meant, but it still somehow seemed inadequate. Incomplete. Impractical. Deep down, I knew what I wanted to say: that the true purpose of education is to empower our children to become happy adults. I also knew that this would most likely be viewed as woolly and lacking in substance. (Indeed, when David Cameron issued his ‘Happiness Survey’ a year later, he was widely mocked for these very reasons.  It could be argued that there are many reasons to mock Mr. Cameron – but to be fair to the former UK Prime Minister, I don’t think is one of them – as we shall see).

Nevertheless, I decided to take a risk and go with happiness as the proposed answer to ‘what our students need to thrive and survive.’

In the hope that the audience would back me before I committed myself, I posed what I thought would be a leading question that would elicit the answer I wanted and give me an easy ride for the rest of the presentation:

“What do you want for your own children?”

I had rather hoped that the word ‘happy’ would feature in at least some of the responses collected on my beautifully designed Padlet wall - but it didn’t. Not once. Some came close:

“I want him to grow up as a responsible & content adult and to do that I would like to be able to give him a good education that will enable him to do that.”

“To fulfill their dreams which meets their basic necessities and gives them professional growth and success and helps them to be independent.”

“Quality education that will enable her to be an expert in the field she chooses and ensure a secure future for her and her family.”

“To be independent, get the know-how and be able to choose the best for themselves. So, I encourage them to be more reflective thinkers, enquirers and connect with others.”

“To grow independent, responsible and respected in any field to catch their dreams.”

“I want them to follow their passion, whatever that may be.”

Close – but no cigar. Perhaps it was the ‘professional’ environment in which we were having the discussion, but it seemed that no one could bring themselves to say straight out that they wanted their children to be happy. Surely if they were asked at a dinner party, or even by their own children, this is what they’d say?

Disappointed, but not defeated, I went on with the presentation. After all, the responses alluded to my upcoming Maslow slide – AND I had John Lennon up my sleeve!

Despite having Lennon on my side, the final response on closing was as I had feared. Respectful because I guess everyone loves a dreamer, but impractical as a tangible outcome that could be articulated and implemented in schools. If I could sum up the faces and atmosphere in reaction to my focus on happiness, it would be simply “That’s nice.”

I had failed and I must admit that, for a while afterwards, I gave up this approach in subsequent presentations. It was clear that happiness was not really a thing in the brutal world of exam results, grades, rankings, competition for university places and jobs, and the almost immovable traditional curriculum structure and hierarchy.

A New Hope – and a Word of Caution

But the nagging did not go away and, in the few years since then, some remarkable things have happened that have given me the heart to revive this approach and to start to look at giving happiness the practicality and academic rigour it obviously requires if it is to succeed as being seen as the real goal of schools.

1.       People started publishing high profile surveys about the happiest countries and ‘most livable’ cities – with the indicators clearly articulated. Forbes ranks Norway as the happiest country and the Central African Republic as the unhappiest – a country in which more than 10% of children die in their first year. 

2.       People started talking about ‘Positive Education’ as the positive psychology movement began to find its way into schools. 

3.       People started publishing papers with titles such as ‘Happy Schools! A Framework for Learner Well-being in the Asia-Pacific’ (UNESCO, 2016).

4.       People such as Marc Prensky started challenging the traditional structure of school curricula, actually suggesting viable, if bold, alternatives.

5.       People, or rather Finland (!) actually began implementing a radical restructuring of a national curriculum. And everyone loves Finland, right?

6.       People like http://www.youhue.com/ started making ‘Mood’ software for schools to measure happiness levels and gather data on emotional states.

7.       People in education have started talking about the Sustainable Development Goals in schools, with children. Goal 4 states: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” Anthony Salcito, VP Worldwide Education at Microsoft, has even stated that: "We should be deploying technology in the service of teaching children to deliver the sustainable development goals." 

8.       People here in Dubai (again, the government, or rather KHDA, the local education regulator), employed a ‘Director of Happiness’ and made a bold policy statement that schools had a duty to make their students ‘happy’. We now have a ‘National Programme for Happiness and Positivity’.

I applaud all of these initiatives but the last one in particular makes me nervous. Not because it’s a bad idea. It’s a great idea.  The reason it makes me nervous is because of the tendency for the education profession to either bolt on or dumb down such ideas, without fully understanding the underlying theory or making the bold, difficult, transformational changes necessary to really make them work and have serious, sustained impact. There are many examples:

Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences was reduced to the now discredited ‘Learning Styles’ of the Visual, Auditory or Kinesthetic student. ‘VAK’ posters appeared in classrooms everywhere and there were endless tests issued to children so they could discover what sort of learner they were. The impact was pretty much zero – probably less than zero when the real learning time lost to this is accounted for.

Carol Dweck’s impressive work on growth mindsets was leapt on by educators and parents, suddenly going all out to praise effort at the expense of outcomes. Dweck never said outcomes don’t matter. They really do.

Marc Prensky’s 2001 paper on Digital Natives was widely misconstrued as suggesting that today’s learners knew more about technology than their teachers, so we could just let them get on with it. iPads flooded classrooms with little real thought as to how the curriculum or pedagogy would need to change to ensure ROI in terms of learning outcomes. Prensky in fact never said we could leave digital natives to their own devices (literally or metaphorically).

All three academics above have had to spend time clarifying their messages, which have been so widely misinterpreted and misapplied.

And so we come to the happiness agenda in schools. Let me say it again: it’s a good idea – and there has already been some great work done in this area. But, as educators, we must take a deep breath and think carefully about what happiness really means and how it can be achieved and sustained.  If anyone thinks I’m scaremongering, I would point out that we are already seeing examples of the ‘add-on’ approach, with little consideration of the underlying theory and how we could reimagine the curriculum. Schools suddenly now have:

·         Happiness Corridors (can students be happy elsewhere in the school, or just in that corridor?)

