From eGosystem to eCosystem

From eGosystem to eCosystem

This last week our Design39Campus team had the great pleasure to speak with Greg Horowitt in person. Greg is the co-founder and Managing Director of T2 Venture Capital and co-author of the bestselling book, The Rainforest: the Secret to Building the Next Silicon Valley. This book examines the dynamics and drivers of innovation ecosystems.

The great thing about meeting Greg is we didn’t know any of this or the long list of other impressive things he has done. We just had a chance to hear him talk about institutions and the shifts that are needed to truly innovate.

Greg started off by stating the obvious, schools run on the factory model. But what he said next brought clarity to our thinking. Factory systems, like educational institutions, operate on the scarcity model. They were developed for an age in which resources were rare and needed rigorous management to leverage the maximum potential. Schools are factories running on the premise that information and skills are rare commodities. And at one time they were! Therefore institutional systems became responsible for circulation of ideas and skills, not the creation of new ideas. Teachers we there to deliver the curriculum developed by someone else with a title or power position.

Now contrast that past thinking  with the present reality. Information is in abundance. Curriculum is in the palm of nearly everyone’s hand. Anyone can curate content and post it for others to see. No more rubber stamps form levels of “experts” needed. Students don’t need teachers who simply deliver content anymore. The old system wasn’t designed for this abundance. And innovation is the animal that thrives on abundance. So the ecosystem in which we live in 2013 and beyond, has fundamentally altered from a desert to a virtual rainforest. The organisms suited to life in the desert aren’t well-adapted to life in the rainforest. The systems we developed for scarcity will not help us thrive in abundance.

The following table represents the contrast between the two worlds.

Scarcity Model	Abundance Model
eGosystem Control Compliance Limits Permissions Titles Position power Dependence Rigid Stable Competition Product focus Replication Static Dictator Transfer Thrives on predictability	eCosystem Entrepreneurialism Experimentation Freedom Initiative Timing Contribution power Independence Agile Fluid Empathy Process focus Innovation Dynamic Facilitator Connecting Thrives on disruption

As I mentioned in the last blog post, I was a part of a small group of administrators and educators meeting about innovation last month. In my small group our topic was change. A school superintendent was part of this discussion and it became clear where his head was very soon as the conversation moved away from the group and became one between himself and the person he believed had the most titles and prestige. After seven minutes of the rest of us listening to this conversation, the superintendent began talk about rewriting the strategic plan for the district and how that was going to drive innovation… And there it was! The scarcity model trying to innovate! The people in his schools who could really innovate aren’t even a part of the conversation! How seductive this mind trap is still.

I interrupted him and declared, “And there is your problem.” Getting his eye contact, I explained that changing a piece of paper or district slogan, or strategic plan was a waste of time. If he really wants change he has to speak with and listen to the people at the point of contact which are teachers and students. Let them experiment and innovate and then tell you what needs to change in order to innovate further. Get on Twitter and let them hear you directly that they have the power and then they can speak directly to you too...as an equal.  Stop having power-based meetings where orders are disseminated through layers of bureaucrats with each level filtering and spinning the message until it has lost its potential. Empower the base of the organization to do something great! He then turned back to the expert and continued his previous strategic vision plan rewrite talk. Sigh.

Which brings me back to Greg Horowitt’s advice to people who work in these types of scarcity deserts. In order for innovation and change to happen in these obsolete institutions, the people in the position to make the greatest change are those without the traditional titles and powers. It is up to them to become “Innovation smugglers.” Softly break the rules. Disrupt, experiment, focus on the process and continue to do the right work which moves institutions forward to an abundance model to match our abundance reality. And occasionally set off a bomb in the basement. Not a real one of course, rather a highly visible manifestation of change that catches attention and shakes the long-held beliefs of the scarcity model. Don’t be afraid to do something great and showcase it. Timing is everything in the abundance model. Everyone has a part to play and when the time comes for your role to take to the stage, step into that spotlight. At that moment your part is the most important and the entire movement of the play depends on you. Just because your role may be small in the eyes of tradition, it isn’t in the world of abundance. It’s timing, not title that matters.

