At this weekend's TEDxNYED conference, I had the great pleasure to hear the talented musician, Morley who uses her craft as a tool to inspire change. In this video she features the students of our future who declare, "We will change everything!"
The sentiment is powerful, but I'm left wondering, how American schools and educators are helping students meet that promise? When we see schools today moving in the direction of more tests, harder tests, more rigor, and less choice in the classes students take, the question that lingers is this: "When will students have time to change anything when we don't give them the time to discover, explore, and grow their own passions?" Instead we focus our time, talents, energies and funds on ensuring they have high scores on tests often in subjects they never even wanted to take.
TEDxYouthday Theme Song from TEDxAmsterdam on Vimeo.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
What's Popular This Week on The Innovative Educator
Here’s the roundup of what's been popular on The Innovative Educator blog this week. Below you’ll see my top weekly posts along with the number of pageviews in the past 7 days. If something looks interesting, check it out. If you’re so inspired leave a comment.
Feb 23, 2011, 45 comments 521 Pageviews
March 1, 2011 17 comments 503 Pageviews
Mar 2, 2011, 17 comments 456 Pageviews
May 10, 2010, 26 comments 447 Pageviews
Feb 5, 2011, 19 comments 427 Pageviews
Feb 28, 2011, 4 comments 397 Pageviews
Mar 3, 2011, 9 comments 368 Pageviews
Dec 3, 2010, 13 comments 284 Pageviews
Jan 28, 2011, 8 comments 263 Pageviews
Feb 25, 2011, 8 comments 242 Pageviews
May 12, 2010, 61 comments 198 Pageviews
Saturday, March 5, 2011
I'm a Quitter
Vickie Bergman blogs about education and parenting at Demand Euphoria.
Being labeled a quitter is not a good thing. The tendency to quit is a character flaw. It means you give up too easily. It means your parents probably let you quit things when you were a kid. You don't have any sense of commitment. As a parent, you are not supposed to want your child to be a quitter. You can make sure that this will not happen if you don't let your children quit things. Teach them that the commitment is more important than their happiness. Teach them that they might even end up liking something if they stick with it even when they don't want to.
I have known people who played the same sport almost every day for over a decade, from childhood through college, and still struggled with the idea of "quitting" the sport even when it was not bringing any happiness anymore. So it's not ok to quit something if you have only just started, and then it's also not ok to quit something if you have been at it for a while. When IS it ok to quit something? How long are you supposed to give it before you can appropriately decide you have had enough?
I haven't had too much trouble with that question for myself.* In fact, I am proud to be a quitter. I quit the swim team when I broke my arm in 6th grade and realized how much more free time I would have if I didn't swim anymore. I quit taking voice lessons after my instructor humiliated me during a lesson. I quit soccer, softball, tennis, ballet, piano, bass guitar, water polo, two finance jobs, one PhD program and probably a bunch of other things I can't even remember quitting.
My proudest moment as a quitter, though, was when I quit college for a year. I was so tired of school. I was tired of feeling like I had to perform and achieve all the time. I just wanted to live for a little while. And even though I was afraid of what people would think, I did it. I decided a few weeks before what would have been my junior year of college that I just wasn't going back. That decision was the most liberating and empowering decision I have ever made. It helped me to get over some of my fears about what everyone else would say. It was the best year of my life so far.
There are two ways to look at my history of activities. You could look at it and say "Wow, she quit a lot of things." Or you could say "Wow, she tried a lot of things." I tried them. Some for longer than others. Some, I went back to after quitting (like college). Some I have never tried again. I still try things. If I like doing something and it makes me happy, then it belongs in my life. If it doesn't make me happy all the time, but it is worth whatever struggles come with it, then it belongs in my life. But if I can't think of one good reason to keep doing something other than "I just don't want to quit," then it's out.
What if all children could learn from the very beginning that it is all right to quit doing things they don't like? What if they could choose their classes in school? What if they could feel free to change their minds about what they like and feel safe to try new things? They would have more time to find and focus on the things they are actually interested in, and they might just be happy.