·         Happiness Lessons focusing on mental health, positivity and mindfulness. See https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/mar/12/schools-to-trial-happiness-lessons-for-eight-year-olds for more on this.

·         Happiness Days – seriously. Are the other days miserable? Reminds me of ‘Safer Internet Days’. As an aside, I would think about banning any event with the words ‘Day’ or ‘Hour’ in the title: Eco Day, Book Day, Hour of Code, Genius Hour, Earth Hour/Day and so on. The fact that we have to do this surely proves it’s not embedded in the curriculum. My particular favourite is Sports Day. Most children love a well-planned, fun Sports Day – arguments about winning and losing, medals and competition aside – but these children also love PE. My children have PE once a week and Sports Day once a year. Please don’t tell me they are happy with that – I know they’re not!  As adults, we know we should exercise every day but we are teaching our children that it is something we timetable once or twice a week plus, perhaps, some voluntary extra-curricular activities – clearly an ‘add-on’ and not something that is, in fact, central to lifelong health and happiness. I wouldn’t give a school even an acceptable rating if the children didn’t have some form of PE every day. Then we’d know that ‘health and happiness’ were truly valued.

·         Happiest School competitions – with the winners, assessed via short video submissions, announced in the media. One can only hope this does not lead to league tables – imagine being at the bottom, labelled as the ‘Most Miserable School in the Country’, based on inevitably suspect evidence. I can see the Daily Mail headline now.

·         Endless adverts on the radio, each promising that the school in question has ‘a culture… underpinned by the science of positive education’, or ‘promotes happiness’ or ‘puts the children’s well-being first’ and so on. Again, I hope it’s all true, I really do. But as these soundbites have only just started to appear this month, in a sudden flood of happiness, I simply cannot believe a culture of happiness has been embedded in school curricula since the KHDA announcement.

·         And finally, this being Dubai, we now really do have this...

(I do like the idea of there being a North and South, indicating there may be more than one route to happiness...)

Getting Serious about Happiness

I really don’t want to be critical of schools. Leaders and teachers want the best outcomes for their students and they work incredibly hard at it. They are also under tremendous pressure to improve their inspection ratings, a process which now requires them to prove their happiness – so the clamour for highly visible, quick wins is understandable.  Happiness is on the map and that’s a good thing. People are talking about it with children, who know that being happy is important – but we can’t expect it to just happen, to last and to be evenly distributed, without doing a lot more.  Indeed, there are already some outstanding examples of curriculum development producing tangible outcomes for students, such as the ‘Tolerance and Generosity Curriculum’ at GEMS Kindergarten Starters in Dubai. This highly innovative school is starting to go further than simply adding happiness and global citizenship to the existing curriculum. Rather, we are beginning to see the notion of ‘service’ being embedded in the curriculum and projects, which I believe is an important and admirable step.

As Tim Lott points out in a recent article, a happiness initiative as an add-on is “a bit like Vlad the Impaler instituting pain-management courses. Because although children are raw to all the inevitable human sources of suffering – disappointment, injustice, unkindness, etc. – one of the main sources of unhappiness for children are schools themselves.” https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/mar/17/the-secret-of-happy-children-get-rid-of-teachers-and-ban-homework?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I don’t agree with Lott’s 3-point plan, but his message of futility in teaching happiness as an add-on to an ineffective model that itself is often a cause of misery, is valid.

One of the Dubai radio adverts mentioned above states: “As parents, we all have high aspirations for our children and want them to be successful - but most of all, we want them to be happy.” The school claims to offer “a strong values-based approach to learning.” It goes on: “Our school nurtures happy, successful, resilient and confident global citizens” and finishes with the claim that this is where “…today’s learners become tomorrow’s leaders.”  Powerful stuff and it certainly sounds like somewhere I’d like my own children to be. In truth, I doubt this school’s curriculum is significantly different to any other. And it is still an English National Curriculum School, which takes us back to Lott’s Vlad the Impaler analogy above. Again, I am NOT criticizing this school. It’s better to do something than nothing – but I do believe that the changes needed are more fundamental.

If we are serious about happiness, I suggest that we need to also get serious about creating a curriculum model that ensures this is a lasting outcome and not just the latest educational fad. So yes, let’s make sure our schools, teachers, students and parents are happy. And yes, let’s try and measure it. But first of all, we need to know what happiness really is – and then work on the model to achieve it. We also need to draw a clear distinction between the desire for children to be happy at school and home (and therefore better at learning, as the argument goes) and lifelong happiness as an achievable goal for all. It is the latter that I really want to focus on, as this speaks to the notion of happiness as a goal of education rather than just a facilitator of learning in the K-12 years.

I live in the UAE.  In the land of Malls, Maids and Maseratis, I do fear that the goal of ‘happiness’ will all too easily be misconstrued as the pursuit of some hedonistic Utopia, where we live the life of H.G. Wells’s future humans in The Time Machine - lazy, ignorant cattle with all our needs catered for; a life of leisure and no work - but of course there is always a price. For Wells’s tribe, this price was the intermittent risk of being taken by the hideous Morlocks, a species that had evolved to be the farmers, in a world where humans were the livestock.

