Becoming Fully Alive October 2, 2012

|Originally posted on iLearnTechnology.com|

Big, sweeping changes don’t seem to happen overnight, as quickly as we might like.  Thirty, forty, or a hundred years go into those sweeping changes: race relations, animal testing, women’s rights, recognition of addiction as a disease.  And yet, in each case, there was a turning point.  Those handful of pivotal moments when someone(s) decide it must be different and that in this moment in time, change will begin.

For me, this pivotal change happened in October of 2010.  Two years ago.  That moment of “it must be different” led to a school. Anastasis Academy.  In many ways, Anastasis feels like it happened over night (we started a school in 4 short months!) and in other ways, it feels like it will take years before the vision of Anastasis is realized.

Sweeping changes happen over time.  Often, they are hardly noticeable as they are happening.  This explains the 5-year-old, struggling through their ABC’s who is ‘suddenly’ reading.  When did that happen?!

People often ask why I don’t write more about Anastasis.  The whole process has been incredibly organic and hard to describe to someone who isn’t seeing it unfold with me.  I can tell you about students who are becoming fully alive and discovering that they love learning.  Until you see this happen before you, until you hear the students talk about it, it is really a weak representation of what is happening.  Here we are in year two. In a lot of ways, it has felt like a harder beginning.  This is strange in light of what happened last year…starting a school in 4 months from a place of zero.  I think it feels harder because the vision of what could be is being more fully defined and dreamed up each day.  There is this sense of frustration that it isn’t here yet.

The change is hardly noticeable as it’s happening.  It is organic and creeping.  Sometimes I overhear students talking animatedly about figuring out ratios, and exclaiming over learning what portion of the population lives on less that $1.25/day, the change is happening.  The vision is being realized one moment at a time.  These kids are becoming fully alive.  Those teaching them are doing the same.  We hear parents describe what we do to others.

This is community.

This is family.

This is church.

This is Anastasis.

This is the beginning of sweeping change, where students can be fully alive and learn how to properly manage their freedom.

So, we will go on wishing that we could already see the full realization of this vision, but we will also rest in the hardly noticeable moments of change in this journey.  We will appreciate the moments in time that keep everything from happening at once.  We will rejoice as we watch it all unfold in it’s perfection. We will wait anxiously for the day when this type of learning is available to children everywhere in the world.

 

 

***While we wait, consider joining in this mission to help students be “fully alive” in their learning.  Donate and spread the word about the Learning Genome Project.  This is the vehicle we will use to share this vision with ALL children.

What Dreams May Come: A Sneak Peek into Anastasis Academy November 11, 2011

It’s a pretty incredible thing to see dreams come to fruition.

For me it started with an obsession and passion for creating rich learning environments where every student was recognized as an individual. In that first post I wrote:

“I have a dreams of education. I have dreams of the way that schools should look. I have dreams of kids who find their passions. I have dreams of schools as rich learning centers.”

I had dreams of stripping the “vanilla” away so that passions could emerge.

Dreams of ditching that boxed curriculum that we call an education and watching the factory model fade into the rear-view mirror.

Dreams of ending the practice of viewing teachers (and students) as expendables.

I had dreams of schools that were beautiful, that were designed with students in mind.

Dreams that education would stop looking so much like the McRib.

Dreams of breaking free of the box, of valuing students and teachers,  of using the right tools, of a school where a student’s inner da Vinci can break through, of a school that customizes learning.

I shared dreams of more fabulous failures.

The dreams started trickling into reality in March of this year (2011).  In March I started getting some hints that these dreams weren’t really all that far-fetched.  By May I had officially started a school.  In August we opened the doors to Anastasis Academy with our first 50 students in 1st through 8th grade and had hired a dream team of 5 truly incredible teachers to lead them.  In four short months we went from dreams to reality.

At Anastasis Academy, we lease space from a church building throughout the week.  We have our own wing with classrooms, a playground, a gym and a kitchen.  All of our furniture is on wheels.  This makes it easy to adjust space daily based on needs, it is also a necessity since we use shared space.  Twice a week we move all of our belongings across the hall into a storage room (if I’m honest, this is the part we could do without!).  We can’t complain about the space.  It is pretty incredible!

You will notice that we don’t have rows of desks.  No teacher’s desk either.  We have space that kids can move in. Corners to hide in, stages to act on, floors to spread out on, cars to read in.  We are learning how to learn together, learning how to respect other children’s space and needs, learning how to discipline ourselves when we need to, learning how to work collaboratively, we are learning to be the best us.

You won’t see a worksheet at Anastasis. We use iPads.  That isn’t to say that we ONLY use iPads, in fact, you’ll often see us building, cutting, pasting, writing on a whiteboard/chalkboard and even paper.  We do a lot of blogging, a lot of reflecting, a lot of Evernotting, a lot of cinematography, a lot of discussing.

Every morning we start with a 15 minute walk outside together…as a community.  We invite parents and siblings to be a part of our morning walk. Occasionally we have the dogs join in on the fun.  After the walk we come inside as a whole-school for a time of devotions. Again, this is a time for us to build community, to foster the culture we want for our school.  Families are invited to join us every morning.  We always have at least one family and, many times, multiples.  We pray with each other and for each other. We have hard conversations and funny conversations. We think together and challenge each other.

Matthew West joining us for devotions!

Our inquiry block is a time for hands-on transdisciplinary learning.  This is my VERY favorite time to walk through classrooms.  It is incredible to see the joy in discovery.  It is incredible to have a second grade student with dyslexia discover an app to make stop motion animations, teach himself how to use it and proceed to stand up before 7th and 8th grade students to explain how stop motion works.  I wish I could bring you all through the building during this time.  Every time we have a visitor the students pause long enough to describe what they are doing, the learning that is happening. I often have to pick my jaw up off the floor. These kids are amazing.

