3 ways to decrease the teacher dropout crisis

Guest post by Eric Williams @ewilliams65

Ron Maggiano, an award-winning teacher in Virginia recently announced his retirement, stating, “I can no longer cooperate with a testing regime that I believe is suffocating creativity and innovation in the classroom.” Maggiano is not alone. In an ongoing blog post, Lisa Nielsen uses text and video to tell the story of teacher dropouts. The stories of teacher dropouts share a common theme, a concern for the impact of high stakes testing.

Advocating for education reform is one way to decrease teacher dropouts. But don’t stop there educators.

1)  Share stories of students doing meaningful work with value that extends far beyond preparation for success on standardized tests. Share these stories with your colleagues and others with whom you learn.

Was #JeffBliss disrespectful for using his #StuVoice to demand a beyond-the-packet education?

By now, you've probably seen the video of high school student Jeff Bliss demanding an end to what he calls "packet teaching." Instead he puts out a call to action for teachers to work to touch the hearts of kids to open their minds. The interaction was ignited when his teacher told him to stop his bitching about the test and kicked him out of class. A student flipped open the cell phone, caught his reaction on tape, and published it. It hit a chord with many and went viral, being viewed by millions around the globe.

As Jeff shared his frustration, his teacher saw no value in his wisdom and told him that he was wasting her time. When he responds, she apathetically silences him, tells him again to leave and informs him he is not welcome back.

 

What surprised me more than this teacher's dismissal of a young man so passionate about the education of himself and others, was that there were so many people who thought Jeff Bliss was the one being disrespectful.

Wait! What????

As I recently expressed during a weekly Student Voice chat on Twitter, here's my thinking about how we should view students.

My best teachers were students #stuvoice
— Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) May 7, 2013

And this resonates with students.

@innovativeedu I love you so much Lisa! Best tweet ever.
— Lucia Grigoli (@lugrigs) May 7, 2013

When a teacher tells a young man frustrated about being robbed of his education that he should stop bitching and stop wasting her time, how on earth can we be focused on the student being the one that is showing disrespect?

Our school system is here to support children in learning. Most of us are aware that very few students learn well with "packet teaching," yet it remains.

Criticism of Jeff Bliss in social media and the mainstream press indicate he could have gone about this a different way.

They say he should have addressed her privately.

• This makes NO sense. It was the teacher who called him out and kicked him out publicly in front of the class.

They say he should have gone to the principal or school board.

• I'm sure he will, but at the time, he was responding to the woman who told him to stop bitching and kicked him out of class for voicing his frustration.

They say he should know the politics of education and know this is the fault of those beyond the teacher.

• It is not the job of students to know the politics of education. It is their right to learn and to observe their freedom of speech when this right is being withheld. 

They say he robbed his classmates of an education by disrupting the class.

• No. No. No. Students speaking to their teachers about how they learn best is not robbing anyone of an education. It is an opportunity for everyone to put down the packet, talk, think, and discuss how they can best learn. Students can fill in bubbles anytime, anywhere. A class is a place for interaction and discussion.

They say he shouldn't have addressed the teacher because she was just doing what she was told.

• We should not silence students who are telling their teachers they can't learn they way they teach. Students should be able to speak with their teachers and teachers should listen. When they do they will find there is something valuable they can learn.

I commend Jeff Bliss for standing up for himself and all the other students who deserve a beyond-the-packet education.

Our children are not our future. They are the voices we need TODAY. Our job is to listen and support them. When they say they can't learn the way we are teaching (or not teaching in this case) we must hear them and do what we can to ensure they receive the education they deserve. When we do that we will have citizens who are not just good at sitting down and filling in packets but standing up and filling our world with those who are empowered with embrace their right to change the world.

You can like Jeff Bliss's Facebook Page here and follow him on Twitter here.

Oh, wait. Before you go, check out this great remix of Jeff Bliss's inspirational words.

Will you let an exam result decide your fate?

Has an exam ever changed, influenced, or decided your fate?

It has for me, and for many, exams have been the gatekeeper to experiences brilliant people close to me had hoped to pursue. An algebra exam kept one friend who has run a successful business for years from completing the a Bachelor's program she wanted to pursue. Two friends who have proven track records as education technology leaders were denied consideration for a doctorate program because of their GRE scores. A high school student renowned for his successful political activism was denied entrance to numerous colleges based on his SAT scores ALONE!