Stop waiting for permission! That’s scarcity thinking. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Leaders Must Tweet!

Last week our Design39Campus team met with an exciting team of people from the Los Altos School District during our Bay Area travels. We had many discussions around topics of innovation and the group I was in was discussing change. 

A superintendent from a neighboring school district was discussing how he was going to be rewriting the district goals and that was going to facilitate change in the classrooms in the district. I stopped him in mid-sentence and challenged him on this. I basically told him that any energy he puts into district office level goal setting is a waste of time if he thinks that is going to transform the entire system. Top down initiates rarely do anything. 

So I challenged him to TWEET! Instead of talking through three or more layers of bureaucrats, speak directly to the teachers in the district. Share your vision in real time. Share articles, videos, TedTalks, quotes, your dreams, whatever! The power of social media is the ability to speak directly with a huge audience. And be ready to listen back as they share with you. 

Education must become more flat. The hierarchy of power of the past is not going to transform education for the 21st Century. Distributed leadership and teacherpreneurs are the future. And using social media tools, like Twitter, are going to be the communication devices needed in the fast-paced information age.

So school leaders, get on Twitter and encourage everyone in the organization to do so as well. And use the communication tool yourself. Don't delegate it to someone under you. YOUR voice is the secret sauce needed in this media. You have to be personally plugged in to your organization to nurture the change process.

With one tweet you can speak directly to everyone in your organization...regularly!

Stanford d.School Visit

On October 15, 2013 our Design39Campus team had the great fortune to tour the Stanford d.School and take a peak inside the design thinking spaces of the school. Having spent the morning at IDEO, we were ready to explore the halls of this famed school. 

From the outside the d.School is hard to spot as it looks like most of the buildings at Stanford. Inside, however, you know you are in a different kind of learning environment. Multicolored stickies, whiteboard panels on wheels and hanging from the ceiling, foam sugar cube seats, and roll-up garage doors for walls are all standard fixtures of this learning space. 

Upstairs you will find the lab spaces where students work through the design process in collaboration with a variety of people. 

Of interest to our team was the K-12 work group who is finding ways to bring design thinking into the classroom. Reading their walls excited us to see how the mission/vision of Design39Campus fits with the work the d.School is doing. We left business cards and tweeted to them about our visit in hopes we can make a deeper connection with this very busy group of thinkers.

The Makery rooms proved to be a treasure trove of ideas for our own Makeries back home. Our take-aways from this visit are:

1) learning spaces must be flexible

2) furniture must moveable and multi-use

3) designing is about making and sometimes it just has to be messy

4) we need "stuff" readily available to facilitate learning 

5) space, tools, and materials must be applied to real problems/projects to make learning real

6) traditional one teacher, one classroom organization is a barrier to innovation

7) teacher teams need to be composed of a variety of experts who help all members learn new skills in the application of the teaching practice.

Thank you d.School!

Rigor by Any Other Name

With the onset of the Common Core, there is an upsurge in the usage of the word RIGOR.  Since the day I first heard this applied to classroom learning, I scratched my head. As a bit of a word nerd I had to delve into this word deeper. The majority of references for this word are so far away from what education and the Common Core should be about. Google it to see what I mean.

Watching students in typical factory schools, there is a lot of sitting, silence, and stiffness. We want children questioning, thinking, and teachers adapting to learners. Students are ready for an ALIVE education! I get the use of the word RIGOR is supposed to mean intellectually challenging work that requires thinking and understanding. So why not spell it out like that? Everyone can say "RIGOR" and now we have a label on a box and nobody has to look inside because the proper buzz-word has been used. Publishers use the word RIGOR to describe their textbooks! This should be the first sign the is the wrong word!

Secret Teacher from the Midlands in England

Secret Teacher: we need to practice what we teach

We teach pupils to be self-sufficient go-getters, but we're forced to toe the party line like over-qualified sheep, says Secret Teacher

Read the rest of the story here...

Changing education from the ground up

Sometimes I find it helpful to review things from the past because my current circumstances may give me a different lens in which to gain insight. I have watched and listened to Sir Ken Robinson many times and this morning I was preparing an activity for a community meeting and decided to watch him again. And there it was! That new insight connected to my present reality. So I will leave you with this image I created to capture the point and then two questions. Then watch his video again to see what else you hear in a new way. As Sir Ken says, "It's time to bring on the learning revolution!"

