Do We Make a Difference?
June 15, 2015Do we make a difference? Someone once asked that question of Pete Seeger: “How do you know you have made a difference” by sticking to your principles and your message in the face of long odds. His answer: “I don’t know, but I have met many people with live eyes and live minds.” That perfectly…
Reminder That the Model of Tuition-Charging Education is Utterly Broken
June 2, 2015Regardless of whether you work within a public or private educational system, the unsustainable rise in private K-12 and both public/private university tuition costs, is cause for serious attention. This graphic, just released by the National Association of Independent Schools highlights that: Tuition has become less affordable even for the nation’s wealthiest families in the…
Is “Community” the Glue of “21C” Education?
June 1, 2015Is there, in fact, something different about the 21st Century that requires learning to evolve beyond what we have always known as timeless keys? Charles Fadel, writing under the umbrella of the Center for Curriculum Redesign (HT Bo Adams for highlighting this piece), argues that there are several such unique driving factors: increased human longevity, global…
New Article on Pathways to School Innovation Published in RAVSAK
May 28, 2015I have written previously about the confluence of two innovation pathways, the “pedagogical master plan” of Bo Adams and my “stairway of school innovation”. There is now a journal article online that you can read, reference, and share, complete with graphics and a list of key elements on the innovation stairway that you can use…
Deconstructing “School”
May 27, 2015Our schools are built around a quantum packet, a “box”, formed with rigid sides that assume learning takes place in a confined physical space, during a defined period of time, along subject-based thought lines, via the transfer of knowledge from a teacher to a group of students. The boxes move along an assembly line calibrated…
Memorial Day
May 25, 2015I always worry that students in school look forward to Memorial Day as a day off of school, unless they are already enjoying a summer break, in which case it may be just another day. The foundations of wisdom, that which we hope to instill in our next generations beyond what they can learn in…
Pollywogs and School Innovation
May 22, 2015How do you as an individual, your school as an organization, and the group of all schools and educators as a system increase the odds of successful innovation? Consider 100 pollywogs, each in 100 different small ponds; that is 10,000 pollywogs. Will they evolve? Probably, given enough time and a sustained ecosystem of resource supply,…
“Libraries of the Future”: Rich Vein of Ideas, Examples, Imagination
May 21, 2015What is the future of libraries at schools? Does the word “library”, rooted as it is in the concept of books as the primary transactional medium of knowledge, limit our imagination? Rather than a space where we store books and study quietly, might we evolve a place to imagine, dream, create, manage, and share knowledge across…
“Future of the ‘Library’: Unique GHO+Design Challenge #DTK12Chat This Wednesday
May 19, 2015What is the future of the school “library”? Last month I took my stab with “Replace ‘Library’ With ‘Portal of Idea Flow’?” on Edutopia. It built on ideas shared by Beth Holland and others, on discussions we see all over the country/world about how these library spaces might evolve and be re-imagined in the future…
Students Rising to the Unknown
May 13, 2015Once in a while I get the pleasure of working deeply with students, asking the adults to sit back and watch how their students expand and rise to unbounded, untested, unknown mini-challenges. That was the kind of day we had at the Shipley School last fall; here are just a few minutes out of our…
School Leaders: Ask the Right Questions!!!
May 12, 2015If I had to pick a single piece of advice for school leaders it would be this: if you keep asking questions rooted in your past you are never going to get to your future. Bless the hearts and minds of those who have come before, but so much advice given to schools rests on…
Lessons From the Valley IV: Seeking Need
May 11, 2015This is the fourth post in a series that asks “why is Silicon Valley the Magic Kingdom of innovation, and what lessons can K-12 schools learn about how innovation succeeds in times of rapid change?” If you have a management team or board that is asking “how do we know we are actually becoming more innovative…
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