We have no curriculum. At all. Zip. What did we do instead? We hired the very BEST teachers we could find.  We gave them a base level of skills that we wanted students to have- an outline if you will.  We used the Common Core Standards as our baseline.  We don’t use the standards like most schools do. We use them to make sure that our students have the building blocks and foundations of learning in place.  And then we let our students and teachers GO. The standards are not a weight we are tied to, they are the underpinnings that make it possible for us to soar and take our learning anywhere.  When you look at the Common Core standards they are pretty underwhelming.  I’m glad they are! They provide us with just enough momentum to propel us forward and then off we go on a journey of learning!  We also have our big inquiry questions in place.  From there, we go where the learning takes us, bunny trails and all.  It is pretty fantastic.  Today one of our primary students came out to see me and said, “Look at this boat I found in this new library book. Can I try to make it?”  My answer: “Absolutely! What materials do we need?”  Together we made a list of all the materials I needed to pull together for him.  Tomorrow he will build that boat he is fascinated with and find out if it works the way he has planned.  That is learning!  Tell me what boxed curriculum allows time for that to happen? None. That is why we don’t have it.

In the afternoons we have more “content” area subjects (i.e. math and language arts).  In the primary grades this means students building the skills they need to support their inquiry.  In the intermediate grades this means honing those skills for better communication and more thorough inquiry.  Again, we don’t work from a boxed curriculum. We find the lessons, approaches, and materials that work for the individual student.  Sometimes this means working with manipulatives, sometimes it means exploring measurement outside, and sometimes it means using an app.  It changes daily based on the needs of the students.

We have mixed age level classrooms.  We do this for a lot of reasons.  Most importantly, it is good for older and younger students to work together and learn from each other; it is vital that a child be able to work at their developmental level and progress as they are ready to; and it deepens inquiry when students with different perspectives work together.

Once every five weeks we invite the parents to join us for Parent University.  This is a time for us to help parents understand this new way to do school.  Detox, if you will.  It is a time for us to show parents what best practices in education look like, why grades aren’t all they are cracked up to be, why play is important.  It is a time for us to think and laugh together. It is a time to get questions answered.

Also every five weeks, we hold a “Meeting of the Minds”.  This is a parent/teacher/student conference where we all get together and set our road map for the next 5 weeks.  Students write goals with the help of their teacher. They have ownership over what they have done the last 5 weeks and tell mom and dad what they have planned for upcoming 5 weeks.

Every Friday we have a learning excursion or an opportunity for an “Anastasis Serves”.  Learning excursions are field trips all over the place that help students start to recognize that learning doesn’t just happen when we are at school.  Learning happens everywhere we are and, if we are paying attention, all the time.  Anastasis Serves is a time for our students to give back to the global community.  Sometimes this is a door-to-door scavenger hunt for donations, sometimes this is learning about orphans around the world, or packaging cookies and letters to send to our troops.

We don’t do grades, we do assessment all day every day while we learn.  We don’t do homework, we pursue our families and passions at home.  We don’t do worksheets, we do interesting (sometimes frustrating) work. We don’t do boxed curriculum, we do on-demand learning.

We do mistakes. We do community. We do collaboration. We do messy. We do play. We do fun. We do technology. We do learning.

How do we do all this? We have a 12 to 1 student teacher ratio (or less).  We have incredible students, parents and teachers.  We have stinking smart board members who are invested in our success and trust our judgement calls.  We set our tuition at $8,000 (per pupil spending in our district) to show that even though we are private, this can be done in the public schools.  We started with nothing…well almost nothing, we had dreams.  There was no capital raised, no fund-raisers, no huge donation. We started the beginning of the year at $0 and put blood, sweat and tears into it.

This is not to say that we have it all figured out, that all of our students are perfect, that all of our staff or families are perfect. We are perfectly imperfect as every school is. We have days when the kids are BOUNCING off the walls, we have disagreements, tired teachers, stressed parents, a founder who has occasional melt downs (that would be me), students who need extra love and support, tight budgets, parents who demand different, scuffles, sniffles and band-aids…lots of band-aids.  There is nowhere else I would rather be. No other group of people I would rather work with. No other students whose germs I would rather share. This is my dream.

There are moments throughout the day when I am stopped in my tracks by the realization-this is my dream.

Look where you want to go and steer in that direction: How a blog started a school June 24, 2011

http://www.flickr.com/photos/samburnett/4860845868/

I never took drivers ed, but when I was 14, my parents took me to a driver safety course.  I remember very little of the night but one thing that stood out was the phrase: “look where you want to go and steer in that direction.”  The course instructor was offering solid advice for what to do if you hit a patch of ice and lost control of the car.  That advice stuck with me and, as I navigate Colorado winters, is something I practice regularly.  As it turns out, this has been good advice for education and life as well.  Sometimes you have to not only look at where you want to go, but steer in that direction as well.  This is how a blog led to starting a school.

I started Dreams of Education on March 8, 2010.  At the time I had filled my Google reader to the brim with post feeds from educators around the world.  I was being inspired and fed daily by my world-wide personal learning network and yet in the schools I was in, saw a very different reality of education for kids.  I had kept iLearn Technology since 2007 and really enjoyed blogging there.  To be honest, it was easy to just write a review on technology tools and how they could be used in the classroom.  It was also safe.  I didn’t have to reveal too much of myself.  But in March of 2010 I couldn’t stay “silent” any longer.  I needed a place to dream and invite others to dream with me.  I used this blog to look at where I wanted education to go and started steering in that direction.  Here I am 478 days later starting a school.  It sounds much more neat and tidy and perfectly planned in writing than it is in reality.

During this time last year I had just left a teaching position I really loved.  I had to leave for health reasons and to be truthful, I wasn’t completely ready to leave.  I loved the students I taught.  They energized me and gave me a sense of professional purpose-they needed me.  I had just packed up my classroom and handed off my job to another. It was freeing, and terrifying, and exciting, and rotten.

I always felt like a bit of an outsider at the school where I taught.  I couldn’t seem to just let the status quo be and was constantly pushing the envelope and questioning why we did everything the way we did.  I consistently felt a sense of urgency for change because we were dealing with kids who kept growing and couldn’t wait around for us to get it right next year.  I couldn’t accept the ‘good enough’ mentality.  I found the place I fit in on Twitter and in an online network of educators from around the world.  Here I found other educators who believed that kids deserved better now.  Suddenly I wasn’t an outsider but part of a movement in education to make a change.  Don’t get me wrong, I am thankful for the school where I spent the past 7 years.  It provided a place for me to grow and interact with other wonderful educators and gave me the freedom to develop my own programs and work with teachers.  At the end of the day, we just have different visions for learning.  I was willing to push for change, they were comfortable in the routines that they had in place.

