Zest for Learning: Developing curious learners who relish real-world challenges (Pedagogy for a Changing World series)

Praise for Zest for Learning

The framework for zest for learning created by Lucas and Spencer is inspiring. It is the integration of a wealth of ideas on creativity, curiosity and resilience into a meaningful, holistic approach to curriculum design that will galvanise our work on museum learning and enrich the lives of the children and young people in our trust.

Rhodri Bryant, Executive Principal, The Arbib Education Trust

The Royal Yachting Association works hard to instil a healthy zest for learning in its young sailors and associated support staff – and the impact of this approach has been profound, helping Britain to win fifty-eight medals at Olympic level, many of them gold. This book is an essential read for anyone who wants to succeed in any walk of life.

Alistair Dickson, Director of Sport Development, Royal Yachting Association

Zest for Learning is a powerful call to action for a kinder, more joyful school experience: one in which the emphasis is rightly on helping all young people flourish and thrive. I strongly commend it.

Revd Nigel Genders, Chief Education Officer, the Church of England

This book is an excellent invitation to revisit the whole purpose of learning in our schools and to discover what the key to zest is in all our students.

Trinidad Aguilar Izquierdo, Director, Colegio Kopernikus

Zest for Learning reminds us of the true purpose of education – to nurture curious, passionate young people, putting the co-curriculum at the centre of their lives. Holyport is delighted to be at the forefront of the kind of expansive education advocated by Lucas and Spencer.

Ben McCarey, Head Master, Holyport College

Bill Lucas and Ellen Spencer brilliantly synthesise the latest thinking on how to produce balanced, curious, purposeful young people to help us imagine a richer, kinder, more sane pedagogy.

Al McConville, Director of Learning and Innovation, Bedales School, and co-author of Learning How to Learn: A Guide for Kids and Teens

Lucas and Spencer effortlessly bring to life the literature insights and exemplary practices for the idea of zest for learning so that we know how to practically support students in building this capability for a purposeful and fulfilling life.

Matt Pfahlert, co-founder and CEO, Australian Centre for Rural Entrepreneurship

Zest for Learning is a practical resource for policy-makers, educators and parents wanting to co-create a space for children and young people to connect to the world in deep and profound ways; the research has been invaluable in inspiring FORM’s Creative Learning programme in Western Australia.

Lamis Sabra, Creative Learning Manager, FORM

Focusing on zest is the single most powerful thing we’ve done as a leadership team; this book shows how all schools can make similar changes to their ethos.

Andrew Wood, Deputy Head Teacher, Steyning Grammar School

Pedagogy for a Changing World

Zest for Learning

Developing curious learners who

relish real-world challenges

Bill Lucas and Ellen Spencer

Acknowledgements

Our huge thanks to:

All the pioneering school and organisation leaders who have contributed case studies, including:

The Arbib Education Trust – Jenny Blay, head of museum learning; Grace Shaw, deputy head teacher, the Langley Academy Primary; Lawrence Hyatt, deputy head teacher, the Langley Heritage Primary.

Australian Centre for Rural Entrepreneurship – Matt Pfahlert, co-founder and CEO; Michelle Anderson, director, Interface2Learn.

Bedales School – Alistair McConville, director of learning and innovation.

Colegio Kopernikus – Trinidad Aguilar Izquierdo, director.

Explorer Scouts – Matt Hyde, chief executive; Chris James, brand and ambassador manager of the Scouts.

FORM – Lynda Dorrington, chief executive; Lamis Sabra, creative learning manager; Vanessa Bradley, creative learning coordinator; Viet Nguyen, creative technology; Mags Webster, writer and researcher; Paul Collard, chief executive, Creativity, Culture and Education; Paul Gorman, creative director, Hidden Giants; Mathilda Joubert, academic and creative learning consultant and Creative Schools programme evaluator.

Forest School Association – Sarah Lawfull, director.

Holyport College – Ben McCarey, headmaster.

Planet Poetry – Daniel Phelps, author of Xientifica: SOS.

Portsmouth Museums – Christine Taylor, curator of natural history.

Royal Yachting Association – Alistair Dickson, director of sport development; David Mellor, coaching and development manager.

