Tag: best questions

What does it mean to be prepared?

Posted on | by Sam

I just spent three days at a wonderful independent school in Columbia, South Carolina. The students there are the types of young people you want to meet and hand over the keys of the world to — smart, thoughtful, and generous of spirit. They’re also the kind of community that is asking all the right questions.

I was most struck by a billboard they commissioned, shortly after their most recent graduation, in which the class of 2014 throws their mortarboards into the air, and the image is accompanied by a single word: PREPARED.

What a powerful way to convey the essence of what a school exists to do, and be. And what a singularly useful word for calibrating what we want our schools to continue to be about.

But here’s the thing: defining what it means to be “prepared” is like a shoreline at high or low tide — always shifting. What, then, does it mean to prepare young people for the rough waters of young adulthood, and how can we build a solid foundation on a shoreline of shifting sand?

Schools like Hammond are actively exploring that question, despite their proven track record in the previous era (e.g., make kids take lots of AP classes and extracurriculars, and then get them into well-respected colleges).

What is your school preparing young people for, and how is your definition changing with the times?

Hammond

Open House Do’s and Don’ts

Posted on | by Sam

It’s that time of year again: when parents across the country — but particularly parents in major American cities — prepare to schedule a flurry of open houses in a frantic search for the best school for their child.

It happened to me a year ago; between January and March I visited more than 20 schools in search of the best place for my 3-year-old. Even though I’ve been working in schools my whole adult life, it was a daunting, disorienting experience. I can only imagine what it feels like for parents who haven’t stepped foot in a school since their own high school graduation.

To help ease the anxiety of my fellow parents, here are a few essential rules of the road: three questions to ask, and three things to look for.


Questions to Ask

  1. What is your definition of success — and how do you know if you’re reaching it?
  2. What aspect of your school are you most proud of — and where do you need the most work?
  3. What’s the general profile of your faculty — and how long do they stay?

Each of these questions is designed to drill down on how well a school understands what it does — and why it does it. Surprisingly, many schools haven’t thought about this as much as they should. They may have some generalized notion of success in terms of test scores or general statements about a child’s development. They are likely to know what they do well. They have to know how many of their teachers come and go each year. But if they can’t speak really clearly and specifically about what success will look like for your child — and do so in ways that go beyond just academics  – and if they can’t identify quickly where they still need work (because all schools, even the best ones, have room for improvement), you have good reason to wonder if they really have a plan worth investing in.

As examples of schools that have taken the time to figure it out, check out Mission Hill, the Blue School, or MC2 — three schools with clearly defined visions of individual- and whole-school success, and three schools with explicit lists of the sorts of skills and habits they want their students to master. Simply put, these schools know where they’re going — and how they’ll get there. Your child’s school should, too.

Things to Look For

  1. Hallways & Classrooms
  2. Playgrounds & Playspaces
  3. Safety & Security

If you visit a school during school hours, peek in the classrooms. Do students look engaged and energetic, or withdrawn and bored? Are the hallways filled with student work — and if so, does the work reflect a real range of skill-levels and ideas, or does it all look the same? Good schools know how to get kids involved — by making the learning as hands-on and relevant as possible — and they recognize and celebrate the uniqueness of each child.

Good schools also have good playspaces for children — or at least a good plan to get them there, if, like many urban charter schools, they do not yet inhabit a building with its own playground. Ideally, your child’s daily opportunities for physical activity and play are frequent and easily accessed. And if they have to travel offsite, be sure to find out the path to the playground, and how long it will take to get a small herd of children there and back every day.

And finally, good schools take the safety and security of your children seriously. Is it easy or difficult to walk into the school without being stopped or questioned by any adult? Does the school have protocols in place in the event of an emergency? And most importantly, does the school’s commitment to safety and security not interfere with the child’s sense of wonder and curiosity? Children should expect maximum security, but that doesn’t mean they should be expected to learn in environments that feel like maximum security prisons. A good school knows the difference.

The best and worst feature of modern K-12 schooling is that there are more choices to weigh and sift through. But the good news is that, as with the schools themselves, the clearer we the parents are on what we want in a school — and why we want it — the more likely we are to find a match in the marketplace.