Leaving my classroom and my students was hard. I didn’t quite know what to do with myself, it felt like summer never ended because come August I wasn’t preparing my classroom and computers for the following year.  No re-imaging machines, no bulletin boards, no sending cards over the summer to my students. It was strange.  I worked with several area schools on social media, technology integration and professional development.  I took home boxed curriculum and dreamed up ways to expand their offering with technology and more engaging activities.

On September 28, 2010 I was working on aligning technology activities to reading curriculum.  As is my habit, I was multi-tasking. Listening to Pandora, chiming into #edchat on Twitter, tinkering with new tech sites, and working on the curriculum alignment.  As I was working and chatting and listening a song came on that I had never heard before.  I scrambled to find a sticky note so that I could write down the artist before the song changed (for the record it was Zee Avi).  I sat there amazed that technology had come to the point that it can predict what kind of music I will like based on just one bit of information.  Because I was elbow deep in the ridiculousness that is boxed curriculum, I started to wonder why curriculum didn’t look more like Pandora.  I threw out the following on Twitter: “What if curriculum looked more like Pandora?”  Immediately I started getting retweets and comments like, “say more about that” and “exactly, curriculum should be more customized.”

I couldn’t seem to shake the idea of curriculum looking more like Pandora. For a blogger that means it is time to sit down and write.  Over the summer I had gotten into the habit of starting every day with a TED talk or RSA animate video with breakfast.  That morning I happened to watch Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson.  I started wondering if there might not be something to these hunches I was having and wrote the post When Hunches Collide.  It has been my most popular post on Dreams of Education to date.  In the post I wrote out some thoughts on curriculum, hiring teachers, community involvement in schools, #twitacad, and innovation lab.  The post was truly just a collection of unfinished thoughts, a place to get them out of my head.  I didn’t know it at the time but September 28 was a “steer in that direction” kind of day.

In the first weeks of December, one of my Twitter PLN @DoremiGirl introduced me to @ianchia.  Ian is an app developer in Australia who was working on an app called Send Felicity and was looking for input from educators.  Yoon knew that I geeked out about technology, specifically Apple products, and introduced us.  Ian and I immediately hit it off.  After a handful of fantastic conversations I told Ian about this crazy idea I had to make curriculum look more like Pandora.  I wanted to know from a developer standpoint if this crazy idea was feasible to even build.  Ian reassured me that it was possible and pointed me to some tools I could use to prototype my idea.  Suddenly it seemed like I was surrounded by people who were pouring into helping make my idea a reality. Business minds who were making recommendations, developers who were pointing me toward wireframing tools, educators who would listen to my craziness and reassure me that it was worth pursuing.  The Learning Genome was born.

One of the business people I met along the way introduced me to an educator in Denver Public School System.  He told me very little about him just that “you should meet, I think you might find some overlaps.”  Jason and I set up a time to meet at a local bookstore.  I showed up, he did not. Miscommunication in dates/times.  That weekend was the COLearning 2.0 conference in Colorado.  Several teachers that I used to work with joined me at the conference.  A discussion began in the first session about how classrooms could look different.  One of my colleagues and I were IMing each other like crazy as the discussion unfolded.  A gentleman sitting across the room from us was saying all of the things we were typing back and forth. It was a little creepy, like we had some how tapped into this guy’s brain with our instant messaging and were now controlling his thoughts.  After the session, my colleague @matthewquigley went to talk to the gentleman whose mind we had been controlling.  As it turns out it was none other than the Jason that I was supposed to meet at the book store.  Small world.  We talked more about what schools could/should look like. We dreamed together right there in the hallway and made plans to meet the following Monday.

Jason has been developing a new school design.  He has re-imagined the school day, year, staffing and financial model.  His goal was to open a charter school in DPS based on this model.  The problem: he wasn’t exactly sure what learning might look like in this new structure.  Light bulb moment.  This is why the business associate wanted us to meet.  I walked Jason through my Learning Genome prototypes and described my vision for how learning could look different.  Synergy.  At the conference, Matthew and I mentioned that we had been dreaming for years about what a school could look like and that someday we would like to start a school of our own.  We were thinking YEARS down the road.  Jason challenged us. Why not now?  Jason has quite the educational background and has been involved in 13 school start-ups. He let us know that the 6th month time frame we were staring down was a big task but not impossible.  We were intrigued.

Jason met with me in March to sketch out a rough timeline of what it would take to start a school by fall of 2011.  It was a lot.  Never one to back down from a challenge, I started seriously considering the possibility and even spat out a few blog posts casually mentioning the idea.  At the same time, I wrote a post here about Charlotte Mason because I had just completed a day of internship at one of the schools I was working at.  The leader of the school pointed some prospective parents to my blog (who happened to know me from my previous teaching position).  In addition to seeing my Charlotte Mason post, they saw my “working on starting a school” post.  The next day I got a call from two families asking me about the school I was starting.  We talked at length about the vision of the school, what it could look like and what it could do for kids.  The families asked if we could sit down and talk more about it.  On March 29 three incredible families agreed to take on this journey with us.  Anastasis Academy was born.

This blog, Dreams of Education, started a school.  It let me look at where I wanted to go, leaving it up to me to steer in that direction.  Those little hunches that came one blog post at a time turned into big ideas.  I think all too often in education we spend so much time looking at where we want to go that we forget the steering in that direction piece.  The vision is important but without action it remains just another good idea.  We can’t wait for someone else to tackle education.  Our students can’t afford to wait for us to get it right in a few years. Their needs are here and require answers now.

It is up to us to look at where we want to go and steer in that direction.