*Thanks, Mom and Dad, for letting me quit stuff.
Being labeled a quitter is not a good thing. The tendency to quit is a character flaw. It means you give up too easily. It means your parents probably let you quit things when you were a kid. You don't have any sense of commitment. As a parent, you are not supposed to want your child to be a quitter. You can make sure that this will not happen if you don't let your children quit things. Teach them that the commitment is more important than their happiness. Teach them that they might even end up liking something if they stick with it even when they don't want to.
I have known people who played the same sport almost every day for over a decade, from childhood through college, and still struggled with the idea of "quitting" the sport even when it was not bringing any happiness anymore. So it's not ok to quit something if you have only just started, and then it's also not ok to quit something if you have been at it for a while. When IS it ok to quit something? How long are you supposed to give it before you can appropriately decide you have had enough?
I haven't had too much trouble with that question for myself.* In fact, I am proud to be a quitter. I quit the swim team when I broke my arm in 6th grade and realized how much more free time I would have if I didn't swim anymore. I quit taking voice lessons after my instructor humiliated me during a lesson. I quit soccer, softball, tennis, ballet, piano, bass guitar, water polo, two finance jobs, one PhD program and probably a bunch of other things I can't even remember quitting.
My proudest moment as a quitter, though, was when I quit college for a year. I was so tired of school. I was tired of feeling like I had to perform and achieve all the time. I just wanted to live for a little while. And even though I was afraid of what people would think, I did it. I decided a few weeks before what would have been my junior year of college that I just wasn't going back. That decision was the most liberating and empowering decision I have ever made. It helped me to get over some of my fears about what everyone else would say. It was the best year of my life so far.
There are two ways to look at my history of activities. You could look at it and say "Wow, she quit a lot of things." Or you could say "Wow, she tried a lot of things." I tried them. Some for longer than others. Some, I went back to after quitting (like college). Some I have never tried again. I still try things. If I like doing something and it makes me happy, then it belongs in my life. If it doesn't make me happy all the time, but it is worth whatever struggles come with it, then it belongs in my life. But if I can't think of one good reason to keep doing something other than "I just don't want to quit," then it's out.
What if all children could learn from the very beginning that it is all right to quit doing things they don't like? What if they could choose their classes in school? What if they could feel free to change their minds about what they like and feel safe to try new things? They would have more time to find and focus on the things they are actually interested in, and they might just be happy.
*Thanks, Mom and Dad, for letting me quit stuff.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Keeping it real. Ideas for Schools, Educators, and Students.
I was duped. During my years in school I always annoyed my teachers by asking why I needed to learn what was being taught. Annoying them wasn't my intention. I really wanted to understand. So they told me.
Common answers were:
As an adult I feel cheated by a school system that took away more than a dozen years of my life that could have been spent doing something more productive or interesting. Instead, with the exception of my typing class, I learned nothing that I needed for when I grew up. When I share this I’m often met with the response, “That’s not true. You just don’t realize what you learned in school that enabled you to accomplish what you have.” To which I respond, “Absolutely not! I became who I am in spite of, not because of school.”
Here’s what I learned in school:
Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are schools, teachers, and students in learning environments that not only keep it relevant, but actually keep it real. Schools that keep it real have students who are prepared for life. This, not outdated, one-size-fits-all, irrelevant assessments, is a better measure of school and student success.
Here are examples of innovative schools, educators and what it looks like when we keep it real for students.
Schools that are keeping it real.
He explains it this way.
Common answers were:
- Because you’ll need to know this someday.
- Because you’ll need to know this when you grow up.
- Because it will be on the test.
- Because it will help you become a critical thinker.
As an adult I feel cheated by a school system that took away more than a dozen years of my life that could have been spent doing something more productive or interesting. Instead, with the exception of my typing class, I learned nothing that I needed for when I grew up. When I share this I’m often met with the response, “That’s not true. You just don’t realize what you learned in school that enabled you to accomplish what you have.” To which I respond, “Absolutely not! I became who I am in spite of, not because of school.”
