To Keep Things Whole

A Larger Victory

2012-02-27T08:34:00.000-06:00

Youth sports have the ability to bring out the worst in folks. Recently I posted about a terrible incident near Pittsburgh. At plenty of games over the years I’ve seen parents berating referees, some of them just teenagers officiating for small children.

I have plenty of theories for why this occurs, and perhaps someday I will share them in a longer post.

But for now, I want to thank a bunch of sixth-grade boys from Covenant School in Dallas for reminding us what youth sports really should be about. Here’s the story of how they gave up a shot at a championship to help a friend.

Anti-Grecian Formula

2012-02-25T07:50:00.001-06:00

Shoe is on the hand that fits, there's really nothing much to it

Whistle through your teeth and spit, but it's alright

Oh well a touch of gray, kinda suits you anyway,

That was all I had to say, but it's alright

I will get by, I will get by, I will get by, I will survive.

--from “Touch of Gray,” The Grateful Dead

A couple of weeks ago I had my hair cut, and the gray was even more apparent than the previous time. That has become a familiar scenario. It jolted me a bit more this time, though, probably because I’d gone a bit longer between trims. And the grey doesn’t really show unless I have my hair pretty short. In what may surprise many people, that’s part of the reason I keep my hair pretty short. Maybe it’s baggage from my childhood, but I’ve always been told I look younger than I am…and I’ve never liked it. When I showed up for my first teaching job, the admission director asked if I was there to apply. That didn’t exactly make me feel confident about classroom control.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about our culture’s obsession with looking youthful. I think it was triggered somewhat by the novel I recently finished: India’s Summer by Therese.[1] While it has many themes, one which stands out is how desperately everyone wants to hang on to their youth. Botox treatments and plastic surgery, wearing the same fashions as their children, their language, lying about their age—they do everything possible to remain young, fearful of becoming disposable when they can no longer maintain a certain image. Meanwhile, many of the children are out of control, and their parents cannot understand why.

The novel is rather farcical, as it mocks the stereotypical Southern California star lifestyle. I found myself laughing at several points. Yet I also found myself feeling quite sorry for the characters. Their lives fit the classic, rather clichéd notion of having everything they possibly could want in a material sense, but lacking almost everything in an emotional and spiritual sense. Even what seemed the more stable relationships seemed a bit flimsy. Youthful beauty and exuberance, however superficial, becomes the gold standard of self-worth.

Western culture has, of course, long had a fascination with youth. One of the earliest things I recall learning about in school was Ponce de Leon searching for the Fountain of Youth around 1500. (Supposedly he expected to find it in Florida, which may explain Miami. I don’t recall the exact product, but there used to be one that had the slogan “Fight aging every step of the way.” I Googled that, trying to find the product, and received 8330 hits. Marketing studies have shown that the main reason College Hunks Hauling Junk has become so successful is because of the brand affiliation and how it brings back thoughts of the carefree, wilder days of undergraduate life.

While some days I wish I were younger, most of the time I don’t. I look back at the process of growing up, and it was pretty hard work. I think it’s even harder now, for all sorts of reasons. The only way I’d go back would be if I could do so while keeping what I’ve already learned along the way. So when I think about the aging process, I try to reframe it.

To begin, compare the novel and these other points to a story a friend shared with me recently. When he was in university, a couple in their forties arrived for a graduate program. They were from Ethiopia. The woman was very attractive and looked quite young. People regularly complimented her on how youthfully she looked. As the year went on, the woman became increasingly depressed. In her culture, one’s first gray hair is considered a positive event, sort of a coming of age moment when one reaches a certain point of experience and thus deserves respect.

I’ll offer another metaphor. My knees and feet are rather messed up from years of playing soccer. Not so bad that they need surgery, but there are constant aches and pains. I don’t think I could really play anymore, not even in an over-50 league, without really hurting. Yet I can analyze the game better than ever. It also gives me a wonderful perspective about helping young players develop over the long term. I can teach soccer well. So I try to think of all those remnants of injuries not as my body failing, but as badges of honor.

Because kids don’t need adults who don’t want to grow old. Actually, they crave the opposite. They want to see us embracing life, in all its pain and glory, and developing as human beings. They love hearing stories of our growing up, and those stories become the sort of lore that teaches values and expectations and resilience. We have to embrace our role as tribal elders, those who have the experience and perspective that manifests in wisdom.

[1] Therese is the wife of noted educational expert Sir Ken Robinson. I imagine that just about anyone who reads this blog has seen his TED talk, one of the most downloaded ever. But if you haven’t, give yourself a twenty-minute treat and click here (but only after you finish reading the post!).

A Metaphor

2012-02-18T10:34:00.001-06:00

In our kitchen we have a small orchid. For about a year now, it has been dormant. Actually, I've assumed it was dying. Shoots have turned brown, and some leaves have shriveled. A few times I came close to throwing away the orchid. But I've dutifully kept plucking off the dead bits and keeping the soil moist.

This morning I noticed three buds about to burst into their full beauty.

Lin-Sane Rush to Judgment

2012-02-17T08:57:00.000-06:00

This morning I clicked over to www.cnn.com, and there was the latest Jeremy Lin piece: a video titled “Jeremy Lin’s lessons for success.” Below the video were link to multiple other Lin videos and stories. (One was Letterman’s top-ten worst Lin puns, a part of which I’m sure my title could become, but I simply couldn’t resist.) I hear he’s been added to NBA all-star events. All this, I keep thinking, after a streak of seven excellent games. Meanwhile, I look at the book my wife pulled off the shelf last night and left in the den: Mandela’s Way: Fifteen Lessons on Life, Love, and Courage.