Shireland Collegiate Academy – Mark Grundy, CEO, Shireland Collegiate Academy Trust; George Faux, principal, West Bromwich Collegiate Academy (previously senior vice principal, Shireland Collegiate Academy).

Steyning Grammar School – Andrew Wood, assistant head teacher.

West Rise Junior School – Mike Fairclough, head teacher.

All the thought leaders on whose shoulders we stand, including:

Ron Berger, Guy Claxton, Paul Collard, Art Costa, Anna Craft, Angela Duckworth, Carol Dweck, Anders Ericsson, Chris Fadel, Michael Fullan, Howard Gardner, Leslie Gutman, Andy Hargreaves, John Hattie, James Heckman, Lois Hetland, Bena Kallick, Tim Kautz, Geoff Masters, David Perkins, Lauren Resnick, Ron Ritchhart, Ken Robinson, Pasi Sahlberg, Andreas Schleicher, Ingrid Schoon, Tom Schuller, Martin Seligman, Tom Sherrington, Robert Sternberg, Louise Stoll, Matthew Taylor, Paul Tough, Bernie Trilling, Chris Watkins, Dylan Wiliam and David Yeager.

The Comino Foundation for generously supporting our work to develop young people’s personal capabilities at the Centre for Real-World Learning, University of Winchester.

Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgements

Series Introduction: Developing Capable Young People

Changing roles for schools

The purposes of education

Which capabilities matter most?

Lifelong learning

The idea of signature learning experiences

About the series

Chapter 1: Zest for Learning

Bodies of knowledge

Developing a model of zest for learning

Psychology for flourishing

Education for flourishing

Summary

Chapter 2: A Framework for Zest for Learning

Balanced

Curious

Purposeful

Chapter 3: Cultivating Zest

Signature learning experiences

Chapter 4: Promising Practices

Arbib Education Trust

Australian Centre for Rural Entrepreneurship

Bedales

Explorer Scouts

Forest School Association

FORM

Holyport College

Kopernikus

Royal Yachting Association

Shireland Collegiate Academy

Steyning Grammar School

West Rise Junior School

Chapter 5: Brave Leadership

Partnerships for learning

Creating a supportive ecology

Understanding and communicating a vision for zest

Rethinking the curriculum – expanding the formal curriculum and valuing co-curricular and extra-curricular learning

New roles for staff

Tracking the development of zest in young people

Zest for learning – celebrating success

Chapter 6: An A–Z of Ideas for Developing Zest

Balanced learners value relationships

Balanced learners maintain perspective

Curious learners explore the world

Curious learners embrace novel experiences

Purposeful learners find meaning

Purposeful learners perform well

Appendix: Signature Learning Experiences

References

Copyright

Series Introduction

Developing capable young people

Ensuring that all people have a solid foundation of knowledge and skills must therefore be the central aim of the post-2015 education agenda. This is not primarily about providing more people with more years of schooling; in fact, that’s only the first step. It is most critically about making sure that individuals acquire a solid foundation of knowledge in key disciplines, that they develop creative, critical thinking and collaborative skills, and that they build character attributes, such as mindfulness, curiosity, courage and resilience.

Andreas Schleicher and Qian Tang, Education Post-2015: Knowledge and Skills Transform Lives and Societies (2015, p. 9)

Changing roles for schools

Across the world there is a great shift taking place. Where once it was enough to know and do things, our uncertain world calls for some additional learning. We call them capabilities. Others call them ‘dispositions’, ‘habits of mind’, ‘attributes’ or ‘competencies’, words we find very helpful. Some refer to them as ‘non-cognitive skills’, ‘soft skills’ or ‘traits’, none of which we like given, respectively, their negative connotations, tendency to belittle what is involved and association with genetic inheritance.

Our choice of capabilities is pragmatic. A country in the northern hemisphere like Scotland is actively using the term, as is Australia at the opposite end of the earth. If we had to choose a phrase to sum up our philosophy it would be ‘dispositional teaching’ – that is to say, the attempt specifically to cultivate in learners certain dispositions which evidence suggests are going to be valuable to them both at school and in later life.