Here’s what I learned in school:
- I learned to dislike subjects that I love in the real world.
- I learned that school was all about doing meaningless work without a real purpose or audience.
- I learned not to question anything or do things my own way.
- I learned that regurgitating what the teacher said, even though I disagreed, would get me good grades.
- I learned to imagine standardized test creators as stuffy old white men and women who only saw things in one boring way with only one possible answer even though my mind could figure out ways that other possibilities could be true.
- I learned that no teacher could explain why I needed to learn Algebra or its application in the real world. It did not help me think critically. In fact I never learned Algebra even though I memorized algorithms long enough to pass a test. No algebra teacher I ever had could explain why I needed to learn that awful stuff. Today I don’t know Algebra. I ask people what they think I’m missing as a result. I never get a good answer beyond it teaches you to think critically, but I can think critically without it.
Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are schools, teachers, and students in learning environments that not only keep it relevant, but actually keep it real. Schools that keep it real have students who are prepared for life. This, not outdated, one-size-fits-all, irrelevant assessments, is a better measure of school and student success.
Here are examples of innovative schools, educators and what it looks like when we keep it real for students.
Schools that are keeping it real.
iSchool – Read how the iSchool provides the Immunization to an Uninteresting Curriculum and how they Allow Today’s Students To Focus So They Become Tomorrow’s Experts at The iSchool
- Science Leadership Academy – Read how the Science Leadership Academy keeps it real here. Find out how they use Facebook to Strengthen the Student - Teacher Connection.
The Island School – Read how You Can Get a Dalton Education at a NYC Public School at The Island School which is Preparing Students for Success by Helping Them Discover and Develop Their Passions both during and after school.
- Deer Hill School - Watch this video to see this school's approach to student engagement based on the Schoolwide Enrichment model. Each Wednesday afternoon every student can discover and develop their talents. It would be great if this type of learning wasn't only relegated to one afternoon a week.
- Unschooling – Unschooling is a method of learning from life or learning naturally. There are no mandated classes, schedules or tests.
- Learning Innovatively without School
- 20 Characteristics I’ve Discovered about Unschoolers and Why Innovative Educators Should Care.
- I am no longer willing to hurt children - John Taylor Gatto (A compilation)
- Democracy Schools - There is shared decision-making among students and staff on matters concerning living, working, and learning together. Students individually decide what to do with their time, and learn as a by-product of ordinary experience rather than through classes or a standard curriculum.
- Hey Teacher! Leave Us Kids Alone!!!- There’s A School for That!
- See what happens when kids & teachers are empowered to run a school on This American Life
- More Schools That Keep It Real – There are many alternative models of education that keep it real including schools that follow the Schoolwide Enrichment Model, Big Picture learning schools and more. You can read about these models here.
- One Great Way to Differentiate Instruction – See how Deven Black designed a lesson that enabled students to tap into their strengths, interests, and learning styles.
- When students own the learning –See what happened when Keith Ferrell relinquished control and gave students a choice in how they would meet learning goals.
- Real Life Learning - Shelley Wright is a high school educator in Moose Jaw, SK. On her blog she shares, “I love learning more than anything else.” This post features the video of what happens when school becomes real life.
- Skype in the classroom – Educators everywhere are bringing education to life with Skype.
See how Melanie Holtsman is using Skype in the Classroom or take a look at this video to see how Carl Anderson is using Skype to connect with virtual guest speakers.
- Ideas for passion (not just data) driven students
- 21st Century Educators Don’t Say, “Hand It In.” They say, “Publish It!
- When passion drives instruction no child is left behind
- Preparing Students for Success by Helping Them Discover and Develop Their Passions
- Profile of a Passion-Driven Student
- Profiles of Adults Who Were Passion Driven Students - Their Secret? They Didn’t Go To School
- What if kids designed their learning? Here are some resources to get started.