In such circumstances, of course these humans could not be truly happy.  We are programmed to work. We are programmed to contribute to our society, on whatever that scale may be – the cave, tribe, country, or, as is our current reality, today’s connected world. We are programmed to take control of our own destinies and to earn our happiness - and this is where we begin to see the real potential juxtaposition of curriculum content and the outcome of ‘happiness’.  We cannot treat our children with kid gloves and we cannot ever let them believe the world owes them something - just as many educators have misconstrued Dweck’s work as meaning that only the process and not the outcomes matter. Dweck knows that process is not enough and we must be clear that ‘happiness as an-add on to the curriculum’ is not enough.  Children must learn that success and happiness are a product of sustained hard work and also that they have a lifelong duty to an equitable global society. This is how they will better their world. Indeed, I do believe this is the goal of the UAE policy makers, who recognise the essential role of hard work in achieving happiness. The danger is that this becomes lost in translation as schools look to make their children happy. I know that my own proudest moments as a teacher all correspond to students achieving beyond what they thought possible, by working harder and for longer than they ever have before, on something that really mattered to them, something they cared about deeply on a personal level. They have been in control, in flow and, by the end, exhausted. And they have, at that point in time, ‘become all they can be.’  It may be dangerous to speak of happiness as a ‘right’. It is surely better that we teach our children the reality – that happiness must be earned.

The Goal of Education and the Enduring Relevance of Maslow

So what really is the ‘goal’ of education – and how can it be articulated?

Buoyed by the surge of happiness initiatives, I started to reintroduce this into my presentations and workshops. I knew by now there were two key components:

1.       Self-actualisation for every individual; and

2.       The recognition that each of us has a wider duty to better our world and serve others.

It is arguably implicit in Maslow’s explanation of self-actualisation (and even the lower level of esteem) that those achieving this level of becoming all one can be would also naturally respect, if not actively work for, the benefit of others. Maslow believed that self-actualised people were accepting of others and the world.  But there’s something about the word ‘self’ that leads me to believe this is not sufficiently explicit to make the self-actualisation level sufficient as a societal goal. There is not quite enough in that level to guarantee that even the self-actualised person will necessarily work positively towards the welfare of all others, i.e. the global society. Indeed, Maslow’s ‘self’ was seen as ‘sovereign and inviolable’ and self-actualisation has therefore been described as ‘healthy narcissism’ (Pauchant et al, 1991).  Fortunately, Maslow actually went further, developing the concept of ‘self-transcendence’.

“Self Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos.” (The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, New York, 1971, p. 269.)

So self-transcendence builds on individual self-actualisation, thereby providing the final level of the model and the second component of the goal of education.  

Criticisms of Maslow’s work have focused mostly on the hierarchy itself, although I do not believe these are sufficiently convincing or relevant to dismiss his work as being non-applicable to a curriculum model. Certainly, it is likely that a person must have achieved self-actualisation and be secure in the lower levels to progress to self-transcendence. So self-actualisation remains critical. GEMS Chief Academic Officer and former head of Eton College, Tony Little, was asked recently about the outcomes achieved for his students at Eton. He responded by saying that “Every student leaves knowing what they are good at and what they can achieve.”  This is important when we consider initiatives such as “Every Child Matters,” “Every Student Succeeds” and “No Child Left Behind.”  Such policies, although well-meant, have tended to focus on a core, traditional skillset that governments have decided will serve every child. There has, as a result, been a further narrowing of the curriculum to focus on traditional literacy and numeracy skills, with scant regard for true personalization of learning. There is a huge difference between personalizing learning programmes for children so that they achieve the same, or minimum outcomes in literacy and mathematics on the one hand, and truly personalized learning, which empowers every child to discover and develop their gifts as they strive towards self-actualisation.

At least three great thinkers seem to agree:

“There is a major difference when we focus on the ‘learner’, instead of the ‘learning’.  A subtle shift that needs to be made in education.” – George Couros

“We must meet the real needs of every child – not just in core subjects, but in their real aptitudes, gifts and desires.” – Tom Friedman

“To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.” - John Dewey

Also, a UN General Assembly Resolution (2011) states simply: “The pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal.”

Given the focus on Maslow, a new statement of the goal of education may be:

“The educated person is the one who is equipped with the values, attributes, skills and knowledge to live a lifetime of self-actualization and self-transcendence.”

This is the definition I started to use before I heard Sir Ken Robinson at BETT 2017 convey much the same meaning in his statement:

“The purpose of education is to enable students to understand the world around them and the talents within them, so they can become fulfilled individuals and active, compassionate citizens” – Sir Ken Robinson (2017).

This succinctly and simply articulates the two key components stated above, representing Maslow’s hierarchy in its entirety, including the top level of self-transcendence. Breaking it down further, Sir Ken has actually provided even further clarification of both the goal and the method.

This is important and timely if we think about happiness as a lifelong outcome. I also believe it is measurable in a meaningful way at a very large scale.  I will make three simple assertions here, based on the current political and social climate, noting that by ‘happy’, I mean fully self-actualised, or even self-transcendent, in the Maslow sense. 

1.       Most countries have over-flowing prisons, creating untold misery and at enormous, unnecessary expense, both financial and social.  Self-actualised/transcendent people do not commit crime, including politically or ideologically motivated crime. They have too much to lose and those who have achieved self-transcendence know that there is no such thing as a victimless crime. This in itself guarantees compliance – and empty prisons. This is also why it is so important to redefine the true meaning of policy statements such as ‘Every Child Matters’ and ‘No Child Left behind’. It’s really not just about basic academic skills. Unless we strive towards self-transcendence for ALL, then we will only perpetuate a world of inequality and disenfranchisement of the masses. The UK’s Ministry of Justice budget for this year is around GBP 15 Billion and “£1.3 billion will be invested to reform and modernise the prison estate to make it even more efficient, safer and focused on supporting prisoner rehabilitation.” The government is also planning to build NINE new prisons. Obviously it would be a very long term strategy, but surely it would be wiser to start investing in schools and an effective curriculum model that would prevent offending rather than wasting such obscene resources on prisons and rehabilitation. Self-transecndent people don’t need rehabilitating and, as GEMS Founder and Chairman Sunny Varkey says, “Whatever the question, education is the answer.” I believe this is true – but only if we get it right for every single child.

