Practical Theory Comments

John Sowash: EduCon 2.3: Call For Conversations

jsowash@southfieldchristian.org (John Sowash) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 09:56:36 -0700

I submitted a conversation proposal titled "Collaborative Projects for the STEM Classroom." Thanks for making me aware of EduCon. I'm looking forward to participating!

Gary Stager: New Year... New Challenges... New Goals... New Excitement

gary@stager.org (Gary Stager) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 05:14:16 -0700

I may have linked to the wrong Merrow article - http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/?p=4433

Gary Stager: New Year... New Challenges... New Goals... New Excitement

gary@stager.org (Gary Stager) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 05:05:20 -0700

Dear Chris:

We've had this discussion privately, so I hope you don't mind that I involve the larger community in it.

As your school grows and grows up, I really wish I could talk you into leaving "Understanding by Design" (UBD) behind.

I recognize that it's a tool, but it's a coercive one that puts the preordained arbitrary goal of the curriculum ahead of student interest, passion, serendipity, teachable moment, expertise, current events, etc...

One of UBD's coauthors, Grant Wiggins, also revealed himself to be shockingly anti-teacher and pro-standardized testing in his comments on John Merrow's blog - http://bit.ly/aM0aMO

SLA could provide a real service to its students (IMHO) and to the community that draws inspiration from your example by taking off the UBD training wheels and moving forward full speed ahead into another great school year!

If you need another paradigm for curricular planning, might I once again suggest David Perkins' "Making Learning Whole." http://amzn.to/d43KEY

All the best to you, your faculty and kids,

Gary

Julie Strong: New Year... New Challenges... New Goals... New Excitement

strong.julie@gmail.com (Julie Strong) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:35:02 -0700

I'll be curious to see how #5 evolves. In independent schools we rarely lack for parent involvement, but it's not always positive. Schools really struggle with setting up useful structures when the idea that "the customer is always right" works its way into the family/educator dynamic.

dcollins: New Year... New Challenges... New Goals... New Excitement

derek.collins@ualberta.net (dcollins) — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 07:32:49 -0700

Those are great things to look forward to! At my alternative school, I'm looking forward to seeing how some students made strides over the summer and what new students will come our way with their unique views and challenges.

Andrew Marcinek: New Year... New Challenges... New Goals... New Excitement

ontheroad51@gmail.com (Andrew Marcinek) — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 06:42:51 -0700

I am sure it will be very weird vibe without your original class in the building, but now you have ambassadors for SLA. You have a voice not only in the region, but in the world. I am sure your graduates will make you all proud.

The second bullet point (#2) is amazing. I love the idea of faculty created PD. Great work! And have a great school year!

: The Big Lie (Thoughts on Why School Is Not Only About Workforce Development)

chris@practicaltheory.org () — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:48:39 -0700

Great post. I actually think about this a lot. Regardless of whatever faults anyone can say about SLA, I can honestly say that this school has shaped me into a better citizen. There were times throughout high school when I may not have made the right choices (and any other school might have even had me expelled), but you never gave up on me. That and the invitation to help with school events and projects have given me a sense of a purpose, which has translated to better academic success. Thanks for everything.

Anonymous: Urban Prep and The Whole Story

b_4forreal@yahoo.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:39:58 -0700

i know for a fact it is not what it seems. one of my relatives attends this schools and it is so much that goes on there...
it kept hidden from the public though. its just alot of the things he tells us makes us want to transfer him immediately!

elizabeth: The Big Lie (Thoughts on Why School Is Not Only About Workforce Development)

ecorcoran@lucere.org (elizabeth) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:05:27 -0700

Chris,
You write:
"A public education that centers first around workforce development will put a high premium on following directions and doing what you're told."

That attitude -- "do what you're told" was a perfect fit for the workforce of the industrialized society and even the post WW2 workforce. But in how many jobs will you thrive today if you just "do as you are told"?

I'd most certainly agree that schools should educate people to be good citizens. But it's significantly easier to be a "good citizen" when you've got enough money in your wallet to buy dinner.

As parents, we want our children to thrive on their own -- and that means they have to be able to earn their keep.

But here's the kicker: the most dramatic change going on right now is in the workforce itself. You won't thrive if you simply "do as you're told." We're seeing more people become independent contractors, either by choice or by necessity. Independent contractors have to think for themselves.

So we need to teach creative, independent thinking both because it's a societal good -- and because our children's future livelihoods depend on it. This is not about kowtowing to industry. It's about figuring out how to prosper in a dramatically different environment than the post WW2 world offered.

Shelley: EduCon 2.3: Call For Conversations

shelleyq@yahoo.com (Shelley) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 06:15:26 -0700

Two years ago I had a terrible cold during EduCon, and spent the whole weekend with my face metaphorically pressed up against the window (in this case, the screen of my laptop).

Last year, I attended and facilitated a conversation (http://bit.ly/searchfitwiki)... and had an amazing, mind-blowingly good time.