 

**I am learning that there is a story being told through the creation of this school. This post is just a SMALL piece of that story.  If you are interested in how my partner in crime @matthewquigley fits into all of this you should check out his new blog.  I’ll work on getting him to keep posting

Hijacked Words December 14, 2010

http://www.flickr.com/photos/greeblie/3338710223/

Sometimes words get hijacked and get new meanings and understandings associated with them.  This has certainly become the case for many educational words and phrases. Standards for example.  In education standards has become a dirty word because it has been hijacked and become synonymous with meaningless tests, scripted curriculum, and the stripping of creativity.  But, if we take a step outside of the system and remember what standards really are…it isn’t such a bad little word after all.  The problem with hijacked words is that the true meaning is often forgotten, and with it a little bit of truth and importance once associated with it.  We are so eager to dismiss the hijacked word as “bad” that, lumped with it, we dismiss the original idea.

In this morning’s #edchat, the topic was: Is the idea of digital native a myth? Do most kids already have the skills & knowledge 2 master tech 4 learning?

The conversation quickly turned to one of labeling kids and the belief that Digital Native is a myth because many adults are more tech savvy than their students.  There was a lot of discussion about kids needing to learn the technology, that they aren’t naturally gifted at using it.

It was at this point that I realized that Digital Native has become a hijacked word.  The idea of Digital Natives started with an article written by Marc Prensky.  You can read the article in its entirety here. In the article, Marc is painting a picture about the differences in the students we teach.  They think differently, view the world differently, and learn differently.  He says:

“It is now clear that as a result of this ubiquitous environment and the sheer volume of
their interaction with it, today‟s students think and process information fundamentally
differently from their predecessors. These differences go far further and deeper than most
educators suspect or realize. “Different kinds of experiences lead to different brain
structures, “ says Dr. Bruce D. Perry of Baylor College of Medicine. As we shall see in
the next installment, it is very likely that our students’ brains have physically changed –
and are different from ours – as a result of how they grew up. But whether or not this is
literally true, we can say with certainty that their thinking patterns have changed. I will
get to how they have changed in a minute.

What should we call these “new” students of today? Some refer to them as the N-[for
Net]-gen or D-[for digital]-gen. But the most useful designation I have found for them is
Digital Natives. Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of
computers, video games and the Internet.

So what does that make the rest of us? Those of us who were not born into the digital
world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many
or most aspects of the new technology are, and always will be compared to them, Digital
Immigrants.

The importance of the distinction is this: As Digital Immigrants learn – like all
immigrants, some better than others – to adapt to their environment, they always retain,
to some degree, their “accent,” that is, their foot in the past. The “digital immigrant
accent” can be seen in such things as turning to the Internet for information second rather
than first, or in reading the manual for a program rather than assuming that the program
itself will teach us to use it. Today‟s older folk were “socialized” differently from their
kids, and are now in the process of learning a new language. And a language learned later
in life, scientists tell us, goes into a different part of the brain.”

Here is what Marc isn’t saying: Kids born today come out of the womb knowing how to use all technology and use it well.  Even though Marc doesn’t say this, judging by today’s #edchat this is what many educators believe the term means.

Being a Digital Native has more to do with worldview than anything else.  If you are born in a time where GPS technology is built into every device you are going to think about reading a map differently than someone who grew up without GPS.  If you are born in a time where the printing press is gaining speed and books are ubiquitous, you are going to think about where information comes from differently than someone who grew up with oral tradition only.  Every generation has its technology “natives” and “immigrants”.  When I am around 8 year olds who are talking about Skyping each other after school I am an immigrant.  Not because I don’t know how to use Skype, not because they are better at utilizing it than I am.  I am an immigrant because I didn’t grow up with that technology as part of my world.  When I was a kid the best I could hope for was a cordless phone I could take into my room.  As far as the 8-year-old Skype user is concerned, Skype has always existed as part of their world.  That changes their worldview. That changes the way they think about communicating.  Compared to the 58-year-old I am a native. I have never known a world without color TV, remote controls, video games, or the home computer.  That is different from the world they grew up in.  It affects the way we view the world, the way we collect information, the way that we approach a problem.

I believe what Prensky was getting at was a matter of worldview.  I do not think he intended to suggest that students naturally understood how to use all technology, or that they could naturally use it well.  The point is that the technology blends into the background for them.  My students really don’t “get” how COOL cell phone technology is.  I am still amazed that I can pull out my phone and call anyone in the world no matter where I am.  My students don’t remember the days of the brick with poor reception, impossibly expensive cell bills, and that the first cellular phones weren’t actually all that convenient.  For them this technology blends into the environment.  It is a given.  This doesn’t mean that they will pick up every cell phone and know exactly how to use it. It means that when they approach learning and thinking, they do so with the worldview that we are connected at any time and in any place.

Consider this example: I was born in 1982. Home computers were, at best, novelties.  The first computer I remember playing on was the Commodore 64.  We used it to play a Top Gun video game with “amazing graphics!”  I thought it was REALLY cool that we had to use a joy stick.  We had a computer lab at school with Apple iie’s in it.  We played Number Crunchers and Oregon Trail.  The computer was for entertainment purposes.  It wasn’t until I was in 6th grade that I typed a “published” piece of work on a computer.  Everything was hand written first…in our neatest handwriting.  To this day if I am writing something important, I hand-write it first. I have notebooks full of blog post drafts, grant proposals, reports, etc. all written out long hand.  It isn’t because I don’t know how to use a computer, it isn’t because I’m not tech savvy.  It isn’t even because I really like extra work.  It all comes down to the worldview I grew up with.  You write first, then you publish. (My accent is showing.)  My students think it is ridiculous to write something before typing it.  They often ask why I would do that.  Because I’m not a native.

One last example: I grew up with cameras that used film.  Film was expensive to buy and process.  We had to take time getting a picture just right before taking it because we didn’t want to waste film.  My students have NO concept of this at all.  They take thousands of pictures, post them digitally and never worry about wasting film or money on bad pictures.  Even though I use a digital camera, know how to use the digital camera, know that I can take as many pictures as I want with it- I am still careful about trying to get a picture just right on the first try.  I still think I need to have every picture I take printed.  Different world views. For one of us the digital camera is native…I am the immigrant with an accent.