- Differentiating Instruction is NOT Hard if We Tap into Student’s Passions!
- Keeping assessment real
- How will you determine your student’s talents, interests, passions, learning styles, and abilities?
- How will you allow students to own the learning?
- How will you always enable student learning to be real?
- How will you ensure students are doing authentic work for real audiences?
- How will you enable students to follow their passions when demonstrating learning?
- How will you enable students to demonstrate learning using the tools they choose?
- How are you helping to prepare students for their future, not your past?
- How are you supporting students in capturing their work into an authentic online academic and/or career portfolio?
He explains it this way.
It is possible, with some imagination, to make everything we teach real for each of our students. The desire and ability to go beyond ― “I‘m teaching this because it‘s in the curriculum” to ― “Here‘s how this relates to each of your worlds in a real (and not just a theoretical, relevant) way,” is something students highly appreciate and value in their teachers.
The best thing a partnering teacher can do to keep learning real (and not just relevant) is to make everything he or she is teaching come directly from the world of the students—either their world of today or their world of tomorrow. (And, of course, not just the world, but the part of that world they are passionate about.) Going further, the partnering teacher should make learning not just about students‘ world, but about changing and improving their world. Can you think of a better answer to ― “Why should I learn this?” than ― “To make your world a better place?”
Partnering itself is already more real than traditional classroom learning, which is typically removed from the world. In partnering, students use real-world tools to access and analyze publicly available information (as opposed to textbooks created only for school). When students use web sites that are open to anyone, and understand that if they feel there‘s a problem with those sites they can take action by changing wikis or posting messages, that is real. When they post their work for others to see, that is real as well.
We can and should do this with everything.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Reforming Reform - Five Ideas for Improving Education
Vickie Bergman blogs about education and parenting at Demand Euphoria.
A train has advantages over other types of vehicles. It is a highly efficient, consistent, and relatively cheap way to get a lot of people to the same place at the same time. If schooling is like riding a train, as I described in my last post, then schooling is an efficient way to make sure that all students will "get to the same place," educationally, riding on the same tracks at the same pace, right?
Most top-down education reform plans take for granted that the "train model' of schooling is inherently all right. They assume that tweaking the current system will be enough to fix it. The plans usually include at least one form of each of the following points:
But what if the problem is the model itself? Then no amount of tweaking will make the kinds of big differences people are hoping for.
Even if it were an achievable goal, to make sure all students actually learned and retained everything they were taught in school, and could all end up with the same base of knowledge, would it be a desirable goal? Why do we want everyone to know the same things? To think the same way? Some people think a goal of education is to produce creative, innovative individuals. If this is true, then it is difficult to see how the train model would get us there. Is it possible to encourage students to think creatively while insisting that there is only one right path to follow?
It reminds me of my college application process. If I wanted to go to the college of my choice, they told me, I had to have perfect grades, excel at a sport, be a leader of a club, participate in community service, and hold down a job. Oh yeah, and also be unique. As if it was another item on the to-do list. What time did I have to "be unique" in between all the activities I was doing so I could be easily compared with everyone else? Even when I was sleeping, I dreamed about school. A lot.
The changes that are needed to improve the school experience for our children are big changes, mostly requiring that the train model be thrown out. Speaking as a former child, I can think of a few changes that would have actually made school better for me.
Five ideas for improving education
A train has advantages over other types of vehicles. It is a highly efficient, consistent, and relatively cheap way to get a lot of people to the same place at the same time. If schooling is like riding a train, as I described in my last post, then schooling is an efficient way to make sure that all students will "get to the same place," educationally, riding on the same tracks at the same pace, right?
Most top-down education reform plans take for granted that the "train model' of schooling is inherently all right. They assume that tweaking the current system will be enough to fix it. The plans usually include at least one form of each of the following points:
- More time on the train: start younger, extend school days, extend school years, more homework, etc.
- More rigid timetables: more standardized tests, harder standardized tests, more focused standardized tests.
