Author: Sam

I write books and talk about stuff.

In Defense of the Department of Education, Diplomacy and . . . Defense

Posted on | by Sam

Two unrelated articles in yesterday’s New York Times – one about the ostensible decline of influence in American geopolitics, and the other about the ostensible rise of autism in American schoolchildren – have led me to consider a radical proposal:

Let’s merge the Departments of Education, State and Defense.

Georgetown professor of foreign policy Charles Kupchan indirectly argued for such blasphemy when he noted the ways in which the landscape of modern diplomacy is shifting uneasily beneath our once-sturdy Western feet. Pointing to the nascent revolutions in the Middle East, the success of state capitalism in China and Russia, and the growth of left-wing populism in India and Brazil, Kupchan illustrates the ways in which “rising nations are fashioning their own versions of modernity and pushing back against the West’s ideological ambitions. As this century unfolds,” he argues, “multiple power centers, and the competing models they represent, will vie on a more level playing field. Effective global governance will require forging common ground amid an equalizing distribution of power and rising ideological diversity.”

In foreign policy circles, Kupchan’s observation is not a new one. Just a year ago, two members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff anonymously released a Pentagon report (published under the nom de plume of “Mr. Y.”) in which they questioned America’s ongoing willingness to overvalue its military might, and undervalue its young people.  “By investing energy, talent, and dollars now in the education and training of young Americans,” they argued, “we are truly investing in our ability to successfully compete in, and influence, the strategic environment of the future.” In a subsequent article for Foreign Policy, Center for American Progress scholar John Norris sang a similar tune: “The key to sustaining our competitive edge, at home or on the world stage,” he wrote, “is credibility – and credibility . . . requires engagement, strength, and reliability – imaginatively applied through the national tools of development, diplomacy, and defense.

Meanwhile, in the same section of the paper, journalist Amy Harmon reported that one in 88 American children are now diagnosed with some form of autism. While not everyone agrees about the root cause for the spike in numbers, Thomas Frazier, director of research at the Cleveland Clinic Center for Autism, thinks it’s an accurate reflection of modern society. “Our world is such a social world,” he said. “I don’t care if you have a 150 I.Q., if you have a social problem, that’s a real problem. You’re going to have problems getting along with your boss, with your spouse, with friends.”

Drawing a link between these two articles may feel like a stretch until you consider that the central problem in both stems from the same troubling source: our systemic inability to make deep and lasting sense of the perspective of others. In fact, there’s a growing theory in the scientific community that autism is the result of an early developmental failure of mirror neurons – the cells in the brain most responsible for allowing us to imagine (and empathize with) the thoughts and feelings of others. This theory may help explain why the greater the impairment in an individual on the autism spectrum, the greater the likelihood that individual will fixate on objects, not people. And it may help explain why some of the most promising new treatments involve little more than non-autistic adults imitating the behavior of autistic children. As UCLA neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni explains, “When the therapist imitates his patients, he may activate their mirror neurons, which in turn may help the patients to see their therapist, literally.”

What both articles underscore is how badly we need to invest in our collective capacity to see the world, and each other, more clearly. Kupchan’s characterizations about the changing landscape of geopolitics echo Dwight Eisenhower’s warning of more than 50 years ago, in his final formal act as commander-in-chief, when the five-star general suggested that the most promising path to peace rests in “learn[ing] how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.” And Harmon’s report on the rise of autism speaks to a larger deficit in our society – a deficit we have partly fueled by putting the knowledge cart before the emotional horse for so long. Indeed, whereas the 20th century cast the quest for global harmony as a black and white battle between neatly categorized competitors, the 21st century playing field is shrouded in overlapping shades of gray. To negotiate such a surface effectively, we need citizens endowed with a different set of habits and skills – ones more aligned with what Tom Friedman famously called the end of the “command and control” system of organization, and the beginning of the “connect and collaborate” approach.

For these reasons, the future fates of these three departments – Defense, Education and State – are more inextricably linked than ever before. America’s approach to foreign and domestic policy cannot be separated any longer. “Smart power” abroad will never be wielded without “smart growth” at home. And when it comes to contemporary notions of diplomacy and national defense, there is no American institution more essential to the unique modern cause than our public schools, and no skill-set more valuable than the ability to see – and be seen – without firing a single bullet.