I think the idea of Digital Natives is important and has roots that need to be remembered.  When we look at students and call them Digital Natives, it isn’t because they know instinctively how to use every piece of technology. We call them Digital Natives because it reminds us that they are approaching learning with a different worldview.  They are approaching learning with a belief that technology is ubiquitous.  When we remember this definition of Digital Natives we will understand that technology and proper use has to be learned.  We will also understand that giving a Digital Native a 10-year-old textbook isn’t going to work. Technology is part of their landscape and we are asking them to learn in a way that doesn’t mesh with that worldview.  That is what Digital Native is really about.

 

Education and the McRib November 11, 2010

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/theimpulsivebuy/4203350202/

 

 

Have you seen the McDonald’s McRib?  It makes its appearance on the McDonalds menu occasionally and people seem to flock to it.  McDonalds even has a special McRib club celebrating the sandwich. The club fan pages says “The club who loves the flavorful pork and tangy barbeque sauce of our favorite sandwich. We’re a discriminating group who don’t mind getting sticky.”

I saw a McRib commercial the other day, and it occurred to me that education today has a lot in common with the McRib.  The McRib is made up of processed meat, ground up and pressed into a mold so that it looks like actual ribs (bones and all which is a little disconcerting).  It is drenched in barbecue sauce, slapped on a patty with a few pickles and onion and sold as food.  It is made to look like something that is satisfying and fulfilling but it is really just a cheap, processed imitation of the real thing.  Education is looking more and more like a McRib these days, processed, standardized and made to look like something that is satisfying and doing it’s job. But really, this kind of education is only a cheapened imitation of the real thing.

The real thing is truly satisfying, always better than the imitation.

The ‘useless’ arts November 9, 2010

“Amidst the attention given to the sciences as how they can lead to the cure of all diseases and daily problems of mankind, I believe that the biggest breakthrough will be the realization that the arts, which are conventionally considered ‘useless,’ will be recognized as the whole reason why we ever try to live longer or live more prosperously.”

- John Maeda

It is interesting to me that humans have ranked certain disciplines as more important than others.  We tend to do this a lot in school.  Mathematical linguistic is more important than art.  Science is more important than communication.  I think that we have forgotten that art, science, math, language…they are all of equal importance, they rely on each other. They are all inextricably woven together into a beautiful tapestry of this thing that we call life.  Schools should reflect this.

Break Free of the Box September 23, 2010

We are being sold a lie in society that school equals learning.  Schools and learning are discussed by parents, community members, and government officials as if they are interchangeable.  So when the community hears “our schools are failing” what they equate that to is: our kids aren’t learning.  What is school? What has it become?  For me, school is represented by the image below:

School is curriculum (mandated by the school, district, or state), standards (again dictated by the state or nation), high-stakes testing, and the data that comes as a result.  Now, I know that much more happens within schools, but these are what define what a school is today.  The problem with this, is that many assume that because the school is defined by this neat and tidy box, that learning is happening as a result.  This model of schooling feels efficient because it concludes that we get a known, replicable product at the end.  That feels predictable.  If we have this sort of structure it is assumed that no matter what goes in, a recognizable product will be the result.  Just like a factory.  If you are inside the box, you are learning, if you start straying outside the box to further explore, discover, or create, and it doesn’t reflect on a test, you are failing.  Unfortunately for this model, the world is no longer safe or predictable.  It doesn’t fit in a neat and tidy box.  An education that cranks out a service, does it with measurable output, and works to reduce costs is not going to produce results we want to live with.  The supposition to this model is that there will be no surprises, students will filter through the system and at the end we will have productive, literate adults who can join the workforce.  Unfortunately, life isn’t so neat and tidy.  You see, in a factory you are working with similar materials that are used to make identical products.  But we aren’t working with similar materials.  We are working with unique individuals, we are working with children.  Children who have different genetic make-up, backgrounds, home lives, hopes, dreams, gifts, and plans.  A school model that is so rigid simply cannot work.  Schools will always be failing using this model, because they are trying to fit every single child through the same mold.  Sure, you can force them to contort and conform to the mold, but the end product still won’t be the same.  It still won’t be neat and tidy.

This is the way I view learning:

This model isn’t so rigid, it offers many paths to learning.  No matter which direction(s) a child approaches, learning is the end result.  This model offers students flexibility to their learning, it isn’t a “you’re in or you’re out” model.  Everyone of us is on our own unique path of learning.  Those circles around learning show that even within an approach to learning, children will still travel toward the learning at their own pace as they are developmentally ready.  Each unique individual is allowed to approach learning in the ways that make sense to them.  I would argue that the rigid school model above does more to hinder learning than to help it.  It cuts students off from the learning that could happen and sells the lie that standards and curriculum and tests are all there is to learning.

It is time that we break free of the box.  School does not equal learning.  Following a curriculum so that you can pass a test is not learning.  Let’s build our school model around what learning really looks like.  Let’s allow our students the freedom to be the unique individuals they are.  Let’s build a school that knows that a test can never be a truly accurate measure of all that a student knows.  Let’s help parents, community members, and politicians see why the box is a failing model.  We can’t keep waiting around for this change to happen on its own, or for policy makers to come to these conclusions.  There is an urgency in education.  Children are going through the box school model every day, they don’t have the luxury of time for the adults to get it right.  We have to do better and we have to do it now.

Be the Green Dot September 10, 2010

Yesterday I was catching up on my Google Reader and ran across this gem from Seth Godin called, How Big is Your Red Zone? In the post he shares three graphs (I have created my own with a similar feel below).  The first graph shows how our joy grows over time as we learn how to do something new.  At first our joy over learning it may not be huge, it is sometimes difficult and frustrating to learn something new.  But, over time as we get better at the task, our joy in interacting with it grows.  There may be some dips of boredom with our newly acquired learning but over all the trend is upward.

The second graph shows the hassle of the same activity.  At first the hassle is large because as I mentioned before, it can be difficult and frustrating to learn something new.  Eventually overtime the hassle is less as our expertise and experience with the learning grows.