2.       We are seeing an alarming rise of ‘alt-right’ and dictatorial political leaders, and movements away from global citizenship (not to be equated with the economically inequitable ‘globalization’ trend) and a return to pathetic nationalism and misguided tribalism – happy people do not vote for right wing leaders because this action is inimical to the very concept of self-transcendence. Leaving Trump aside, we can safely say that those who voted for Brexit wanted, for a plethora of reasons (some arguably valid, such as the rampant corruption, arrogance and waste within the EU’s institutions), to change the status quo. They were not happy – otherwise they would have voted to remain in what was a 2 choice offer. In effect, the question was “Would you be better off (happier) in or out of the EU?”  Each had his or her own reasons to change the status quo but, whatever the reason, whatever their concept of happiness, they must have thought they’d be happier out of Europe.  Now they (and everyone else in the UK) are, or soon will be. Looking inwards, breaking up unions and returning to one’s own perceived ‘tribe’, can only be a backward evolutionary step.  Away from Brexit, we now see The United Nations becoming increasingly impotent. The five permanent members of The Security Council, each with the power of veto, do not share the same values, aspirations or political history and are moving further apart when they need to be acting together. We should not be surprised at this. These five states were never true allies with shared values – they hold their position as a result of the global power dynamic that came out of World War Two. Even looking at that situation, for the sake of argument, with a British / Western bias, we can say that Russia was an ally only in that it wasn’t Nazi Germany and China because it wasn’t Japan. War creates strange bedfellows indeed.  Somewhat alarmingly, it was pointed out to me recently that, should Marine Le Pen win the French election, then the five member states that effectively decide the future of our world would be led by: Marine Le Pen, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Theresa May and Xi Jingping. This is why global citizenship needs to be a fundamental pillar of the curriculum in our schools. We can only hope that our children can do better than we have – or rather educate and empower them to do so.

3.       Linked to no.2, but worth mentioning as a separate point, is global inequality - the collective cancer that shames our species. We must surely be teaching our children that we all have a lifelong duty to actively help narrow and ultimately eliminate the gap between Norway and the Central African Republic. It simply cannot be right to focus on individual examination and career success while countless numbers of children are dying unnecessarily, because of their simple misfortune to have been born in a country at or near ‘the bottom of the league’. Furthermore, it is not enough for schools to hold Charity Days, well-being lessons or other ‘add-on’ initiatives in this area. For lifelong self-transcendence for all, meeting the challenge of global inequality must be an explicitly stated, core element of the curriculum. It is important to realise that not one of us can be truly self-actualised within Maslow's model, unless we strive for universal equality. This is true simply because the wider the inequality gap, the greater the crime rate and potential for global political upheaval, civil unrest and war. In such conditions, it becomes increasingly difficult for anyone to feel they have achieved the 'safety' level in Maslow's hierarchy. The further we retreat behind walls, national borders, gated communities, CCTV-controlled estates, etc., to try and guarantee safety, the more difficult it becomes to argue we are self-actualised. There is only one way and that is towards a fair global society. This is not Communism - simply a vision of the world in which every single human being is self-actualised and self-transcendent in their own way. It does not require everyone to enjoy equal wealth, as there are many other indicators of happiness. It does, however, require equality of opportunity in schools and beyond to ensure that every child is able to become all they can be. 

A Way Forward

My contention, therefore, is that we need to re-imagine the structure and focus of the school curriculum with the boldly stated, overarching aim of empowering all children to achieve lifelong self-transcendence. Not just to be happy as children so that they ‘learn better’, but so that they see self-transcendence as the goal and have a deep understanding of what this means and how it can be achieved. Furthermore, as positive psychology continues to develop Maslow’s seminal work, I also suggest that the re-imagined curriculum should, and can, be developed and delivered using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as the framework. Talking about Maslow is almost a cliché these days, but I do believe his work, combined with subsequent developments in the field of positive psychology, can provide the basis of, and even the entire framework for, the curriculum we need to better our world. 

I have started work on this and it is exciting to begin seeing how the content fits in at each level.  Indeed, one thing I am already noticing is that nothing of value that currently exists needs to be lost or shoe-horned into the model. Compared to more revolutionary models such as Marc Prensky’s “The World Needs a New Curriculum,” it is not likely to be as philosophically challenging to convince schools and policy-makers to accept a Maslow-based curriculum framework. It is more of a restructuring and re-focusing exercise than a revolution and, consequently, perhaps more palatable.

It is not enough to add ‘happiness’ into a traditional curriculum model. We have a model that explains lifelong happiness in terms of ‘self-transcendence’ and provides the opportunity to empower our children to be happy and to better their world. It would be remiss of us as educators to ignore its potential.  It seems almost too simplistic to say that if we are agreed on the purpose of education and therefore the broad, desired outcomes of a curriculum, and that Maslow appears to fit this purpose very well, that this model should explicitly form the basis of the curriculum itself. Why not? This is real world learning for a better world. If we want our children to be happy and fulfilled and good global citizens, why wouldn’t we base our school curricula on a model that makes these outcomes explicit?

It is heartening to see that others have already started to explore this very possibility. Dr. Lori  Desautels https://www.edutopia.org/blog/addressing-our-needs-maslow-hierarchy-lori-desautels has suggested some useful practical activities and questions to ask for each stage of Maslow’s hierarchy, which help to ensure children are meeting their needs at each level. There is reason to believe this will also help children to acquire and internalize the skills and mindsets that will serve them well throughout life. My hope is to build on this, and other on-going work, to develop such a model to the point where the hierarchy provides the framework for the whole curriculum, rather than an additional strand.

