Practical Theory

There is a lot of talk in ed-tech and ed-reform about personalization right now. There are a lot of folks on the vendor floor of places like ISTE and NCTM who will sell you products that are supposedly personalized, and much of the buzz around something like Khan Academy is that it personalizes the learning for kids.

We should be careful about how we use that term, and we should be very skeptical of how well computerized programs can really personalize for kids. Most of what I see - especially from curriculum and assessment vendors - involves personalization of pace while still maintaining standardization of content. That's not good enough. While a program that allows you to take a pre-test and then get practice problems and tutorials and videos that are specifically tailored to the things you did poorly on and allows you to practice those things until you can pass the test a) might raise test scores (and it is easy imagine it would), and b) might be marginally better than a "traditional" classroom that did not offer choice of content or pace (and I put "traditional" in quotes because there have been legions of teachers who have been giving kids real choice for decades,) that doesn't mean we should settle for that. I'll even grant that these programs have a place in helping students to master the concepts that someone else tells them (and us) they have to learn -- and to that end, SLA uses one of these programs, Study Island, to help kids get ready for the PSSAs -- but let's not call it personalized, and let's not think that it is good enough. Here's why.

First, this notion of personalization of learning removes student choice from learning what they most want to learn. It still assumes that kids have to learn everything we want them to learn. I don't know how, in this era of high-stakes tests and corporate education "reform," where test scores are the profit and loss statements for schools, we can get away from this systemically, but we have to, and because language matters, I don't think we should call self-paced tutorials real personalization. (It also isn't necessarily anything new. The old SRA learning modules did much the same thing in the 1970s, but they just weren't computerized.) We have to get to a place where we understand that while there are skills that students do need and content they do need to at least be exposed to, that both those lists of "must haves" are probably far more expansive than they need to be right now at the expense of all kinds of things that students could do, create and learn that would ignite their passion and their minds in ways that mandated content consumption doesn't.

Second, this model of "personalization" is still building off of a deficit model where students no longer have to do the things they are good at so they can focus on the things they are bad at. We have to move to a system where we create more space for students to play to their strengths while mitigating their weaknesses. Instead, we create system after system where kids are told to keep working on the things they are worst at, often at the expense of the things they are good at. And then we wonder why kids don't like school or worse - think they don't like learning.

Finally, too much of this model of "personalization" misses another one of the most personal pieces of learning - the artifacts of learning we create when we learn. I want students to be able to own their learning by creating stuff that matters to them. At SLA this year, I saw students build bio-walls, make movies, apply complicated mathematical concepts as they built trebuchets and robots, write and enact public action campaigns and form book clubs around genre studies of their own definition. At ISTE this week, I watched as Larry Rosenstock showed project after project of student work that showed their ability to synthesize powerful ideas into gorgeous products of their own design. All of these examples are mapped to standards, all of these are ways for students to demonstrate mastery of the same concepts that we test on, but in ways that are truly personal to the student, because they choose them. That's the model of personalization I want to see schools move toward.



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I just finished up five days at ISTE 2012 - the International Society for Technology in Education conference. ISTE has been a must-attend function for me for the past six years, and I imagine it will stay that way for years to come. ISTE isn't perfect - nothing is - but it is an important event for me every year.

Last year, I was the closing keynote at the conference, so the conference was on my mind a lot in the days ramping up to it. But this year, we had a crazy ramp up to the end of the year, where graduation was followed the next day by meeting the President of the United States, followed by some wonderful end of year work by the SLA faculty, followed immediately by district meetings where we discussed how much of the work of the spring - figuring out how to help schools become more autonomous - was brought one step closer to fruition, and as a result, I was wholly unprepared when the "ISTE is almost here!" tweets came across my twitter stream.

I think, on some level, this would have been an easy year for me to hang out in the Blogger Cafe, chat with a lot of old friends, meet a bunch of new ones, and take only a passing interest in going to sessions. I'm tired, and there's never enough time to see everyone I want to see, and, indeed, some of the best learning I have is still in the conversations over meals. But I decided on Monday that I wanted to be fully invested in sessions this year, that while on one level, I needed a break from the craziness of the year, on another level, I needed space to re-immerse myself in the ideas that I really love. I needed to focus on being a learner.

So I went to sessions about student journalism, sessions about thoughtfully engaging in conversations about change, sessions about data visualization and sessions about designing curriculum that spurs students to innovate. I had conversations about working with teachers to help them change their practice, and I had conversations about the policy environment.