Two unrelated articles in yesterday’s New York Times – one about the ostensible decline of influence in American geopolitics, and the other about the ostensible rise of autism in American schoolchildren – have led me to consider a radical proposal:

Let’s merge the Departments of Education, State and Defense.
Georgetown professor of foreign policy Charles Kupchan indirectly argued for such blasphemy when he noted the ways in which the landscape of modern diplomacy is shifting uneasily beneath our once-sturdy Western feet. Pointing to the nascent revolutions in the Middle East, the success of state capitalism in China and Russia, and the growth of left-wing populism in India and Brazil, Kupchan illustrates the ways in which “rising nations are fashioning their own versions of modernity and pushing back against the West’s ideological ambitions. As this century unfolds,” he argues, “multiple power centers, and the competing models they represent, will vie on a more level playing field. Effective global governance will require forging common ground amid an equalizing distribution of power and rising ideological diversity.”

In foreign policy circles, Kupchan’s observation is not a new one. Just a year ago, two members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff anonymously released a Pentagon report (published under the nom de plume of “Mr. Y.”) in which they questioned America’s ongoing willingness to overvalue its military might, and undervalue its young people.  “By investing energy, talent, and dollars now in the education and training of young Americans,” they argued, “we are truly investing in our ability to successfully compete in, and influence, the strategic environment of the future.” In a subsequent article for Foreign Policy, Center for American Progress scholar John Norris sang a similar tune: “The key to sustaining our competitive edge, at home or on the world stage,” he wrote, “is credibility – and credibility . . . requires engagement, strength, and reliability – imaginatively applied through the national tools of development, diplomacy, and defense.

Meanwhile, in the same section of the paper, journalist Amy Harmon reported that one in 88 American children are now diagnosed with some form of autism. While not everyone agrees about the root cause for the spike in numbers, Thomas Frazier, director of research at the Cleveland Clinic Center for Autism, thinks it’s an accurate reflection of modern society. “Our world is such a social world,” he said. “I don’t care if you have a 150 I.Q., if you have a social problem, that’s a real problem. You’re going to have problems getting along with your boss, with your spouse, with friends.”

Drawing a link between these two articles may feel like a stretch until you consider that the central problem in both stems from the same troubling source: our systemic inability to make deep and lasting sense of the perspective of others. In fact, there’s a growing theory in the scientific community that autism is the result of an early developmental failure of mirror neurons – the cells in the brain most responsible for allowing us to imagine (and empathize with) the thoughts and feelings of others. This theory may help explain why the greater the impairment in an individual on the autism spectrum, the greater the likelihood that individual will fixate on objects, not people. And it may help explain why some of the most promising new treatments involve little more than non-autistic adults imitating the behavior of autistic children. As UCLA neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni explains, “When the therapist imitates his patients, he may activate their mirror neurons, which in turn may help the patients to see their therapist, literally.”

What both articles underscore is how badly we need to invest in our collective capacity to see the world, and each other, more clearly. Kupchan’s characterizations about the changing landscape of geopolitics echo Dwight Eisenhower’s warning of more than 50 years ago, in his final formal act as commander-in-chief, when the five-star general suggested that the most promising path to peace rests in “learn[ing] how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.” And Harmon’s report on the rise of autism speaks to a larger deficit in our society – a deficit we have partly fueled by putting the knowledge cart before the emotional horse for so long. Indeed, whereas the 20th century cast the quest for global harmony as a black and white battle between neatly categorized competitors, the 21st century playing field is shrouded in overlapping shades of gray. To negotiate such a surface effectively, we need citizens endowed with a different set of habits and skills – ones more aligned with what Tom Friedman famously called the end of the “command and control” system of organization, and the beginning of the “connect and collaborate” approach.

For these reasons, the future fates of these three departments – Defense, Education and State – are more inextricably linked than ever before. America’s approach to foreign and domestic policy cannot be separated any longer. “Smart power” abroad will never be wielded without “smart growth” at home. And when it comes to contemporary notions of diplomacy and national defense, there is no American institution more essential to the unique modern cause than our public schools, and no skill-set more valuable than the ability to see – and be seen – without firing a single bullet.

Are We Putting the (Knowledge) Cart Before the (Emotional) Horse?

Posted on | by Sam

What would you say if I told you that all of our current national efforts to improve public education were blind to the actual way people learned and interacted with the world?

Depressing, right? But it’s true. To prove it, watch this short video — just 100 seconds long:

You just watched a film about bullying. The larger triangle was harassing the smaller triangle, until the two smaller shapes banded together and outwitted their aggressor. Right?

