At HOM, It’s Not Only Knowing,

It’s Knowing How To Learn

By Tanjua Damon

Head O’ Meadow’s School Improvement Plan includes goals that will no longer just teach students information, but will employ strategies that teach them how to learn.

Principal Bill Bircher presented Head O’ Meadow’s 2001-2002 School Improvement Plan Tuesday night to the Board of Education.

“Schools traditionally teach kids information,” Mr Bircher said. “Not necessarily how to learn.”

The school as a whole will be looking at the goal of a safe and orderly environment, making sure that students feel safe and secure so that they can maximize their learning time. Bullying is another issue the school will continue to address with its students, according to Mr Bircher. The school will also work on a stronger sign-out procedure for parents picking up their children after school so teachers know students went home safely.

“We have taken as close as you can get to a non-tolerance stand on teasing and taunting,” he said. “It’s not because we have more kids picking on kids, it’s because we have taken a stand time and time again. Now we need to address the school bus. It’s easy to say we don’t have any control, but it is where 90 percent of it happens.”

Another goal is to have a climate of high expectations for success and self-directed learning. This goal is intended to help give students what they need so they believe they can accomplish a task.

“It’s a killer. It’s hard. It’s a belief,” Mr Bircher said. “What we want to know is how we are going to instill in kids the belief that they can do it. We’re going to have to make a serious attempt to make those lessons interesting. We’re going to have to give them constant feedback. It’s going to be specific.”

Mr Bircher told the board that with teachers telling students they accomplished something with specific examples, it will help children understand the impact they make on their own learning.

“We have to continually find ways we can tell kids we know they can,” he said. “It’s not enough to tell them we think they can. Teachers have to show them they know they can.”

Mr Bircher would also like the school to work on a “metacognition” environment at Head O’ Meadow School. This goal would provide a system where students are taught strategies or plans of attack for learning.

“This is a lot more valuable. We use learning the content as a vehicle,” Mr Bircher said. “We teach kids how to learn and they can do anything.”

Other goals include increasing the amount of engaged learning time to teach the curriculum, to have teachers have a significant amount of time to meet together to discuss school progress, continually monitor students’ progress through a data system, and continue with home-school relations.

The HOM Improvement Plan goal for reading, writing, and math addresses working to eliminate students scoring below the state level of mastery and working to improve students’ spelling skills. The plan also calls for science to be used as a way to help build metacognative skills.

“Science is a wonderful stepping stone to give the idea that yes I can,” Mr Bircher said. “We will use science as a more central part of our curriculum. Use it as the natural hook that it is.”