But also, my takeaway from ISTE is how important this community is to me. Some of the friendship I've made from the world of ed-tech are more than ten years old. (For example, I'm writing this post sitting next to Kathy Schrock who I first started emailing with back in the mid-90s and who I first met when she interviewed me for the Today Show about the cyber-mentoring project at Beacon back in '97 or so.) With many folks here, we've known each other through marriages and births and deaths, and the use of social media like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Instagram (and good old fashioned phone calls) has allowed those face to face friendships to stay vibrant even if we are scattered across the globe.

In the end, I count myself incredibly lucky to be part of a community of educator / learners who share their ideas, their passions and their lives, both on-line and off, and I am thankful for the moments like ISTE where we get to learn and laugh together. And I am thankful that this is a community that is very good at doing both of those things at the same time.

See you online... and see you next year.

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I did my ISTE session yesterday, Beyond Googling: Structuring Inquiry. It was the first time I've that session (and I'll embed the session soon, but I couldn't capture the embed code on the iPad.) It's always interesting to try to do a session in a big room that is something other than a talk. And I thought I'd try to write down a little bit about what I think about inquiry.

Over the journey that has been SLA, I've become really deeply aware of how inquiry is a process. The five core values of Inquiry, Research, Collaboration, Presentation and Reflection are at the heart of the inquiry process for me. (And analysis... that's probably the unnamed sixth core value.) And it is an iterative process that we engage in. But also at the heart of the inquiry process is that the person engaging in the inquiry - the learner - actually
cares about the questions they are asking. I think it's possible to "fake it," and yes, our level of investment in different projects can and does change, but at root, the inquiry process sets the stage for kids to care about their learning.

And, for me, the inquiry process isn't just asking questions. And it certainly isn't us asking questions we know the answers to. It is about creating the environment where kids can see the connections between what they are learning and their lives... and for me, they can do that by asking questions that matter to them, find answers to those questions, and then build stuff that matters around that answer. David Jakes and I were talking about this, and we teased out a short idea of how that could look using cell mitosis. (And remember, I'm an English teacher, so be kind.)

Traditional: Use a combination of lecture, textbook, video to teach kids about cell mitosis, students may have to draw examples, take a test, etc...

Something closer to inquiry: Give kids access to all the information, so they can learn it themselves, teacher can work with small groups, address mis-steps and misunderstandings, have them create artifacts about cell mitosis that they can present, etc...

Inquiry: Give a short explanation of cell mitosis and then explain how cell mitosis, unchecked, can cause a tumor / cancer. Give kids ways to investigate how cell mitosis functions within the body. And have them pick one system / phenomenon within the body where cell mitosis is important and have them create an artifact of their learning around that, explaining cell mitosis through the lens of the questions they asked and answered around that process. How many more students might be more interested in learning about cell mitosis if it allows them to ask questions about how and why they lost someone close to them?

Now, inquiry isn't at all a perfect way to structure a classroom. It can take more time, it can be harder to cover every last piece of a subject, and it can make assessment more difficult for teachers because student work can vary greatly. Importantly, it can also be really complex for students too. But there ways to mitigate those problems. And they are the problems that, for me, I want to grapple with because the benefits are so great.

This post really just scratches the surface, but these ideas formed the basis of what I talked about in my session at ISTE. And I realize that as much as I talk about inquiry, I haven't written much about it. I'm going to try to change that in the coming days.


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[So I've been a terrible blogger of late, and there's been a lot to say, but I wanted to at least get this out to everyone because it was so amazing.]

President Barack Obama spoke to the Science Leadership Academy Class of 2012 on Tuesday night. His remarks spoke to the potential of the students, to the incredible diversity of the children in front of him, to the challenges that lie ahead for our country. To say that his words were inspiring is an understatement of near epic proportion.

To be 18 years old and hear the President of the United States speak of how proud he is of you and then challenge you to go further, do more, change the world - how can that not resonate? How can you not strive to be worthy of that.And more than that, to be a child of color and to hear those words from the first African-American President of the United States challenge you to change the world, what an inspiring moment. To have the President tell you that you will be able to study topics that have long been denied to children of color, long been discouraged for women, how could you let anything stand in your way?

At one point during President Obama's remarks, I turned around to look at the faces of the students of the Class of 2012. Not only did I see their joy and awe in being in the room with the President, not only did I see his message resonate in their eyes, I also saw the same potential that he saw. He is right - these children will change the world.