Except that’s not really what happened; all you saw were shapes and lines moving around on a piece of paper. And although it’s true the subject is in the air thanks to this month’s release of the new feature film Bully, I can assure you that what you saw had nothing to do with the zeitgeist. In fact, people have been seeing that same story in that video now for more than 60 years.

Why?

According to Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize winner and the author of the current bestseller Thinking, Fast and Slow, we all see the same story because our brains seek instant explanations, and the quickest way to do that is by linking what we see to our available cache of memories and emotions. We see the world, in other words, through stories of cause and effect that we instantly (and unconsciously) create, and the stories we create are informed by our constant search for emotional coherence.

As Kahneman and others have shown, our minds are effectively run by two different systems — the “fast” system, which operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and with no conscious sense of control; and the “slow” system, which gets activated for more complex forms of thinking, and which gives us the conscious impression of choice, agency, and concentration.

These insights into how the mind operates are essential for anyone who cares about teaching and learning, because they make us more aware of the mental filters through which we see the world. And when it comes to education reform, we’ve fallen in love with the wrong central character. As Kahneman explains:

When we think of ourselves, we identify with [the slow system], the conscious, reasoning self that has beliefs, makes choices, and decides what to think about and what to do. Although this system believes itself to be where the action is, the [fast system] is the hero of the book  . . . by effortlessly originating impressions and feelings that are the main sources of the explicit beliefs and deliberate choices of [the slow system].

We elevate the wrong hero in school reform every day when we overvalue the importance of academic learning and assume that merely focusing on better curricula and clearer standards will carry the day. Yet the research suggests otherwise, affirming what sociologist Pedro Noguera and others have said repeatedly: “unmet social needs become unmet academic needs.”

If this is true — and the evidence from a range of fields overwhelmingly suggests that it is — then what we are doing is the strategic equivalent of putting the knowledge cart before the emotional horse. That doesn’t mean efforts to improve content or clarify standards are useless; merely that they are necessary and insufficient if they are not considered in direct concert with a greater attention to the mind and how our emotions and memories shape — directly, powerfully, and immediately — the way we see the world, and each other, and whatever it is we are trying to learn about.

What if we gathered a different set of data for our decision-making? And what if this data could actually zero in on the part of the brain that is most responsible for ensuring our emotional growth?

As it turns out, we can do this because we now know which neurons in the brain are most responsible for this sort of development in people. They’re called mirror neurons, and they’re what help us interpret, understand, and empathize with the thoughts and feelings of other people. As Dr. Marco Iacoboni explains in the book Mirroring People, “Mirror neurons undoubtedly provide, for the first time in history, a plausible neurophysiological explanation for complex forms of social cognition and interaction. By helping us recognize the actions of other people, mirror neurons also help us to recognize and understand the deepest motives behind those actions, the intentions of other individuals.”

With this knowledge at the forefront, we could spark a national effort to help schools do a better job of cultivating the capacity of young people to become more empathetic — not as a replacement for academic learning, but as a fully integrated companion to the daily learning process. In fact, there’s already a great tool available for assessing the empathy of young people. It’s called the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, and it’s been used by scientists for years.

I think I just found a great new use for the Gates Foundation’s money.

(This article also appeared in the Huffington Post.)

How Much Parent Power is Too Much?

Posted on | by Sam | 2 Comments on How Much Parent Power is Too Much?

Should parents who are unhappy with their local school have the power to replace the entire staff, turn it into a charter school, or shut it down completely – even if just 51% of the school’s families agree?

It’s an enticing, polarizing proposal – the so-called “parent trigger.” It’s also now a law in four states, and the subject of debate in scores of others. But is it a good idea? In the end, will parent-trigger laws help parents more effectively ensure a high-quality public education for their children, or will they result in a reckless short-circuiting of the democratic process itself?

The answer, of course, is “it depends,” and what it depends on is the way parents and communities go about evaluating the quality of their neighborhood schools – and, when necessary, deciding on the most constructive path forward.

Continue reading . . .

A Different March Madness: The DCPS Lottery

Posted on | by Sam

Since last fall, I’ve been working on a new book about a year in the life of the DC public school system(s) — as seen primarily through two schools: one a brand-new charter school, the other a 90-year-old neighborhood school — so I was thrilled to hear that WAMU’s Kojo Nnamdi was dedicating a show to the DCPS lottery and various local parents’ reactions to it.

That show aired today. If you’re interested, you can listen here to my observations about the process as well as many other DC parents and representatives from DCPS.