Take time to make education unpredictable

In our race to cram knowledge into the heads of children over the last decade of our standards/testing culture, we have robbed our children of the one thing that causes children to learn the most, uncertainty. Our risk-averse culture in American education has systematically removed risk at every turn. In my own experience, the word risk itself was too risky for the system. It was actually removed from a previous school's founding document by the district office! Bureaucratic systems don't like risk because it requires a giving up of control. Of course control is ultimately an illusion, but that doesn't stop our system of education from crushing it out at every turn. Creativity, innovation, learning...all messy and risky!

Science teachers often think they are on the cutting edge of teaching risk-taking and critical thinking. And while some of them are, most of them have decided that inquiry is best handled in a controlled way. Teaching children the scientific method by filling out lab sheets is a classic example. Children are expected to memorize the scientific method, follow the steps of a lab, fill out the form, and are graded on the quality of their write-up and ability to complete the form correctly. We are essentially telling children that scientists are managers completing paperwork! Where is the wonder? Where is the thinking? Where is the excitement? I think of Roz from Monsters Inc. asking in her gravelly voice, "Where's your paperwork?"

Tina  Grotzer from Project Zero at Harvard  says it this way, "When science class only consists of facts and figure that we know to be "true," it communicates to students that we know all the answers, instead of letting them know that our ignorance far outweighs our knowledge. It keeps them from finding out that there are lots of mysteries that we can't begin to answer. Letting students in on the mysteries of the world ignites their curiosity and opens the door to a lifetime of finding out."

So shred those blasted lab sheets and ask kids to explore ideas. Talk about it, write about it, blog about it, video it, sing about it, whatever it takes to engage kids in the thinking and engage them! Leave the lab sheet for the day they want someone else to try out their experiment. Then they will have a reason to write it!

Do we really believe people like Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking were inspired to think their big ideas and get excited about science because they memorized the scientific method and could complete a paper form? Time to bring the wonder and risk back into science!

Adjust to Learners

Education has survived the high stakes testing drive for over a decade now and the damage to the system is immeasurable. Increased isolation of content and factory fixes for perceived problems has only embedded deeper, the misguided thinking that relies on specialization and canned curriculum. 

The education establishment likes nothing more than to label and sort children and adults into manageable groups and remove anything messy that might get in the way of performing on high stake tests. As Will Richardson points out, the folly of this thinking is the tests were designed for a time that has passed. We can't get to the future by using processes that weren't intended to evolve.


There are two realities people have to embrace if we are going to move into a space that really meets learners where they are and helps them to grow. The world is diverse and change is the only constant. 

By diverse I am not talking just about ethnicity or culture. That is a part of the idea of course. The individuality of humanity means we are all different and not a single person can be understood through generalizations. Because we serve the needs of such diverse learners, we have to be aware of ways that we can adapt what we do to help children learn. We can't keep picking a one-size-fits-all approach to learning since there is no one-size-fits-all child. Just because we can label something doesn't mean we understand it!

Change is the only constant. Listening to learners to tailor learning to their needs is the best way to adapt our system. And this requires teachers to step out, get uncomfortable, and allow something new to happen. It means you CAN'T plan what you are going to teach a year in advance in detail. Parents have to stop asking for what their children are going to miss three weeks from now when the family pulls the kid out of school for a trip. If we know exactly what we are covering three weeks from now, SOMETHING IS WRONG! Education has to embrace the concept of just in time delivery. Of course we need to plan the journey and have timetables, but within that journey we are going to make stops when needed to explore, think, and create. If the journey takes longer or finishes quicker, who cares? Learning is organic. Finding ways to connect students with what they know and what they need to know and want to know is an art we must practice.

But doesn't that make it hard to teach? Yes and that is the point! You have to be slightly off balance to be your best as a teacher. When you get into a "groove" and you simply pull out the canned lesson you have done many times before, you are not being responsive. The corpse of last year's lesson isn't what your children need. 