The insanity of it is brought to life by Suli Breaks. The talented young man who brought us the viral video, "Why I hate school, but love learning" is at it again, with his latest, "I won't let an exam result decide my fate." Breaks message to us is that these exams and the academic opportunities they promise are no longer the one and only way to achieve success. He inspires today's youth to think outside the exam and stop valuing that as an indication of what we are worth. He suggests we all take note of so many of those in our world, who pushed exams aside so they could move on and achieve their dreams. Watch Break's latest effort to inspire us to reconsider this destructive practice and forge new paths to success in his latest spoken word piece, "I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate."

High school dropout pursues passions and becomes a multimillionaire

David Karp began learning HTML at 11 and soon after was designing websites for local businesses. Unlike Nick Perez who spent years being drugged and tortured in a school that didn’t understand his particular passion, Karp attended high school for one year before dropping out.  This allowed him to focus on doing projects that enabled him to pursue his passions. 

He also knew this would be a good way to impress colleges. As was popular in America prior to the days of compulsory schooling and the infantalization of youth, Karp worked on projects he loved, found mentors, and began apprenticing in areas that aligned with his passion. Ironically, Karp didn’t need to impress colleges since after taking ownership of his learning he realized he didn’t need school for success.  

This is how Democracy Ends Part II: Dispelling 6 Common Myths of the #CCSS

By Kris Nielsen.  Originally posted at Middle Grades Mastery. 
This is the second installment in the This is How Democracy Ends series. Part one is here.  This is How Democracy Ends–Part II –Reality Check–will give an abbreviated version of why the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) is worse than we think and why it has been pushed so hard on states, districts, and schools.  Hopefully, Part Three will be my ideas for action, and my proposal for an alternative to the current reform movement, based on a humble teacher’s perspective.

Let’s look for a moment at a majority (yet shrinking) consensus among professional educators and the perspective that the public has accepted has been fed regarding the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

This is part of a comment left by a professional educator on the first article in this series:

 I have a hard time believing that the whole thing is a ploy to destroy education and teachers. I doubt that our country would maliciously and hurt our children.

I post this comment because it’s a good start to a list of things that teachers and parents have been told to believe and talk about–the first of which speaks to that commenter–we are supposed to trust our educational and government leaders.  They would never hurt our kids or allow our kids to be hurt.  First, let’s talk about what the Common Core State Standards Initiative is and what it isn’t.  Then, I’ll come back to discuss our trust in our country.

Here’s a non-inclusive list of myths about Common Core and standardized tests that professional teachers have all been prescribed (ordered) to accept.  I will touch on why each one is not a truth or a benefit to our kids and the future of our country.

What should be standardized?

I've been thinking about all the things that should be standardized in life but aren't.  Here are the most annoying ones that come to my mind. 

Phone chargers (Really iPhone 5???)
On/off switches on computers (Push, slide, front, side?)
Television remote controls (How do you turn this dang thing on?)
Carry on luggage (Forget the sizers, just give a standardized stamp or seal!)
Laptop plug hole (Left? Right? Back?)

Where can kids go on opt out of tests days?

More and more parents are opting their children out of standardized tests. In a recent opt out group discussion, parents shared they were told that if their child attended school, but did not take the test, they would have to sit at their desks and do nothing. They would not even be allowed to read but rather sentenced to sit and stare into space.

Rather than waste children’s time, one parent asked, “Wouldn't it be amazing if there was an educational opportunity available in communities during testing days for those students who were opting out?”

Yes. Of course it would.
Why not use testing days as community learning days? It wouldn’t be that hard. Here are some ideas to get started.

Activities for students who #OptOut of #StandardizedTests

Many innovative educators realize that there are better ways to assess than standardized tests. As a result, they are supportive of students whose parents have decided to opt their children out of tests. 

This leaves teachers with a dilemma. Rather than sit and stare, what can those students do while their classmates take the test. This can be difficult considering most schools allow student to only have pencils, scrap paper and a testing booklet on their desk.

