Reinvigorating empathy - and Vice Principals

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tled” reminds me of Maslow’s hierarchyof needs: that until we feelsafe and secure, we can’t begin tothink about learning.Rob: That’s exactly right. Andstudents are different today. A recentMaclean’s magazine articlemakes the case that time spent withtelevision and video games actuallyrewires the brains of young people.Kids are now able to multi-task inways we’ve never seen before butas a result, they’ve lost some abilityto interact socially, to identity bodycues and interpret facial cues.Sean: Scary. We simply need to bearound people. We are social creaturesand have been since the dawnof time.Rob: And this course of eventsis hindering kids because we knowthat the brain has plasticity and thatit changes based on its experiences.Sean: Perhaps we should teachour students the harmful effects ofsome mental environments: for example,that sitting in front of theTV or computer screen too muchwill desocialize you. One simpleidea could change forever the decisionsthat a person will make.Rob: This goes back to the socialemotionaland social intelligencepiece of “knowing thyself. ” As aperson, how do I respond to thissituation?Sean: If the most important goalis to know thyself, and your actualrelationship with your environment,then what a parent should want fortheir children is not the highestgrades — which are easily inflatedunder pressure — but the most accuratereflection of where their childfits in, as they actually are, in orderfor both parent and child to makethe most informed decisions.Rob: And that problem is systemic.We don’t learn to learn anymore.We learn to get high marks, to getinto university, to get a job but wedon’t learn to learn.Sean: And if we just learn to geta job, without learning the socialemotionalskills that prevent anxietyor depression, then all the jobdirectededucation is irrelevant.Rob: It is irrelevant. The socialemotionalneeds to come first. Yesterday,my wife called to say thatour three-year-old son, Matteo,had a bad day at pre-school. Weboth came to the same conclusion:his discomfort was the result of ourrecent chaotic schedules. We thereforeconcluded that we are going togo spend much more time with ourchild. That has to be the default position.I don’t know if it is for mostpeople.Sean: If history’s any guide, it hasbeen the default position for infinitelylonger than ithas not been. It hasonly not been the defaultposition for what40 years, if that.Rob: That’s a goodpoint.Having remindedourselves of the importanceof spendingtime with family, ourconversation beganto wrap up. Whileawaiting the bill, wediscussed how a significantcultural shiftin the school wouldShortCourseuseful important sharing hearinginformative effective interesting fantasticSee page 18 for more informationFebruary 09 • Adminfo • 12require three to five years of continuedfocus. The bill was paid, and weset out for our respective homes.Later, while driving and reflectingcontentedly on the conversation,I was struck by a somewhat paradoxicalnotion. Our focus on socialemotionaldevelopment, while respondingto a serious and pressingconcern for student well-being, is awonderful opportunity to remindthe entire school community of anenduring human truth: the most reliableindicator of happiness is, hasbeen, and will continue to be, thequality of the relationships we havewith the people around us.Sean Cook is an English teacher atCentennial School in Coquitlam,a playwright and presenter ofThe Shakespeare Hoax: Literature’sGreatest Lesson. His next play, TheLittletramp Cafe, a cabaret dinnertheater, opens in March inVancouver. He can be reached atSCook@sd43.bc.caOur cartoonist is Rod Maclean, a former Surrey principal.For a weekly cartoon email Rod at ramaclean@shaw.ca
Student leadership commitmentis broadcast province-wideCBC British Columbia and Richmond students make the news for a dayin an innovative student leadership program that is part of a districtcommittment to develop student leadershipby Leslie DysonThe Richmond School Districthas made student leadershipa priority for morethan 10 years. If you’re a CBC listeneror viewer, or if you visit theCBC website, you may have seenone of the outcomes of that commitment.The broadcaster designatedNovember 26 as News Day inBC and gave Richmond secondaryschool students the opportunity toresearch, write and present the newsthat matters to them. It was sucha success that CBC is looking intoways to expand the initiative in BCand across the country.David Jang, regional communicationsmanager at the CBC, helpedorganize the event. He has beena passionate advocate of studentleadership as a student and trusteein Richmond, while working inthe public and private sectors andthrough his role as a presenter tostudents engaged in the BCPVPA’sStudent Voice.After hearing that students inBritain were well received whenthey were invited to take over theBBC airwaves, Jang approached theRichmond School District for thispilot project. “News Day surpassedour expectations,” he said. “The energyin the building [while the studentswere present] was somethingelse.” Student-produced news itemswere presented on television, radioand on-line from 6 am to 7 pm.“We had calls to the newsroomduring the show specifically to saythis was wonderful,” he added. “It’snot often people take the time tomake that kind of call.”Initially, the invitation went outFebruary 09 • Adminfo • 13to every secondary school studentin the district five months beforebroadcast day. More than 300 studentsanswered the call. They gainedsome media literacy while learningwhat is news, techniques for interviewingpeople and how to writenews stories for broadcast. Assignmentseven had to be completedover the summer break. Administratorsand teachers were offered atraining session in August.In the end, 18 students made itthrough the auditions and trainingand decided that they could handlethe rigours of this project in additionto all the other demands placedon them at home and at school.Pictures on pages 13 and 15 are from Richmond’s Student Leadership Conference in November.
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Page 9 and 10: Sean: What made you think aprogram
Page 11: proach to education?Rob: Absolutely
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