The reality is our students change. Not just individuals over time, but each new cohort that arrives at our doors is different than the year before. If we don’t adapt, we quickly use tools designed for a different model and the mismatch can be devastating to learning.

Get Off the Monkey Bars

"When you move into the unknown, you create room for an infinity of possibilities to enter. But the monkey bar to monkey bar style of life...never creates space for something else." --Jillian Michaels

In the last few weeks our team has been meeting to move planning for the new school forward. The walls of our new home are covered with dry erase panels, white paper, and stickie notes of ideas and timelines. And in the midst of all of this great thinking we have a challenge. How to create room for something new and not be tempted to jump on the monkey bar mentality that is so much a part of mechanistic thinking.

Recently we were in a planning meeting with other stakeholders and the acronyms were flying. While I feel relatively literate in educationese, I finally had to raise my hand and ask for some clarifications. The way we change our language into acronyms, soundbites, cliches, etc. is just another way to systematize our brains and miss the opportunities to change. There were many assumptions made in this meeting and there wasn't a single moment where the pace of conversation paused to ask, "Do we really need all these things we keep spending money on?"

So back to our planning room we went and then the volume of work was everywhere on the walls. I saw monkey bars everywhere. And our team has a way of looking at all of this and asking great questions. What is it we want for kids? Kids don't care about the majority of what we educators labor over. They want to know if their teachers care about them. They want to have fun and learn. So this all comes back to our reason for existing. Why School? To steal the book title from Will Richardson...

And in the moments after we ask that question, we need to pause, be silent, and think about possibilities. How has the world changed? What implications do those changes have for us? To stay off the monkey bars we have to stay focused on what really matters. And the goals we set better create space for something new. Otherwise we will be back in the factory mindset very fast.

If we want our children to think, dream, and change the world for the better, we have to do that same work daily. We have to stay off the monkey bars!

Inquiry-Based Curriculum

Great summary of why we need a shift from content-driven, standards education to an inquiry-based model.


http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/05/inquiry-learning-vs-standardized-content-can-they-coexist/

Planning and Opening a New School

Great blog post from the Next Generation Blog titled:

7 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT PLANNING AND OPENING A NEXT GEN SCHOOL

Favorite piece of advice:

"Focus your team and their high-touch value on real world, context-rich opportunities for inquiry and application where there is no “right answer.”

Read the rest at 

http://nextgenlearning.org/blog/7-things-you-should-know-about-planning-and-opening-next-gen-school

Mathematics: A New Hope

Today's blog entry is entirely quoted from a MOOC I am taking through Stanford University taught by Jo Boaler. Bold and underline are mine. Enjoy this voice that is adding to the chorus for change! And take this MOOC. It is for parents, teachers, or anyone who cares about the future.

"...there are many things going wrong in mathematics education.

For me, one of the best short descriptions of what's going on was written by a mathematician called Paul Lockhart. He is a mathematician who's also taught maths in K12 schools, and he was so exasperated by what he saw in schools, he wrote something really beautifully written called A Mathematician's Lament

...I'm sounding very critical of mathematics education but I'm not at all critical of teachers because teachers have had to work in ways that are educationally damaging for some time. So I don't blame teachers for the bad state we're in. They've been living and working for decades in a culture driven by ridiculously long list of content standards. And those standards made them feel they have no time to stop and create engaging activities for kids. And nonstop testing of very narrow content and multiple choice tests.

There's hope now in the United States with the onset of the common call that that's changing. On top of that, they've really felt like their professionalism has stripped away. Even when they do take an extra step and do something great, I've heard stories of administrators coming in and shutting them down, and that's why it's so important that everybody, administrators, parents, teachers, learned about good mathematics instruction.

Of course there are great administrators and teachers who've been able to ignore the pressure and done what they know to be right with the kids. But that's hard to do with all of the directives and it happens very rarely.

For me, mathematics is a living act. It's a performance, a way of interpreting

the world. And we urgently need both to address stereotypes and myths and to bring mathematics back to the real mathematics. The mathematicians used and that's out there in the world.