Here are some ideas:

Union supports standardized tests boycott

The Seattle Times reports the teachers union  shares concerns the faculty at Garfield High has raised about district-required standardized tests.
As a result, the Garfield teachers announced that no teachers at the school would be giving the tests this winter, even though the district requires them to do so.  Nearly all the faculty signed a letter to the district saying they’re not against testing, but they think their standardized exams (MAP) is a flawed test that fails to help them or their students and waste valuable class time. It seems the innovative educators working in those schools know there are better ways to assess students. 

Is the common core sending children over an educational cliff?

Guest post by TimeOutDad

As an aspiring school leader, as an educator, as a parent, I am deeply worried about the education of our children.  There’s been a lot of buzz about the Common Core Standards and how they’re supposed to somehow get our children college and/or career ready by raising the standards for all.   Sounds great, right?   Well, the message that seems to have been sent to the test-makers is, “Let’s make these high-stakes tests harder than ever.”  Since higher scores in the past haven’t gotten our students ready for college, then we need to “raise the bar” even higher with even harder reading passages and even harder math problems.  That’ll create more success, right?   REALLY?

Imagine yourself as a third grader.  Eight years old.  Now, let’s click on the latest Sample 3rd Grade English Language Arts sample questions (from EngageNY.org, a New York State Education Department website that provides resources for educators and parents) and scroll down to the first reading passage written by Leo Tolstoy.  After reading the passage, go ahead and take a look at the sample test questions.  Go ahead.  Give it a try, and come back when you’re done…

So, what did you think?  Reasonable?  Fair?  How about some math?  That’s our reality.  Our children.  Anyone else see an educational cliff?

(In case you want to see other sample tests for other grades...  http://engageny.org/resource/new-york-state-common-core-sample-questions

Make your Race to Nowhere movie!

Vicki Abeles, producer of the film Race to Nowhere is asking for innovative educators to take a minute or two to tell your story in front of a camera. Please share what actions -- big or small -- you, your family, or your school taken to break out of the “Race to Nowhere."  Think about the small steps you've taken. Did you sign a petition, ask for homework-free holiday breaks in your school, speak to a teacher or administrator about homework,  testing or the school schedule? Did you make changes in your home, change the conversation with your family and friends, attend a school board meeting or advocate for more time for recess? Did you make changes to support more balance or time together as a family? 

Public ed is only a right for the compliant

The powerful and wealthy in our country pay to send their children to schools that are not testing factories, but for those who can't afford this luxury, children are used, abused, chewed up and spit out of the system if they are not compliant. Even if it means they will get hurt or sick.

It's sort of like one of those alien movies where those in power feel they have the right to run these tests on aliens because they are sub-human. But this is not a movie and our children aren't aliens.
This story played out recently when 12-year-old Anthony Hererra's mother, Gretchen, followed doctors orders  which she shared with the school and allowed her son to opt out of the test.  As reported in Education Week, what came next was a letter waiting for her from the charter school her son attends. The letter said Anthony was no longer welcome because by opting out he violated his learning contract so he was being withdrawn from the school, effective immediately.

Why no school is the best school if you can't afford an independent school

A friend recently asked what school/districts I recommend near New York City. When my boyfriend and I discussed this a few years back I rattled off numerous schools and districts like this one.  Back then my job consisted in part of supporting schools with something called the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM) which honors students passions, talents, interests, abilities and learning style. My advice today is very different.

What learning looks like for the children
of the wealthy or highly educated.

Those SEM schools are gone for the most part, though some hang on by a thread with an after school program.

Priorities have changed.

Gone are the days when we saw our children as creative, unique individuals and educators as the ones who could help them discover, explore, and develop their passions.

Today our teachers and students know they are nothing more than mere datapoints who will be fed a pre-packaged, curriculum that is measured by numerous One-Size-Fits-All tests that line the pockets of publishers like Pearson, fill the egos of politicians who don't know better and hurt our children.

Penelope Trunk, a wildly successful career advisor explains it this way:

"Test-based curricula is irrefutably ineffective and bad for kids. I'm not even providing a link, because it's so widely reported. However no one can think of a better way to run such a large and diverse public school system as the one we have in the US, so test-based curricula will persist for a long time."

How will you help datapoint students who are standing up and speaking out

Noa Rosinplotz at Spelling Bee via Flickr

More and more students are waking up, standing up, and speaking out against standardized testing.  Most recently 6th grade student Noa Rosinplotz posted the following story on her Facebook Page aptly named Datapoints. 

