What’s the best way to support the overall learning and growth of children — via a healthy doze of generalized praise, or with a strict diet of precise, targeted feedback that helps children see their own work more objectively? That’s the question posed in a recent article in the Washington Post, and based on the [...]
Here, in Léogâne, halfway between Port-au-Prince and the epicenter of the 2010 earthquake that unleashed Haiti’s latest round of devastation, death and hardship, Doug Taylor is building houses.
An Indiana native in his 25th year of working for Habitat for Humanity, Taylor is tanned, serious and unshaven, with sandy straight hair that hangs down as though it has been weighted with stones. On a sunny day in December 2011, Taylor greets a visitor before 155 brand-new homes, all arranged in orderly rows, all built to a uniform size and shape, and all painted bright colors of pink, blue or green – a Haitian Levittown.
Tags: Democracy, earthquake, Haiti, Haiti Partners
Leave a commentI know most of us have already checked out for the year, but I wanted to share the nominees I’ve received so far in my ongoing search for the world’s most transformational learning environments. Over the past few weeks, I’ve received recommendations either via Twitter or posted comments on this blog and/or Huffington Post. I’ve [...]
In the halls of Congress and on the presidential campaign trail, a debate is raging over which set of economic proposals to pursue in order to rebuild the national economy. At the same time, K-12 education reformers are engaged in their own frantic search for the right recipe(s) that can unlock the full power of teaching and learning. But rarely do we acknowledge that one individual stands, improbably, at the center of both debates – John Maynard Keynes.
Tags: charter schools, DC, DCPS, driving demand, economics, education reform, freedom, Great Schools, John Maynard Keynes, K-12, Learning, parents, school choice
2 CommentsOK, people, let’s get specific: out of all the outstanding and forward-thinking schools in the world, which ones are truly the most transformational when it comes to imagining a new way to think about teaching and learning in the 21st century?
Late last night, alone in my TV room and still struggling to get back onto east-coast time, I watched Tim Tebow’s improbable 95-yard game-winning drive, and marveled at the uniqueness of his unfolding storyline.
As the dumbstruck commentators on NFL Network made clear, we are witnessing something unprecedented in the otherwise rigid, groupthinkian world of the NFL – a team that has completely (and, thus far, successfully) adjusted its overall strategy to align with the strengths of its newest, most essential player.
On a crisp fall morning in the nation’s capital, 3rd grade teacher Rebecca Lebowitz gathered her 29 public school students on their familiar giant multicolored carpet, and reminded them how to make sense of the characters whose worlds they would soon enter during independent reading time.
“What are the four things we want to look for when we meet a new character?” Ms. Lebowitz asked from her chair at the foot of the rug. Several hands shot up before nine-year-old Monica spoke confidently over the steady hum of the classroom’s antiquated radiator. “We want to pay attention to what they do, what they say, how they feel, and what their body language tells us.” “That’s right,” her teacher said cheerily. “When we look for those four things, we have a much better sense of who a person really is.”
As the calendar shifts to the eleventh month of 2011 – a year of near-constant revolution and upheaval, from the Arab Spring to the Wisconsin statehouse to the global effort to Occupy Wall Street – what might the rest of us learn from students like Monica? If, in short, we were as smart as a third-grader, what would we observe about the character of this year’s global protests, and what might we decide to do next?
Tags: 2011, Democracy, Empathy, Gandhi, Justice, Occupy Wall Street, OECD, Organizational Change, Otto Scharmer, OWS, Poverty, revolution, social justice, Tahrir Square
5 CommentsThanks to the good people at GOOD, there’s a really interesting article about the power of social and emotional learning (SEL) – and it’s making me wonder what would happen if we stopped modifying the word “learning” so much and started thinking more holistically about what powerful learning really looks like, and requires.
Tags: GOOD Magazine, Learning, social & emotional learning, Yale
Leave a commentIt’s not even Noon, and nine-year-old Harvey is already back on the floor.
His three tablemates, their efforts at independent reading on hold, watch and wait for Ms. Serber to arrive and restore order. Harvey’s pear-shaped body writhes on the floor, animated by neither malice nor mischief. He chews absent-mindedly on his silver necklace and gazes at the ceiling until she arrives.
You know there’s a dearth of creative thinking in education when an article trumpeting cutting-edge teaching quotes somebody, without irony, saying the following:
“Get a computer, please! Log on . . . and go to your textbook.”
Yet that’s what the Washington Post did this morning – and they’re not alone. Despite ubiquitous calls for innovation and paradigm shifts, most would-be reformers are little more than well-intentioned people perfecting our ability to succeed in a system that no longer serves our interests.