I'm not sure yet if I'll be pulling together another proposal this year, but if I do, it will include STUDENTS, who I will somehow bring with me if my proposal is accepted.

I love to see student voices moved "front and center" - it's always so exciting and illuminating. So I'm putting this plea out there... if your EduCon2.3 plans include engaging folks in a conversation that touches on student-centered learning... please consider BRINGING STUDENTS!

Joyce : The Big Lie (Thoughts on Why School Is Not Only About Workforce Development)

jdyoung16901@yahoo.com (Joyce ) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 12:15:19 -0700

Hi
I think your posting is interesting. With the lose of family instruction teaching , such things as ethics, personal finance, to students It is no wonder that the 21st centry education is so out of focus of what is "really " happening . I think that the schools should include courses that would teach its students to live in the "real " world of finding, holding a job and the ablity of communicating face to face to each other, which we seem to have gotten lost in the world of computers.

Brian: The Big Lie (Thoughts on Why School Is Not Only About Workforce Development)

bfteach@gmail.com (Brian) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 19:18:57 -0700

great stuff - the education system is asked to produce good little workers...a pet peeve of mine also....check out the latest post on my blog, it touches on that topic

Rick Ackerly: What makes a great teacher?

rackerly@gmail.com (Rick Ackerly) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:16:04 -0700

More than twenty years ago Barbara was at the top of her game and she still is. The reason is obvious in any short visit to her classroom. She loves the infinite challenge of using her agile intellect to spark and enflame the intellects of children, especially five, six and seven-year-olds. She does this, of course, by all means at her disposal: designing projects that would engage the imagination of any age brain, organizing learning centers with parameters that require creative thinking, and teaching as if the mind constructs knowledge, rather than as if one could simply fill it up with knowledge.

Barbara loves puzzles, games, and the mysteries of mathematics. She also knows that the children come to her with five to seven years of cognitive development under their belts and that they will learn the most if she designs activities with an infinite range of possible entry points for the wide variety of types of brains in her class. She builds her educational objectives into activities that are playful, challenging, full of surprises and ripe with opportunities for creativity.

Barbara is a lover of literature and history. If you were to walk into class and saw Barbara reading to the children, you would see 22 faces fixated on her in rapt attention. She is a gifted storyteller, and using stories not only for their obvious intrinsic value, but also strategically to support the other educational objectives of the day.

Fundamental to Barbaras way of teaching is the assumption that there are not three kinds of students: gifted, normal and disabled. 22 students means 22 different intelligences. She teaches as if each child has his or her own unique social, emotional, and physical challenges this particular year. She sees her job as creating the conditions in which they will grow from meeting those challenges, be proud of themselves and at the end of the day still love to go to school. Barbara assesses the students full gamut of developmental needs while they work. A famous De Moss quotation is: Every minute a child is taking a test, is a minute they could be using to learn.

All of Barbaras students take responsibility for their own learning because she sets everything up with that in mind. Once, about fifteen years ago, on a visit to her class I watched one of her second graders struggling with a problem and decided to help. Barbara spoke to me after class. I knew I had made a mistake. We have to let kids struggle.

Barbaras students dont learn about science. They are scientists. The culminating activity at the end of the unit might look like Antarctica Day. As scientists, each group's job is to travel by boat, land, camp, observe conditions and penguins, record findings, return home and present results. Each task of the day reviews skills learned during the unit like measuring temperature, weight and height or decoding nautical signal flag messages or observing and tallying penguin behaviors or playing child-created math games on board ship to pass the time. As children slip into oversized black T-shirts, they become their studied penguins, flapping flippers, collecting rocks or huddling together. Other children are using binoculars from icebergs across the room to tally observed behaviors. When the scientists return home those results are graphed and shared.

A years worth of work might come together at the end in a dramatic extravaganza where the students put on a puppet show. They have picked the story, defined the characters, created the puppets to represent those characters, and designed the stage and the props. The horse requires two students, of course, because there are four legs on and on.

In short, Barbara was a pro when I first met her twenty-some years ago, and she is a pro today. She never gets bored, because the challenge of engaging each of her unique students each year in each of her unique classes is, to Barbara, infinitely challenging, and infinitely fun.

Gary Stager: SLA Named One of the Ten Most Amazing Schools in US (and other news!)

gary@stager.org (Gary Stager) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:13:04 -0700

I blogged about this...

http://bit.ly/b8uZEB

John Patten: The Big Lie (Thoughts on Why School Is Not Only About Workforce Development)

Jpatten@sylvan.k12.ca.us (John Patten) — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 09:59:04 -0700

I have one in 10th grade and one just starting in 1st grade. I wonder about the same things for our students and my own children, always stressing the fact that school is not about getting good grades, or making as much money when they are older. Education is about quality of life, for you and everyone around you.

College costs are just crazy now, and from the return on investment, http://is.gd/ehBJc , there are bound to be alternatives.