We know that the shift is underway for four reasons:

One of the ‘guardians’ of global comparative standards, PISA, is moving this way. In 2012, as well as tests for 15-year-olds in English, maths and science, they introduced an ‘innovative domain’ called ‘creative problem-solving’. This became ‘collaborative problem-solving’ in 2015, ‘global competence’ in 2018 and will become ‘creative thinking’ in 2021.

Researchers the world over are beginning to agree on the kinds of capabilities which do, and will, serve children well at school and in the real world. We’ll explore this increasingly consensual list later on, but for now we want to share just some of the key thinkers to reassure you that you are in good company: Ron Berger, Guy Claxton, Art Costa, Anna Craft, Angela Duckworth, Carol Dweck, K. Anders Ericsson, Charles Fadel, Michael Fullan, Howard Gardner, Leslie Gutman, Andy Hargreaves, John Hattie, James Heckman, Lois Hetland, Bena Kallick, Tim Kautz, Geoff Masters, David Perkins, Lauren Resnick, Ron Ritchhart, Sir Ken Robinson, Andreas Schleicher, Ingrid Schoon, Martin Seligman, Robert Sternberg, Louise Stoll, Matthew Taylor, Paul Tough, Bernie Trilling, Chris Watkins, Dylan Wiliam and David Yeager. We would include our own work in this field too.

Organisations and well-evidenced frameworks are beginning to find common cause with the idea of capabilities. The Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills Project, Building Learning Power, Expeditionary Learning Network, the Global Cities Education Network, Habits of Mind, New Pedagogies for Deeper Learning, Partnership for 21st Century Learning and the Skills4Success Framework are just a few examples. We would include our own Expansive Education Network here too.

Inspirational leaders across the world are very gradually showing us that you can powerfully embed capabilities into the formal, informal and hidden curriculum of schools, if you have a mind to do so. Here are seven examples: Col·legi Montserrat in Spain, Hellerup School in Denmark, High Tech High in the United States, School 21 and Thomas Tallis School in England, and Rooty Hill High School and Carey Grammar in Australia. You’ll doubtless have your own favourites to add in. We love these schools and their courageous teachers. Throughout the series we hope that their stories and our grounded practical advice will serve to ensure that hundreds of thousands of schools across the world see the value of systematically cultivating capabilities as well as deep disciplinary knowledge and useful academic and practical skills.

Increasingly ‘character’ is the word used to describe the cluster of capabilities which are useful in life, with a further clarification of the term, ‘performance character’, suggesting those attributes which are associated with excellence in situations where performance is called upon – an academic test, examination, sports match or any extra-curricular activity in which concentrated demonstration of skill is required.

Indeed, character education has seen a popular resurgence among politicians in the UK in recent years, with former Secretary of State for Education Damian Hinds (2019) arguing that character education is as important as examination success, and promising the development of ‘a new framework to help teachers and school leaders identify the types of opportunities that will help support their pupils to build character. The framework will also provide a self-assessment tool for schools to check how well they are doing.’

The UK’s Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues argues that teacher education must encompass preparation to teach character education (Arthur, 2014). England’s Department for Education’s Strategy 2015–2020: World-Class Education and Care (2016a) holds as one of its twelve strategic priorities ‘build character and resilience’. Character education is seen as a means to:

support the development of character traits associated with: improved attainment at school; improved employability skills; making a valuable contribution to British society as a good citizen. Embedding character education within the school system will create opportunities for all pupils to develop the skills they need to succeed in education and in adult life. (Department for Education, 2016b, p. 10)

In the second of Art Costa and Bena Kallick’s book series on the habits of mind, Curtis Schnorr (2000, p. 76) argues that character education should have thinking at its centre because ‘Successful character education is grounded in thoughtful processes.’ Thinking processes and the capabilities of good thinkers – like persisting or managing impulsivity – are foundational to character education.

All this means that as well as ensuring that, as Andreas Schleicher and Qian Tang put it, all young people develop a solid foundation of knowledge and skills while at school, they also need to acquire a set of important capabilities.