Close but no cigar

Posted on | by Sam

Once again, David Brooks has written an important column about education. And once again, he offers a vision of modern schooling that is almost perfect — but not quite.

In November 2010, I wrote a piece in response to a Brooks column in which he wrote passionately about our “emotional education” – the elusive, nonlinear and transformative nature of what all learning should look like (knowing that some days we will succeed, and some days we will not). Yet in the same space he wrote uncritically about a “normal schoolroom” in which it is taken as a given that scholastic learning must always be direct, described, and discrete.

This is an important disconnect, and in a column this morning, he makes a similar mistake — this time while describing a remarkable elementary school in Brooklyn that is, as he describes it, “less like a factory for learning and more like a postindustrial workshop, or even an extended family compound.”

The problem arises in Brooks’ fascination with the way the school is able to create such an environment. “The students are controlled less by uniform rules than by the constant informal nudges from the teachers all around,” he writes, adding later that a key part of the school’s growth came when it “learned to get better control over students.”

This is a subtle but significant misunderstanding of what great schools do; they don’t control their students — they provide an orderly environment in which all people can thrive. If you think that’s a trivial point, look up the definitions of each word. One is about power; the other is about harmony.

These subtle disconnects wouldn’t bother me as much if Brooks weren’t so close to really capturing what a transformational learning environment looks like and requires. “Since people learn from people they love,” he writes in the same column, “education is fundamentally about the relationship between a teacher and student. By insisting on constant informal contact and by preserving that contact year after year, The New American Academy has the potential to create richer, mentorlike or even familylike relationships for students who are not rich in those things.”

Amen, Mr. Brooks. I hope the next time you write about public education, you can shake off the stubborn remaining mental frames of the factory model, and see the unifying picture you keep coming so tantalizingly close to amplifying for the rest of us to see.

Vive La France?

Posted on | by Sam

Yesterday was one of those days every parent dreads.

My 2.5 year-old son, Leo, had decided to make dinner a histrionic struggle for power. My energy reserves were at historic lows. And my larger visions of effective parenting had lost out to my smaller need to merely give in to Leo’s irrational demands, make it to bedtime – and live to see a new day.

Regularly, as parents, we’re forced to make choices about how we respond to the words and actions of our kids. Ideally, those choices are always guided by a clear frame for determining what our children need to become healthy and happy human beings. But what if we don’t have a clear frame – or, worse still, what if our frame for parenting has us focusing on the wrong recipe for success?

That disturbing thought is the focus of Bringing Up Bébé, a new book by Pamela Druckerman, an American mother living in Paris who couldn’t help but notice the differences between the behavior of her American children and their French counterparts.  “Why was it,” Druckerman writes, “that in the hundreds of hours I’d clocked at French playgrounds, I’d never seen a child (except my own) throw a temper tantrum? Why didn’t my French friends ever need to rush off the phone because their kids were demanding something? Why hadn’t their living rooms been taken over by teepees and toy kitchens, the way ours had? Soon it became clear to me that quietly and en masse, French parents were achieving outcomes that created a whole different atmosphere for family life.”

According to Druckerman, the key was in the way French parents employed a “whole different framework for raising kids.” Unlike in America, most French children are encouraged to learn how to play by themselves. They are instructed to be respectful and to wait their turn; and they are not unfamiliar with a word that has become dreaded in American parenting: “No.”

The point is not that all Americans should raise their children as the French do – though I’m sure Druckerman and her publisher wouldn’t mind if we interpreted it that way. The point is that successful parenting, in any culture, requires a clear frame for understanding which habits of mind and being we want our children to develop, and how we’ll help them do so. And I fear that what we have in America is a familial case of mission creep – one in which our well-intended quest for ever-higher achievement has bred a nation of helicopter parents and a generation of children with plenty of love, and precious few limits.

So how can we cultivate a deeper national clarity around what our children need most to learn and grow? In short, what do we need to know to be better parents?

Ironically, a partial answer to that question may come from an unlikely source – the private sector. In fact, Harvard professor Chris Argyris has been studying human behavior in organizations for years, and his observations in the boardroom may be equally useful for better behavior in the nursery. “Most people define learning too narrowly as mere ‘problem solving,’” Argyris writes in a Harvard Business Review article titled, “Teaching Smart People How to Learn.” “But if learning is to persist, managers and employees must also look inward. They need to reflect critically on their own behavior, identify the ways they often inadvertently contribute to the organization’s problems, and then change how they act.”