- Fancier trains: better technology in classrooms, think "smartboards."
But what if the problem is the model itself? Then no amount of tweaking will make the kinds of big differences people are hoping for.
Even if it were an achievable goal, to make sure all students actually learned and retained everything they were taught in school, and could all end up with the same base of knowledge, would it be a desirable goal? Why do we want everyone to know the same things? To think the same way? Some people think a goal of education is to produce creative, innovative individuals. If this is true, then it is difficult to see how the train model would get us there. Is it possible to encourage students to think creatively while insisting that there is only one right path to follow?
It reminds me of my college application process. If I wanted to go to the college of my choice, they told me, I had to have perfect grades, excel at a sport, be a leader of a club, participate in community service, and hold down a job. Oh yeah, and also be unique. As if it was another item on the to-do list. What time did I have to "be unique" in between all the activities I was doing so I could be easily compared with everyone else? Even when I was sleeping, I dreamed about school. A lot.
The changes that are needed to improve the school experience for our children are big changes, mostly requiring that the train model be thrown out. Speaking as a former child, I can think of a few changes that would have actually made school better for me.
Five ideas for improving education
- Make school less "all-consuming" of a child's life. Try LESS time in school (rather than longer days/years) and NO homework. Children could have time to find out what makes them tick before they turn 22 and are expected to be supporting themselves.
- Expand the list of subjects deemed "appropriate" for study and give children freedom to choose how they spend their time in school. Each child could spend more time getting really good at the things she really likes to do, and waste less time struggling with subjects she doesn't care about at all.
- Give children freedom to choose their teachers. There is no reason any child should spend time in a classroom with a teacher he doesn't like, or one who does not like him. Imagine if teachers were not judged by standardized test scores, but instead by how many students would choose to spend time with them. I know which teachers from my past would have had full classrooms, and which ones would have no longer had jobs (deservedly).
- Give teachers freedom to teach things they are passionate about. This might make school more interesting.
- Stop expecting everyone to be good at all things academic, and STOP giving grades! Especially before high school. This might encourage kids to try different things without being "failed" for making too many mistakes. Remove the culture of fear around making mistakes.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Why Can’t We Empower Parents with the Dollars to Choose?
A slightly different version of this piece with a few dozen comments resides at The Huffington Post. If you've rather read it there, click here.
I’ve worked directly inside schools, with schools, at Teachers College, Columbia, served as a teacher librarian, literacy staff developer, tech staff developer, program manager, educational administrator and talked to parents, teachers, and students from traditional and alternative settings (both inside and outside of school). I find that more often than not, children and adults who are a part of an alternative, private, or “elite” education value and enjoy their experience more than those in traditional school. What I find frustrating though is that this often only available to those with the funds or wherewithal to make it happen.
If they have the means, I find that most parents where I live in New York City send their children to private schools. There are also some who have figured out how to navigate the system to send their children to elite public schools that seem filled with mostly white and Asian peers. I know few well-to-do parents who send their children to regular public school. I understand, this is only my experience, and that there are exceptions, but even if I’m off, the reality is that many families can’t enable their children to learn the way they feel is best because of their financial or life/career circumstances.
Everyone should have access to the education opportunities they feel are best for their children. Here is a solution that could provide more choice to more families.
What if instead of giving money to schools, funds were attached to the child and those funds went directly to the education provider. For parents who were homeschooling or unschooling this would be in the form of parents providing receipts that could be deducted from their taxes. For public schools, students would enroll and the funds would follow them. This would require some schools to grow, others to stay the same and others to shrink, redesign (likely with input from families) or close.
If parents wanted to put together learning co-ops they could pool their money to do that. If someone wanted to open an alternative school, it would be easier because the funds would be tied to the students so they wouldn’t have to worry about only kids who could afford this option being able to come up with tuition. If the schools cost more than the per student fee, the additional fee would be determined by tax bracket with those in the higher brackets paying more and the lower less, but still giving everyone a greater chance to attend a school of choice and subsidizing based on income.