Good luck!

 

Best Questions

Posted on | by Sam

Just because.

Ask them, answer them, share them. If you have a favorite, tweet it along with the hashtag #bestquestions. If you have one that isn’t here, add it. And if you want to see what happened when a whole community asked these questions of themselves and each other — and then co-created a public portrait series, check out Who Am I in This Picture?

What does the term “learning” mean to you? How has your life journey helped you to determine what learning means?

Who/what has been your most influential teacher?

There are many different ways by which people acquire knowledge. Under what conditions do you feel you learn best?

Is it possible to learn everything about yourself?

How has learning helped you to have better personal relationships in your family, school and community?

When does your community feel loneliest to you? When is it a good place to be alone?

Where, when, and with whom do you feel invisible in your community? When do you feel that other people feel invisible?

Which is the better course, the one that challenges you to learn new things or the one that challenges you to reexamine what you have already learned?

Does being educated make you happier?

How should a teacher define success? What do you see as the primary role of the teacher, and whose responsibility is it if students are not learning the material that is being taught?

How does the lack of education of others affect us? What stakes do we have in the empowerment of others?

What is our responsibility to each other, and where and how do we draw the line between our personal, professional, and school lives?

Hey Parents – It’s Time to Stop Playing Favorites

Posted on | by Sam

The other night over dinner, hours after my mother-in-law had returned home to New York, I casually asked my son Leo: “What was your favorite part of the weekend?”

As I watched him stare blankly back at me, struggling to find an answer, I found myself wishing I could have a parental do-over. Why do we ask children this question so often? Would it make a difference if we asked it a different way?

Anyone who’s a parent knows what I’m talking about: we’re always asking kids to tell us their favorite color, pick their favorite TV show, or select their favorite relative. And our intentions are in the right place; after all, we’re trying to learn about how they see themselves and others, and to give them a chance to reflect on what feels good and pleasing.

But here’s the problem: children don’t see the world as a set of isolatable favorites; we make them see it this way.  Watching Leo’s face, I realized that for him, there was no single favorite memory – just a pastiche of happy experiences that blended together to make up a general feeling I’ll call “Weekend with Nana.” It wasn’t until I asked the “favorite” question that it even occurred to him he should decide which of his experiences with her was the best of all.

This distinction is not exclusive to Leo. All of us benefit greatly when we develop metacognition – or the skill to reflect on our own thoughts and feelings, see ourselves interacting with the environment and people around us, and become familiar with our own preferences and the preferences of others. Recent research even suggests this may be the most important skill of all when it comes to learning how to learn, both in school and in life. Yet the reality is that asking kids to pick favorites isn’t an optimal path toward helping them become more holistically self-aware; it’s an emotional short cut that teaches them to artificially divide their memories into preferred parts.

How might Leo have responded differently if I had asked this question instead: “What made you feel happy this weekend?”

The difference between the two questions is subtle but significant. With one, we’re asking children to rank the world. With the other, we’re inviting them to reflect on it.

Only one of those questions will actually help build the muscle memory of metacognition, and allow for a fuller understanding of the multiplicity of experiences that shape how we think and feel. And that’s not playing favorites.

The Many Faces of Thea

Posted on | by Sam

It wasn’t until the end of her tragically short life that Thea Leopoulos first discovered the depth of her talent as an artist.

A buoyant, beautiful girl with dark eyebrows and sharp brown eyes, Thea spent her childhood believing the experts who first told her, back in third grade, she was unworthy of acceptance to the local program for “gifted and talented” children. Since then, Thea had struggled in her coursework and felt uninspired by a stream of classes that focused too much on academics, and not enough on other forms of learning, like the arts.

Then, in her junior year of high school, she produced a finger-painted portrait of B.B. King and removed any doubt of whether or not she was talented. Soon after, her capacity to excel in every area of her life changed dramatically. She had discovered a new source of confidence and calm. She had found her path.

A few months later, she was killed by a drunk driver.