It will be a complex task, but one that I believe is worth the time and effort. My hope is to produce a practical curriculum model with the potential to transform how we organize learning in our schools and meet the true goal of education – for all children and for a better world.

A world in which we can all live on Happiness Street. 

Ensuring Impact of EdTech - a Journey

As the sensationalist, mainstream media machine continues to peddle the myth that technology in schools has no impact and is a waste of time and money, it is heartening to see more and more examples of real impact, such as this wonderful story from The Kindergarten Starters in Dubai.

Of course it doesn't happen overnight. Of course it doesn't work when schools just throw technology at a traditional curriculum, never moving past the substitution level in SAMR.

As Mal Lee and Roger Broadie have pointed out, digital transformation in a school takes an average of 5 years, and Asha Alexander, Principal of The Kindergarten Starters - Dubai always knew this would be a long, difficult and arduous journey.  Her relentless focus on student outcomes, self-belief, courage and determination to transform the life chances of her children have never wavered - and the rewards are clear.

Implicit in this story are two key factors in school digital transformation - where these are absent, we know that digital initiatives really do fail, providing ammunition for the naysayers. It's hard work and not easy to get them right, but it is necessary to ensure these pillars of transformation are in place to support the journey to digital normalisation. The factors are:

1. Re-imagining the curriculum and associated pedagogies, with clarity of the desired outcomes for students. The school spent a long time re-writing the curriculum and, as stated in the article, the children now learn in a completely different way - on the redefinition level in SAMR.

2. Leadership - the right people in the right roles and distributed across the school. The connection and teamwork between the Digital Leader and Curriculum Leader was no accident!

Enjoy this heartening story!

'Edtech: How to spend wisely'

By Asha Alexander, Principal, The Kindergarten Starters - Dubai

Edtech is a dizzying world. It changes so fast that by the time we are deliberating an even more advanced version of a resource beckons. Buying a product has become harder as we are inundated with the range of resources that has made decision making maddening.

Five years into our digital journey, I am a more balanced purchaser. I put my money where I will see the most long lasting impact.

Let me start at the beginning. The first year of our digital journey was undoubtedly the most chaotic. We were in a trance as we experimented with all the possibilities we saw for our children. We were grabbing everything that appeared to be useful in our limited budget and agonizing over the constraints we were under. At the end of that year, we reviewed our purchase and decided we need to have a plan for our spending. There were so many purchases that had diverted our limited funds and we had not been able to maximize the impact it had on learning.  Some very appealing products were overpriced and many we had selected were under performing.

A thought struck us that if students brought in their own devices, we could move the funds that were being diverted to purchase laptops and put it to more profitable use. The campus was WiFi enabled and the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) was launched. Five years into our digital journey 3000 students from Grades 2-5 bring their devices, thus enabling us to cut costs on laptops and tablets.

We studied our school’s performance and analyzed data to see what could help our children learn better in Science and Mathematics which were our focal points as we needed to improve student learning. We were helped by our Digital Advisor to identify the best products which had been vetted by the Research and Development wing of our organization, compare pricing and negotiate for better deals through our large network of schools.

The Introduction of Robotics, 3D printing and Coding brought us in touch with LEGO Mindstorms and EV3 Kits which have changed the way children learn at our school. There is greater enjoyment as children have moved out of their passive roles of knowledge recipients to becoming active seekers of knowledge.

Mindspark is an adaptive learning tool that has improved Math scores at our school. Mastery of a concept has to occur before students can move to the next level. The self-paced instruction allows students to work on areas that need attention and allows the school to gain information on their progress and the number of hours the student has used the tool.

Harcourt’s Math in Focus, 3P Learning’s Mathletics, Mc Graw Hill’s Science Resource are among our carefully selected resources. Read and Write Text Help is nothing short of visionary as we see the tremendous strides our students are taking in language learning.

Part of the layout in transforming our school has gone into the selection and appointment of key personnel to drive the digital journey. In order that we make the right EdTech choices, we have appointed a Head of Digital Learning and a Head of Curriculum who work in tandem with the Digital Learning Coordinators of every Grade to cascade the learning. A key component of the selection of EdTech is the professional development and support we receive from the providers to maximize the benefits of the resource for both students and teachers.

Through Innovate my School, we had the opportunity to interact with several providers at our Speed Networking event last year that enabled teachers to interact directly with carefully selected providers to gain an understanding of how the resources would affect instruction in the classroom.

We have come a long way in our process of winnowing the plethora of products that are on offer. I have learned that we cannot and must not listen to the sales pitch alone but consult colleagues in our network, pay close attention to my Digital Advisor and Head of Digital Learning to make a difference to student learning.

In five years we have moved our Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) scores from 489 in Science and Math to 591 in Science and 549 in Math in 2015. That is only due to the changed curriculum and the digital delivery of content.

By upgrading our purchasing practices and spending wisely, we have increased the benefits to students even as we have saved money.

Unprecedented Opportunities for Real World Learning

Not Beamish Museum

I was recently asked to write an article for a national UAE publication, answering some questions on technology use and digital learning in our schools. Here's an edited version of the full draft (so it may not flow perfectly!)

What strikes me most about our schools are the incredible opportunities our children have. When I was at school, we made plastic picture frames and I remember how exciting it was to be allowed to bend the plastic - normally a serious offence! I guess that was the 1980s version of the Maker Space...

But it's the real world focus and opportunities outside of school that really blow me away. Again, a field trip for me was Beamish Museum 10 miles down the road to 'learn' about coal mining. Hmm...

Now, our students go on scientific expeditions to Antarctica and undertake astronaut training in the US. Times have changed...

Digital Literacy Skills sessions

1.      Why do you think it’s so important to teach children digital literacy skills?

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs study (2016) predicted that “5 million jobs will be lost before 2020 as artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology and other socio-economic factors replace the need for human workers.”

