Watch it — and imagine if every reform effort was primarily concerned with increasing the relational — as opposed to the computational — quality of a school community and the people who work and learn there.
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Tag Archives: Learning
If you still doubt that the foundation for learning is emotional, not intellectual . . .
. . . you have some more reading to do. You might start with this article written by a public school principal in Maine. You could continue with a short summary of renowned psychologist (and Nobel Prize winner) Dan Kahneman’s research into how the mind actually works. Or if you wanted to consider a drastically different source, you can listen to Lupe Fiasco’s “He Say, She Say,” and read the lyrics (below) to hear one artist’s prescient insight into a larger problem plaguing his (and our) community, and standing in the way of deep, lasting systemic change in our schools.
Categories: Learning
Tags: KIPP, Learning, Lupe Fiasco, SEL, social & emotional learning
Leave a commentEnergy or Entropy?
I spent the other morning in my son’s Montessori classroom. It’s a beautiful, old-school room with high ceilings, large windows and plenty of space, which is good because it’s filled each day with twenty-eight 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds. No small task.
I’ve been in Montessori classrooms before, yet I was still surprised when the day was never officially called to order. Instead the children took off their shoes, found some work (or not), and began their day in twenty-eight different ways while their two teachers, Ms. Luz and Ms. Allison, surfed in between them to check in and gauge where each child was at on that particular morning – hungry, happy, angry, sleepy.
Categories: Learning, Organizational Change, Teacher Quality
Tags: energy, entropy, Learning, Montessori
4 CommentsA Part of Us is Dying in Chicago
I can’t reconcile the deep sense of community that filmmakers Amy and Tom Valens have captured in their 10-part video series about a year in the life of a public school in Boston, with the painful public clashes we’re witnessing in Chicago – where 54 of the city’s schools will soon be shuttered.
Indeed, although the nation’s attention is fixed on the historic fight for marriage equality in the U.S. Supreme Court, a part of us is dying in the Windy City – and no one in the mainstream media seems to care.
Categories: Democracy, Learning, Organizational Change
Tags: Chicago, Democracy, Learning, Mission Hill
Leave a commentA Hole in the Wall, or Our Heads in the Cloud(s)?
There are two recent cultural inflection points you’d be wise to check out if you care about the future of education: the first is Sugata Mitra’s acceptance speech for receiving the TED Prize, in which he outlines his plan to “build a school in the cloud;” and the second is ed/tech writer Audrey Watters’ article warning of the potential consequences that could follow an uncritical acceptance of Mitra’s vision.
Categories: Learning
Tags: Learning, self-directed learning, Sugata Mitra, TED, virtual learning
Leave a commentThis is what a “relevant education” looks like
Imagine if all schools and all educators were more attuned to ensuring that what we show and share with children is meaningfully connected to the daily realities of their lives and passions?
A Tale of Two Schools
There are two current storytelling efforts about two different schools that, if you’re not careful, might feel like the American version of a tale of two cities.
In the first, a 10-part video narrative about a year in the life of the Mission Hill School in Boston, we’re treated to the best of times: a place where every children is known and cared for, where learning is experiential and engaging, and where the adults are both extremely skilled and highly collaborative.
In the second, a two-part This American Life series about a high school in Chicago, we’re given a glimpse of the worst of times: a place where 29 current or former students were shot the previous school year, where some students spend their entire high school careers avoiding social relationships out of safety, and where every member of the football team has dodged gunfire at least once in their young lives.
How Do You Design a Healthy School?
What if every school used our founding principles as a nation as its design principles for learning? How would schools need to change? And what would we unleash as a result?
This is one of the riddles at the center of the 10-part video series, A Year at Mission Hill. And although we’re just two chapters in, I’m starting to see an early pattern – and a dialectical pair of design principles at the center of it all.