Good People; The Product of Good Schools

The nightly business reports frequently mention inputs and outputs. Gross National Product (GNP) is a widely recognized leading economic indicator. Widgets aside, what is the product of schools? Some of you want to jump on a table and scream, "children are not products!" Let this breathe a bit as you trudge forward.

In his recent post, Mark Heintz eloquently shares his ruminations to a question being kicked around in our Modern Learners community, "What do we want our children to be?" Credit Pam Moran, Ira Socol, and Chad Ratliff, co-authors of "Timeless Learning; How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-based Thinking Change Schools," for sparking this conversation theme. Timeless Learning provides interesting provocations, inspiring experiences, and compelling rationale for school change.

Like others, my school's leadership team is engaging in discussions about reimagining school to meet the needs of our modern learners. These conversations are seldom easy, seemingly unproductive, but necessary. It takes patience, empathy, and open perspective to strip away layers of long-held beliefs held by educators who for the most part have thrived in traditional school settings. It takes beautiful, and often challenging, questions to get to the heart of what is real and what is essential. Heintz's post is a call to action to deeply consider and articulate what we want our students to be.

Playing the role of "man-on-the-street," I rephrased Mark's question and asked some of our teachers to fill in the blank with the first thing that came to mind. Play along, won't you?

"I want our children to be _______________________."

With a sample size of about one hundred, here are the most common responses in no particular order:

Happy
Safe
Kind
Curious
Healthy
Friendly
Honest
Responsible
Empathetic
"good people."

Next, I asked fifty students a similar question. "Considering your school-based experiences, respond with the first thing that comes to mind."

"I want to be __________________"

Not surprisingly, the most common responses were:

Happy
Healthy
Friendly
Independent
Valued
" a good person."

I asked another fifty students to respond with the first thing that comes to mind.

"I want my teachers to be _______________."

If you are predicting the list of responses to this question is very similar to the two previous records, you are correct. My school is thick with wisdom! Watch the evening news, read the daily newspaper or magazine, listen to the most popular podcasts; what do our country and the world need more than anything else at this time?

Climb down off the table, the world needs more of what schools can be very proficient at producing, good people.

Self-Directed vs. Self-Determined Learning; What's the Difference?

"We need to move beyond the idea that an education is something that is provided for us, and toward the idea that an education is something that we create for ourselves." - Stephen Downes In this age of abundance of information, shifting classroom pedagogy isn't nearly enough to make learning in school more relevant and authentic for the learner. Self-directed learning ( andragogy ), and self-determined learning ( heutagogy ) are the ideals necessary in making students " future ready " to live and learn in a web-connected world. While original research applied these concepts to mature learners, it has become apparent that even young children have an abundant capacity for recognizing and directing their learning. Anyone who has observed toddlers learning how to walk and talk understand the motivation and skill development that quickly develops during these processes. Considered by some to be on a learning continuum, self-directed learning, and self-determined

Board Games in the School Library: 3 Reasons Why It's a Winning Play

"Play is the highest form of research." - Albert Einstein “Play is the work of the child.” – Maria Montessori In our recently remodeled school media center, we have a space dedicated to active engagement in fun learning activities. Part maker space, part literacy lounge, board games are being incorporated to promote a culture of joyful learning. Whether it's a game of Rummy , Yahtzee , or Scrabble , family game night serves as a communication elixir and solidifies our domestic climate of togetherness. Shouldn't similar opportunities for interaction, challenge, and fun exist somewhere in our schools? Broken families, cultural fragmentation, and poverty are impacting opportunities for children to play. As we unpacked and tagged our new media center games, I was more disappointed than shocked by the number of students who had never played Monopoly , Boggle , or Sorry . One skeptical teacher commented, "Oh great, now we're letting students pl

The Classroom Experiment - Strategies to Promote Engagement and Learning

Dylan Wiliam is a prominent educator in the United Kingdom. His ideas and strategies are consistently mentioned in education reform circles. On an uncharacteristically quiet evening at home, I stumbled across these BBC videos, The Classroom Experiment . Although it took nearly two hours to get through the videos, I came away thinking that the teacher is certainly the most important factor in student learning, and that student learning can be improved with persistence and a willingness to become better at failure. For those folks that feel that teachers can be replaced by technology, these videos suggest otherwise. The Classroom Experiment - part 1 (58:00) The Classroom Experiment - part 2 (59:00) Dylan Wiliam at The Schools Network Conference (38:00) Here is a summary of the strategies and changes that Dylan Wiliam instituted to increase student engagement and advance student learning. No raising of hands - use Popsicle sticks, or some other mechanism to randomize th

Nocking the Arrow

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