Teachers, administrators, and parents, all of us can do this, especially if we

work together. Everyone has a role to play."

class.stanford.edu

After the Factory

Over the past few weeks I have been working with a group of thoughtful intrapreneurs who are planning to open the last new school in our school district. We have K-5, Middle, and High Schools and this new school is going to be a K-8. Our superintendant has given us the charge to "Change the way we do school."

So from the start we knew that we wanted to dismantle the factory model. What this means, of course, is we have to find a new model to base schooling on rather than the linear assembly line. In the words of Sir Ken Robinson it has to be more "agrarian." Paul Kim at Stanford calls it an "ecosystem."

So the first question we asked was, "What structure can we put in place that will prevent the new school from backsliding into the factory model?" This is a very challenging question. Teachers, parents, and students have all been indoctrinated into the factory system and to see outside of it is hard. Much like Plato's cave allegory, most people are strapped down staring at the cave wall and can't conceive of a different world.

This journey has a lot of questions and few answers. We keep looking for solutions that don't feel good because that is a sure sign you are pushing out of the box. At the same time, we are looking at models all over the world, scouring YouTube, the internet, gurus in education, people in the business world, etc. for perspective.

Our first take on one system is to develop an Adaptive Learning Platform (ALP). A computerized system that allows us to group and regroup kids based on need and challenge independent of grade. Student preferences, interests, passions, etc. will be included in the ALP as well has hard testing data.

This will also shuffle teachers around into learning spaces as needed for the lessons. Building in impermanence. It isn't an overt goal to make teachers uncomfortable, but it isn't an afterthought either. When teachers become comfortable they begin to ritualize learning. "My classroom" has a meaning. Almost like a workstation on an assembly line. "My kids" has another meaning. Lack of caring for other children because only this finite group matters to me.

While relationship is vital to learning, the idea of one teacher one classroom is a fossil of the factory. The school day needs to be more fluid. We don't want a teacher to open a file cabinet and pull out the same canned lesson as last year or last semester. Like real meals prepared from scratch, there are always variations depending on the ingredients and tastes of the guests. So that is what one goal of the ALP is shooting for regularly...variety.

As we explore this more we are looking for partnerships with technology companies and several have shown an interest. They all tell us the full version of our ALP is not out there yet. Pieces here and there, but nothing like we are describing. The next few months will be fascinating!

Dead pedagogy

As I have mentioned previously, teacher education programs are woefully inadequate at preparing teachers for the reality of the classroom. Writing is an area that is just left up to chance too often. And yet teachers are charged with teaching writing so they figure it out the best they can. Teachers are amazing at surviving. And this survival instinct is what helps us achieve and it can also be the root of poor practices.

Enter Jane Schaffer. Her method of teaching writing can best be described as formulaic. Taking the art and craft of writing and turning it into a mathematical construct. No thinking needed. No craft. No analysis of great writer's as models. Just learn her special vocabulary, insert banal information and tell us why, and presto change-o, you're a writer.

Schaffer's method can best be described as a life raft approach. When all else fails, follow the formula and you will pass the test. So from a practical standpoint, that is a nice tool to have. A parachute if you will. But preparing learners to communicate in the real world should not rest on emergency planning.

Often times teachers extol the virtues of the Schaffer method as a good scaffold for future adventures in writing. And those future adventures are where? They don't materialize because every teacher on the next step up assumes the children can't write so they reteach the Schaffer method again and again.  Students have learned to be compliant in our factory schools so they just go along with whatever they need to do to get an "A."

The writing curriculum doesn't improve in high school either. My sophomore still comes home talking about "concrete details" and "commentary" years after Schaffer should have been abandoned. A group of writing teachers from Cal State San Marcos came to our district over a decade ago and point blank told our high school teachers the Schaffer method should NOT be used in high school except for struggling writers. They scoffed and continued the drone of CD's and CM's.

The Schaffer method is mechanistic, factory thinking and it needs to be relegated to the survival strategy methodology it was designed for years ago. Sophistication can't be nurtured in writing that is prevented from being daring and experimental. When children are more concerned with counting the number of comments they make about "concrete details" we have really entered a world of cogs and levers. Stop the factory thinking! And quit reserving any quality writing for the elite children in honors and AP English. All students deserve the best!