A 2014 report produced by the UK Digital Skills Taskforce suggests that well over half the workforce requires digital skills that extend beyond the basic skills of digital citizenship and that over 90% of jobs now require at least those basic digital literacies.

It is clear not only that many of the jobs of the future will require mastery of digital skills, but also that our children today must learn to be the masters and creators of new technologies. It is the creators who will flourish and the consumers who are left behind. It’s not all about technology, of course. Numerous recent studies have predicted the need for students to develop their so called ‘soft skills’ including empathy, teamwork, influencing, emotional intelligence and even mindfulness. These skills are all an inherent part of the curriculum in GEMS schools.

2.      Would you agree that digital skills should be regarded as equally important as lessons in numeracy and literacy?

Digital skills are really now being seen as a literacy.  Rather than pitting traditional subjects against digital skills, we aim to provide our students with the wide range of skills they will need to succeed in the future. The 3 R’s (Reading, Writing and Arithmetic) have traditionally been the building blocks needed to succeed, but it is important to recognise that it has always been necessary to be able to do something with these skills in order to make a valuable contribution to society. The real value of being literate and numerate in the traditional sense has always been the ability to apply these basic skills. There is no conflict between the 3 R’s and what educators now call the 4 C’s: Creativity, Critical reflection, Collaboration, and Communication. All that has really changed is that the digital revolution is re-defining what it means to be literate.

3.      What is your digital agenda? Are Digital Literacy Skills sessions compulsory?

With the assistance of the central Innovation, Research and Development team, all GEMS schools have developed their own Innovation Strategies, and digital learning is a key element of these plans. We are also fortunate in the UAE that the National Inspection Framework now prioritises the need for digital and innovation skills, so our schools are judged in these important areas. Together with the requirements of the comprehensive range of curriculum options on offer in GEMS schools, there really is now no question that digital skills are a compulsory element of our provision. Moreover, digital learning skills are embedded in all areas of the curriculum, in line with the view of digital mastery as a new literacy.

GEMS’ digital technology

1.      What digital technology have you integrated into the classroom?

Digital technologies are transforming the way in which our students learn and it is important to realise that it is not just about what happens in the classroom. The introduction of the GEMS Fusion platform in all our schools is empowering teachers, students and parents to interact in ways that were inconceivable when we were at school. The very concept of the classroom as the main place of learning is rapidly becoming an anachronism, as online, blended and active flipped learning become the norm, transforming the way we organise and personalise learning for every student.

2.      What are the pros of this technology?

Within the secure Fusion environment, GEMS students are able to connect with their teachers and each other in real time, acquiring important digital learning skills as they cover curriculum content through a dynamic and challenging process. Students come to class with greatly enhanced knowledge of the content and their teachers are aware of any misconceptions, having interacted with the students online, often making timely interventions to aid the learners – all before the ‘lesson’ has started. This frees up our teachers to engage the students in more creative and challenging activities during their valuable face-to-face time, whilst teaching the students important time and project management skills and making them more accountable for their own learning. The students love this way of working, as evidenced by their feedback:

“If I didn’t know something I’d ask a question on there and someone, a friend or a teacher, would answer.” Jordi, Year 8 – GEMS Wellington Academy – Silicon Oasis

 ‘It helps us think out of the box and learn independently.’ – Pritika, Grade 8 – GEMS Modern Academy

Parent engagement in children’s learning has always been a high priority in GEMS schools and the Fusion platform is taking this to new levels, with parents having a real time window into their children’s work, progress and achievements.  They are true partners in the learning process.

“I found the presentation really emotional, as my son had put his heart and soul into the work.” – GEMS parent commenting on the culmination of a blended course delivered through the Fusion platform.

3.      What are the cons?

With the 24/7/365 nature of the digital world, there is always a risk that students (and teachers and parents!) may be unable to switch off and manage their time effectively. This is why all GEMS schools offer a comprehensive, fully assessed Digital Citizenship curriculum in partnership with Common Sense Media (https://www.commonsensemedia.org/). Not only does this programme ensure that our students are becoming competent, safe and responsible users of technology, it also engages parents in this key area, empowering them to reinforce and model responsible technology use. We have had all of the Common Sense Media parent resources translated into Arabic, a sign of our commitment to community learning and inclusion.

4.      What’s your rule about cellphones in class?

Smartphones, like any other internet-ready device, are very much a part of everyday life and provide us all with an important tool for learning, communication and collaboration.  It is essential that students do not see these devices as being ‘forbidden.’  Rather, they are integrated into the learning process, and teachers, students and parents work together to ensure the appropriate and responsible use of these tools. As a rule of thumb, we have found that tablets are the most effective devices for young learners, who are encouraged to add laptops to their armoury at around the age of 7 and smartphones from 11 onwards – but this is a rough guideline rather a strict rule.  The guiding principle is digitally normal use and, if a particular type of device provides the vehicle for optimal learning in any given situation, then we must empower our students to use those devices effectively and safely.

5.      How do you deal with high tech ‘doodling’ and communication during class?

The Digital Citizenship programme, along with signed ‘Empowered Digital Use’ agreements ensure that misuse of technology is very rare in our schools. This is proactively managed and constantly monitored. A key part of the Digital Citizenship programme is that children understand and can debunk the myth of ‘multi-tasking’ and learn to stay focused on the task at hand. Of course, the best way to avoid digital distraction is to ensure that students are so engaged in their learning that this is not an issue!

6.      A study from Princeton University shows that we process information better when taking notes by hand because writing is slower than typing (an argument often spun in favour of laptops), which helps students learn and retain the material – what are your thoughts on this?