[President Obama's remarks are below:]

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary

---

For Immediate Release -- June 12, 2012

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO GRADUATING STUDENTS OF THE SCIENCE LEADERSHIP ACADEMY

The Franklin Institute
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

5:50 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody! (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you so much. Everybody, have a seat. Have a seat. Well, this is so exciting to have a chance to see all of you. Congratulations on your graduation. (Applause.) I know I kind of messed up graduation a little bit, but it turned out that it was beautiful yesterday. So we had this all planned out. (Laughter.) We knew there was going to be sun yesterday; it’s a little cloudier today. We wanted to make sure you guys looked good in your caps and gowns and didn’t get too wet.

Listen, I just want to say to all of you how incredibly proud I am of the work that you guys have accomplished, because some of you may have heard -- in between studying you may have listened to a speech that I’ve given or remarks that I’ve made in the past -- the nation that excels in science and math and technology, that’s going to be the nation that rises to the top in the 21st century. Almost everything we do is based on our capacity to innovate. And America became a economic superpower because we were constantly able to tap into the incredible talents and ingenuity of young people like you who decided -- why can't we fly? Why can't we cure diseases? Why can’t we make sure that the energy that we use is able to make life a little bit better and a little bit easier for people?

And so throughout our history we’ve constantly had innovators who have been able to not only excel in basic science and basic research, but have then been able to translate it into practical things that we now take for granted. And obviously, there was a pretty good scientist here in Philadelphia named Benjamin Franklin, who was able to tool around with kites and keys and all kinds of stuff before he helped to write our Constitution. So you’ve got a pretty good legacy, here in Philadelphia, of innovation.

And the fact that, as I look around this auditorium, we are tapping into the talents of everybody -- women as well as men; folks from every ethnic group, every background -- that’s also this incredible strength for the United States, because innovation, brainpower does not discriminate by gender or race or faith or background. Everybody has got the capacity to create and improve our lives in so many ways.

So you guys are representative of the future. This is a great postcard for what America is all about. And as you take your next steps -- I’m assuming that everybody here is going to some sort of post-high school education, everybody here is going to be going to college, and some of you are going to continue beyond college -- I just want you to know that you are going to be succeeding not just for yourself -- and that’s important -- your parents are going to want you to have a job, so they’re very pleased about the fact that you’re taking a path that is almost assured to provide you with extraordinary opportunities in the future -- but you’re also going to be making a difference for the country as a whole.

So my expectation is, is that somebody in this auditorium is going to figure out new sources of energy that help not only make us more energy independent, but also deals with problems like climate change. There is somebody in this room who’s going to help make sure that we are defeating diseases like Alzheimer’s or cancer. There is somebody in this room who is going to help revolutionize our agricultural sector, or our transportation sectors, or will invent some entire new industry that we don’t even know about yet.

And the pace of change these days is so rapid -- I’m reminded when I talk to Malia and Sasha that when Sasha was born, most people weren’t on the Internet and now she knows more about it than I do. (Laughter.) And so, in many ways, your youth and the fact that you’ve come of age in this new information age gives you an enormous advantage over old fogies like us.

So the bottom line is, we’re proud of you. You are going to succeed. You’re well on your way. The last thing I’d ask of you, even as you focus on your chosen field and you are moving forward, is to make sure that you also give back, that for a lot of you in your neighborhoods there may not be as many kids who are interested in math and science. And you need to make sure that wherever you have the opportunity, you’re mentoring and serving as a good role model to the next generation coming up behind you.

For the women who are here, a lot of you know that historically we haven’t had as many women in math and science and engineering fields. So as you succeed, hopefully you’re going to go back and mentor some people, and encourage them to get involved in these fields as well. If you do that then I have extraordinary optimism for the future. And I think that not only will you succeed, but you’re going to help your country succeed as well.

So thank you very much, everybody. Appreciate you. Thank you. (Applause.)

END 5:57 P.M. EDT



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So SLA has never had a football team, not because we were morally opposed to it when we started, but rather because it is such an expensive sport and it requires so many players. So on some level, we had this decision made for us for reasons, but I've been giving the issue of high school football a lot of thought lately.

I'm starting to wonder how long high schools can support having football teams.

Right now, there is a growing sense that football is causing Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in professional football players, and there are questions as to how the hard hitting of football may be having an effect on high school players as well. For me, it is enough that school administrators and coaches should be asking themselves some very hard questions about the sport that has been a mainstay in American high schools all over this country.