The Little Datapoint and the Big Bad Test

Once upon a time, there was a little datapoint named Rosin Plotz, Noa. Her friends called her by her ID number, 9------, or 9 for short. She liked her job-most of the time. But 6 times a year, or 19 days in total, came the Big Bad test. The Little Datapoint completed the test dutifully each time, mulling the possibilities of Paul Revere's horse's emotions and checking her work not once, but twice. She and the other Datapoints together formed a Chart, which was their Job. The Little Datapoint felt very proud at having been a part of such a great endeavor. Then one day, the Little Datapoint felt a different emotion. The Little Datapoint felt ANGRY. The Little Datapoint thought: Is this all I am good for? Providing data on tests? That can't be all there is to life, can it?. These questions are dumb, thought the Little Datapoint. I should not spend my life answering these questions. Paul Revere's horse will never change the world, she said to herself. Paul Revere's horse is dead. But I can still change the world. And I will never do that by answering these questions, day after day, year after year. And that Little Datapoint did not answer her questions. That Little Datapoint RIPPED UP HER TEST AND THREW IT INTO THE DEEP DARK RECESSES OF THE TRASH CAN TO FESTER AND EVENTUALLY DIE A SLOW AND PAINFUL DEATH LASTING FOR ALL ETERNITY!!!!!!!!!"

But that's not all.  She also wrote a letter which Diane Ravitch recently posted on her blog here.

Noa is not alone.  Last year I shared two letters from students in grades five and six speaking out against tests.

• Kids know best. They don' want the test. - Anthony Hererra
• Fifth grader's smart advice about standardized tests - Joel

Students are speaking out. Parents are speaking out.  Teachers are speaking out. We know these tests are not what's best for children. 

"Those of us who know better, need to do better and stand between the defenseless children we serve and the madness around us. If a destructive idea needs to be challenged or a right defended, I’ll speak up." (Au Contraire, Nov 2012) - Gary Stager

Nothing will change if we allow the government to impose these destructive practices upon children. It may not be easy, but doing what is right and best for the oppressed often is not. Our children don't need these tests. Our teachers don't. Our parents don't. The only ones who do are the politicians and multi-billion dollar testing industry. We must stand up to this Goliath, take back the learning and put it where it belongs...in the hands of children, their parents, and the teachers who have their student's best interest at heart.

Teacher dropouts

Editor's note: This is a living post to which I will continue adding the stories of teacher dropouts as they are brought to my attention.

More than 20 years ago John Taylor Gatto wrote a letter announcing his departure from the teaching profession, titled I Quit, I Think. The letter was published in the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal where he said he no longer wished to "hurt kids to make a living." He gave this advice:

"We don’t need a national curriculum or national testing either. Both initiatives arise from ignorance of how people learn or deliberate indifference to it. I can’t teach this way any longer."

Fast forward 20 years and we have Kris Nielsen's letter published in the Washington Post in an article called, "Letter from disgusted teacher: I quit." From Nielsen we find that nothing much has changed since Gatto did the same thing in 1991.  He explained that he quit because:

 “I refuse to be led by a top-down hierarchy that is completely detached from the classrooms for which it is supposed to be responsible,” and “I will not spend another day under the expectations that I prepare every student for the increasing numbers of meaningless tests,” 

Nielsen's not alone.  Just last week a teacher self-described as female, black and southern shared her story on her Tony Giving Lip Tumbler site in this story:
I am an American Teacher. I Love My Profession. So, I Quit.

She explained that she was no longer able to fulfill her role of institutionalizing children which required her to be the person who was made to do the following:

To corral them. To oppress them. To rob them of true educational experiences. To attempt to standardize them. To test them. To test them. To benchmark them. To rank them. To drill them. To worksheet them. To blow whistles at them to move. To ring bells for them to stand. To watch them like a hawk as they visited the restroom. The PE coach once remarked that I “looked like their CO” (correctional officer) as my students walked in line and I watched them to be sure they did so with the absolute perfection mandated by my boss, the school founder, who, although they were of age, did not enroll his own children, who were eligible because they, too, lived in Orleans Parish, in the school which he founded. He said that it wouldn’t be fair to them to have them attend the school of their father’s creation. He said they would be the only white children. And the principal’s kids. He sent them to the only public school in the parish where the rest of the white children attended. It was best for them to learn there without all of the things at his school which he imposed on Black children: non-descript uniforms, trailers, inexperienced and unqualified teachers, longer school days by way of three additional hours, and adults all around them who were as battered, abused, and depressed as they were.

