Category Archives: Professional development

Zeena Zaiyouna Conducts Ontario Pops Orchestra

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Our very own Zeena Zaiyouna is this season’s assistant orchestra conductor of the Ontario Pops Orchestra, under music direction of Carlos Bastidas and is playing principal oboe in the orchestra.

Zeena has performed with orchestras including Harthouse Orchestra, Counterpoint Orchestra, Greater Toronto Philharmonic Orchestra, Kindred Spirits Orchestra, Kingston Symphony Orchestra and the York Chamber Ensemble. She is a Toronto and Ontario Arts Council recording artist recipient and she most recently was featured as a conductor with the Canadian Independent School Music Festival performance at Roy Thomson Hall.

Together with a performance degree on oboe from Queen’s University, Zeena has studied under the guidance of Barbara Bolte and principal oboist of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Hansjörg Schellenberger. Her orchestral conducting background and experience includes private studies with Maestro Andre Presser from Holland and Maestro Harold Faberman at Bard College in New York state.  She has completed university studies in Denmark, Spain, and Canada and has had a unique opportunity to design and implement transdisciplinary arts-based teacher training and curriculum on four continents. Currently, Zeena teaches instrumental music at Kingsway College School and concurrently works as a private studio oboe and piano teacher for young aspiring musicians.

Zeena will be assisting the orchestra conductor of the Ontario Pops Orchestra on Saturday, December 14 at 8:00 p.m. at the Humber Valley United Church. We are incredibly proud of Zeena and her achievements outside the walls of KCS! If you would like to see her in concert, please visit http://www.ontariopops.com/.

Success Redefined – Rethinking Motivation

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We all have different reasons for getting up each morning and doing what we set out to do. Motivation is the reason why we do things and is a crucial component that inspires us to reach our goals.

There are two forces at play when it comes to motivation: intrinsic – which is doing something because it’s personally meaningful; and extrinsic – which is doing something for a reward or to avoid punishment. We rely on these forces to achieve our objectives – whether we are playing for a team, participating in the classroom, reading a book or simply helping out with chores at home.

As parents, educators, coaches and lifelong learners, we sometimes wonder which motivational approach is better in managing those relationships – to be more aggressive or to be more open and nurturing. This was the matter in question at the recent KCS Encouraging Dialogue event held in October.

“Break out of convention to prepare for your child’s performance, well-being and success” was the theme discussed by former Olympians, Jason Dorland and Robyn Meagher at the event, followed by powerful messages surrounding the importance of building relationships when it comes to coaching, teaching and parenting.

Jason and Robyn provided practical tips, based upon their shared experiences, on how we can best coach and teach our children through nurturing and encouraging. They both elaborated on their successes and failures, using motivation as a tool, resulting in greater acceptance, fulfillment and mutual respect.

Learning begins after a respectful relationship has been developed. Once the respect is there and the individual feels safe, cared for and empowered, then they are ready to engage and to learn. Before we engage with people, we often need to step back and consider where they are coming from, as well as understanding and respecting their intentions and goals. This may sound easier said than done, especially when one of the people in the relationship is in an authoritative position.

Throughout their athletic careers, Jason and Robyn were coached and trained from two very different perspectives and approaches. Jason experienced the ‘warrior, aggressive, win-at-all-costs’ approach, mixed with a bit of anger and extrinsic condemnation as the motivational tool.   Jason sees this as not an effective or successful approach in the long run. Alternatively, Robyn’s coaching and training was based on mutual respect, support, serenity, intrinsic composure and appreciation. After getting to know Robyn and understanding her training history and coaching style, Jason saw and appreciated the benefits. Over time, they worked together to develop practical tips on how we can help children navigate through the success and failures of life.

A few helpful tips from the evening were:

  • To find out what you are capable of is a journey. Intrinsic motivation is not the chase. Intrinsic motivation is powered by love and high performance is the by-product.
  • Ego driven motivation is powered by reputation, reward and fear, whereas spirit driven motivation is powered by service, mastery and joy.
  • Coaching is built around three questions:
    • What went well?
    • What was tricky?
    • What do you want to change moving forward?
  • The journey of life is the gift. Celebrate and enjoy it!

