Improving Students’ Achievement

By Joe Kingsley Eyiah, OCT, Brookview Middle School, Toronto-Canada

“Doing Nothing Gives You Nothing!”

The morning school assemblies being conducted for students at the Brookview Middle School in the Toronto District School Board nowadays are reminiscent of the morning parades organized for schools in Ghana. In Ghana, students of, especially elementary schools are made at the beginning of each school day to stand in straight lines; sing the national anthem and recite the national pledge! Thus, students are organized and made ready for the day’s learning activities. Students need to be punctual, neat and prepared for classes each morning of the school week. Lateness and unpreparedness are not tolerated.

The common assumption is that students go to school to LEARN and teachers go to school to TEACH! That is true. However, successful learning and teaching results in ACHIEVEMENT. The biggest question is: Are our students, especially those in the inner city schools or of immigrant parents achieving as they should? In Ontario, all students are expected to achieve level 3 of the Provincial Standard in the curriculum expectations. Well, LEARNING IS FOR LIFE and any achievement in learning is for a better life. That is why the Principal and Staff of the Brookview Middle School are embarking upon a journey to improve students’ achievement. Brookview believes that: students come to school to SAVE THEIR LIVES BY WORKING TO BE BETTER STUDENTS AND BETTER PERSONS and teachers come to school to SAVE LIVES.

There are good reasons why every school must be concerned if its students are not achieving at higher level. Teachers and parents need to inspire students to higher levels of achievement. “When learners know WHY they come to school and believe in WHY, they will learn because they have a reason to learn!” Students learn to acquire PEOPLE SKILLS and STUDENT SKILLS to make them better persons and better students. Their schools will then become better and their society better than it used to be. And parents will be proud of the schools which helped save the lives of their children (students).

The story being written at Brookview Middle School is interesting. It involves a journey with CLEAR VISION and CLEAR MISSION. It might not be perfect, yet it is a process with better results in sight. The journey calls for determination, consistency, perseverance and absolute commitment on the part of all (both teachers and students) involved in it. For sure it is NOT an EVENT, therefore no obstacles or frustrations can prevent it from happening!

What’s the story at Brookview which, to me, can be our history and adopted with modifications by any school which intend to improve their students’ achievement?

The Model Middle School:

Brookview as an inner city middle school in the immigrant-populated area of Jane/Finch in the Toronto District School Board is using tools that are aimed at higher students’ achievement by addressing the WHY, HOW and WHAT of learning and teaching. These tools include among others:

SLICE-Stand for something or sit for nothing

T-CHART-Learning goals

LEARNING AS A DYNAMIC PROCESS CHART-Heart, Mind, Hand and Success

Criteria

Brookview uses SLICE every morning and throughout all classes for each day. The ‘S’ requires students to STAND during the brief time that teachers introduce their lessons or give instructions to their students; the ‘L’ for LOOKING at and LISTENING to the teacher during instructions; the ‘I’ for I MESSAGE which invokes two simple questions with the student being instructed: Do I Understand? Do I Have a Question?; the ‘C’ for Complete, thus getting down to work; and the ‘E’ for Excellence/Exemplary, during which time students sit if they understand the instructions given and can do the work or sit if they need assistance for the teacher to retell or re-teach. SLICE is a simple process of getting the students ready for learning!

The learning goals involved acquiring people skills (social) and student skills (academic). WHY do I have to learn WHAT I am learning? And HOW best can I learn it? Thus, the WHY inspires the student to learn and coupled with the WHAT and the HOW drives the student to higher level of achievement!

If learning is dynamic then the teaching techniques and leadership ability alone cannot accomplish it. It takes the heart-WHY we teach to bring it about. Therefore, the WHY is our VISION and the How is our MISSION!

All teachers ought to know that students like CARING teachers more GOOD teachers. If we want to improve students’ achievement as teachers, we must KNOW, CARE and INSPIRE the students we teach.

TEACHING IS A CALLING:

According to Carol Ann Tomlinson (Education Leadership/December 2010/January 2011), what builds a solid teacher are the right setting, a sense of calling, a zeal for learning and a renewable energy source. How true! For ‘a calling is something more than a job. It challenges us to be more than we think we can be and draw on capacities we didn’t quite know we had. A calling becomes a way of life, offering us the opportunity to affect individuals in profound, enduring way.

Teachers like nurses are called to SAVE LIVES!

Teachers, students and parents must come together to work to improve students’ achievement everywhere. We must take note of Henry Ford’s quote on TEAMWORK, that; “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”