Teachers, learn how to embrace writing. Write yourselves. Make mistakes. Be daring! Writer's workshop is a far better pedagogy and it asks learners to ask, "What do real writer's do?" And the more we do that, the sooner we will stop telling lies to kids like:

• a paragraph is five to seven sentences
• you can't start sentences with AND
• you can't end a sentence with a preposition
• you must have two commentary sentences for every concrete detail

We need to embrace the nebulous and realize writing is far messier than a factory can streamline. Writing is an art and all writer's have a style. It is our job to help these young writer's find their voice and become engaging authors.

For a far more scholarly critique of the Jane Schaffer method, please visit:

http://www.csun.edu/~krowlands/Content/Academic_Resources/Composition/Form/wiley%20resisting%20formulaic%20writing.pdf

Human Connections

"We can’t outsource the human connections at the heart of the learning experience. Transforming the lives and learning of our children will take more than machines. It will take the best of our human resources." --  Wendy Kopp  CNN

Question All Assumptions

In the flurry of blog posts, videos, tweets, and conversations about 21st Century schools, there is a tendency to look forward and charge into the unknown. While I am usually one to do just that, I have found it vital to stop and look back at the foundations we are using for our new construction.

Much of the work today is based on the rejection of the mechanistic, factory model. And thank goodness! Yet as I meet with teachers, parents, and students, I detect a core of beliefs that have become entrenched in the education mind that are really just as misguided but are embraced as our hope for the future. I am speaking directly about Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligence.

I need to clarify an important point before starting. Like many terms in common use today in daily conversation, "theory" has  taken on a meaning that is not accurate. In science, people come up with an idea about how something works based on observation. That is a hypothesis. After a good deal of evidence the idea is formalized so it can be tested. Once it is tested, repeatedly, and remains, we can say it is supported and it moves on to support a larger collection of related, supported hypothesis: a theory. A theory is not a random guess! It represents the current understanding based on tested ideas. And therein lies the problem with Multiple Intelligence.

People refer to Howard Gardner's idea as theory, but it isn't. At best it is an unsupported hypothesis. There are no double blind, placebo controlled studies on any of it! Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence! Howard Gardner's hypothesis has not been tested to show efficacy. It only has anecdotal evidence at best and has become a part of factory schooling which seeks to homogenize children and lower expectations for struggling learners. 

In fact, studies to test his hypothesis have shown no connection between "learning styles" and ability to learn. "These results challenge the hypothesis that individuals learn best with material presented in a particular sensory modality." Study Link

Often apologists for MI Theory say it doesn't hurt, kids like it, it changes classroom teaching for the better, etc. There are several big problems being overlooked:

1. This hypothesis reinforces the factory model educational philosophy of the 1900's with the wishful thinking of the self-esteem movement of the late 1900's. Factory schools produce compliant, obedient workers. Individuals who stand out because of extraordinary talent are a threat to the system which prides itself on homogenized product. And because some students look bad when others look good, MI nullifies those who are truly gifted by saying everyone is "gifted."
2. MI masks real learning issues and has appeared in printed legal forms for special education in which teachers are asked to list learning style preferences as if all teachers have a way to assess this. Without thought, the acceptance of this hypothesis has created a false reality for parents of children with learning disabilities. In some cases severe learning issues are just called "kinesthetic learners." This dangerous practice sets a student up for failure in the future by not addressing his/her learning disability.
3. Children with self-regulatory issues are not getting the help they need to change behavior and learn strategies to help them focus because they are told they are just "kinesthetic learners" and it is the teacher's fault they can't pay attention or complete a task. And what happens to these students when they enter the world of work? Whose fault is it when they can't hold down a job? We are putting students at risk with MI theory.

So what you ask? We have an education industry built on a false foundation! "Visual learners" or "kinesthetic learners" etc. are illusions created by a well-intentioned reformer...and they are the wrong way to help children.

Biologists will tell you to look at the anatomy of humans and you will see how we have adapted to survive on this planet. We are all visually dominant. We all need to touch things to understand them more. And neurologists have discovered that neural connections are reinforced with muscle activity. In other words, all kids need an enriching environment that stimulates all the senses. We have to resist the seductive lure of labeling which is all about factory thinking. To foster creativity and learning in all students we have to continually challenge our assumptions about students and ourselves and to stop making excuses for anyone because it isn't "their style."