I understand that there are many sports that can result in concussions - I've gotten a few playing Ultimate (no comments on how that explains a lot, please.) But football is about hitting the opposing team hard. And we may be on the verge of learning that that is causing serious neurological damage to the kids who entrusted to our care. How conclusive does the evidence have to be before we decide this isn't something schools should be doing? What parameters should we be putting in place to be sure we aren't doing damage to our kids?

I don't know that I have answers here. I know that Kat and I are not ok with Jakob or Theo ever playing organized football. And I know that, as the administrator of one small school in Philadelphia, I wouldn't be comfortable having a team at SLA. What that means beyond our walls, I don't know. But I think the time has come for high school administrators, athletic directors and football coaches to start asking some very hard questions.

Dear Mr. President,

I'm not one for the Hallmark Holidays. I don't make a huge deal over Father's Day. My wife and I agree every year that Valentine's Day is a good excuse to have a nice dinner and not much more. So I wasn't going to make a big deal over Teacher Appreciation Week. It's a lovely thing, especially this time of year when teachers are pushing through to the end of the year, but it isn't usually the kind of thing I usually really think that much about.

Except this year.

This year, you chose National Teacher Appreciation Week as the week you also chose to declare as National Charter School Week.

Why would you do that, Mr. President?

I've wracked my brain all night long trying to figure out why. It's not like you didn't know it was National Teacher Appreciation Week - after all, Secretary Duncan posted about it on the Department of Education blog. So why conflate the two, Mr. President?

This is the week we could be celebrating all teachers - public, charter, parochial and independent. All over this country, every day, teachers in all kinds of schools do their best to help America's children, and this could be a week where we don't care about the management divide of schools, but rather took the time to simply be thankful that over four million Americans choose to make their career's work teaching America's children.

But that idea - or at least the idea that your Administration supports all teachers - rings hollow now. When you - in the same week - celebrate one kind of school, when you say that one management structure serves "as incubators of innovation in neighborhoods across our country" to the exclusion of other kinds of schools, you - intentionally or not - send the message that the rest of us count less, matter less, innovate less, teach less.

And you did that the same week that we could be elevating all members of the profession. Why?

If this was not a deliberate attempt to marginalize those of us who choose to teach in the public school system, then it was exceptionally poor timing. If it was a deliberate attempt to do so, why would you choose to do that? I really don't know how many body blows public school teachers are supposed to take. Here in Philadelphia, for exampe, we are feeling more than a little frustrated lately, so these kinds of mixed messages are particularly hurtful right now.

Most teachers do good work in anonymity. Every now and then, we get mugs or ties or thank you notes, and honestly, they make a difference. You, as leader of our nation, could have simply said thank you to all of the wonderful men and women who teach America's children. Instead, you let us know that some teachers are more equal than others, based simply on the kind of school they teach in.

And as a public school educator, all I can say is this:

Duly noted.

Yours truly,
Chris Lehmann

So… I've come out of retirement.

I'm coaching again.

Roz Echols and I are coaching SLA Ultimate - we've got 30 kids coming to practice at 6:30 am every morning to work together build two amazing teams and one incredible community. And I've been reminded of how much I really, really love coaching. There is something incredible about working with kids first thing in the morning, all of whom have chosen to be there, working toward a common goal that is bigger than ourselves as individuals that has always just been incredible to me.

I love it. And I missed it even more than I realized.

And it got me thinking about the way we progress in the education realm, where with every move "up" away from the classroom, there is less and less direct contact with kids. I'm a really hands-on and involved principal, but, with the exception of my advisees, I have never been able to be as close to a specific group of kids as I was to the kids I coached. (Individual kids, sure… but not a group…)

And that seems wrong.

Having that incredible relationship where we, as educators, really have the opportunity to care for kids and have that transactional relationship where both teacher / coach / mentor and student make a difference in each other's lives, is a big part of what makes teaching such a profound profession.

Why is it that, in most districts, we discourage our administrators from working directly with kids?

What would happen if curriculum directors were still basketball coaches? If special education case managers ran the drama production at a school? If assistant superintendents ran after-school math help a few days a week? What if a district prioritized that and created the time and space for it?

How about this… what if corporations that had products in the "education sphere" actually had their employees and executives volunteer in school several days a week - not just as a one-off, but actually establishing the kind of caring relationships that we desperately need?

What if we worked to ensure that everyone who works with schools or works in education didn't merely talk about how important it is to make a difference in the lives of kids, but rather actually did. Not indirectly, not through a policy or a product, but by working directly with and caring directly for kids.

Wouldn't that move us just a little closer to building the kind of educational community -- in and out of schools -- that we so very much need?