Parents and their children, rather than the government, would determine what was best for each family. For some it might look like traditional school with standardized tests. For others it might look more like an apprenticeship model where children who are ready, begin learning in a field of interest, perhaps partnered with a business where they may later work. For some this might look like a school that follows the Schoolwide Enrichment Model, Montessori or Reggio Emilia approach. Some may choose a Democracy school or unschool setting. Ultimately parents would be empowered to select an educational method in which they felt their children would best succeed and even take a large role in helping to form such schools.
There would be no high stakes testing. There could be some opt in tests with samples as they do in countries like Finland. Their would likely be authentic portfolio development that is created as a support to the student first and foremost.
Some schools would have waiting lists, as they do today, and if so, it would make sense to open up another similar school in the area. The parents who want that, could help make that happen. Some schools would shrink as they do now and would either change what they do to attract more students and stabilize, or if they didn’t offer what seemed best for children, they would continue to lose the ability to have high enough enrollment to make it worth staying open.
This idea would be taking control from the government and giving it to the people, empowering them to do what they know and believe is best for their children.
So, why can’t we do this?
I’ve worked directly inside schools, with schools, at Teachers College, Columbia, served as a teacher librarian, literacy staff developer, tech staff developer, program manager, educational administrator and talked to parents, teachers, and students from traditional and alternative settings (both inside and outside of school). I find that more often than not, children and adults who are a part of an alternative, private, or “elite” education value and enjoy their experience more than those in traditional school. What I find frustrating though is that this often only available to those with the funds or wherewithal to make it happen.
If they have the means, I find that most parents where I live in New York City send their children to private schools. There are also some who have figured out how to navigate the system to send their children to elite public schools that seem filled with mostly white and Asian peers. I know few well-to-do parents who send their children to regular public school. I understand, this is only my experience, and that there are exceptions, but even if I’m off, the reality is that many families can’t enable their children to learn the way they feel is best because of their financial or life/career circumstances.
Everyone should have access to the education opportunities they feel are best for their children. Here is a solution that could provide more choice to more families.
What if instead of giving money to schools, funds were attached to the child and those funds went directly to the education provider. For parents who were homeschooling or unschooling this would be in the form of parents providing receipts that could be deducted from their taxes. For public schools, students would enroll and the funds would follow them. This would require some schools to grow, others to stay the same and others to shrink, redesign (likely with input from families) or close.
If parents wanted to put together learning co-ops they could pool their money to do that. If someone wanted to open an alternative school, it would be easier because the funds would be tied to the students so they wouldn’t have to worry about only kids who could afford this option being able to come up with tuition. If the schools cost more than the per student fee, the additional fee would be determined by tax bracket with those in the higher brackets paying more and the lower less, but still giving everyone a greater chance to attend a school of choice and subsidizing based on income.
Parents and their children, rather than the government, would determine what was best for each family. For some it might look like traditional school with standardized tests. For others it might look more like an apprenticeship model where children who are ready, begin learning in a field of interest, perhaps partnered with a business where they may later work. For some this might look like a school that follows the Schoolwide Enrichment Model, Montessori or Reggio Emilia approach. Some may choose a Democracy school or unschool setting. Ultimately parents would be empowered to select an educational method in which they felt their children would best succeed and even take a large role in helping to form such schools.
There would be no high stakes testing. There could be some opt in tests with samples as they do in countries like Finland. Their would likely be authentic portfolio development that is created as a support to the student first and foremost.
Some schools would have waiting lists, as they do today, and if so, it would make sense to open up another similar school in the area. The parents who want that, could help make that happen. Some schools would shrink as they do now and would either change what they do to attract more students and stabilize, or if they didn’t offer what seemed best for children, they would continue to lose the ability to have high enough enrollment to make it worth staying open.
This idea would be taking control from the government and giving it to the people, empowering them to do what they know and believe is best for their children.
So, why can’t we do this?
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