Park strongly advocates the importance of evidence-based reading instruction and multi-tiered support systems, particularly for disadvantaged students, and at Jordan River Learning Federation she’s implemented phonics-based instruction that has resulted in quite remarkable improvements in literacy levels.
Grant Quarry: You’re clearly driven and passionate about education. Where does that come from?
Georgia Park: I’ve always been deeply curious and interested in the world around me, but I found school quite tricky. I knew I was clever, but I couldn’t bring everything together. And now that I know about the demands on the short-term working memory and things like cognitive load theory, I’m like, ‘wow, that was me, they could be experiencing my own education’.
I dropped out in my first year at Uni and had a gap year because I was overwhelmed. I was just sitting there not being able to bring it all together. The pace was moving too quickly, and that damages your confidence and your sense of self. And so, I just want to do everything I can to help kids to not have to feel that.
To have a little bit of productive struggle is healthy, but not overwhelm, where you feel like you don’t belong.
GQ: Congratulations on your Teaching Fellowship, it’s a wonderful achievement. How was it being in Canberra for the presentation?
GP: I was a bit in awe. Minister Jason Clare’s opening speech just lifted us all up, it was so genuine and authentic. And David Gonski had a gorgeous grin when he congratulated me on my award and shook my hand. It just felt like everybody in that room were there cheering you on, that they wanted you to continue to go out into the world and have big dreams and push boundaries and make change.
Jessica Rowe [the evening’s MC], goodness me, she was just the most kind, encouraging person. And, yeah, it was great.
GQ: And meeting the other winners, I imagine you were a little in awe of them as well?
GP: Absolutely; but then we all spoke about the struggle of the inner critic and imposter syndrome, but I must say that soon shifted. I felt like, ‘my goodness, these 12 Fellows and the 10 Early Career Teachers, throughout the years they’re going to touch thousands of children’s lives’, and I was just in awe of their talent.
GQ: You’ve worked in Catholic schools, in the most economically privileged of independent schools, and the most impoverished of public schools. At the moment you’re an instructional coach. What does that role involve?
GP: It really started as a literacy role where I support teachers and teacher aides to shift to more evidence-based reading instruction. I model that one-on-one small group literacy.
We’re about to start in Grade 9 and 10, and I’m to take a couple of classes where we’re going right back to Kinder/Prep reading instruction, unfortunately. But mostly I work to make sure that the teachers who are teaching every subject area unlock the language of their subject area.
Language and literacy is in every area, as you know, and I work in that multi-tiered response. So, it’s classroom level, but it’s also tiered intervention.
GQ: So, has your pedagogy and the methods you use evolved and grown and changed as you’ve progressed through your career?
GP: Look, I’ve completely changed how I approach classroom instruction, because I wasn’t really taught how to do that at university. I had to really go looking for my own information around how instruction can support the working memory, not overload it.
I’ve learned how to be cognitive load informed. I’ve discovered that learning only resides if it is embedded in the long-term memory. And so I went, ‘Wow, actually, cognitive science has a lot to offer here’. I just started madly, over the last six years, reading everything I could get my hands on, because I was seeing this play out for my own children.
And being a high school teacher, seeing my children go through primary school, I was like, ‘the way in which we teach reading doesn’t really align with what I’m reading about cognitive science’.
I used to be quite a facilitator and an inquiry-based teacher, and I think, ‘Wow, if I knew then what I know now, I could have really closed the gap for a lot of kids’.
Park’s framework at The Jordan River Learning Federation in Bridgewater has led to notable improvements in reading, with 71 per cent of Grade 7 students demonstrating progress above their expected age growth, and in the space of six months, a 50 per cent reduction in the number of students accessing intensive literacy support.
GQ: And so what’s that pivoted to now? What’s your approach?
GP: I’m really direct and very explicit. I believe in putting the teacher back up the front – not in a ‘drill and kill’ kind of way, not like, ‘sit there and listen and be lectured’, it’s very active, it’s very multi-sensory, but it’s built upon what we know the brain craves, which is repetition and review and is guided.
The teacher models, it’s called a ‘gradual release of responsibility’. The ‘I do’: teacher models, ‘we do’: we practise together, and then ‘you do’: when you’re ready, you can independently practise.
GQ: So it’s widely believed (based on evidence) that this pedagogy works well with children from disadvantaged backgrounds?