(Oh... and Go SLA Ultimate!!!)

[Note One:I need to go back and re-read Moral Leadership by Thomas Sergiovanni, because I want to line up these ideas with his ideas of "The virtuous school." It's been too long since I've re-read the book. ]

[Note Two: After reading this post, I realize how incomplete it feels to me. I don't know if the post itself is greater than the sum of the words on the screen. This feels like it might be one of those ideas that feels almost ephemeral - the very attempt to write about it makes it feel like less than it should be. I hope the ideas came across. By all means, let me know in the comments what you think or what the idea of the transformative school means to you.]

There are a lot of really good schools in the world - schools where kids learn from teachers who care about them, where kids get into good colleges and learn stuff and generally have a good experience with teachers who care about them. There's nothing wrong with those schools - they generally do right by kids, teachers like teaching in them, and generally teaching and learning in these spaces are enjoyable experiences.

But there's another level that schools can achieve. Schools can transform. They can eclipse content and skills and become about something more. They can be about realizing the best versions of ourselves.

There were a few realizations that really crystallized this line of thinking for me. First, I realized as much as I care about the skills that we attempt to measure, the most powerful interactions I had, the most important things that happened in the classroom were as much about social-emotional learning as they were about Hamlet or the five-paragraph essay. For the longest time, I just chalked that up to being an English teacher - "We get to teach about life," was my trademark answer. But I saw this happening in computer science classes as kids learned sticktoitiveness. (And yes, that's a word.) And I saw it on the basketball and Ultimate fields as kids saw the value in shared sacrifice toward a common goal.

The second (these weren't really sequential…) epiphany was this - I knew I wasn't as good a person as the kids thought I was, although I wanted to be. So I tried to be. And while I think I always fall short of the ideal, I think I'm a better person for the effort. The easiest place to explain how I felt about this was, not surprisingly, the basketball court. I was not a particularly good basketball player growing up. (I know, this comes as a shock to everyone.) And when I started coaching, I quickly realized that I had to learn like crazy to be worthy of a group of young women who showed up to practice every morning at 6:30 am. I had to be better. We could lose games because the other team was taller, faster, more talented. We could lose games because our shots just wouldn't fall. But I never wanted to lose a game because I wasn't good enough - I wasn't worthy of the trust those girls put in me. The same thing was (and is) true at SLA. I knew we'd be up against some pretty long odds to succeed, and I knew we might not make it, but I wasn't o.k. that the families and faculty that put their trust in our dream might be let down because I wasn't good enough.

Finally, there was the realization that not everyone had this experience in the classroom or in their school… that in so many places, kids were happy to just do what was asked of them, teachers were willing to keep recycling "good enough" lessons out every day, and administrators were happy to see classes that were functional, never asking if the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.

And so… here are some (by no means all) of my components of the transformative school:

• The school has goals beyond the accumulation of skills and content, looking to educate "the whole child" in real, profound ways. At SLA, this is what leads us to talk about "thoughtful, wise, passionate and kind."
  
• The whole must be greater than the sum of its parts. It's not just about "great teachers" and "great kids," but rather about an entire community that is better because it is together.
  
• And the very important corollary to that - each part is made better by the whole. (Or in other words, we are made better because we have been together.)
  
• Whatever values we want for the kids, we must want for ourselves - if we wish to transform the lives of kids, we have to be willing to be transformed ourselves. If we want kids to discover the best versions of themselves, we must be willing to do so ourselves.
  
• And when this happens, it should spread well beyond the walls of the school so that the community can share in the transformation.
  
• This doesn't happen by serendipity. There has to be systems and structures that allow everyone access to these ideas. At SLA, those are the core values, the essential questions, the individualized learning plans, the capstones, Advisory and so many other systems, structures and processes that we have put in place to make our school about much more than a discrete set of classes. As so many kids have said at the end of their tenure at SLA, "You did more than teach us a way to learn, you taught us a way to live."
  
• Know that you -- the school and all the members in it - are always a work in progress, and the knowledge of how much growth is left in front of you should be a profoundly humbling experience each and every day.
  
• Know that good ideas evolve over time… transformative schools are evolutionary in nature. Schools that are healthy for all members rarely go through hard 180 shifts in directions. They change over time, often slowly, but always in ways that should make sense given the mission of the school.
  
• Never settle. Never think you are done. Never be o.k. with just being a "good school." Never stop learning, growing and attempting to be that best version of what you -- and the school -- can be. And never underestimate how hard this is.
  