Along with 400 others last week, I learned about Thea’s story at a statewide conference of Oklahoma educators titled Faces of Learning: The Power and Impact of Engaging Curious Minds. On hand was Thea’s father, Paul, who shortly after his daughter’s death established the Thea Foundation and adopted the mission of carrying her legacy forward by advocating for the importance of art in the development of young people. “There are too many children today who, like Thea was, are either mislabeled or under-engaged by a system of schooling that pays insufficient attention to the whole child. It is equally true that every child, as Thea did, can discover their own inner sources of strength, passion, and purpose in school. But that won’t happen until we restore a balance to what we teach children, how we teach them, and how we go about evaluating our efforts.”

Jean Hendrickson, the conference’s chief architect and the executive director of a statewide network called A+ Oklahoma Schools, hopes that sort of change is afoot in Oklahoma. “I see this conference as the latest effort on our part to encourage each other to start to see our work differently,” she said. “Learning has lost its face – it has become an impersonal pursuit of metrics, not people. Yet we all know that the locus of learning begins and ends with the human being, and with the soul, spirit and mind. So my hope was to use the metaphor – faces – in a more intentional and multidimensional way: How are we thinking about this word when we describe our work as educators? Do we imagine it as a noun or a verb? And how can we help people grapple with this word and make their own work more grounded in the personal needs and aspirations of the children we serve?”

Hendrickson’s frame for the conference was a way for her to link Oklahoma’s efforts to a nascent national effort called Faces of Learning, in which local communities are encouraged to mobilize themselves by asking – and answering – four essential questions:

  1. How do people learn best?
  2. How do I learn best?
  3. What does the ideal learning environment look like?
  4. How can we create more of them?

“In Oklahoma,” Hendrickson explained, “the schools in our network adhere to a set of commitments that include daily arts instruction, experiential learning and enriched assessment. The schools collaborate around curriculum, mapping the instruction so that interdisciplinary concepts emerge that encourage cross-curricular integration, and the use of multiple intelligences to structure learning opportunities for students. And the infrastructure in A+ schools supports common planning time, shared vision, and faculty commitment to the goal of schools that work for everyone.”

Do you belong to a like-minded network of schools, or want to create one? Do you have a personal story to tell about your own most powerful learning experience? Are you ready to see America restore a balance to how, and what, we teach young people in our schools? Please join with Jean, and Paul, and many others across the country, and add your voice to the chorus of stories at facesoflearning.net.

The Three Most Important Questions in Education

Posted on | by Sam | 3 Comments on The Three Most Important Questions in Education

(This column also appeared in the Huffington Post.)

It’s graduation season again – yet nobody seems to be celebrating.

On college campuses, graduates are entering an economy in which the stable career paths of yesteryear are disappearing – and the specialized job opportunities of tomorrow have yet to appear. And in communities across the country, parents and young people are left wondering what exactly those past four years of high school were in service of – and how much, if any, truly transformational learning occurred.

Something’s gotta give. The Industrial-Age model of schooling, which benefited 20th-century generations by serving as a legitimate ticket to the middle class, has clearly run its course. In its place, we need a model for a new age – the Democratic Age. And we need strategies for ensuring that young people learn how to be successful in the 21st-century world of work, life, and our democratic society.

We can get there, but to do so we need to start asking – and answering – the three most essential questions in education reform:

1. How do people learn best?

Over the past several years, a slew of research from a range of fields has helped illuminate a much deeper understanding of what powerful learning actually looks like – and requires. We know the ideal learning environment is challenging, engaging, relevant, supportive, and experiential. And we know that learners of all ages are more motivated when they can apply what they are learning to do something that has an impact on others – especially their local community.

The bad news is that too many schools are still crafting environments in which learning – if you can even call it that – depends less on these attributes than on obedience, memorization, conformity, and a set of requirements first deemed important a century ago.

The good news is that we already have schools across the country lighting a different path. At High Tech High in San Diego, for example, all learning opportunities are hands-on, supportive, and personalized. As school founder Larry Rosenstock explains, “Students pursue personal interests through projects. Students with special needs receive all the individual attention they need. And facilities are tailored to individual and small-group learning, including project rooms for hands-on activities and exhibition spaces for individual work.”