It seems this public quitting thing is catching on.  

The teacher below read his letter and uploaded it to YouTube creating a video that already has had hundreds of thousands of views. 

He complains of the same issues that causes those before him to quit. He points out that socialization and learning from the world are no longer a part of the school experience,  recess is nearly extinct, and of course the over-emphasis standards and prepping everyone for the one-size-fits-all test even though we know learning should be customized.  

In this video Ellie Rubenstein tells us why she has had enough. Rubenstein explains the reasons that have led to her decision to quit and addresses several major problems she says she has faced as a teacher in our current education environment.

"I was proud to say I was a teacher," Rubenstein tells the camera, after describing how she abandoned a career in public relations to "do something meaningful" with her life. "But over the past 15 years, I've experienced the depressing, gradual downfall and misdirection of communication that has slowly eaten away at my love of teaching." 

"Raising students' test scores on standardized tests is now the only goal, and in order to achieve it the creativity, flexibility and spontaneity that create authentic learning environments have been eliminated. ... Everything I love about teaching is extinct," she continues.

Ron Maggiano, a social studies teacher at West Springfield High School in Fairfax County won the Disney Teacher Award for innovation and creativity and he also won the American Historical Association’s Beveridge Family Teaching Prize for outstanding K-12 teaching. But, now, as shared in the Washington Post,  he is resigning, because he’s had enough of the high-stakes testing obsession that he believes has undermined public education

The teacher in the following video brings the painful testing process to life as he shares the day in the life of a ranked and sorted young child of immigrants. Through his story we see not only this child set up for failure, but a system designed to label those that teach these students failures too because if their students don't succeed, they risk losing their jobs, and schools risk being shut down.

But here's the sad truth that Gatto started investigating after he quit 20 years ago. As the principal boss in the "Tony Giving Lip" blog alluded to, and Gatto explains in the video below, there are two school systems.  

There is one for the masses and this system is doing exactly what it was designed to do. Rank and sort compliant workers who have been indoctrinated to conform to life in the corporate cubical.

The other is for the powerful and/or rich who do not send their children to these common public schools. As Gatto told us, those making the decisions for other people's children, send their children to schools that provide an uncommon experience covering 14 themes that are purposefully absent from government run schools. 

The jobs these teacher dropouts are yearning for exists outside government schools. Unfortunately, as long as our society tolerates government control of schools, our teachers will be forced to follow orders resulting in the deliberate dumbing down of the masses and a departure of good teachers frustrated by their inability to provide all children with the education currently reserved for the elite.  

How to Make Dropping Out of School Work for You

I have the good fortune to be able to call Deven Black a colleague and friend who has never disappointed when it comes to stretching my thinking. Deven helps me become smarter and look at things in new ways. Every time Deven and I communicate, I'm always surprised by some other amazing accomplishment of his that he mentions in passing.  As I was writing my Teens Guide to Opting Out of School for Success, Deven mentioned he was one such teen and he agreed to contribute to my guide.  I shared what an inspiration his story was and that I hoped he'd share it more widely.  Guess what? He did! This year I had the pleasure of seeing Deven speak at the #140edu conference in NYC on the topic. To follow is what he said, reprinted with permission and cross-posted on his blog Education On The Plate. If you'd like to watch him speak, you can find that below as well.

How many of you here graduated from high school?

(Hands go up)

#140edu stage – via digital camera (Photo credit: NJ Tech Teacher)

How many of you liked high school?

(Hands come down)

Just as I thought. 

Despite the laws mandating it, despite the ominous predictions of what will happen if you leave it, not everyone should go to high school.

Let me say it again, not everyone should go to high school.

This sounds like heresy, especially coming from a teacher.

But even in a time when it seems like you need a college degree to be an auto mechanic, not everyone should go to high school.

When I dropped out of high school for the first time, yes — I’ve done it twice — dropping out was considered a sure path to economic and social failure.

Not much has changed since 1968. Dropping out of high school is still labeled a sure path to ruin. That there are students dropping out of school is still called a crisis.

It is not a crisis. It is a message.

