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Reimagining community engagement in a JK–12 International Baccalaureate school: Transforming praxis through compassionate dialogic processes
Get PDFThe International Baccalaureate (IB) mandates community engagement (CE; otherwise known as service learning) throughout its continuum; however, there is confusion around epistemological approaches, strategies, and methodologies. This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) aims to support educators in developing a praxis-based CE program at an independent IB school in Western Canada. It is inspired by a problem of practice that exists at Hope Mountain School (HMS), where there is currently no coherent framework to guide CE development through ethical and sustainable approaches. Critical/post-critical theoretical approaches ground the OIP’s inquiry process supported by sociotransformative constructivist and ecocentric worldviews. Systemic tensions between HMS, IB programs, and the provincial curriculum are discussed, and HMS’s culture and vision are analyzed in relation to CE epistemology as focused through dialogic change processes. A tripartite model of ensemble, compassionate systems, and reflexive leadership supports systems change, and cycles of community-based participatory action research promote reflexive praxis and contextual intelligence. The change model positions research, purpose, intentionality, critical thinking, and participatory conversations as necessary for change implementation, and this model is deepened through an exploration of collaborative strategies for community wellbeing. Solutions are measured against the concepts of compassionate collaboration, leadership capacity, and deeper learning, with the chosen solution focusing on a continuum-wide approach to change. Equitable and decolonizing approaches to knowledge mobilization and evaluation are presented with the aim to increase inclusion, leadership capacity, and agency
Learning: What Counts and Who Decides?
Get PDFEducators, educational leaders, and policymakers continue to develop academic interventions for secondary school students who experience ongoing struggles. This approach is understandable given the neoliberal educational goal to support students’ becoming contributing members of society. However, time spent responding to symptoms (i.e., students failing courses) merely maintains the status quo. It negates the exploration of a deeper cause of these struggles. This organizational improvement plan (OIP) explores and initiates a change to respond to a cause of these challenges: lack of student voice in learning environments resulting in diminished student achievement and limited awareness of postsecondary pathway possibilities. Although mentioned in education policy and visionary statements, the application of student voice is inconsistent, limited, and often performative as the domination of normalized adult voice prevails. Two-Eyed Seeing and the ethic of the best interest of the student will support the elevation of student voice in reimagining their formal learning experiences. It will further the interrogation and expansion of student demonstration of their learning, privileging student-driven approaches over teacher-centered ones. Transformative and followership leadership approaches situate all participants as learners, collaboratively exploring, identifying, and disrupting assumptions about student learning and teaching practices while co-designing changes that evolve from current reality. This is realized through a discovery-based inquiry cycle, an iterative change model, and a monitoring framework that tracks formative and summative indicators of progress and success. This OIP prioritizes including student voice, situating students as drivers of their learning experience, and reimagining adults’ role in making a difference for a child
Transforming School-Based Mental Health to Heal the Collective Soul Wound
Get PDFPervasive well-being concerns of youth in Alberta are steadily contributing to society’s collective soul wound. In response to this growing need, K-12 systems are faced with increased demands for school-based mental health services. Public Prairie School Division (PPSD) provides student mental health intervention needs through onsite access to school-based teacher counsellors and referrals to centralized psychologists. However, decisions regarding mental health practitioner allocations or practice standards are often left to individuals and generally follow historical practice. This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) problematizes PPSD’s lack of system-wide approaches to mental health interventions that can provide assurance of improved efficacy and equity in meeting student mental health needs. Transformative leadership applied within a utilitarian consequentialist lens has the potential to improve individual and collective student well-being. The decolonizing lens of scarring the collective soul wound will elevate system leadership to counter pervasive neoliberalism and allow for change and healing within ethical spaces. Actioning psychosocial change using transformative learning theory positions practitioners as co-creators of new counselling practice standards in response to student and parent feedback. Allocation changes stemming from systemic analysis of demographic and referral data should increase equity of access to teacher counsellors. Evidence of improved access and efficacy in mental health interventions will be sought through interconnected plan-do-study-act cycles and more broadly confirmed through a RE-AIM framework. Verifying PPSD’s collective soul wound scar also requires the application of an Indigenous wellness perspective
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