It’s possible! The Modern Learners theme for the next year and likely the next decade is “It’s Possible!” December is normally a time. I spend some time looking back on the year and looking forward to the next. This year, I’m spending December reflecting on an entire decade. I’m thinking about it at a deeper …
It’s hard to believe that we’re entering the holiday season already here in the US. It’s a couple of days before Thanksgiving and the real insanity is about to begin. And most of that insanity stems from the multi-billion dollar month-long war for capturing our attention. You don’t even have to turn on the television …
These headlines are one reason emotional intelligence is one of the most desired 21st Century skills: “What’s Lost When We Rush Kids Through Childhood” Emily Kaplan, Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, September 4, 2019 “We Have Ruined Childhood” Kim Brooks, NY Times Sunday Review, August 17, 2019 “Teen Depression and Anxiety: Why the Kids Are …
A Parent’s Guide to Prioritizing Emotional Well-Being Read More »
A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I found ourselves wandering around a real bookstore, the kind with actual books in it, reminding ourselves what print on paper actually looks like. It’s not that neither of us no longer read paper books, we still do. (The local library is about 50 steps from our …
Welcome to the fourth and final episode in my month-long exploration of “power” in schools. I don’t know about you, but I found all of these conversations fascinating in terms of how much the power relationships we have in schools impact the experience that kids have, and the extent to which we are functionally unaware …
This is our third podcast on the theme of power, and when you think about both the good and the bad aspects of technology and the Internet and social media over the last decade, it’s hard not to conclude that like it or not, the individual has much more power in her hands today than …
#75 – Power and Success in the Era of Technology with Dr. Craig Watkins Read More »
It’s interesting, to me at least, that whenever I have conversations about the role of power in school cultures, it seems everyone feels powerless. Students, who sit at the bottom of the “power org chart,” feel they have little or no ability to influence the ways in which they experience school. School isn’t a choice …
We’re in our second week of exploring power and power relationships in schools which is a topic that I don’t think we reflect on nearly enough in schools. (Here’s the first “power” podcast with Rob Fried.) There’s an inherent tension when it comes to learning and power, namely how much power do you as a …
#74 – The Power of Learners with Sylvia Martinez Read More »
“Existing power relationships in schools are part of the problem and can never be part of the solution.” ~Seymour Sarason, Revisiting The Culture of The School and The Problem of Change A few years ago in a Q&A session with a group of about 40 teachers at a school outside of Detroit, one teacher raised …
So it’s a new month, and that means a new theme for our conversations, and it’s a theme I’ve been looking forward to diving into, namely “power” and the ways in which power relationships basically define the schools we’re in. Power is not something we often talk explicitly about in schools. It’s a complex dynamic …
This is the fourth and final episode in our exploration of the theme community this month, and I want to say from the start, that this conversation you’re about to hear on equity, community, and culture has been one that I’ve been struggling with recently. There are many challenges and tensions that we face in …
#72 – Equity, Culture, and Community with Tricia Ebarvia Read More »
So in case you may be new to the pod, each month we take on a different theme from four different angles, and this week, we’re looking at our theme of community through our third lens, that of classroom practice. As in what would the classroom look like if the community itself was the curriculum? …
#71 – Community as the Curriculum with Dave Cormier Read More »
Here’s a question you may want to ask a representative sampling of your students: On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being “not at all” and 10 being “very,” how predictable is your school experience? As in how much of your school day (or school year) pretty much sticks to the script? Whenever I get …
Schools are “Totally Predictable.” We Good With That? Read More »
Welcome to our second podcast on the theme of “community.” While the web has been around for about 25 years now, learning on the Internet really started way before the web was even in development. For those of us old enough to remember the days of computer modems and online bulletin boards, if you had …
It’s a new month as we turn into September 2019 and that means a new theme for our podcasts and for our conversations in MLC, our Modern Learners Community. Podcastwise, I’m a little sad that our dive into the theme of Story in August is over. What I’ve learned is that we tell stories in …