The purposes of education

Parents, educators and policy-makers alike have many hopes for the education of children and young people. But with so many ideas about what schooling might achieve, it is hard to reach any kind of consensus. Nevertheless, in late 2015/early 2016, the UK parliament initiated an inquiry into the ‘purpose of education’. On the one hand, it’s a telling admission if a government has to ask such a fundamental question. On the other, it could be construed as a sign of strength, as a recognition that times are changing.

At the Centre for Real-World Learning, we worked with a number of national bodies to see if common agreement could be reached. The following list is what we came up with and is indicative of the sorts of things we might all wish for our children’s education to achieve (Lucas and Spencer, 2016). The first half a dozen are particularly relevant to this series of books, but the remainder also give a sense of our values. We want educational goals which:

Work for all young people.

Prepare students for a lifetime of learning at the same time as seeing childhood and school as valuable in their own right.

See capabilities and character as equally important as success in individual subjects.

Make vocational and academic routes equally valued.

Cultivate happier children.

Engage effectively with parents.

Engage well with business.

Use the best possible teaching and learning methods.

Understand how testing is best used to improve outcomes.

Empower and value teachers’ creativity and professionalism.

Proactively encourage both rigorous school self-improvement and appropriate external accountability.

Which capabilities matter most?

Let’s look in more detail at the third item on our wish list: seeing capabilities and character as equally important as success in individual subjects. In the last decade, we have begun to understand with greater clarity those capabilities which are particularly useful. Here are two lists, the first from an economic perspective (Heckman and Kautz, 2013) and the second through the eyes of educational researchers (Gutman and Schoon, 2013). Both sets of researchers are trying to describe those capabilities – or, in some cases, transferable skills – which will improve outcomes for individual learners and so for wider society.

Heckman and Kautz:

Perseverance

Self-control

Trust

Attentiveness

Self-esteem and self-efficacy

Resilience to adversity

Openness to experience

Empathy

Humility

Tolerance of diverse opinions

Engaging productively in society

Gutman and Schoon:

Self-perception

Motivation

Perseverance

Self-control

Metacognitive strategies

Social competencies

Resilience and coping

Creativity

The striking thing about these lists, to us, is how similar they are. With regard to this book’s focus on zest, we will see how important some of these transferable skills or dispositions are, including perseverance, openness to experience, empathy, tolerance of diverse opinions, self-control, engaging productively in society, motivation, social competencies and creativity, and how they contribute to our thinking.

While we may want to interrogate these terms more closely, the general direction is clear. The demand side, from employers, is similar in its emphasis. In 2012, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) launched a campaign suggesting the kinds of capabilities it wanted young people to acquire at school. Their list included grit, resilience, curiosity, enthusiasm and zest, gratitude, confidence and ambition, creativity, humility, respect and good manners, and sensitivity to global concerns. This book takes the CBI’s idea of zest and provides a theoretical and practical underpinning to the concept.

Lifelong learning

As well as preparing pupils for their next immediate steps on leaving, we argue that schools also have a role in preparing young people to be learners throughout their lives. That this is an important aspect of school life has become clearer over the last two decades (Lucas and Greany, 2000; Schuller and Watson, 2009). Specifically, it is appreciated that much of the preparation for lifelong learning is informal, experienced based and often coordinated by organisations outside school. In Zest for Learning, we focus on the role of these often charitable organisations in enriching the lives of young people and instilling a love of learning beyond school. In particular, we are keen to understand how schools can best interact with outside bodies.

The progression from classroom to life outside school via interest-led activities is shown in the figure below.

Learning beyond the school

The idea of signature learning experiences

If we are reaching consensus as to the kinds of capabilities increasingly being seen as valuable, what about the kinds of teaching and learning methods that might cultivate them? In the first two books of the series we asked you to consider these two questions:

If I wanted to teach a student how to become more creative and better able to solve problems, what methods would I choose?

If I wanted my students to become more resilient, what methods would I choose?

To help you think about them we introduced the idea of signature pedagogies, as suggested by Lee Shulman, in the context of preparing learners for different vocational routes. These are ‘the types of teaching that organize the fundamental ways in which future practitioners are educated for their new professions’ (Shulman, 2005, p. 52). He talks of the three dimensions of a signature pedagogy:

Its surface structure: ‘concrete, operational acts of teaching and learning, of showing and demonstrating, of questioning and answering, of interacting and withholding, of approaching and withdrawing’ (pp. 54–55).

