A piece of “why:” weaving together three strands of a strong rope for engaging school change

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Strand #1: Tony Wagner as cited in the National Association of Independent School’s 21st Century Imperative…

Tony Wagner from the Harvard Graduate School of Education interviewed over 600 CEOs, asking them the same essential question: “Which qualities will our graduates need in the 21st century for success in college, careers, and citizenship?”

Wagner’s list of Seven Survival Skills is a distillation of the outcomes of these hundreds of interviews and adds validity to the case we are making. They are:

  • Critical Thinking and Problem-solving
  • Collaboration Across Networks and Leading By Influence
  • Agility and Adaptability
  • Initiative and Entrepreneurship
  • Effective Oral and Written Communication
  • Accessing and Analyzing Information
  • Curiosity and Imagination

 The World Has Changed

In The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach The New Survival Skills Our Children Need – and What We Can Do About It, Tony Wagner argues that “in today’s competitive global ‘knowledge economy,’ all students need new skills for college, careers, and citizenship. The failure to give all students these new skills leaves today’s youth – and our country – at an alarming competitive disadvantage. Schools haven’t changed; the world has. And so our schools are not failing. Rather, they are obsolete – even the ones that score best on standardized tests. This is a very different problem requiring an altogether different solution.”

[from NAIS COA “A Guide to Becoming a School of the Future”]

Strand #2: Seth Godin – “Stop Stealing Dreams”

6. Changing what we get, because we’ve changed what we need

If school’s function is to create the workers we need to fuel our economy, we need to change school, because the workers we need have changed as well.

The mission used to be to create homogenized, obedient, satisfied workers and pliant, eager consumers.

No longer.

Changing school doesn’t involve sharpening the pencil we’ve already got. School reform cannot succeed if it focuses on getting schools to do a better job of what we previously asked them to do. We don’t need more of what schools produce when they’re working as designed. The challenge, then, is to change the very output of the school before we start spending even more time and money improving the performance of the school.

[from Seth Godin “Stop Stealing Dreams”]

Strand #3: Sir Ken Robinson – “RSA Animate – Changing Education Paradigms“

NOTE: I highly recommend studying all three of these resources in great depth. Of course, there are countless related resources, as well. ANd there are more pieces to the “why,” such as brain research, technology advancements, world conditions, etc. But if a faculty would commit to studying these three resources as a think tank of sorts, I believe that a group of committed thinkers and doers could reveal and experiment with many of the “whats” and “hows” to make this transformation in education.

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Works Cited:

Godin, Seth. “Stop Stealing Dreams: (what is school for?).” http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/docs/StopStealingDreamsSCREEN.pdf.

Robinson, Ken. “RSA Animate – Changing Education Paradigms.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U.

Witt, Robert and Jean Orvis. “A Guide to Becoming a School of the Future.” National Association of Independent Schools. 2010. http://www.nais.org/files/PDFs/NAISCOASchools.pdf.

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[“A piece of ‘why,'” A piece of ‘what,'” and A piece of ‘how'” are strands of a series on why school needs to change, what about school needs to change, and how schools might navigate the change.]

Being curious about the past, present, and future of our species…and, of course, what this means for “school”

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On one of my morning walks this week, I listened to a How Stuff Works: Stuff You Should Know podcast about time travel. I was struck by the sci-fi idea of altering the future by traveling to the past. [Brief aside…I don’t really think such is possible. But I was amazed that the idea popped back into my head when I watched a TED talk today: Juan Enriquez: Will our kids be a different species?]

Enriquez weaves together a number of historical-scientific developments and innovations that have serious implications for our future as a species. Of course, such makes me think about the evolution of schooling and education. I wondered if we should be fast-prototyping education so that we can prevent what Enriquez presents, or if we should do so to accelerate what Enriquez predicts, or if we just resign ourselves that school is school and somebody else will figure all this stuff out.

What about a Declaration of Independence from the Mother Country of Testing?

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I wonder if U.S. educators will ever unite and pen something akin to our country’s Declaration of Independence.

From all I hear and read about educator opinion concerning the standardized-testing industry and the colonization of our classrooms with multiple-choice tests that don’t align well with the broad spectrum of learning, I wonder if we might ever declare independence. And I don’t mean “independent school” compared to “public school.” I mean educators declaring independence from the testing industry that many say they despise and see as counter-productive to preferred methods of assessment and student learning.

When our country’s historic leaders had had enough of “taxation without representation,” they declared an entire set of geographically-diverse peoples as independent from the perceived oppressors. Certainly, if those placing their John Hancocks on the D.o.I. could start the ball rolling on an entire new-country formation, educators – arguably the cohort most connected to “smarts” – could tackle the seemingly much simpler task of declaring our assessment independence.

Perhaps we could rally against the “Red Pens” like past heroes rallied against the “Red Coats.”

Or we could just remain complacent with our situation. Not many hero stories are written about the complacent and meek, though, are they?

A list for success and prosperity…wondering about what “school” could be

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How are we doing on this list of “skills and values that will be necessary for students to succeed and prosper in these turbulent and ever-changing times?” (from Pat Bassett’s conflation of six resources as cited in “An Education President for the 21st Century,” Patrick F. Bassett, Independent School, Fall, 2008)
  1. character (self-discipline, empathy, integrity, resilience, and courage);
  2. creativity and entrepreneurial spirit;
  3. real-world problem-solving (filtering, analysis, and synthesis);
  4. public speaking/communications;
  5. teaming; and
  6. leadership.

Thinking about how to show demonstrable evidence of OUTCOMES for #2, 3, 4, and 6 – for ALL students, not just those enrolled in certain electives – causes me to pause and seriously consider designing for process over product. I also wonder about those schools or other experiences that are really playing matchmaker between world issues and adolescent energy.

How do you think schools are doing on this list? What are the exemplar schools that provide great models for ways to help such development happen? What are some exemplar models from other industries and organizations?

Demonstrations of Learning for 21st-Century Schools
Patrick F. Bassett
Fall 2009

I dream a school…that designs with process over product

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As an architect, I often ask myself,what is the origin of the forms that we design? What kind of forms could we design if we wouldn’t work with references anymore? If we had no bias, if we had no preconceptions,what kind of forms could we design if we could free ourselves from our experience? If we could free ourselves from our education? What would these unseen forms look like? Would they surprise us? Would they intrigue us? Would they delight us? If so, then how can we go about creating something that is truly new?

Michael Hansmeyer gives a beautiful TED talk. On the concrete and literal level, his architectural forms are stunning – based on the processes of nature for cell division and generative folding. On the metaphorical level, Hansmeyer taps into a river of thinking that deserves more flow in schools and education. How can we design the forms of “school” by functionalizing process – the processes to which we want to introduce students and learners of all ages?

Imagine the forms that could result if we would design for process like we try to design for product…even more than we try to design for product. Process is the horse, product the cart.