In coaching, parenting and teaching, motivation is used and can be delivered aggressively, by instilling fear, or softly by imparting love. Both approaches impact behavior in a variety of ways.

The benefits are evident when there is mutual respect in a relationship; the results can be positive and boundless.  Investing and working on the connection in order to cultivate mutual respect, feelings of trust, and support is always well worth the time and energy. There is value in nurturing a strong sense of connection between the coach and the athlete, the teacher and the student, the parent and the child.

We all grow and learn through our trials and our errors. The relationships between success and failure is fluid; they are linked in the process of growth, learning and change. And communication and motivation are vital components in this process. When the lines of communication are open, and the right form of motivation is applied, there is synergy – collaboration and cohesiveness – like Canadian geese – we fly together.

We were happy to host Jason and Robyn back in October.  Our staff will continue to work closely with them in the two four-day professional workshops in the summer of 2020 and 2021.

Unleashing Potential

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“The best plans are those that liberate other people’s plans” – Jane Jacobs (1916-2006)

Jane Jacobs understood potential. An urbanist icon, she saw how cities, and in particular how they were designed, could have profound impact on the lives within them, for better or worse. Even the humble neighborhood had power and potential beyond what most in her time realized.

I spent much of my summer learning from and about Torontonians who are making (or helped make) this city remarkable. My classroom was Toronto, and my textbook was the diverse voices, sights, and activity of Torontonians making a difference. I watched what happens when plans liberate other people’s plans.

There are many reasons to appreciate Jacobs. What I most appreciate is her ability to see potential in people where others didn’t. And this is why she belongs in a school blog.

To what extent do we see the potential in children and youth? To what extent is education set up to unleash it? How might childhood, youth, and even the world, be better if we could confidently say, “Yes, we see it, and by design it will be unleashed!”.

Greta Thunburg, 16, just finished crossing the ocean on her international mission to get adults to adequately act on climate change. Many other youth this past year (and years past!) demonstrated impressive abilities to make a difference through activism, service, innovation, entrepreneurship, leadership, and more. While their schools have no doubt contributed to their abilities, their unleashed potential often had little to do with systematic efforts at school.

At KCS, we’re committed to unleashing student potential by design, and we’re committed to nurturing the intrinsic motivation needed to fuel it. The foundation set in our junior school will align with unprecedented opportunity in our senior school. We see their potential already, and look forward to seeing it blossom and fuel exceptional learning in grades 9 to 12.

If this post leaves you unconvinced, let this TED Talk by 12-year-old Adora Svitak do the job. She’s one of those remarkable children, and she speaks on behalf of the many others who want to be listened to, believed in, and challenged more.

We’re listening and looking forward to watching plans unfold.

P.S. Adora shares the difficulty she faced to get her books published as a child, because she was a child. KCS has been publishing student books through our YAKCS program since 2013. We have since published 11 books that sit in our library plus the Library and Archives Canada, in addition to those in various homes.

KCS Faculty are Lifelong Learners Too!

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At KCS, we focus on developing lifelong learners. It makes sense that each year our faculty embrace new and challenging learning opportunities so that they can continue to support each student in this goal. With the goal of each student becoming lifelong learners, each faculty member is also actively involved in learning that is relevant not only to their teaching practice, but also their ongoing commitment to learning. Many teachers choose to take courses, read, share, and attend conferences to support their professional learning and their students’ needs. KCS’s commitment to lifelong learning is not only evident at the student level, but at the teacher level as well.

One particularly relevant professional learning experience is offered each year through CIS Ontario. Now in its seventh season, Cohort 21 brings CIS Ontario educators together for a year-long professional learning opportunity. Working collaboratively with some of the most passionate educators in the province, participants share innovative ideas, connect with experts in the field, plan for change in their schools, and engage in Design Thinking workshops to help develop a focus of a personal project called an Action Plan.