It is not surprising that we process new information more effectively when we write by hand rather than simply typing a transcript verbatim. Writing in shorthand, paraphrasing, making diagrammatic and visual connections, mind-mapping, and annotating notes with our emerging thoughts and ideas as we absorb new data, are all powerful ways of making instant sense of what we are seeing and hearing. We are also retaining more information at the time, and are more able to make sense of that information and develop our initial thoughts and ideas at a later stage. We remember what we ‘thought’ rather than just what we heard or saw. Physically brainstorming in groups on walls, glass and traditional whiteboards is also known to be highly effective.

I would point out that the Princeton research looked at University students in formal, lengthy, large scale lecture situations. In my ten years with GEMS, I cannot think of an example of students in any of our schools learning in this way from their teachers. Accordingly, it is not a real concern in schools - at least not in good schools!

When students do take notes, from books, websites, presentations, performances, demonstrations, debates, etc., they use a variety of methods. As always, the golden rule is fitness for purpose – we should never be using technology for the sake of it.

It is also worth noting that universities themselves are moving away from a reliance on the lecture, a form of mass exposition and knowledge transfer, as they introduce collaborative, problem-based learning, transform their learning spaces, and begin to offer online courses such as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). 

There is also, of course, a raft of both established and emerging technologies, such as the digital stylus, Livescribe pens and digital paper, and digital annotation, collaboration and ‘backchannel’ tools that are incrementally improving the digital learning experience. Just because students are using technology doesn’t have to mean they are merely word processing as seen in the Princeton research. A good example of how technology can be used in an arguably more effective way than handwritten notes is the blending of Twitter and Storify. Using Twitter, students can share what they feel are the key points in a lecture or other learning situation, in real time. They are forced to actively and critically think in real time, while creating a ‘backchannel’ that sees the whole group, plus their entire, combined personal learning networks, sharing, commenting, reasoning, thinking and arguing on the fly. Once the session is over, users can ‘Storify’ the whole experience, which in effect provides the group’s (not just the individual’s) notes. These are visible to the teacher and can be used as the basis for deeper learning in subsequent face to face and online sessions. This is similar to the process already described in the GEMS Fusion platform, where the forums provide the valuable backchannel, record of the learning journey and basis for deeper learning in later sessions.

Computer clubs and coding classes

Although all our schools do still offer the more traditional style ‘after school clubs’, we are now seeing a shift towards more sustained, productive and ‘real world’ curriculum enrichment programmes. It is incredibly exciting to see the range and quality of opportunities available to our students, from NASA Astronaut Training in the USA to scientific expeditions to Antarctica.

The focus now is on Real World Learning, as students learn to use and create technology to solve the most pressing issues facing our global society. For example, GEMS Maker Day has evolved, in association with Singularity University, to become the Global Innovation Challenge, which this year engaged 45,000 GEMS students in identifying and solving real problems facing humanity and our planet. Twelve winning teams in categories such as Disaster Resilience, Learning, Environment, Health, Energy and Governance, have been awarded seed funding and been invited to join the GEMS Accelerator Programme. This initiative provides the students with access to mentors from Singularity University, as well as local industry, empowering them to become entrepreneurs, ensuring that their ideas come to fruition and have real impact.  It is pleasing to note that the balance between male and female students participating and succeeding in this, and other technology-based initiatives, is very even.

As part of the Make School programme, students at Bradenton Prep Academy – Dubai Sports City have been given the opportunity to study app development and entrepreneurship as part of their AP programme, under the mentorship of a fully trained teacher, who attended a summer course at the Make School headquarters in San Francisco. This programme is noted for its successful track record in helping students to gain internships and employment with high profile companies in Silicon Valley, such as Apple, Google and Tesla.

Opened in September 2016, GEMS Nations Academy has been purpose built to lead the way in preparing its students to succeed in the digital age, with facilities, expert educators, small class sizes, personalised programmes and an innovative curriculum that are combining to take learning beyond outstanding.  As Principal, Tom Farquhar, says, “We speak three languages here at GEMS Nations Academy: English, Arabic and Coding.”

It is no surprise, then, to see GEMS Nations Academy selected as the perfect venue for an exciting first in the UAE – the iD Tech Summer Programme. 

With this rapid and seismic shift in curriculum provision, we recognise the need for our teachers to gain new skills and stay ahead of the curve. To this end, GEMS has engaged with a number of high level partners and accelerators to ensure that our teachers are world leaders in the field of exponential digital technologies and entrepreneurship. Our partners include Singularity University, Make School, DTEC, Rochester Institute of Technology, ID Tech and Harvard Graduate School of Education.

All in all, there is no better time or place to be a student, with a wealth of unprecedented opportunities to learn to succeed in life and to make our world a better place.

Innovate My School event a great success!

This was a great event and the beginning of what I believe will be an enduring partnership with the Innovate My School team!

16 of world's leading education technology providers introduce cutting-edge products and services to boost innovation in UAE schools

As part of the UAE Innovation Week, GEMS Education in partnership with ‘Innovate My School’ organised an innovation speed networking event on education technology (EdTech) for all GEMS schools. The half-day event was a fun and effective introduction for the teaching community to cutting-edge products and services to boost innovation in education.

The event, held at The Kindergarten Starters school, saw 16 of the world’s leading and up-and-coming innovative EdTech providers, who were selected to showcase their products in a fast-moving and exciting new format of speed-networking – a first in the Middle East. 

Founded in January 2010 in the UK, the ‘Innovate My School’ community reaches more than 50,000 friends and followers through unique events, community update, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. The concept is meant to inspire the education sector by showcasing, through a range of platforms, the best in education innovation by teachers and industry experts from around the world.

Phil Redhead, Senior Manager - Digital Strategy, Innovation, Research and Development Unit at GEMS Education, said: “GEMS schools have long embraced digital learning as an essential element of 21st-century education and a medium through which we strive to instill our four core values of leading through innovation, pursuing excellence, growing by learning and global citizenship.