Best of all, the High Tech High model isn’t so precious or rare that our only hope is to remake every other school in its image. Instead, the rest of us can create our own success stories by doing what Larry Rosenstock did – heeding what we now know about how people learn, and operationalizing those insights into an actual school.

It’s environmental standards for learning we need – not a standardization of content or teaching practices.

2. What are the essential skills of a free people?

Whether we intend them to or not, every school is structured to value a different type of citizen. In China, for example – the site of my first teaching experience – the needs of the community are valued more than the needs of any individual. As a result, in the school in which I taught, free expression was discouraged, conformity was encouraged – and China got the citizens it sought.

In the America of the Industrial Age, one could argue we experienced similar alignment. After all, the early 20th century was characterized by exponential growth in its general and school populations, and a stable set of jobs for young people to fill. Today, however, the forces of globalization and democratization have elevated a different set of challenges and opportunities – and, by design, a different set of skills. Yet schools have not caught up to the shift, which is why so many of our graduates are emerging unprepared for the challenges and opportunities of the modern world.

What would happen if every school in America scrapped its current set of graduation requirements, and started over by identifying what it believes to be the essential skills of a free people – in work and in life?

One school in New Hampshire, the Monadnock Community Connections School (or MC2 for short), is already doing this. At MC2, students must demonstrate mastery in seventeen habits of mind and work in order to fulfill the school’s mission statement – “empowering each individual with the knowledge and skills to use his or her unique voice, effectively and with integrity, in co-creating our common public world.” These habits – which apply to every imaginable learning experience, from internships to classes to personal learning that occurs outside school – all have concrete indicators that are delineated in levels ranging from Novice to Expert. And not surprisingly, the habits reflect the skills most essential for the challenges of the Democratic Age – from self-direction and creativity to critical thinking and collaboration. As school founder Kim Carter explains it, “In preparing a student for their chosen post-secondary path, be it college or work, it’s critical to know what skills and knowledge will help to shape the decisions that impact their life.”

Makes sense, right? So what are the rest of us waiting for?

3.     What does it mean to be free?

In the end, our ability to answer the first two questions is in the ultimate service of the third. And yet the reality is that too many of us still understand what it means to be free in terms of the style of jeans we choose to wear, not the quality of ideas we choose to express.

The Founders certainly understood it differently, and so must we if wish to recalibrate our schools for the modern era.  In such a world, what it means to be free would mean having the space to discover one’s full worth – and developing the capacity to unleash one’s full potential.  Our schools and colleges would be places where we proactively created healthy, high-functioning learning environments. And our graduates would know, embody, and be able to apply the essential skills of a free people.

The answers we seek for creating such a system of schools are all around us. We just need to start asking the right questions.

Calling Bill Maher

Posted on | by Sam | 2 Comments on Calling Bill Maher

(This article also appeared in the Huffington Post.)

After reading Michelle Rhee’s surprisingly casual dismissal of cheating allegations in DC’s public school system, I’ve decided we need to do something drastic if we want to shake ourselves out of this surreal set of conversations about school reform.

We need Bill Maher to make a documentary about education. Perhaps we can even take a cue from his first film, Religulous, and call this one “Edu-buh-cation.” Or “Stoopid.” Or “The Bee-Eater.”

Oh, wait, that one’s taken.

We need Bill because we are living in a country where smart people genuinely believe they’re talking about school reform – when all they’re really doing is talking about labor law.

We need Bill because we need to stop pretending that improving test scores is the same thing as proving that children are learning.

And we need Bill because the problems we face will not be solved by deciding if we’re for or against unions, or if we love or hate Michelle Rhee, or if we think charter schools are a great or horrible idea.

Ours is a society in seeming-constant need of some satire. And we need satire because we need some social criticism that can lay bare the idiocy of the moment, and queue up a different set of questions about how to improve public education in America.