Developing the reflective skills and the language to break out of dysfunctional frames takes time, but it’s also quite possible. “Despite the strength of defensive reasoning, people genuinely strive to produce what they intend,” Argyris explains. “They value acting competently. Their self-esteem is intimately tied up with behaving consistently and performing effectively.”

Each of us – whether we’re a parent or a professional – can rely on these universal human tendencies to learn how to think in a new way. “People can be taught how to recognize the reasoning they use when they design and implement their actions,” says Argyris. “They can begin to identify the inconsistencies between their espoused and actual theories of action. They can face up to the fact that they unconsciously design and implement actions that they do not intend. Finally, people can learn how to identify what individuals and groups do to create organizational defenses and how these defenses contribute to an organization’s problems.”

A personal story comes to mind. When I was still a teacher in Brooklyn, I was also the coach of my school’s basketball team. In retrospect, I can see I fell into a pattern of mimicking my own high school coach – a man who yelled and berated his players mercilessly. I hated this leadership style, and yet I unconsciously reenacted it when I became a coach. It was as if I had no other behavioral model to call on, so I repeated the only one I knew, despite my desire to do otherwise.

We do this in parenting as well – unconsciously summoning our own familial ghosts of the nursery and then wondering why we’ve fallen into the same old dysfunctional traps we were determined to escape. Argyris describes this as the difference between our espoused theory of action (“I am a loving, responsible parent”) and our actual theory-in-use (“I let my kids do whatever they want”). “Put simply,” he says, “people consistently act inconsistently, unaware of the contradiction between their espoused theory and their theory-in-use, between the way they think they are acting and the way they really act.”

Parents reading this may have already identified some of the ways their theories of action get trumped by their theories-in-use. We may, for example, want our children to be empathetic and polite, and yet if we fail to help them imagine the world through the eyes of another, or if we give in too often to their demands for convenience’s sake, we should stop being surprised when they constantly interrupt us, or, worse still, start to see the world purely through me-colored glasses.

The good news is that once this sort of thinking is exposed and examined, all of us can develop the capacity to “see” our own thinking as it develops. We can stop believing there is a world ‘out there’ that exists apart from us, and start recognizing the ways our actions help bring forth the world we inhabit – a world we can always change and recalibrate.

So let’s start being more mindful of exactly what we think is most essential for our children to learn, know, feel and be able to do – even if some of our answers may run counter to the contemporary currents of American society. And let’s not be afraid, once again, to learn something valuable from our French counterparts:

Vive La Révolution!

When did teacher bashing become the new national pastime?

Posted on | by Sam | 3 Comments on When did teacher bashing become the new national pastime?

With spring training under way, fantasy baseball owners across the country are hard at work readying their draft boards and preparing to select their championship rosters. As they do, I have a modest proposal to make that will simplify the whole process: Let’s stop getting weighed down by multiple data points, and start looking at just one number instead – the number of doubles a player hit the previous season.

Too simplistic a way to evaluate something as complex as a player’s overall value to your team?  Hogwash. For example, look at last year’s stats and you’ll see that the Kansas City Royals’ Jeff Francoeur smacked almost 50 two-baggers. By contrast, some guy named Albert Pujols hit half as many. By my calculations, then, Francoeur must be twice as good.

Continue reading. . .

NYC Teacher Data Reports: A Good or a Bad Idea?

Posted on | by Sam

This morning, I appeared on CNN to debate whether the recent release of data linking individual NYC public school teachers to the test scores of their students was a good or a bad idea. On Tuesday, cnn.com will run an accompanying article in which I provide a little more context for my opinion, and suggest a better alternative. In the meantime, here’s the segment.

Mission (Upon a) Hill

Posted on | by Sam | 6 Comments on Mission (Upon a) Hill

Here at the Mission Hill School, nestled amidst the labyrinthine side streets of Boston and alongside the usual din of sounds that fill a school’s hallways, an unusual revolution is taking place.

It’s happening in the 2nd and 3rd grade, where lead teacher Jenerra Williams doesn’t formally call her class to “order,” opting instead to spend the first 30 minutes of the day greeting children as they arrive, trusting them to begin their morning tasks without prodding, and checking in with each student to ensure everyone is ready to learn that day – intellectually, socially, and emotionally.

It’s happening in the main office, where principal Ayla Gavins’s desk sits in an open airy space that feels more welcoming than foreboding – the type of place you’d actually like to be sent.

