PROCESS POST: What Guy Hoffman Could Teach Us About Our School Day!

Posted on January 18, 2014 by boadams1

There are so many reasons for educators to watch the TED talk below – “Guy Hoffman: Robots with Soul.” As for me, I am paradoxically inspired, mesmerized, puzzled and saddened by Hoffman’s talk.

When I watch and listen to Hoffman, I think of what he must have been like as a K-12 student. What amazing curiosity, drive, passion, and persistence this learner must have had – must continue to have. Through his work, I am inspired by what contributions robotics and roboticists will make in our lives.

And yet I am saddened by the conversations I can imagine that some (many?) schools would have regarding the content and context of such an idea-generating talk.

“What department would we place this course in? He wants to build robots as part of his learning, so it must be ‘Engineering Class,’ right?”

“We don’t have a course called ‘Engineering.’ Maybe we just put it in physics?”

“But how would we cover all the stuff we are already doing in physics? There’s no time or room to add robotics like this in my course.”

“Could it go in a math class? Hoffman mentions math in the talk, doesn’t he?”

“No, it should go in Drama class. Weren’t you listening? He said he took a drama course and method acting is what really helped him break through in the contrast between the computing mind and the adventurous mind.”

“But Drama is just a semester elective. Our kids could never get this work done in just a semester, given the basics of acting that we need to cover.”

“It should go in computer animation, when we get that class up and running.”

“What about psychology? He talks about emotions, and our ‘Human Psych’ course is the only course that has ’emotions’ in the learning outcomes.”

“Why not biology? After all, he is using human biology as a mechanism for understanding how to make the robots more ‘human.'”

“Are you kidding me? When would we have time to build robots in 10th grade biology? It’s AP, for goodness sake?”

“Look, if he wants this to be part of his schooling, he’s gonna need to find a faculty sponsor, and the faculty member will need to create a course proposal. It’s already December, so our deadline is passed. Any course proposal would need to be submitted by NEXT December, and then we might add the course the FOLLOWING year, if the academic committee approves the course. And forget about team teaching with a math, drama, physics, and biology teacher-team. That’s way too many resources to commit to an elective, non-essential course.”

WHAT IF…

OR — we could build in time during the school day for passion-driven, cross-curricular learning. So what if the 17-year-old version of Guy Hoffman’s idea doesn’t fit neatly into one of the silo-ed, department-organized, subject-area courses? Those course structures only represent part of our school day and school week. We don’t just organize by departmental subject area. We co-organize by student-interest and make space for just this kind of exploring, searching, questioning, experimenting, and integrating.

After all, we know that to nurture innovators, they must have time, room, and opportunity to practice observing, questioning, experimenting, networking, and associating.

Oh that we might make it so. If not us, then who? If not now, then when?

#iDiploma

How might we hack school to more closely resemble good education? #MustSee Logan LaPlante

Posted on March 7, 2013 by boadams1

We don’t seem to make learning to be happy and healthy a priority in our schools. It’s separate from schools. And for some kids it doesn’t exist at all. But what if we didn’t make it separate? What if we based education on the study and practice of being happy and healthy? Because that’s what it is – a practice. And a simple practice at that.

– Logan LaPlante, 13 years old. TEDxUniversityOfNevada

When I think about what I want for my own children, and when I think about what I want for all children, my list includes the attributes and ideals and realities that LaPlante shares and demonstrates in his profound talk: “Hackschooling Makes Me Happy: Logan LaPlante at TEDxUniversityofNevada.” It may be one of the best TED/TEDx talks I’ve heard.

Also this week, I am immersing myself in Tom Little’s tour of 50 progressive schools during the months of February and March. (Thanks, @GrantLichtman!) As I read @ParkDayTom’s posts, I dig into the school websites and links that Little provides about “emergent curriculum,” PBL, and progressive education. I am struck by such things as…

Learning
We believe that learning should be joyful, active, open-ended, project-based, and collaborative in order to foster children’s independence, accountability, intrinsic motivation, and intellectual curiosity.

Engaging
We believe in cultivating a community of civically-active learners, where everyone’s voice can be heard, as decisions are democratically determined through discourse.

Unfolding
We believe in allowing the time, patience and unpressured environment necessary to support the individual developmental unfolding of each child – academically, socially, and emotionally.

– The Children’s School (Chicago) Core Beliefs

And…

Though educators have been challenged in agreeing upon a single definition for progressive education, consensus builds around these defining principles:

Education must prepare students for active participation in a democratic society.

Education must focus on students’ social, emotional, academic, cognitive and physical development.

Education must nurture and support students’ natural curiosity and innate desire to learn. Education must foster internal motivation in students.

Education must be responsive to the developmental needs of students.

Education must foster respectful relationships between teachers and students.

Education must encourage the active participation of students in their learning, which arises from previous experience.

Progressive educators must play an active role in guiding the educational vision of our society.

– Progressive Education Network

When Grant Lichtman and I talk, and when I am privileged enough to hear Grant speak and facilitate with bigger audiences, he often says that his own tour of 64 schools in 12 weeks, exploring what innovation in education looks like, could be boiled down to one word – Dewey.

How might we work and take action to help transform schools so that more of them possess these core characteristics? Theses core values?

How might we hack school to more closely resemble good education?

What if we stopped underestimating what children could do in school? #WhatIfWeekly

Posted on February 7, 2013 by boadams1

What if we stopped underestimating what children could do in school?

We might have better classroom furniture as the norm.
We might have better bus stops in our cities.
We might have better patent-approved medical devices.
We might have better… everything. Now and in our future.

And more students might be engaged at deeper levels.

And more students might see greater purpose in their learning.

And more students might develop the problem-solving muscles that we need more of in our world.

For those schools that have stopped underestimating what children can do in school, all of the above – and even more – is already happening.

Here are two examples…

From KQED’s MindShift – “Video: ‘The Future Will Not be Multiple Choice,'” February 4, 2013 | 9:59 AM | By Katrina Schwartz

And…

1st Grade DEEP Design Thinking Bus Stop Challenge @MVPSchool

And…there are countless more examples.

Learning is the constant. An intersection at #TEDx Blvd and #EduCon / #EduCon25 Drive

Posted on January 28, 2013 by boadams1

Do you really believe that all students can learn? At high levels?

Do you see learning as the constant… and time and support as the variables? Or do you still see time and support as relatively fixed, so learning must then vary? (Think As, Bs, Cs, Ds, Fs – learning variability in alphabetic symbols.)

Are you willing to rethink entire educational structures in order to facilitate high-level learning for ALL children?

Is all of the above worth at least a half hour of your time – if only to stretch your thinking about what’s possible?

Then, please watch these two TEDx talks.

Beyond the Book: Mary Esselman at TEDxSarasota [total time – 12:33]

Esselman explains her experience with blowing up the construct of age-grouping and re-imagining school such that students of current understanding are “grouped” regardless of their chronological age.

.

We must invest in research and development in education: Jim Shelton at TEDxMidAtlantic [total time – 14:24]

Shelton shows examples of modern one-on-one tutoring that make new learners as cognitively agile as veterans – even more so. And he makes a strong case that echoes recent words from Sir Ken Robinson – that schools should be asking students, “How are you smart?” not “How smart are you?”

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The two talks above come from TEDx Talks Roundup: 4 Fascinating Talk about Education. The other two talks are well worth the views, too. A hat tip to @cannonball31 for passing the blog post to me.

Also, another hat tip to @GregBamford for helping me to think a bit deeper about educational structure (versus individual scapegoating) after I participated in his #EduCon session on organizational development – “Teaching Frameworks for Creative Collaboration.”