I don't know that SLA is a transformative school - I like to think that on our best days we are. We certainly aspire to be. No matter what, it is a worthy effort.

[Today, I found out that one of my colleagues from my teaching days in NYC, Jon Goldman, passed away. Jon started at Beacon the first year of the school and had taught for several years before that. Jon was ten years older than me which doesn't seem like much now, but when I was a 25 year old first-year teacher, that made him a wise old veteran of teaching in my eyes. Jon was one of those teachers who looked out for other teachers. He always felt that the job had to be livable…. that as amazing as we wanted to be for the kids, we had to make sure it didn't come at the cost of our own sanity. It was an important lesson for a young teacher like me to learn, and one I've kept with me ever since. It is with Jon in mind I write tonight.]

The overwhelming majority of the teachers I know work incredibly hard. When one factors in the paper grading, calls home in the evening, email answering and lesson planning (to say nothing of coaching and other extra-curricular work), the hours spent can easily push up and over the 60-70 hour a week level. Moreover, the hours themselves can be incredibly intense, working with students who bring all that they - good and bad - to the classroom each day. Learning how to successful navigate the minefield of student emotions, classroom expectations, state standards, test scores, parent expectations and every other pressure point in the teaching life can be daunting, and it doesn't surprise me when people cite statistics about how many young teachers leave the profession. Turns out, the job is hard.

So it falls to teachers and administrators and policy makers at every level to really look at the teaching life. What do we ask of our teachers every day? How can we figure out how to do this job well, do it with true commitment and care, and do it over time, such we can develop a truly masterful teaching faculty in our country… one that can see a roadmap to teaching for a career with passion and grace. The energy of a youthful teacher must transform into the skill and technique of a veteran teacher so that the job does not always need to be done by Herculean effort alone. And we must always ask ourselves - how much gets put on a teacher's plate? Is it always a livable life? Hard? Sure… but doable, achievable, rewarding for good, hardworking people of honest intent.

If we want teachers to be advocates for our children, we must ask ourselves - are we advocates for our teachers? Let us make sure we build schools that understand the value of sustained and sustainable excellence of all members of our school communities.

Rest in Peace, Jon. Thank you for teaching me that valuable lesson.

Something every principal faces is the inevitable conflict between students. For me there's always a frustration in that I wasn't there, I didn't see what happened, and it is always too easy to see both sides of the story. In that moment, students will look to us as leaders, as principals, to take their side, to do what's right, even when we know that taking a side isn't necessarily what's right.

The hardest thing about those moments is getting aggrieved parties to listen to one another. It's a natural instinct in that moment to want to be valid, to want to be told that your actions were not wrong, to know that what happened to make you feel hurt was not your fault. And certainly, there are moments where one student is simply trying to pick on another student - and yes, we must always be vigilant about bullying in our schools. But it is my experience that days where one person was absolutely right and another was absolutely wrong are not as common as one might think and most confrontations between students happened because both parties were acting from their personal place of hurt and, in that moment, could not see another solution except to cause hurt themselves.

It's not that students don't see that they were causing another pain, rather what they felt in that moment was that causing pain was justified because of the pain they were in. And to me, that's the moment where we can step in and teach. That is the moment of empathy. Because when the student is in pain, and when they feel justified in acting out of that pain and therefore causing others harm, we can ask them to combine both emotional intelligent and rational intelligence to draw a lot of conclusions of their actions. The problem is, too often we are looked to in that moment to mete out some sort of justice, as if a suspension or detention or some sort of punishment can make up for the harm caused. And while there are moments where that is needed, more often than not the best solution is to help students see the world through other eyes, to teach empathy, and rarely can we ask people to be empathetic when we are punishing them or telling them that their feelings which caused the actions were wrong.

So when a conflict between students reaches my desk, I try hard to look for reasons not to punish. I try hard to listen to both parties, and I try to get them to listen to one another. It is in those moments that inquiry often is most useful. When we can ask questions, when we can ask students to think both about their own feelings and about the feelings of others, when we can ask students to ask questions of each other – honest questions, real questions, questions asked with an open heart and an open mind – we can help students see the world from a wider perspective than their own.

In the end, the punishments students want us to enforce on the other are often the punishments they feel that they were create in the confrontation itself so they look to us to finish the job. In those moments, we should seek not to broker a winner's peace, but instead ask students to listen to one another, ask them to ask questions of one another, and ask that they increase the amount of empathy in the world, starting with the way they treat – and listen to – one another.