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/