Here are a few I could see Bill using in his interviews and profiles of people and communities:

  • What do we know about how people learn?
  • When and where were you when you learned best?
  • What are the core elements of the ideal learning environment – based on our own memories, and the best learning experiences of our lives?
  • What do we know about what motivates people?
  • What do parents want their children, when they graduate, to know, be, and be able to do?
  • What habits of mind and work will be most valuable to children when they graduate?
  • What if we stop pretending that everyone should go to college?

If this were to happen, I can guarantee we’d discover a deeper truth about what learning looks like – and requires.  We’d see that there are tons of schools and communities doing great things across the country – and we’d get the chance to learn about what it is exactly they’re doing. And we’d stop allowing the most powerful voices in the field to keep pretending that what we seek is as simple as replacing bad teachers with good ones, seeding more charter schools, and pretending that the solutions we seek can all be attained within the walls of our schools.

We need Bill Maher because he’s already doing this – as he did recently when he mocked the simple narrative that has developed in this country around “fat cat” teachers.

We need Bill because this issue is too important to keep being mischaracterized – as it was in that remarkable graphic in Waiting for Superman, in which a teacher attempts to pour “knowledge” into the empty heads of the passive, seated students, all in order to criticize the elements of the system that were affecting the teacher’s “aim.”

And we need Bill because the only way we can snap out of this stupor is if someone helps us see the ridiculousness of it all, makes us laugh at our own stupidity – and shames us into rethinking our approach.

We can do better. And Bill Maher can help us.

Bill – call me.

What’s Your Declaration of Education?

Posted on | by Sam

Those pesky EduCon folks are at it again.

Earlier this year, I wrote about a small, networked, eclectic tribe of educators who attended a conference at Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, and who, with great energy and determination, pledged their shared commitment to bring about a different type of public school system by agreeing to the following core values:

  1. Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members.
  2. Our schools must be about co-creating — together with our students — the 21st Century Citizen.
  3. Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.
  4. Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate.
  5. Learning can — and must — be networked.

For me, EduCon was a Come to Jesus moment – a time when I found adults who shared my fidelity to a language of possibility that was solution-oriented, relationship-driven, and future-focused. And now I see that they/we are at it again, this time via a drive “to remind ourselves and our students that citizenship means asking questions, finding answers and standing up for what you believe in . . . and that education must mean that too.”

The vehicle for this lofty goal is something known as The Great American Teach-In and, if it works, the result will be, on May 10, thousands of classrooms, students, and schools drafting their own Declarations of Education.

The Teach-In website has useful resources for anyone who wants to structure a conversation that results in an actionable set of aspirational goals toward the creation of healthier, higher-functioning learning environments. And the conversations will all be framed by a core set of essential questions:

1.     When and where do I learn best?

2.     What does an ideal learning environment look like?

3.     How closely do our current places of learning resemble our ideal learning environment?

4.     What barriers to learning/growth exist within our current learning environments?

5.     What will we do to make our current learning environments more perfect places to work and learn?

What I love about this idea is it assumes the best people to change the landscape of public education are those closest to the day-to-day workings of our nation’s schools – educators and students. After all, although there is much to dispirit us with the state of our school system, it does educators no good to assume these ills have merely been “imposed upon them”, and that they have no choice but to keep hoping, as passive victims, that better days lie ahead.

As the great quantum physicist David Bohm once said, “Thought creates the world and then says, ‘I didn’t do it.’” So, too, is it with the current state of public education in America – and all of us have a choice: remain complicit, and passive, in the acceptance of a system that denies us the ability to create truly transformational learning environments; or become active agents in solving our own most intractable problems – and creating spaces for people to reflect on their ideal learning environments, and then think together about how to create those environments as soon as possible.

Sound like a good use of your time? Check out http://declarationofeducation.com/ to learn more and get involved. We can do better – and it is up to us to make sure that we do so.

It’s the Relationships, Stupid . . .

Posted on | by Sam | 2 Comments on It’s the Relationships, Stupid . . .

I’m spending my days observing the two-week summer session of the Inspired Teaching Institute, a yearlong professional development program from Center for Inspired Teaching, a remarkable organization that prepares and supports DC teachers. The institute, described as “a 100% physical, intellectual, and emotional process through which teachers explore the art of teaching in an energetic and safe environment,” is taking place each day in the wrestling room of a DC high school in a leafy green neighborhood of Washington, DC.