Thinking of drop outs as a crisis leads to solutions that focus on compliance– things like raising the age at which one can leave school, or more truant officers to track down the education fugitives.

But if we look at students dropping out of schools as a message, drop outs tell us is that school sucks, that it is not reaching them, or that they feel they have no hope for success, in high school or beyond it.

They tell us that they are not being challenged enough, or not being allowed to follow their interests, or just that school doesn’t fit them: it is too big, too small, too cliquey or too dangerous.

The reasons students leave school are as differentiated as the lessons we teachers are being told to teach them.

You have heard, and will continue to hear today and tomorrow, about ways to make school better, more enticing, more encouraging, more engaging and more effective.

All that is good, but it is almost impossible for any modern high school to meet the needs of all students.

This is not for lack of intent or lack of effort. It is a result of an increasingly centrally-mandated standardized world. Now we’re all supposed to hone our lessons to the common core. Really? Does anyone really want to be common?

Instead of focusing on how to make school better or teaching better, I’m going to talk about how to make learning better.

My idea of the perfect school is one in which you can  learn what you want to learn, when you want to learn it, where you want to learn it, and how you want to learn it.

I say, do what teachers have been telling you to do for so long, take charge of your education and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

I dropped out of high school twice, and college once, because attending was interfering with my learning. I got tired of teachers calling my questions and observations distracting and disruptive. I got tired of being told what to learn and when to learn it.

I figured out that knowledge doesn’t come in neat little packages called math, science, English Language Arts or social studies. Art is not a subject, neither is music, or health.

Knowledge is a massive, ever growing, completely interconnected all enveloping mass. It is the butterfly effect writ large, where everything we learn, every insight we gain, every understanding we come to, changes EVERYTHING.

So I left.

My parents were not happy about any of it, but I had the biggest, most cultured and most diverse city in the world to explore.

I still got a great education because I asked questions, followed tangents and never stopped being curious.

The real key to making dropping out — or opting out if you prefer– is to do it soon enough. Don’t wait until you’re beaten down by the system and have lost interest and hope. Leave school while you still have curiosity, a hunger to know something, to know anything or everything, and before you have to support yourself financially. It may be after 10th grade or it may be after 8th. You will know when it is right for you.

Now you can sleep a little later, but don’t spend the day in bed, or watching cartoons or talk shows. There is a world to explore.

Today it doesn’t matter if you live in Manhattan, like I did, or in East Nowhere, the whole world is available to you.

Think of the tools you have now that didn’t exist when I dropped out. Computers, the internet, Twitter, Skype, Facebook, and more are all there to help you access the world and learn anything you want.

You don’t need a curriculum, a road map or a plan at all.

Just ask a question and seek an answer.

Then ask another question.

Listen to the answers you get. Follow tangents. Focus like a laser or wander aimlessly. Tinker. Play.

All knowledge is connected and things will all start to make sense as you note commonalities, wonder about discrepancies, make connections and develop insights.

Are you in love with baseball? Study it. You’ll learn about statistics – figuring pitcher’s earned run averages takes complex mathematics — develop strategies, learn the science of the curveball, learn about the history of race relations in America, and more. You’ll learn about why the Dominican Republic produces so many major league shortstops and why Japan doesn’t, but produces pitchers. Follow baseball as far as it will take you…then ask another question.

Do you like to knit? Study it. Learn about different kinds of wool, how they differ and where they come from, how they become shocking chartreuse or majestic magenta. Learn math as you figure out how much you’ll need to make that sweater, the physics of tensile strength.

Into dolls, dogs, drumming or debate? Are you passionate about golf, gardening, guitar, grapes or Greta Garbo? It doesn’t matter what. Take the paths   your interests and passions give you.

Greta Garbo in The Joyless Street. Alexander Binder (for Atelier Binder) made the portrait during the filming. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After a while you’ll become an expert, an authority. You’ll wander off one path and discover another one, perhaps the secret of life, the universe and everything.

Just keep asking one more question and you will find many more answers. Each of which will lead to more questions.

Joyce Valenza calls it “a never ending search.”

