3 Things Parents Wish Teachers Knew: We Can Handle the Truth – NYTimes.com
The tyranny of the curriculum: Shawn Cornally at TEDxEastsidePrep – YouTube
Shawn Cornally shares BIG – the school he helped open in Iowa. It’s amazing. Significantly student-centered. Aligned with “real-life” learning. “http://youtu.be/aldMBgT6u-4”
6 Changes That Will Make You More Imaginative | Fast Company | Business + Innovation
HT @MeghanCureton
An extraordinary 17 minutes about the intersections of 1) our personal interests and passions, 2) the “interdisciplinarity” of life, and 3) the world as external audience looking for an improved world.
Well…no, that’s not exactly right. It’s really about widening and deepening the options of school so that “school” is more well aligned with what life beyond school demands of us and the leaders we need.
And Shawn wonderfully wants it to be ordinary. Not “extraordinary.”
Go BIG!
HT @occam98 (THANK YOU!)
Last night, when I got home from an evening meeting, my nine-year-old, “PJ,” was incredibly excited. PJ, his younger brother, JT, and a friend of theirs next door had collected flowers during their afternoon playtime.
PJ described to me, with great detail and enthusiasm, the shapes of the petals, the location of the flowers in the surrounding neighborhood, the apparent similarities and differences among different plants of the same species, the colors of the blooms and the insect activity around the flowers. He explained their exploration strategy, and he told me how they organized the flowers in different ways and searched for examples of flowers that would fill and complete certain categories of their organizational schema.
PJ talked for 12-15 minutes non-stop about the exploration. He had been mesmerized by his discoveries, motivated by his own sense of curiosity and momentary trying-on of amateur botanist.
What if this were “Homework?” And I don’t mean an assignment from a teacher that reads: “Go out in your yard and neighborhood and find flowers. Categorize them by features x, y, and z. Write a report about your discoveries.”
I mean this kind of assignment: “Go. Explore. Observe. Question. Be ready tomorrow to tell us what you discovered!”
Can you imagine the habits of mind that could be nurtured with such structured freedom and invitation to practice the Innovator’s DNA traits (observe, question, experiment, network, and associate) over time?
Some days, I imagine children might return to school the next day without something to report. But they would hear their friends and classmates report, and there would grow this communal “pressure” and encouragement to explore, discover, and bring in stories. Connections and associations would arise. Experiments could be proposed and designed to test hypotheses. Data could be collected. Engineering and design could emerge. Threads of history and lenses of various other disciplines would be woven together in more natural ways.
Your Homework: Go. Explore. Observe. Question.
The Stereotypes That Distort How Americans Teach and Learn Math – Jo Boaler – The Atlantic
“All of my research studies have shown that when mathematics is opened up and broader math is taught—math that includes problem solving, reasoning, representing ideas in multiple forms, and question asking—students perform at higher levels, more students take advanced mathematics, and achievement is more equitable.”
Expose and Own Your Failures – Explore Create Repeat – by 4ormat
Does Teaching Kids To Get ‘Gritty’ Help Them Get Ahead? : NPR
In the sixth paragraph from the END of the article, I think the reporter finally gets to a fundamental, key aspect – making space for learners to pursue their passions and interests and curiosities!
The best passionate pursuits of learning always seem to begin with exploring, observing, questioning, and being curious. This is why we started #fsbl – “father-son-based learning” – in my family.
As I listened to “Bran Ferren: To create for the ages, let’s combine art and engineering,” I smiled almost continuously throughout the talk because I pictured Ferren on an #fsbl adventure that started with raids of electronics piles, trips to science museums, and a mesmerizing visit to the Pantheon. And his adventure is still going.
Ferren’s curiosity was allowed to flourish as he was granted a high degree of control over his explorations and observations. And from such foundations of his surrounding adults’ pedagogies (and parenting), he developed deep caring for what he was discovering and learning. From these depths of curiosity, control, and caring, Ferren maintained the persistence and intrinsic motivation that nurtures his continuous inquiry, innovation, and impact.
If there is a “formula” for passionate pursuit of learning and difference making in this world, then I believe this is darn close to it!
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