GP: Absolutely. Our school’s index of socioeconomic advantage is 864. What I would say is that direct and explicit instruction is critical for many students. As an instructional model, of course we want to get every kid to (engage in) inquiry and discovery learning, that’s the dream, right? But that’s not borne on an even playing field, because if I put something in front of you where you need to bring your cultural and social capital to that to construct meaning, that’s an inequitable way to approach teaching, in my opinion, because we need to make sure everybody’s got a seat at the table, and direct and explicit instruction really does help all and it harms no one.
So I am passionate about it for all children, of course, with differentiation and allowing students to move through that gradual release at their pace.
GQ: Can you tell me a bit about your work at the Jordan River Learning Federation? You designed your own response to intervention and a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS)?
GP: I went out to Jordan River and had a look at how they were providing instruction at the classroom level, but also at their intervention. And then I built a response to that through the multi-tiered system. I was really clear with the team that this is not a ‘set and forget’.
You know, often we see these Tier 3 kids, they’re labelled, but it’s meant to be transient, you’ve got to be moving through. So, I had a look at their instruction, and they were doing some great things in screening and phonics, looking at how kids are decoding, but then I suppose the remedy for that was still very much steeped in the whole language approach of mapping whole words to memory.
We completely tore down the whole thing. And I’m grateful for the team for backing the vision, because we went like the clappers to get this more evidence-based MTSS.
GQ: And the impacts?
GP: We moved to phonics instruction in the intervention space and we had students coming in who were in the high school context, backfilling the alphabetic code, looking at things like syllables, looking at vocabulary, fluency, and within the first six months of that intensive Tier 3 instruction, we halved the amount of kids in Tier 3 and put them back into the classroom. Because we’ve literally unlocked the code.
GQ: I believe you’ve made a big effort to engage families and to encourage their involvement in optimising their kids’ education?
GP: I’m really honest with parents, usually via phone calls, because I think if we all start from a place of truth and not judgment, we can move forward.
I explain to them the shift in reading instruction, I explain how whole language has let the kids down, and how we’re going to use sounding out letters and sounds, breaking down the 26 letters and the 44 sounds.
Parents know their kids, and they might not have the educational speak or the language, but they know that wellbeing, lack of attendance, behavioural stuff, they know there’s a root cause. And they say to me, ‘he’s a good kid’ – and so then we screen them.
It’s also coaching and empowering the parents to understand the roadmap towards success.
Getting to meet her fellow awardees – and Jessica Rowe – in Canberra was a thrill for Park. “I felt like, ‘my goodness, these 12 Fellows and the 10 Early Career Teachers, throughout the years they’re going to touch thousands of children’s lives’, and I was just in awe of their talent,” she says.
GQ: A combined effort just gives them every chance, doesn’t it?
GP: Yeah – and a lot of parents are frightened of the school system because they’ve either struggled to read, or they’ve had a bad experience, or they’ve had low educational attainment, and there’s a real fear and a nervousness.
I try to do everything in my power to make sure that imbalance of power, in terms of the educational knowledge, is catered to. I really try and translate and speak in a way that they need to understand complex educational language.
GQ: What do you think is one of the biggest challenges facing education?
GP: I have learned through my reading and really absorbing everything I possibly can about the intersection of cognitive science and the classroom, but the most important thing, not for just Tasmania, but for education in general, is the knowledge and skills of the teacher standing out in front.
And to get to those knowledge and skills, we need to invest in them. We need to support them. And I think we used to always talk about the student at the centre, which is correct, but I think what was missing from that was teacher knowledge and training at the centre as well.
I think also what’s really important and something I’m very passionate about, because I have a background in learning support, is the conversation around the neurodivergent experience in school.
Just capturing the voices of lived experience, because often school can be really tricky, with school refusal or school can’t. We need to capture the voices of those who are attending our schools so that we can better adapt and shift and meet the needs from the voice of lived experience.
GQ: Do you have anything in mind for your PD prize money and the funding of your school project?
GP: I definitely think it’s going to be around improving the language and literacy rates, and around investing in teacher training at the high school context, because the reality is, we have kids in the high school setting who are reading at a primary school level, and then we don’t have high school teachers able to meet that need.
So, it’ll be around how do we bridge that problem? How do we address that?
GQ: Thanks Georgia, is there anything you’d like to add?
GP: I’d really like to acknowledge the Commonwealth Bank and Schools Plus and the Gonski Review, because I feel like I’ve really found my people. I know that sounds a bit naff, but I found people who just see something, have a vision for a better education system and just absolutely encourage people to go for it, and I feel thankful that they’ve seen me and invested in me.
For more information on the Commonwealth Bank Teaching Awards presented by Schools Plus, click here.
