I got an email recently from a superintendent in a district where I’ve had the good fortune of visiting a number of times. She writes: “It is interesting to me that teachers really believe they can’t take risks. How do we help them believe they can and must???” As with many, many things education, I think […]
Tell “Risky” Stories Read More »
So what happens now that Donald Trump is the soon-to-be president? You can do a quick Google search to find out what the pundits think the direction will be. If you do, you’ll note that almost every initiative will continue to be driven by the same stuff: improving test scores, higher graduation rates, more college acceptances, etc.
I’m struggling. I know I don’t usually use this space to air my personal angst, at least not explicitly. When Bruce and I started this site and this column, we saw it as a place to push people’s thinking about education and learning, and to create a different narrative for the work that we do
“How much of our “progress” as teachers has been spurred by fear of failure, of punishment, of low test scores, of a poor evaluation?” That’s a question that has me thinking this morning, asked in an interesting blog post by Arthur Chiaravalli on Medium. It’s especially compelling considering my recent trip to Finland (summarized in our
What If We Stopped Evaluating Teachers? Read More »
“Great intentions are what spur people to collective action, and without such intentions, the inspiration that is fuel for real breakthroughs never combusts. People must be inspired, moved, called by mighty intentions to act.” ~Umair Haque A phrase I find myself using more and more these days (and probably mispronouncing) is “raison d’être” or reason for
Rethinking the (Under-)Education System Read More »
At last count, there are 69 days left until the interminable presidential election in the US comes to a close. I’m not sure I even want to know what will begin after the voting ends. I doubt it will be pretty either way. In the last month, I’ve travelled to Australia and Canada for presentations
Undemocratic Schools, Undemocratic Citizens Read More »
Seems like not a day goes by that I read some education related article or post that leads to this question: “Why the heck do we do that?” Today’s candidate is an article by Jay Matthews in the Washington Post which laments the dire reality of writing instruction in the Common Core era, teased by
The Powers That Be Read More »
In our Changeleader Facebook group (which is nearing 600 people and hosting some intense conversations…join us) I tagged a few people including Ryan McClintock of the Mosaic Collective at Castle Rock (CO) High School to talk about the difference between work that’s focused on making schools “better” vs. making them “different.” For those of you
Thinking With Them Read More »
(Note: We’re talking about the big idea topics regarding change in schools over in our Changeleaders Community. Check it out!) To try to capture the last week in the U.S. would be folly. Police shooting and killing civilians. Civilians killing police. Live-streamed death. FBI probes, Congressional hearings, riots in the streets, political sniping, racial invectives.
Schools in a Time of Chaos Read More »
Lately, I’ve become more and more interested in organizations in general, and the organization of school in particular. Much of this comes from reading Seymour Sarason and his thoughts on the power relationships in schools, how real, kid-centered change in schools is almost impossible because we neglect to democratize the culture of schools to the
Chaos, Order and Learning Read More »
Q: “In five years, what will be different about your business?” A: “The way we serve our end customer. We will be able to provide a highly personalized experience for our learners and customers that’s informed by data and delivered via a global learning and technology platform. It will be delivering a highly personalized education
The Antithesis of Agency Read More »
One of the reasons I’ve pushed back pretty hard against the popular “21st Century Learning” meme is that despite the explosion of learning opportunities that the Web brings us, there’s a whole bunch of important thinking around learning that is from centuries past, timeless truths about learning if you will. And if you read this space or my personal
Thoroughly Modern Learning Read More »
Almost six years ago, I wrote a piece for Huffington Post titled “My Kids Are Illiterate. Most Likely, Yours Are Too.” (Nothing too provocative there, right?) My point was not that my kids couldn’t read or write or do basic math. School had done a decent job of making that happen. Instead, my point was
Is Your School Literate? Read More »
A few days ago, a superintendent who I respect very much sent me this Twitter message in the middle of a back and forth about what real, relevant change in education looks like. “Too many look for cookbook recipes to use; unfortunately more educators are cooks than chefs.” That really got me thinking, especially in
Are You a Cook or a Chef? Read More »
The future of work for our children can pretty much be summed up as follows: If they’re only ready to do work that is grounded in routine tasks, regardless of whether or not those routines are physical or intellectual, they’re probably not going to have a lot of work to do in the future. And even if
Is There a “Future of Work”? Read More »