As a veteran of Season 4 in 2014-2015, I can honestly say that my learning experiences through Cohort 21 played a role in my decision to continue to research learning for six more years. Having a good understanding of student learning, I wanted to better understand teacher learning, and of course as a lifelong learner I am still figuring it out. Since then, KCS has supported three more faculty members throughout their own Cohort 21 experience. Last year, Season 6 involved our grade 2 team. Lisa Woon ventured out to discover new technology and Keri Davis went on a ride through project based learning. This year, Bob Hayes is exploring how to solve the world’s greatest problem and I’m back as a coach, still learning about learning.

Cohort21

Lifelong learners tend to be those who are well supported in their learning efforts and this is something that KCS models across the entire school community. We’ll never stop learning because we are supported in both our efforts and our passions. We know from experience that this is what drives us to learn along with our students and our students know from experience that no matter what we are along for the ride.

Revisiting: How Schools Learn

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Four years ago, I had the pleasure of joining a CAIS accreditation committee at a school in Bermuda. Fuelled by my conviction that the exercise in earning CAIS accreditation was a story worth telling, I wrote the following blog from my hotel room overlooking Hamilton Harbour. This coming Sunday to Wednesday, I’m heading out west to join the committee for another school visit. CAIS and the accreditation process help make KCS and other CAIS schools outstanding places to teach and learn. Here’s how:

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Our website, newsletters and social media channels explain in detail how our students learn. A nod to how our teachers are learning was given in the recent blog ‘Embrace Learning’. There’s one more pocket of learning worth knowing about. A critical part of the value offered by independent schools, it’s a process that would bring untold value to all if this practice could only spread.

I’m rarely away from school. This week, however, I’ve joined a Canadian Accredited Independent Schools (CAIS) Visiting Committee, where six peers from across Canada and I will play a part in one school’s learning. It’s a process required for CAIS accreditation and represents the high bar in demonstrating school-wide commitment to excellence in education. All told, it’s a process that takes about two-and-a-half years and repeats itself every seven.

CAIS has identified 12 Standards which together cover every area of functioning within a school: vision, mission and strategy; learning environment; academics; facility; finance; health and safety; and commitment to school improvement, to name just some of the Standards. Within each Standard, undeniable effective practices are listed. Under effective practices are questions designed to prompt and provoke schools into being accountable for their efforts.

One year prior to the visit such as I’m on, schools mobilise their whole community to collect evidence on their effective practices. The preparation of the Internal Evaluation Report includes feedback from all staff and faculty, parents, students, board members and administration. The document is rarely less than 200 pages and can be hundreds more. Designed to be an exercise in thorough and honest reflection, the report includes not only an account of strengths but also self-identified challenges and next steps. By design, this exercise is about school-wide learning. This process identifies schools which demonstrate an exceptional commitment to learning and makes note of their achieved excellence.

During our official visit, the committee will spend four days meeting with teachers, administrators, parents, board members and students, verifying what’s in the school’s Internal Evaluation Report and asking about any unreported areas of note. When we leave, we’ll be writing up our observations, and include commendations, suggestions and recommendations. Our report then goes to the school, where they will have 18 months in which to respond to the recommendations. It also goes to CAIS for a decision on accreditation.

Two-and-a-half years of every seven spent answering to the profession’s highest standards fuels an undeniable engine for learning. It sets in motion work and learning that fills the interim four-and-a-half years. And by mobilizing the whole community, and bringing in professionals from outside the school, all involved learn and become better able to serve the students in their midst.

Parents with children in CAIS schools can be confident that they have invested in a school which strives for excellence. Wishing all children could be so lucky, parents with children in non-CAIS schools are encouraged to ask the question, “How do their schools learn?” It’s the kind of provocative question that our entire profession should be accountable for answering.

Andrea Fanjoy,
Assistant Head, Academics
You can follow Andrea on Twitter @afanjoy.

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A Great Year to Come, By Design

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I make no secret of my enthusiasm for what happens at KCS, and what’s happening in the profession. I have an exciting vantage point, in the midst of determined teachers and students as they embrace learning, within a profession that is evolving in notable inspiring ways. The evolution I witness daily isn’t always smooth – “messy” is the word often used in professional dialogue. Like the work of a sculptor, through (responsible) mess, beautiful things emerge.