Here are some things you are likely to discover:

• People are eager to talk about what they do and what they know, to someone who is interested in learning.
• People are eager to tell you their stories, what they think, what they feel, to someone willing to listen.
• Your bullshit meter will develop and become more accurate.
• You will find the joy of learning again, the joy of teaching what you learn, and you’ll rediscover the excitement of wondering.
• You will learn that all answers lead to more questions, better questions, deeper questions.
• Keep asking.
• Keep learning.

Do all the things school doesn’t leave you the time to do and you will get a better education than any institution can give you.

Don’t worry about getting into college. Getting into a good college requires standing out from the crowd, somehow distinguishing yourself from the hundreds of thousand other high school seniors.

So while all those other kids are all taking the same classes, cramming for exams and spending every extra minute doing every imaginable community service and extra credit assignment, you’ll be having different experiences.

While they’re being told what to learn, you’ll be deciding what to learn. Their learning will be limited by the curriculum, your learning will be free-range, going as far as your curiosity takes you.

Just think of the application essay you’ll be able to write.

And somewhere in the process of writing that essay, you might begin to wonder whether you really need to go to college.

Once you start becoming a free-range learner it is almost impossible to stop. And that is the best part of it all.

_________________________________________

If you want to hear it from Deven, here's his talk:

Innovative resource to address test anxiety

Here’s an innovative way to help students learn while managing stress and maintaining focus.

Meditation!

While most innovative educators know there are better ways to assess students than tests, for many it has become an inescapable reality.  As those who meditate know, it can help reduce feelings of stress and live happier and more balanced lives.

Bring that to the classroom and you have Educational Meditation! Wild Divine has combined the power of technology (New World) with the best of breathing and relaxation techniques (Old World).

Classes a la carte - I like this!

According to a recent article in Reuters, my former boss John White is disrupting traditional schooling with a model that I like because it puts students first and gives them MANY more choices and flexibility beyond the traditional walls of the school or classroom where so many students are currently trapped today.  The model is being implemented in a handful of states and allows students to build a custom curriculum by selecting from hundreds (now, maybe thousands later) of classes offered by public institutions and private vendors as long as they take just one class at their local school.  

Students, for instance, could study Russian with an online private tutor, business in a local entrepreneur's living room, geology at a college, Suzuki violin from a certified studio, construction with opportunities developed by their workers' union, physical education by playing on the neighboring school's basketball team or in a community youth sports program, and SAT prep with a national firm like Kaplan - with taxpayers picking up the tab for it.

The naysayers are fearful. 

Common core ignores the power of the interests and ideas that come from our students and teachers - Deborah Meier

Editor’s note:  I feel fortunate to be living during a period in our history where for the first time we can easily form social learning circles that bring together from around the world, experts, authors, and others that share passions and can engage in rich and meaningful dialogue. The power of the technology to connect in ways never before possible is a game changer when it comes to learning. I have brought together one such amazing network of people who come together to think about and grapple with issues of ed reform and alternatives to the status quo with The Innovative Educator group.  Here is a piece of that learning where education icon Deborah Meier shares some of her thoughts on the common core.

Deborah Meier - Shares

Its a nice thought--that it [Common Core] is offering a "common language". I wish it were. But common core as presently understood is a 13 year mandatory curriculum (developed largely by experts in testing, not the subject matter being tested) of what is to be taught--and in what sequence. It ignores the power of the interests and ideas that come from students and teachers as the basis for forming curriculum"--or of picking up from the world around us our "curriculum". Starting "where we are" intellectually and moving out from there--a common approach to thematic studies, for example. Or spending months on one "small" part of history or science, in order to be able to ask deeper questions and make deeper sense--rather than covering" a lot in order to be prepared for shallow tests. (Uncovering vs covering as we sometimes say.) etc, etc.

Alternatives to Standardized Tests for Homeschooling Families

Editor's note:  The information here targets homeschooling families, but these really are great ideas for all families.
Cross posted from Parent at the Helm with permission from Linda Dobson

From Susan and Larry Kaseman:

Your interest in your homeschooling child’s academic standing is understandable. Fortunately, we homeschooling families have many opportunities to observe our children’s development. We watch them exploring the world and, when necessary, translate what they do into conventional academic language. (Sorting rocks is science. Building with blocks is geometry and spatial relations. Recognizing one’s name is reading.) We can see the processes our children go through and support their early efforts just as we recognized and responded to their first words. We gradually come to understand that learning about baseball or horses develops basic academic skills.