Gamechangers are few and far between. The only place they frequent is of course on our sporting fields, but metaphorically they also well describe those creative, courageous people who see a better way to do something and then they set about making it happen. Schools fit the metaphor perfectly with their protocols, rituals, rules, and penalties for breaking them as Robert L. Freid so aptly described in his book The Game of School. However as appealing as that title of "gamechanger" may be, in education it belongs to a select few, the ones who see what school could and should be and are committed to making it happen. Not all beer and skittles But it’s certainly not all beer and skittles. As much as the ego-driven celebrity Lone Rangers can ride in on their white chargers and spend tens of millions building “new schools,” nothing really changes. Meanwhile, the real gamechangers remain focused on change that is both substantial and sustainable. But you can’t change the game … [Read more...]
The Kids (and Schools) are Not Alright
Two things are becoming clearer by the day when it comes to our children and our schools. First, our kids are under duress. The latest survey by the Pew Research Center revealed that 70% of 13-17 year olds see anxiety and depression as a major problem among people their age in the community they live. Second, schools in their current iteration are not working for our students. The same survey showed 61% of teens report feeling "a lot of pressure to get good grades," twice as many as said looking good or fitting in socially. Further, only 26% of our kids say they "get excited by something they study at school" every day. If you're an educator, how can you read those statistics and not feel more than concern? How can you not feel like we indeed have a crisis on our hands? And, honestly, how can you not feel anger? My anger stems from the fact that we know better. It stems from the fact that we refuse to make common sense changes that serve our students instead of clinging … [Read more...]
Feedback, Affirmation, and the Delusion of Good Work
Despite the concern educators frequently express about the challenges of time in the scheduled life of school, most do still find time for conversations with colleagues. It might be over a morning or lunch break, or at either end of the school day, nonetheless they all value being able to connect with colleagues and share what’s on their minds. The irony of this is that so much of what is shared can be reflections of life outside school over the watercooler, or what might be called transactional conversations: a scheduling or room change, a search for a resource or a student discipline matter that needs attention. The result is that school schedules unfortunately rarely provide enough space or time for genuine professional reflection and conversation. Fortunately, this appears to be changing slowly and we are seeing more of the Elmore-style instructional rounds, peer observation and peer coaching in formats such as “triads”. In Leadership for Powerful Learning (2015), authors … [Read more...]
The Conditions for Difficult Conversations
Head over to Google or Amazon and do a search for "difficult conversations" and you'll quickly get the sense that people need a lot of help having them. Especially today when we are so fractured politically in the US and elsewhere. These days, it feels harder and harder to have an even somewhat congenial conversation about things that matter with your "loved ones" much less your boss or your co-workers. For a lot of people, avoidance seems to be the go-to strategy, as in let's just not talk about all of those things that ail us. Let's just pretend that they'll solve themselves without requiring us to have some tough dialogue or, with any luck, without requiring us to change our practice or lifestyles much if at all. (Read: climate change.) Avoiding difficult conversations assumes, of course, that we acknowledge and accept that there are difficult conversations to be had. And I continue to get the sense in education circles that we either haven't gotten to that point yet or that … [Read more...]
It’s Time for Your Professional Learning Checkup
As the year kicks off in earnest, maybe you are one of the many who have made great resolutions about your physical health, but have you given any thought to the health of your learning? Seriously, how focused are you on your learning? Have you done your professional learning checkup? It’s one thing to be getting yourself in great physical shape, but surely it’s just as important for you to be confident about making well-informed decisions in the year ahead? Just as physical well-being allows you to lead a better life, knowing you are on top of the key decisions in your life lowers your stress levels, gives you more time for the things that matter most in your life, and, above all, allows you to make better choices. Learning is one of those things that most people take for granted, almost like breathing. We’re conscious of it when we learn formally, as in school or on a required course or workshop, but for the most part we barely pay any attention to what is possibly one of … [Read more...]
2019 – Time to Choose
Here's my burning question for you in 2019: What are you going to do to change the experience that your students have in school to reflect more compellingly what you believe is the right thing to be doing for kids and learning? It's a loaded question, I know. It suggests that as an educator, you're currently employing practices that you don't really believe in. It suggests, also, that you are choosing to do that. Are you? I figure the beginning of the year is as good a time as any to lay this conversation around change squarely on the line. (At least it'll be all downhill from here, right?) And while I'm obviously trying to provoke, I'm also summing up a lot of what I'm leaving 2018 with in my head and in my gut. It's a feeling borne out by conversations with thousands of educators across about 150K miles of air travel this year, conversations that helped paint a complex if yet unclear picture for me of a turning point of sorts. That turn is this: … [Read more...]
The Most Important Skill for the Future: Being Human
Given how much I read, I wish I was more like my friend Rob who has the insane ability to remember just about everything he reads down to where it's located on the paper or digital page he reads it on. Unfortunately for me, that's not the case. It takes much longer for the patterns and themes to congeal when the texts in my head are shadowy fragments of themselves as they appeared in the real world. The good news (for me at least) is that every now and again, I recognize the patterns, though it's a process that sometimes feels like completing a puzzle at a molecular level. One such theme that seems to be emerging for me is that for all of our flagellation over the skills that our kids will need to thrive in the future, we may be missing the most important yet eternal skill of all: knowing thyself. Christian Talbot over at Basecamp used that phrase in a short post this week about the "School of the Future." In it, he glosses the Yural Harari book "21 Lessons for the 21st Century," … [Read more...]
Designing for Learning
Turns out, we who live in western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic societies are actually as WEIRD as the acronym for that group spells out. According to research by University of British Columbia professor Joe Henrich (now of Harvard,) "Members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans." And therefore, Henrich argues, we have to be really careful to apply behavioral or psychological (or other) types of research done on WEIRD populations to humans in general, in short because we are not the norm in the world. In fact, we are at the far end of the outlier spectrum when it comes to our behavior. That point is raised at the beginning of a presentation by Carol Black that I came across this week. Black, the creator and early producer of the TV show "The Wonder Years," is also a powerful writer about learning and schools (and "unschooling"), and one of her blog posts … [Read more...]
The Unpleasant Truth About Equity
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 times, it can seem almost pointless when faced with the barriers and handicaps that society has placed in front of so many of our young people, yet as educators, our moral compasses guide us to try and give every child equal opportunity. It’s not easy. Whether you are dealing with disability, cultural or demographic limitations, or probably the most challenging, financial disadvantage, every day schools across the globe seek to offer a leg up to the less fortunate in our communities. It can be as minor as funding books or technology or lunches, or as major as comprehensive welfare support programs such as those that are now common place in many … [Read more...]
A response to Prince Ea’s viral video “What is School For?”
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 25,000 comments. We think that qualifies as viral. Why would a video about the need to change school go viral? Why is this particular video zooming around the Interwebs at warp speed? Is it the high production value? The captivating spoken poetry by a well followed You Tube talent? The cute kids? All of the above? While those may be the most obvious answers, we'd like to add another one: Because almost everyone can relate. Ask yourself... With the caveat that at moments the video is a bit hyperbolic, a little too self-serving, and tries too hard for that emotional response (a couple of my friends called it “icky”) - despite all that, which of the messages embedded in … [Read more...]