Last week, all KCS faculty were introduced to design thinking. Blog readers may recall that we introduced design thinking two years ago in the form of a unique model of student-staff collaborative leadership, called KCS By Design. This initial experience with design thinking made clear that it was worth adopting school-wide.

While design thinking has origins in the late 1960s, it has gained increasing attention since the turn of the century for contributing to remarkable innovation, both in the corporate world and in addressing some of the world’s most challenging social issues. One remarkable article published by the Harvard Business Review shares how design thinking helped create a middle class in Peru. Impressive indeed! In schools, design thinking not only equips educators with a problem-solving tool, it equally develops in students mature critical and creative thinking skills, and so much more.

Design thinking insists on certain mindsets. Based on the work of the international driver of design thinking, IDEO, here are the mindsets shared with faculty last week:

Creative confidence
Make it (Bias for Action)
Learn from Failing
Empathy
Embrace Ambiguity
Optimism (love the problem!)
Iterate, iterate, iterate (small actions, big change)

Fuelled with those mindsets, design thinking requires a disciplined multi-step process. Also based on the work of IDEO, here is the process we’re following:

What is the design challenge?

  • What problems are you aware of that need fixing?
  • What challenges are you aware of that are worth addressing?
  • What opportunities have occurred to you that are worth pursuing?

What do you need to know?

  • Who is affected?
  • What are their perspectives?
  • What research can inform you?
  • What can you learn from others’ experiences?

What ideas address your design challenge?

  • What can you think of?
  • Which are win-win for all?
  • Get feedback from a larger group

Act

  • Pilot at a small scale
  • Reflect and iterate
  • Expand to address the challenge

Annette Diefenthaler’s TEDX talk ‘Teachers as Designers’ was part of last week’s introduction. This was followed by a creative brainstorming exercise that was rooted in KCS survey results and research. The design challenge for all was to find new ways to do better in various areas.

Most gratifying were the comments from faculty that “this is how we’ve done things for years – now we have a name for it.” What was also gratifying was to see the buzz among faculty. Optimistic bias for action was fuelled.

The world has complex problems. So does education. As all schools, so does KCS. Equipping all faculty with the mindsets and tools of design thinking is one big reason for my excitement as we begin this new school year. Mindfully embracing challenges is how we’ve gotten better year after year. And it’s why we can confidently look forward to a great year to come.

What Happens on those Early Dismissal Days?

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Have you ever wondered what KCS teachers are doing during those early dismissal days when school wraps up at 12:20 and students head out to start their weekend? For starters, these afternoons always begin with a great tradition- a delicious potluck lunch.  Many KCS teachers work across numerous grades throughout the building. This special lunch is a wonderful opportunity to break bread together and reconnect with colleagues from a different grade or division. A quick glance across the room reveals tables that are full of lively conversations, laughter and an unmistakable atmosphere of positive energy.  It is this energy that fuels the professional development activities that make up the balance of the afternoon.

Staff activities during Early Dismissal Days, or EDDs, exemplify the collaborative spirit of the KCS Faculty.  Early Dismissal days complement the numerous meetings that KCS teachers attend on a weekly basis.  These formal and informal meetings allow our teachers to better understand and meet the needs of our students.  Earlier this year, the KCS faculty completed professional development activities that reflected on Project Based Learning, Differentiated Instruction and Health and Wellness. These afternoons are sometimes used to formulate action plans for students who may need extra support, guidance, challenge or a friendly pat on the back.  EDDs also offer a wonderful opportunity for both teachers and administrators to invest time into discussing curriculum, school wide projects, enrichment opportunities and upcoming events. Building on these important discussions, the teachers also take time to review current best practices whose key purpose is to make KCS a better school. Topics cover the range of our Four Doors to Learning including classroom innovation, student generated ideas, the status of clubs and teams as well as improvements to assessment and reporting.  Most importantly, teachers focus on how best to apply our Habits of Mind, Body and Action.

Time is always a precious commodity during the school year.  With this in mind, the KCS team recognizes the value of taking time to pause, reflect and then planning out a solid path forward. EDDs often have a busy agenda, but enjoying your grade partner’s homemade brownies while planning for the next Science or Language Arts units is a nice way to spend an afternoon.

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