The room is large and open. There are no seats, and homemade signs and placards, most of which feature memorable ideas about teaching and learning, cover the walls:

“A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron.”

”It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

“To be prepared against surprise is to be trained; to be prepared for surprise is to be educated.”

“The questions which one asks oneself begin, at last, to illuminate the world – and become one’s key to the experience of others.”

Although I’ll be producing several longer pieces about Inspired Teaching and their summer Institute, I want to briefly share an activity from yesterday that sparked an essential insight into the nature of teaching and learning – and what it is we adults must prioritize in our efforts to help all children learn.

Towards the end of the day, Inspired Teaching founder Aleta Margolis, a veteran educator and former actor with an aura of presence that stems from her previous time on stage, asked the participants to brainstorm the first things they thought of in response to the following prompt: “What are the questions kids ask when they’re in school?”

A torrent of predictable answers greeted her request:

What’s that? Why are we doing this? What are we supposed to do? Can I go to the bathroom? Can I get up now? How is this going to help me in real life? Can I go with you? How much do you get paid? Do you have a boyfriend? Can I go home with you? Where are we going? How much longer? Can I have this? Do you sleep here? Can I go to the nurse? What if? Can I have some water? Can you get him to stop? Why is that teacher so mean? Is it time to go? Can we go outside? Can we have extra recess? What’s my grade? Can I do extra credit? Why’d you call my house? When is that due? Can I sit by you? Are you allowed to do that? How old are you? Is she OK? Are you getting fired? Do you love me?

Then Aleta asked a different question – “What are the questions kids ask when they’re curious and wondering about the world around them?”

Can you show me? Did you see that? Can I try? Am I doing it right? Can I take it home? What does this do? How do I stop? Will I get hurt? Will you catch me? How fast can I go? Why isn’t it working? Why is it like this? Will you be watching me? Let me do it.

After both lists were generated, Aleta led the group through a process of labeling every question on both lists into one of three categories:  P – a procedural question; N – a question relating to a personal need; or C – a question reflecting innate curiosity.

Notably, the majority of the questions received either P’s or N’s, and there were few C’s in the bunch. The disconnect between what children ask in school and what they ask when they’re curious about the world was clear. “We’re going to spend the next week and a half and throughout the school year,” said Aleta, “getting students to generate more curiosity questions, and less questions that relate to purely procedural needs.”

As the participants nodded their heads enthusiastically at the thought of the new pedagogical skill they would soon acquire, I found myself noticing something else. The overwhelming majority of the questions, regardless of which category they were in, related to personal needs, and underscored the transformative power of interpersonal relationships between teachers and students.

Will you catch me? Did you see that? Can I sit by you? Do you love me?

Some among us may want to resist this fact and stay focused squarely on instructional strategies and the bottom line of school reform – improving student test scores. I’m reminded of the controversial Charles Barkley “I am not a role model” commercial from a few years back. But just as all athletes surely are role models (whether or not they choose to fulfill the responsibility), all teachers are role models, too, and adults with a disproportionate influence on the lives and priorities of their students.

This simple truth reminded me that although our students need us to provide engaging content, clear structures and probing questions, the overriding quality they need from us is nurturance, support, and a place where they can be seen and heard. It’s about relationships – first and foremost. And strengthening the quality and quantity of relationships between adults and children in a school building should always be our primary improvement strategy.

Education Innovation in the Slums of Rio

Posted on | by Sam

Charles Leadbeater, a researcher at the UK firm Demos, spoke recently at TED about his search for radical new forms of education. What he found was remarkable innovation in the slums of Rio and Kibera, where some of the world’s poorest kids are finding transformative new ways to learn.

Among Leadbeater’s chief insights? Focus on asking questions, not providing answers; start developing strategies that pull children into learning, and stop pushing them into a single curriculum; and take a cue from Chinese restaurants, not McDonald’s, by finding models that spread, not scale.

Watch the video yourself and see what you think.