Jamie Oliver and Differentiated Instruction

I love Jamie Oliver! I have followed his career since his early days on “The Naked Chef.” What I love most about him is his unrelenting spirit to make a positive difference in people’s lives. Watching his most recent crusade against unhealthy eating in his “Food Revolution,” reminded me why I became a school trustee. I watched Jaimie take on his home country in England in his attempt to bring healthier food into schools and into homes. And now he is bringing his revolution to America. Rick Wormeli is a lot like Jamie Oliver. Mr. Wormeli may not be as well known as Mr. Oliver, but Mr. Wormeli does for education what Mr. Oliver does for food.

All of our teachers had the opportunity to see Rick Wormeli during a special division Professional Development (PD) day on March 22. The board of trustees and central office administration felt it was important for our staff to see Mr. Wormeli’s presentation because he provides some very useful tools in the area of student assessment (ie. marking and grading student learning).

Mr. Wormeli is a lot like Mr. Oliver because he travels around the world 42 out of 52 weeks of the year trying to make a difference. Mr. Wormeli has been tied to the terminology, in the education world, of Differentiated Instruction (DI). Now I am not an expert on DI and I do not have an education degree, but from what I have learned about DI is that every student learns differently and therefore, each student may need different tools in order to learn. No, this does not mean a different lesson plan for each child in a teacher’s classroom. It means we are all different and a one-size-fits-all approach to learning is not realistic.

For me to assume that teachers do not already know this is ignorant of me. Of course teachers realize that each student in their class learns differently. What Mr. Wormeli made clear to me during our March 22^nd session was that our school systems are largely based on a factory model where we provide the same set of instruction, the same set of tests and churn out students at the end of the year. Our teachers have had to work within this model and find ways to adapt their teaching methods for their classes of diverse students. Mr. Wormeli’s concepts provided some extra tools for our teachers to try. What he did not say and what we do not expect is for our teachers to throw out everything they have learned over their years of teaching and start from scratch.

Professional development is meant to add to our knowledge base, not for us to take a total u-turn. Every profession has its own version of professional development. From doctors and dentists to plumbers and mechanics, we all need professional development in order to keep up with our changing times. But what Jaimie Oliver has so clearly demonstrated is that we are creatures of habit and we don’t like change. For us to grasp some of these new concepts in a practical sense may be difficult at first. But our teachers are not in this alone.

Not only do our teachers have their fellow colleagues to lean on, but they also have their administrators and their trustees back them up. Yes, we are all part of one team - a team that wants to see each and every child in our division succeed. There may be some nay-sayers out there who are going to critique and cut down everything we are trying to achieve within our school division. But the main thing I would like everyone to remember is that we all want our children to GET IT. We want our students to understand the material they are being taught so that when they graduate from our division, they will have a set of skills that will triumph within our ever-changing and competitive, global economy.

We do not expect a revolution, but we do want to start a conversation.