“This is a great opportunity to explore some of the best EdTech resources on the market, to consider how these could add value to our schools’ digital learning strategies, and to network with the providers as well as peers from all other GEMS schools.”

Michael Forshaw, Founder and Managing Director, Innovate My School, said: “We have pioneered speed networking with 130 school groups and 1,517 schools in the UK, so to be asked to deliver a session for GEMS is, of course, a great honour and incredibly exciting. Bringing together the best of British EdTech innovations, completely tailored to the needs of the GEMS schools, and at a time and location that suits their calendars, is going to be of great benefit to all involved.”

Asha Alexander, Principal of the host school, The Kindergarten Starters, said: “Children are the change agents and have a great deal of responsibility for creating the world they wish to live in. Teachers and school administrators, therefore, have a great responsibility to facilitate that change. KGS has always spearheaded change and innovation and the ‘Innovate My School’ platform will inspire to bring educators together like never before.”

The event was attended by Principals, Vice-Principals, School Digital Learning Leaders/Chief Digital Officers, Curriculum Directors, Teaching and Learning Leaders/Coaches and Senior Leaders across the GEMS Education network.

About GEMS Education GEMS Education is a pioneering education company. Through our schools, consulting practice and our charitable foundation we are advancing education for all. Every day in our schools around the world, we prepare thousands of children of all ages for real world success. We are a catalyst and delivery partner. We work with governments, donor agencies and private clients to improve education systems, and provide vital training for young people in an increasingly competitive world. Through the Varkey Foundation we campaign for, and support initiatives that change lives through education.

Time to get serious about digital leadership

I honestly believe this rather unassuming gentleman is the most important person working in education today - and I am eternally grateful to my good friend Mark Stone for introducing me to his work several years ago.

                                                                      Mal Lee

In his recent work, with Roger Broadie, Mal introduces us, as directly as ever, to the concept of The Chief Digital Officer .

As always, Mal seems to speak with an uncanny, almost supernatural understanding of our own experience and data in GEMS schools, cutting through the hype and the tech to say things as they really are. School transformation is about empowered people. It is about leadership. And it is about taking these things seriously.

I recommend that all educators and leaders working with educational technology - and looking to transform their schools - take a break from the tech, cool tools and what seems to work at a micro-level. Time spent reading Mal and Roger's blog: http://schoolevolutionarystages.net/ is, in my humble opinion, the best one can do to ensure sustainable success for schools and their students.

Enjoy!

Changing Culture in Schools

Another fascinating insight from Asha Alexander, Principal of The Kindergarten Starters, Dubai. 

The school's 'Open Doors' initiative is having a huge impact and making some waves across the UAE! 

Read more about this initiative here.

Changing a Culture

A cultural change requires a deep understanding of what a culture is and how cultures grow. When organizations embark on cultural change, they often do not recognize the culture they presently have. People create cultures. Some are deep-rooted and define everything that happens in the organization. Others are transient and shift with changing leadership and staff. To change a culture, one must have a vision of what that change would bring.

Very recently our school decided to open its doors to the parents in a way we had never done before. We welcomed them into classrooms to evaluate lessons and give us their feedback. One of the reasons it met with the success it did was that parents were eagerly waiting to be a part of this process of teaching and learning. They wanted their kids to succeed even more than we did and we were keeping at bay thousands of people who would actually be able to help us achieve our goals.

There has to be buy-in if a culture has to change and there must be a need that is felt by all the people connected to that organization. As parents visited lessons, there were changes in perceptions. They began to understand the teaching learning process that hitherto lay hidden. They recognized challenges and above all they were helpful in providing constructive suggestions because they wanted the school in which their kids were studying in to become an even better place. We had placed our trust in them and they returned that in ample measure. It became clear to us that changing a culture meant that everyone who were associated with the organization had to embrace that change. We were trying to effect changes keeping thousands of parents who were integral to our organization with a limited understanding of what was happening. Every person is key. Each one contributes to culture. We were not trying to cobble together what worked for others but we were trying to make a mosaic of all the patterns of thought that existed within our own organization.

At times, when leaders look at effecting a cultural change they try to do what others are doing in the hope that similar results will accrue. People have to live the behaviours that will result in the change and it will not happen if they don’t understand how these behaviours fit in to their organization. Every organization is unique and must create its own culture; singularly different from all others and as distinctive as your finger prints.

The other thing I learned about culture is that it changes slowly and imperceptibly at times, it grows organically in pockets within a large institution and sometimes it can engulf the entire populace because it is so relevant. Open Doors is a wonderful step in growing our culture because we have embraced the parent community as an integral part of our growth process. Every parent’s thoughts and ideas are welcomed as we try to recognize how this is helping to shape our vision of our school. Cultures need to stay open and have outlets, else they tend to stagnate. Every person that comes into your culture ‘contaminates’ the minds with new ideas and we begin to think in new ways about old practices. This is a necessary part of growth in a culture. This is what adds and revitalizes the life in the organization.

Finally, there is a need to sustain a culture even as it is growing. There is a need to prune and trim and guide the growth so that its shape inspires others to live that culture. When a culture is in place you look at things differently. You search for opportunities that will help your culture to grow further rather than jump into everything that looks like an exciting opportunity. Cultures usually don’t develop if there is nothing within to sustain that growth. You need challenge and opportunity. You need celebration and recognition. You need to let go off some things and embrace some others. Above all, you need to nurture that culture that is so unique to you. If you understand that people make cultures, then you need to nurture the people. You need to communicate ideas, be receptive to thoughts, reflect and refine. The process is unending but definitely worth your while as you create an organization that is singular- one that bears the collective stamp of its people.