It’s happening throughout the building, where no child asks if he can go to the bathroom and no student is forced to stay in her seat, because all such choices are understood by adults as learning opportunities for children to acquire the vital lifelong skills of self-awareness and self-regulation.

And it’s happening throughout the network of Boston’s public pilot schools, which receive greater freedom and flexibility to create more empowered, engaging, and independent learning environments in the hope that they can, over time, light an instructive path forward for all of the city’s schools. Add up those ingredients, and you’ll find Mission Hill’s particular “special sauce”, as well as a general recipe for transformational learning the rest of us can follow in our efforts to create more places like it.

Mission Hill’s path of transformation began in 1994, when Boston Mayor Thomas Menino joined forces with the city’s schools and teacher union to create a subset of “pilot schools” that were explicitly created to serve as useful catalysts of eventual district-wide urban reforms. Since its founding, the school has always seen its purpose as being far greater than merely guaranteeing academic growth, or ensuring that its graduates are “college and career-ready.” Instead, as school founder Deborah Meier put it, the task of Mission Hill mirrors the task of public education – “to help parents raise youngsters who will maintain and nurture the best habits of a democratic society.” And democracy, Meier says, “requires citizens with the capacity to step into the shoes of others, even those we most dislike, to sift and weigh alternatives, and to listen respectfully to different viewpoints with the possibility in mind that we each have something to learn from each other.”

Because of its broader orientation, Mission Hill is not organized primarily around what children will know, but who they will become. Its teachers are not just evaluated by how well their students perform in traditional academic subjects, but also by how skillfully their students can navigate “the interdisciplinary stuff of ordinary life.” And all members of the community are not allowed to sit back passively and criticize school decisions; they must actively participate in the ongoing co-creation of the school, its rules, and its path forward. “Everything I do is visible,” Gavins explained one recent afternoon, while two young boys played with toy dinosaurs on a green shag rug near her desk.  “So there are no secrets.  There is no hiding, and no backroom deals.  Everyone knows what my work is, and because that’s the expectation of everyone here that everyone’s work is public, everyone here is expected to defend their work, that’s also true for me.”

Williams, who has spent her entire professional career at Mission Hill, agrees. “The most wonderful aspect of our culture here is the freedom we all feel. We all share our curriculum.  We get feedback and support each other, and yet because we all have the freedom to do what we think is best means we all also have the freedom to fail.  So we learn as we go, just like the kids.”

All of these ingredients are on display each day in Mission Hill’s classrooms. The school’s student body is extremely diverse in every way imaginable – ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, learning style, etc. – a reflection of its commitment to create a fully inclusive learning environment. The physical spaces are designed to awaken individual interests and curiosities – an easel with paint and paintbrushes over here, an actual buzzing beehive over there. The curriculum integrates arts and academics and explores issues thematically, across all subjects. The school’s five habits of mind are prominently placed in each classroom to remind both young and old of what they are working toward each day. And throughout the school one finds explicit reminders of the things that link people to each other, such as the colorful CONNECTIONS wall in Jenerra’s classroom, where each student’s picture is framed alongside a list of his or her personal hopes and dreams – and where visible lines of green string connect portraits whenever one person’s answers match another’s.

Currently, the national climate for school reform is not aligned to reinforce Mission Hill’s emphasis on the democratic mission of public education, or on its efforts to explicitly identify the core habits – as opposed to the core knowledge – of the ideal graduate. But that may be changing. Indeed, recent insights and convergences in the fields of cognitive science and organizational behavior confirm that what schools like Mission Hill are doing isn’t just one community’s belief in the value of “soft” skills; it’s also a sound strategy based on the latest hard science about how people learn.

“When we get right down to it,” explains neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni in his 2008 book Mirroring People, “what do we human beings do all day long? We read the world, especially the people we encounter.” Until recently, scientists were at a loss to explain how, or even why, we do this. But now, scientists have located the process in a set of special cells in the brain called mirror neurons. These cells, Iacoboni reports, are what help us recognize and understand the deepest motives and needs of our fellow human beings. They are, in short, the source of our capacity to think and act as empathetic members of a democracy, and the most vital part of ourselves to be cultivated and nourished. And their discovery is why scientists like Iacoboni “believe this work will force us to rethink radically the deepest aspects of our social relations and our very selves.”

Amen, Dr. Iacoboni – and we may not be as far behind as you think. The next time you’re in Boston, spend a day at Mission Hill.