_________________________________________________________________________________

More links to studies debunking MI:

• Not Every Child Is Secretly a Genius
• Education: Learning Styles Debunked "Nearly all of the studies that purport to provide evidence for learning styles fail to satisfy key criteria for scientific validity."
• Student “Learning Styles” Theory Is Bunk "Some lessons click with one child and not with another, but not because of an enduring bias or predisposition in the way the child learns. The lesson clicks or doesn’t because of the knowledge the child brought to the lesson, his interests, or other factors."
• Learning Style, Concepts and Evidence from Psychological Science in the Public Interest

INTRApreneurs Don't Wait to be Anointed

INTRApreneur- "A person within a large corporation who takes direct responsibility for turning an idea into a profitable finished product through assertive risk-taking and innovation" The American Heritage Dictionary

The term intrapreneur was coined in the late 70's and became part of corporate discussions in the 90's. The big idea is people can work within organizations to make changes rather than having to strike out on their own to create something new to compete with the former organization. 

And with education being historically slow to innovate, this idea is only now catching on. The constraints around education are designed to squash and kill any ideas that result in a radical transformation of what we do. Thankfully, there are places where intrapreneurship have been nurtured in education. These are the schools where teachers are encouraged to innovate and take the lead to help transform education. This has been happening in small pockets for a very long time. 

We have survived over a decade of micromanaged, creativity killing, lists of trivia disconnected from anything relavant to students in the form of state standards. We are now at a critical point where a new set of standards, the common core, are poised to replace the old list and we have the potential to change schooling for the better. Of course the factory mindset is already trying to craft canned lessons based on the new standards in order to ensure "coverage" and "mastery" forgetting there are children who need to create! People are making the mistake of "standardizing" curriculum again rather than raising the standard as Ken Robinson is fond of pointing out.

In this time of instability, education intrapreneurs must push forward and disturb the status quo. We have to do just as Tina Seelig says, "Don't wait to be anointed!" Now is the time to run away from the factory model to one that brings creativity and problem solving back to the core of what students do. Thinking. Questioning. We have to stop forcing kids to collect the dots. It is time to help them CONNECT the dots. They have to engage deeply and care about what they are learning. 

There is a secret all education intrapreneurs know. Our world is about to be disrupted by technology in a way that will threaten the existence of the profession. Information is literally everywhere. No longer do kids need a teacher to give them information. No longer is memorization the key to future success. Most secondary teaching and university teaching still consists of a teacher telling while classes sit the required time copying information only to tell it back to the teacher on exams. This methodology is dead! Information age technology is the asteroid that is causing its extinction of this dinosaur. And all around the traditional education system people are creating alternatives that provide parents an option to the local school. Parents are lining up to be part of lotteries for these schools and this is only going to continue. Unions will be powerless to help save jobs as the number of teachers needed continues to fall. The shift is happening faster than most people realize. If what you do as a teacher can be replaced by a machine, you will be replaced!

Teachers have to shift to a model of education where they help students find understandings and connections. We have to create lessons where students encounter real issues and ideas. Where the exploration of Renaissance becomes about how ideas shape history and reality rather than matching the people to their accomplishments. Studying plants has to become how nature survives and thrives in environments rather than naming plant parts and functions. And in this new process, students must GENERATE content. They must be able to CREATE and EXPRESS their thinking and ideas. Teachers have to learn how to listen. Students must learn how to actively listen to each other and respond to the ideas of others. Not just through text, but through video, speeches, songs, etc. Our children are growing up in a media-centric world where navigating the resources to gain understanding is the new skill set needed. To learn, unlearn, adapt, and see the world from another perspective. INNOVATION is the goal.

Education intrapreneurs, now is the time to speak up. Parents, now is the time to demand more from your child's school than a copy of what happened to you. 

Want another perspective? Try The Future of Education Eliminates the Classroom. The shift is real folks. It is time to lead! If you ruffle some feathers, good! It's about time.

Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative

“Our job is not to teach subjects, but to teach students.” -- Sir Ken Robinson

The highlight of the CUE conference in Palm Springs for me was the keynote address delivered by Sir Ken Robinson on the morning of March 15, 2013. If you don’t know who he use, just look him up on YouTube and you will find many presentations.

Growing up in Los Angeles I always felt indifferent to movie stars. I saw them, but never had that crazy feeling you see in fans who flail wildly in the stands next to red carpet premieres and awards shows...until Sir Ken stepped out on stage. I felt like I was in the presence of someone very special. So hero worship aside, he delivered a keynote that was funny and poignant.

Sir Ken began with some perspective on humanity and then got to the heart of what he wanted all of us to think about. Schools have to bring back creativity and learn how to let kids be creative again. “Human talents are very much like natural resources in the ground…and they don’t always manifest themselves without the right conditions.”  And the right conditions are not an obsessive focus on standards. For over a decade we have been ticking down those blasted checklists of stuff to teach and have rushed past opportunities for great conversations and creativity. With the new Common Core, we are about to make the same mistake again if we don’t change our thinking. We should be raising the standard of teaching and the pedagogy that will support thinking and creating, not rushing to make everything the same in all grades. Sir Ken points out, “People confuse raising standards with standardization, and they tend to focus on certain standards while neglecting others.”

In an attempt to address the hole created in the obsessive focus on language arts and math test scores, thanks to NCLB, reformers are glomming onto STEM curriculum. To which Sir Ken says, “STEM is not enough!” Once again a complex problem is trying to be solved by a ready-made package of curriculum. As I have mentioned before, the factory mindset is insidious. Too many people are just trying to switch out conveyer belts or looping them through different doors before kids leave the factory. The factory is the problem!

Laying out his three principles for our species, Sir Ken makes the points 1) Humans are diverse, 2) Human beings are inherently creative, 3) Human lives aren’t linear; they are organic.  He goes on to explain that we need schools to embrace these principles because we need innovators. People who can create and adapt. Businesses are saying “adaptability is needed at the core of corporate America – but going through our schools closes that skill.” That’s because we are trapped in the compliance model. Come to class on time, shut up, sit down, absorb, and regurgitate. Not exactly the environment for divergent thinking.

Creativity is the opposite of standardization. Sir Ken went on to explain what he means by creativity. “...by creative we mean contributions that can’t be predicted by standards, but can yet be untapped by some modicum of freedom to create our own standards. Nothing seemed less probable…when I was a child…that I would have the life I have…it wasn’t a plan.  It was an evolution.” So the question becomes are we going to permit and encourage students to evolve or are we going to continue answering their questions for them by tracking kids into ability groups, preventing them from moving out of a label, containing their interests by forcing compliance to a set of standards? In essence, everything education does right now is the opposite of creativity. For heaven’s sake, we have schools that assign letter grades to student art! Really? We are allowing inspector 32 on the educational assembly line to assign a ranking to a work of creativity? I would assume Picasso would have failed his art class in today's school.

“Every life is a conversation between your talents and your experiences,” says Sir Ken. Learning is organic. It doesn’t proceed in a smooth pattern from point A to point B. It is more like a tide. It ebbs and flows. Our experience tells us that. And yet schools are stuck in the factory model. “The educational system is based on our compliance.”  We look for “what they can’t do, not on what they can do.”  Sir Ken asks, “How would it transform teaching if we flipped this philosophy?”

Sir Ken offered some recommendations for how to change education. “We have to get away from standardizing to personalizing. We have to get away from narrowing to embracing the diversity.” Individualize schedules.  Facilitate learning, don’t direct it. Recognize that kids learn at different rates. Find ways to embrace and nurture the unlimited variety of diverse talents. Broaden student experiences. Leverage the power of technology to help make this happen.

He closed with this idea. “George Orwell said, ‘Civilization is a race between education and catastrophe.’ Who will win if education cannot evolve?” We can’t sit around waiting for bureaucracies to figure this out. We have to change what we do right now. Every teacher in America can start changing and be part of the revolution tomorrow. There is no need to wait for permission.