The last graph shows the two overlaid.  There is a gap between the initial hassle and the initial joy of the learning.  Seth’s contention is “that the only reason we ever get through that gap is that someone is on the other side (the little green circle) is rooting us on, or telling stories of how great it is on the other side.”

This had me thinking about student learning, professional development learning, and the value of a personal learning network (PLN).

First student learning. As teachers, it is easy to forget the frustration and discouragement that comes from learning something new.  We teach the same material year after year, in nearly the same way.  After the first few years we can start to take for granted the background information that students have and just try to dive into the new learning.  This is a mistake.  It causes the hassle graph to rise quickly and the joy of learning drops substantially.  We need to remember to meet our students where they are at and be that green dot that is rooting them on and encouraging them to keep going so that they enter that place where learning is a joy.  I think one of the major problems in schools today, is that we have made the green dot a grade or diploma.  The school system seems to be under the misguided assumption that if they offer a grade or diploma (as the green dot) that students will hold on to that and work to get through the hassle to the joy.  Unfortunately that green dot just doesn’t do it for most kids.  The promise of a grade on the other side diminishes the joy of learning and makes the journey to the little bit of joy a big hassle.  So, how can we transform our classrooms into places where students know that when they work through the hassle they will reach that ultimate joy?  We can be their green dot, we can encourage their peers to be the green dot.  We can work together and encourage each other in the learning process.  We can hold out our hand and help them along until the hassle drops and the joy of learning remains.  We can offer our students learning opportunities that provide  a lot of joy and discovery so that the hassle doesn’t really seem like so much of a hassle.

Professional development can be an enormous source of frustration for teachers.  This has been especially true in technology training sessions.  Teachers enter the training wary of having to learn one more thing and worrying about how to add it into their already packed curriculum.  They can enter with an attitude of hassle so before a word has been uttered, their hassle graph is already high.  The joy that might be gained from the learning is overshadowed by worries of meeting AYP, passing state tests, and thinking about a student who came to school with cigarette burns down their arm.  Trainers make the mistake in professional development of overselling.  They try too hard to make it all look like joy that the real joy of the learning is lost in a sea of wariness.  Teachers have been sold the “joy” before.  It looked great in the last training but when it was attempted in the classroom it was met with blocked websites, slow Internet connections, and unruly students.  How could professional development look different?  What if it was built into the school day instead of an extra crammed in after school?  What if teachers were really given time to learn the new tool or concept?  What if teachers were given time to work together with colleagues and encourage each other?  What if the roadblocks were removed when they got back to the classroom so they could actually use it?  I think the biggest missing piece in most professional development scenarios is the green dot who urges teachers on in their learning.  Everyone needs someone to rely on for help and support.  Everyone needs someone to remind us of the joy that is just on the other side of the hassle.  Change your professional development model to include those things and PD will suddenly be a true learning experience.

I have mentioned this many, many times before, but it bears repeating: my personal learning network consistently makes my learning a joy.  My PLN (mostly on Twitter) constantly acts like my green dot.  They cheer me on, encourage me, and help me when I don’t understand.  Whether your PLN is digital, face to face, or a mixture, invite them to be your green dot.  Let them excite you about learning and remind you of what a joy learning something new is.  Don’t forget to be the green dot for others, you may already be “in” on the learning, but don’t overlook those who need encouragement to get there.  A PLN is all about giving and receiving!

Can you be the green dot?

Neglecting Value September 8, 2010

Creative Commons Image from Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahfelicity/153441419/

Recently I found a new non-educational blog that I am really enjoying called Be Deviant. The Blog author, Justin Wise, recently wrote a post called 3 Steps to Make People Feel Valued. In the post, Justin mentions a book called The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working by Tony Schwarz. After reading Justin’s post, I was eager to read the book too. I am only a few chapters in, but haven’t been able to get Justin’s post out of my mind because it relates so closely to the other posts I have written recently on Dreams of Education. I hope Justin doesn’t mind that I piggy back on his thoughts as they relate to education.

The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working-Tony Schwartz

How we feel profoundly influences how we perform.  Feeling devalued pushes us into the Survival Zone-which increases our fear, distracts our attentions, drains our energy, and diminishes the value we’re capable of creating…Perhaps no human need is more neglected in the workplace than to feel valued.

Schwartz thoughts are geared toward the workplace here but how many of us could replace workplace with school environment?  There is a culture in most schools of devaluing students and educators.  That culture may not be overt but it is felt in subtle ways every time a students or teachers self-worth is based on a single standardized test.  It is felt when students aren’t treated as the individuals that they are, but are instead taught from scripted curriculum and moved from grade to grade because it is the next step and not necessarily because they are ready for it.  It is felt when politicians make asinine decisions like that schools make public whether teachers are doing enough to raise students’ test scores.  It is felt when merit pay is discussed as if the only reason schools are failing is because teachers don’t make enough money to do their job better.  It is felt when a student walks into a classroom and sees the utilitarian rows of desks and moulded plastic chairs that we ask them to sit in for 6 hours a day.  Schools neglect the human need to feel valued.  What results are schools that act out of places of fear, strapping teachers and students down even more so that they will perform on the test (forget learning).  It is no wonder that teachers are drained and may only last 3 years in the profession.  It is no wonder that students attentions are distracted and they do what they must to get by.  The value that students, teachers, and administrators are capable of creating wanes because they aren’t being valued.

In his post Justin offers three ways to value others, I’m using his three as a rough outline.

1.  Let people know what they bring to the table.

For students this means helping students find what Sir Ken Robinson terms The Element.  Tell your students what abilities you see in them.  Be specific.  I had a fifth grade teacher who told me once that I was a beautiful writer.  I never knew that about myself.  I didn’t generally enjoy writing at school because no one had ever appreciated it before.  As I came to learn, I quite like writing.  Don’t forget to let students tell you what they bring to the table.  The school day just doesn’t allow ample opportunities for us to discover all of our students gifts, so let them tell you about their passions, let them show you where they think their abilities lie.

For teachers and administrators this means recognizing what your colleagues do that is unique and valuable.  We may assume that our colleagues know what value they add to the school environment.  Tell them anyway.  Making someone feel valued means that we recognize that they are valuable and letting them know it.  If you aren’t telling your colleagues what you value about them they will start to believe that what they offer isn’t valuable.  Don’t let that happen.