Its deep structure: ‘a set of assumptions about how best to impart a certain body of knowledge and know-how’ (p. 55).

Its implicit structure: ‘a moral dimension that comprises a set of beliefs about professional attitudes, values, and dispositions’ (p. 55).

It’s not much of a leap to think not about the fundamentals of a particular profession but instead of a particular capability. Suppose it were perseverance: how would you model and demonstrate it? What know-how does someone who is a good ‘perseverer’ show, and how can you impart the clues of persevering to students? What are the underpinning self-belief and can-do dispositions that reinforce perseverance?

Signature pedagogies are the teaching and learning methods which are most likely to lead to the desired capability, and in books 1 and 2 we explored these in some depth. But with zest, as we have begun to indicate, it is slightly different. Pedagogy is not quite the right way of describing the more informal ways of learning encountered in the more informal learning associated with extra-curricular and out-of-school activities. So instead we suggest the phrase ‘signature learning experiences’ to characterise them. The question we invite you to consider is:

If I wanted my students to be full of zest for learning, what learning experiences would I want them to have?

In this book you will encounter a variety of answers to this question with some common themes. The experiences are often outward-looking and involve making things, giving time voluntarily, being outdoors, meeting new people and going on journeys. Or they might be more inward-focused, such as reading, practising, reflecting or even meditating.

Within and beyond school there are core techniques that need to be mastered, just as students will need to become comfortable with their times tables, irregular verbs or acids and bases. These include:

Giving and receiving feedback.

Practising deliberately.

Drafting and prototyping.

Using design processes.

Goal-setting.

Mentally rehearsing.

Verbalising the processes of learning.

Reflecting on processes and progress.

Self-testing.

Working in groups.

Teaching others.

In each of the books in this series, we explore the many ways in which such techniques can be cultivated in many different contexts.

About the series

The Pedagogy for a Changing World series is action oriented and research led. The books are guides for teachers, school leaders and all those working with schools who want to develop capable young people. Each book offers practical suggestions as to how key capabilities can best be developed in learners, building both theoretical and practical confidence in the kinds of pedagogies and methods which work well. The books are aimed at both primary and secondary levels.

The first two in the series are:

Teaching Creative Thinking: Developing learners who generate ideas and can think critically

Developing Tenacity: Teaching learners how to persevere in the face of difficulty

This is the third book and will explore the idea of zest for learning and how this can be developed in young people in and beyond school.

It is structured in the following way:

A clear definition of zest and why it matters.

A framework for zest for learning, with some practical examples for getting started.

An overview of the signature learning experiences which cultivate zestful learners.

Promising practices – case studies of schools which are adopting these approaches.

A focus on the brave leadership needed by schools consciously looking outside their gates.

An A–Z of ideas for developing zest.

Chapter 1

Zest for Learning

What it is and why it matters

zest, n. figurative. Enthusiasm for and enjoyment of something, esp. as displayed in speech or action; gusto, relish. Frequently with for.

Oxford English Dictionary

We wrote this book for teachers because it seems to us that there is an absence of zest and an abundance of both blandness and examined predictability in too many schools at the moment. For many young people, their learning stops just when it is getting really challenging and engaging. The bell goes and out they file. Where their learning interests might ideally take them is beyond the scope of a particular subject or syllabus. And in these form-filling, litigious times it is ever more tricky to organise educational forays out into the real world.

We like the word ‘zest’ because it suggests the kind of engaged curiosity we see as being at the heart of all good learning. We have looked hard at the evidence to understand more about zest. Research suggests that it is a valuable capability, central to human flourishing and eminently learnable.

This book draws together a far-reaching literature exploring zest and zest-like attributes, offering schools and organisations working with schools a model of how it could be at the heart of children’s educational experiences. We hope it will give encouragement to head teachers, teachers, proactive parents and all those in the many voluntary, charitable and business organisations who work with young people to be expansive in their thinking. Zest for Learning is a call to action for us to broaden our horizons of what school can be and to take heart from the ideas which others are already using.

We believe there are two essential outcomes of education: flourishing and real-world challenge-readiness.