Equity is a topic that takes center stage in many education conversations, and rightly so. It’s about every child being given a “fair go.” We often voice our concerns about the plight of the underserved in our communities, and as educators, we always strive to address their disadvantage within the resources we have available. At […]
The Unpleasant Truth About Equity Read More »
The “Let’s Change School” conversation came to the forefront again this week after a video collaboration between Ted Dintersmith and the rapper Prince Ea went viral. As we write this, the video has been up for a little over 4 days, and between YouTube and Facebook, it has almost 10 million views and over
A response to Prince Ea’s viral video “What is School For?” Read More »
It’s been a long time coming, but the emergence of the learning economy has been as inevitable as it is has more recently become overwhelming. This is a time when learners rule. When it’s not so much about what you know now, but rather what capacity you have to learn. When it’s not about what
The Rise of the Learning Economy Read More »
In our last Shifting Conversation post, the 250th in the series, Bruce shared the evolution of Modern Learners over the last five years, a few of the tools we use to thrive (and survive) as a team, and the pivots we made along the way. Since Bruce and Will have spent the past week traveling
Connections and Community in a Modern Learning World Read More »
I think it might be high time we called “accountability” and its kissing cousins “metrics” and “performance indicators” to account. For educators, that draws a focus to assessment, where maybe it’s time we asked if high-stakes standardized testing has finally reached its use by date? I mean what do you think it will take before we
Accountability and the Tyranny of Metrics Read More »
Well, 2018 has certainly kicked off with some extremes. In the first week of the year, we saw –37°C on top of Mount Washington in NH US, while on the same day in Melbourne Australia it was +37°C. (that’s –36°F to +100°F ) I’m glad I had the beaches, but I’m tipping this is a
2018-The Year For Living Dangerously Read More »
Greetings Fellow EduChange Travelers, It’s been good to get a post-election look at the Land of Milk and Honey (New Zealand) and along the way sample some truly delightful Pinots from Central Otago. (Wet Jacket is definitely one to remember.) What I’ve found on my trip here is increasing motivation to build a future that
Modern Learners Newsletter #223: When Do Exceptions Become the Rule? Read More »
Greetings Fellow Internet Edu-Wayfarers, Another week gone by in our quest to break down the boxes in our brains that define what school is. How we doing with that? Bruce is traipsing through the wine country of New Zealand this week where, (did you hear?) the new government is breaking boxes left and right. End
Modern Learners Newsletter #222: Confused Yet? Read More »
Greetings Fellow Internet Edu-Wayfarers, Great to have you back for some more inspired reading this week, now in blog post form! Better to interact with you with! I’ve been thinking a lot about change this week as we “downsized” our lives into a much smaller, 160+ year old home in the little country town where
Modern Learners Newsletter #221: The Labor of Learning Read More »
“But tell me why I can’t…” “No, no, there is no why. Nothing more will I teach you today.” — Luke Skywalker and Yoda This is a story of two cities. Well, to be honest, it’s about two workshops I ran in two New Zealand cities, Wellington and Auckland. Now let me say from the
Professional Autonomy: Myth or Reality? Read More »
What are the “Internet Trends” that educators need to wrap their brains around? That’s the question Will and Bruce kick around as they take a deep dive into Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report released last week. They don’t discuss all 355 slides in the report, but they do pick out several top level themes and discuss the
Are Your Schools Tracking These “Trends” on the Internet? Read More »
I’m curious about curiosity. It’s not something we have talked enough about in the past, but in a society that celebrates creativity and innovative thinking, I feel it will be a lot more prominent in the future. So when I hear someone say that it’s a pity their kids aren’t more curious, I wonder what
How Curious Are You? Read More »
In our newest podcast, Will and Bruce discuss the new Change.School learning community, and they talk about the history of Modern Learners and how it’s led to this new push to raise the bar on reimagining schools. It’s a little bit of backstory, but it’s a lot of how we got to the “How?” Change.School has
Change.School is Ready for You. Are You Ready for Change.School? Read More »
Brandon Busteed of Gallup made this interesting comment during a session at SXSWedu in Austin on Monday: “Apprenticeships double the odds that you end up engaged in your work over your lifetime.” This shouldn’t seem shocking to anyone in education, though it should give us pause. How many opportunities do we give kids to do
Learning From Masters Read More »
From the outset, understand that I have no idea where this post is going to end up. It’s one of those posts that’s going to have to write itself, struggling from one sentence to the next, stepping down a path that’s not real visible to some unknown destination that may or may not be a place worth
Education’s “Alternative Facts” Read More »