2. Give Specific Feedback

For students this means that when you grade something they have spent time on, you take the time to let them know what specifically was good about it or needed work.  There is nothing more frustrating than spending hours working on something and then receiving a letter grade at the top.  What does that mean?  Giving specific feedback shows our students that we value the time they spent on an assignment or project.  It shows them that we value them enough to spend our time reflecting on what they have done.  When we do have to correct or offer a negative comment, it will be received from a much different place.  Instead of thinking “they have no idea how hard I worked on that and all they do is criticize me;” they may start to view the criticism for what it is, correction to help them grow.  Giving specific feedback makes you more than a teacher, it makes you a mentor and someone who disciples.  Discipleship is a lost art that needs to be reintroduced in the classroom.

For teachers and administrators this means offering thoughtful advice and encouragement.  ”Good job” just doesn’t cut it.  Unless you are limited to 140 characters, specific feedback will always make people feel more valuable.  Being specific lets others know that you were actively attending to what you observed and that you appreciated it enough to elaborate beyond the “atta boy”.  If you are an administrator that is in the position of observing teachers, make sure that you offer initial feedback as well as specific follow-up feedback.  As a teacher, there is nothing worse than being observed by your boss only to have them leave without saying anything and offering an “it was a really good lesson” a few weeks later.  Give me immediate feedback with your initial reactions and then follow it up with more specific feedback.  Because I feel valued, I am more likely to take any advice you have to heart and work on implementing it.

3.  Celebrate the people around you.

We don’t celebrate our students enough.  We don’t let them know how much we are rooting for them, how much we want the very best for them.  Do something extraordinary and unexpected for your students.  In my classroom this meant giving them a “free day” where they could show me what neat technology they were using and act as the teacher.  Extraordinary doesn’t have to be expensive, it just needs to demonstrate that we value our students.  I had an exceptional third grade teacher.  Every once in a while she would hold a classroom celebration where we got to eat lunch with her IN the classroom.  She made this a really big deal, fun music, special games, and ice cream sandwiches at the end.  When we asked her why we were celebrating she would let us know how proud she was of the way we were growing and learning, so much so that she wanted to celebrate it.  This is the same teacher who would leave us special notes of encouragement in our desk (on purchased funny Hallmark cards), sent me a birthday card for two years after she was my teacher, and encouraged our parents to write us notes throughout the year.  She knew how to make us feel celebrated.  It doesn’t have to cost money, it just needs to be demonstrative.

For teachers and administrators this means going out of your way to celebrate them.  If you are an administrator, gift your teachers with an extra hour of planning throughout the year, stop in the classroom and take over so they can go to the bathroom, bring them a cup of their favorite coffee.  If you are a teacher let other teachers know they are celebrated, leave them a note of encouragement, slip a handful of chocolate on a long day, leave them flowers for no reason.  Celebrate every accomplishment of every teacher.  If someone has started a blog, that is cause for celebration, did someone try a new project or tech tool in the classroom? That is cause for celebration!

This is where Justin finished his list but I have to add one more.

4. Change the environment.

Environment can make us feel valued, for my complete thoughts on why, read my post Beauty Matters.

Ask your students what they would like the classroom to look like, and then let them help you make it special for them.  Classroom furniture is SO impersonal and factory feeling.  Think about how the arrangement of your classroom can change the feel. In high school I had a teacher who lined his walls with desks, they were not to be used as desks but as surfaces to display student work and achievements.  The rest of the room was completely open.  Many times we would sit in a circle of chairs, but he let us work the way we wanted to.  By the end of the year students had donated couches, bean bag chairs, and lamps to make the room feel more comfortable.  Everyone looked forward to that class because it was such a welcome break from the rows in every other classroom.

If you are a teacher or administrator, create a place that is just for relaxing.  Teachers lounge 2.0.  Decorate it with art, add a CD player, offer magazines and “real” chairs.  Make it comfortable and aesthetically appealing.  We all need a place to escape to sometimes, give teachers that place.  Let teachers have ownership in how the space looks.  Beauty matters, it is important and it sends the message that people are valued.

As it turns out, showing people they are valued isn’t hard, it just takes a conscious effort.  Let’s transform our schools into places where everyone who walks in the building feels valued.

Beauty Matters September 4, 2010

Why are schools such uninspiring spaces? They have become sterile places that use ordinary materials, flourescent lighting, and, generally speaking, do not inspire greatness.  They are run of the mill and feel more like prisons than anything else (I know I am being overly dramatic, but this is my blog and I am exercising that freedom).   What message does that send to students?  Do these ordinary spaces make them feel like education is valued by the community, or like it is a necessary evil like the DMV?  Do our school buildings send the message that we value our students? Our teachers?  I would argue that our schools paint a very different picture.  Most schools across America (I can’t speak to other places in the world) give the feeling of a factory.  Don’t get me wrong, teachers have prettied them up with bulletin boards and student work, but the overall feeling inside a school is that it is a temporary space that we are moving students through.  The tables in the cafeteria fold up, the desks are meant to out last a nuclear bomb, and the chairs are uncomfortable uniform plastic that can be wiped down easily.  Nothing about most schools makes you feel special, or like you might like to sit down and read a book or learn something there.  The only thing most schools inspire is how to tell time so students can count the minutes until they can escape for the day.  Think about it, the majority of schools in the US don’t look much different from when you were in school.  Even when they are remodeled, the feeling of the building doesn’t change all that much.  How many of you remember thinking “I wish I could go back to my fourth grade classroom and just curl up with a good book?” *Crickets*  Me too, I would not choose to go sit and read in my fourth grade classroom for anything.

I don’t think this was always the case, it seems to me that there was a time where the architecture of a school mattered, where schools were beautiful places because education was prestigious and important.  The architecture of the building mattered because a message was being sent that this was an important place to be.  I see very few schools that invoke a feeling of importance.  Even if the outside of the building is a beautiful space, as soon as you walk through the hallways you know this is, without a doubt, a school.  What if our schools were beautiful again?  What if we used the school building to show our students, teachers, community that learning is valued, that what happens in a school is special and inspired?  What if schools were more than just a place for students to learn, but were also places that the community wanted to come and learn?  What if the school was a place you might like to go sit and read?

I think that beauty does matter, I think that when you sit somewhere that is aesthetically pleasing it makes you want to stay a while and inspires you.   I think that if you have a cozy place to read, you are more likely to enjoy reading.  It is all about the experience of reading, the experience of learning.  What is the first thing we all say on a cold rainy day, “I wish I could stay in bed all day and read a good book.”  Anyone want to go sit at school and read a good book?  No.  Why? Because it is uninspiring, it is uncomfortable, and worst of all it sucks the joy right out of the reading.  Bookstores and Starbucks are popular places to sit and work because we enjoy the experience of sitting and working there.

Last year, I did a year-long project with my students.  I asked them to describe their dream school to me; if school could be anything, look like anything, feel like anything, what would it be?  You know the first thing every one of them would change?  The aesthetics of the building.  Most of them wished for spaces that looked more like Googleplex or Pixar.  They wanted spaces that felt creative and fun.  They wanted piano stairs and lunch tables that looked like the periodic table of elements.  Not one of them wanted chairs.

There has been a lot of buzz lately about the $578 million school that has been built-in LA (yes, that is one school).  It is the costliest school in the nation and it is incredible.  It looks like a place you would want to spend time.  Just because a school is beautiful doesn’t mean that the learning there will be better, but it will show students that education is worth spending money on.  It will make students and teachers want to spend time there.  It will send a message to the community that learning is important.  For that reason, beauty matters.

Today I read a blog post by Sparky Teaching on why school environments matter, there is a beautiful poem about why environments matter that has been transformed into a video.  I recommend you take a look at it!  I also got my copy of American School and University today, it is their special edition that comes out once a year on Educational Interiors.  The schools are beautiful, there are some truly innovative things being done, but I am a little disappointed that the school still hasn’t been completely re-imagined.  The classrooms still have desks, there is still a board of some type at the front of the classroom.  Can’t we do better?  Can’t we take a hint from Google and Pixar and do a complete rethink?

Here is my re-imagination of a school:

• Light! Why don’t schools have more natural light?  Why in the world do we still use fluorescent lights (seriously, no one looks good in that lighting, we all look like the living dead under fluorescent lights!)  Why don’t we have beautiful pendants and mood lighting in the library that makes it feel like a cozy place to read?
• Flexible learning spaces.  I really like that I get to choose where I get to sit and work as an adult (at least when I am home).  When I was a kid my favorite place to work was on the floor on my stomach.  I hated sitting at a table to work, probably because I had sat at an uncomfortable desk all day at school.  I really liked a particular spot in my hallway where our ceiling was tall, there was a lot of natural light, and all of the architecture of our house met.  It felt special, my spot. We need spaces all over the school where students can go and work, then we need to give them the freedom to work there.
• Libraries that feel more like bookstores.  I don’t know about you but the bookstore is one of my all time favorite places to be.  I love the smell of the books, the comfortable chairs scattered between bookshelves in little nooks, the dark woods.  I want my libraries to display books the way a bookstore does, advertising them to me, enticing me to read them.  I want my elementary library to feel like the kid section at Barnes and Nobel.  Like I have just fallen through a rabbit hole and right into the middle of a story.  What if school libraries were connected to the community library, housed in the same building but separated for security?  What if all of the community came to the school to learn and to read?  What if students saw the love of reading first hand?
• Cafeterias, yuck! Why do all cafeterias make me want to hold my nose and gobble my food as quickly as possible so that I can escape outside?  Why don’t cafeterias look more like a 5 star dining experience?  Why don’t we use the dining experience at school to teach kids how to share a meal?  Why don’t we have family style meals where kids put their napkins in their laps, pass food around the table, ask to be excused when they are finished?  We take these niceties for granted as adults but not all kids have those experiences at home to teach them.  Most kids eat in front of the TV, in between after school activities, or by themselves as mom and dad rush around.
• Finishes- The finishes of a school are SO bad. That awful ugly carpet and linoleum floor combination, cinderblocks, dated brick, and GRAY.  Uninspiring, depressing, prison like.  With the technology of today you can’t tell me that laminate wood flooring wouldn’t hold up just as well…there must be a better solution!  Bring in some natural materials that reflect the place where the school is.  I’m in Colorado, let’s see some beautiful rock, and wood, and color.  Let’s put in big windows that let in plenty of light and take advantage of whatever view is available.
• Art- Let’s add art to our building, real art.  Many schools took advantage of the Picturing America collection in their schools, let’s frame them beautifully and put them on display prominently in the building.  Let’s make it feel like an art gallery.  There is a school in the School and University this month (Rochester Institute of Technology) that has a gorgeous round glass enclosed art gallery room.  The glass has quotes etched on it and paintings can be seen no matter where you are in the building.  There are study areas and places to sit in the gallery.  Every school should have an area so beautiful and inspiring.
  

  From: http://carypress.rit.edu/news-events?page=3

  As much as I love decorating bulletin boards can we get rid of them?  I would much rather see student work displayed in a nice frame that makes it feel special and appreciated, decorating the halls, the classrooms, the cafeteria, the office, and library.

• Outdoor spaces- Schools should have courtyards full of life.  They should have gardens that are cared for by students, places to sit, labyrinths to walk around, fountains, and tables to eat at.  (My thoughts on gardens is a post within itself.)
• Music- Hallways, cafeterias, and shared spaces should be filled with beautiful music that speaks to the soul.  Kids don’t get enough classical in their cartoons any more, let’s give it to them in their schools instead.

Have you ever been in a really beautiful space that just makes you want to sit and soak it in?  For me that usually happens in nature but it also happens when I am surrounded by art, incredible architecture, or any kind of good design.  Schools should be that place.  Creativity should flourish in there.

I’ll leave you with a TED Talk by Bill Strickland who shares my philosophy that beauty matters, the piano is a little distracting (a bit loud) but the message is well worth it!