I am fascinated by the Jeremy Lin story—not just the athletic angle, not just the overnight sensation angle. I’m intrigued by what it is revealing about so many facets of our cultural anthology. Lin embodies the quixotic notion that with hard work and perseverance, anyone can achieve his or her dreams. Plus his parents moved to California from Taiwan, so it has the immigrant angle. And that last aspect is part of what I find most compelling: at the same time, Lin both affirms and discredits commonly held stereotypes. Asian-American who graduates from Harvard? Got it; makes sense. Star point guard in the NBA from Harvard? Maybe, but unlikely. Asian-American star point guard in the NBA? You’re kidding me.

So it’s natural that we’ve been inundated with Lin stories. They are remarkable and inspiring, and we have an obsession with athletics. It’s very similar to the Tebow-mania from a couple months back, and there have been several pieces comparing the two. Whose rise is more amazing? Whose story is more compelling? Which of the two is more likely to last? We have no way of knowing, and we even are wondering. Some are doubting. Yet at the same time we already have granted Lin some sort of mythic status.

Watching the story unfold, I can’t help but think of certain young athletes I’ve worked with and watched through the years. I always find one oft-repeated story the saddest. I’ll share a single tale that captures the essence of the narrative. I’ll call the boy Joe. In the early grades, Joe was a soccer star. While other kids were forming a hive or doing cartwheels, he was scoring all the goals. Unusually agile, fast, and big for his age, he dominated. With it came all the accolades, particularly the predictions that later he would be a star. Certainly he would play in college, maybe even the pros. His father loved all this and encouraged it to a large degree. The problem was, Joe succeeded early on because he was physically precocious. He dominated only because of that. He did not develop skills or a real sense of the game. Even by middle school Joe was an average player. He never made the high school varsity. His confidence suffered not just in athletics, but in other areas.

While obviously I’m talking about people at two extremes of the sports ladder, they both capture our desire—maybe even basic need—to anoint a hero. When we do that, we place unrealistic and thus unfair expectations on the emerging idol because of our own desires. For a professional athlete, particularly a superstar, that simply is part of the job. But it shouldn’t be part of the job of growing up. Doing that is hard enough, and children inevitably disappoint their parents. It’s part of how we all learn. And those are the moments when it’s probably most important that we recall and stress what really constitutes long-term success.

Young people also see that, as quickly as we crown heroes, we will knock them down. For a while there, Tebow was the amazing story, defying all those who said he couldn’t make it as an NFL quarterback. Remember how the Broncos knocked out the Steelers and he was celebrated? Then they were crushed by the Patriots, and all the naysayers chanted, “Told you so.” It’s difficult to convince young people that setbacks and failures are all right when they see this unfold. And our criticism is illogical. I’m perpetually amazed how quick we are to lambaste professional athletes, who are the best in the world in ways many of us can’t conceive. I’ve competed against some professional soccer players, and it humbled me quite quickly. It also helps me remain grateful for the fact that, while I couldn’t reach the highest levels, I loved playing and gained massive life lessons.

I’m rooting for Jeremy Lin. I want this to be a happily-ever-after story. We crave those. But rather than get too swept up in the Lin-sanity, let’s also use it as a reminder to keep youth athletics in perspective.

Shock and Awe--Some Thoughts on Leadership

2012-02-09T11:11:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I’m afraid that I’m slowly losing—perhaps even have lost—the ability to be shocked. And I don’t ever want to reach that level of pessimism and/or cynicism. But recently I learned of an incident that shocked me.

It occurred at a high school basketball game near Pittsburgh between nearly all-white Brentwood High and Monessen High, which is predominantly African-American. No doubt you can sense where this is going. When the whistle blew for halftime, three Brentwood students raced onto their home court. They were dressed in full-body banana suits. Moving all around the Monessen players, the trio kept making monkey noises and hurling racial epithets. No one moved to stop them. In fact, the school’s director of security was seen sitting in the stands and laughing. Monessen players say they heard racial taunts through the game, which several witnesses confirm. (Here is a Yahoo! Sports piece on the incident. Some of the comments add to my distress.)

The three boys have been identified and given some unspecified punishment. The school is “reviewing policy,” as if that really will prevent a similar incident. I’ve seen nothing about consequences for the security guard. Naturally, the school has received extensive criticism, not just for the incident but also for the way it has responded. Obviously I don’t have all the facts, but the criticism seems justified.

This also has raised some issues for me about leadership. They are about more than the apparent failure of leadership here. I suspect heads will roll because of this, and one of them will be at the top of the school’s food chain. So I’ve been pondering this question. Suppose you are chosen as the next principal of Brentwood. How do you begin to deal with what seems a deep-seated, systemic cultural issue?

You may argue that conclusion about Brentwood is unfair. After all, you could say that three boys don’t represent the whole. We all know that teen boys are quite capable of doing incredibly stupid things. Similar incidents have occurred elsewhere. I make this claim for a few reasons, some of them based on apparent facts of the story: the lack of anyone intervening, the players’ behavior, the security guard smiling and laughing, the vague response. I also base my claim on what I know about teen boys and teen culture. I have no doubt other students knew of the boys’ plan; in fact, some may have even helped come up with the idea and egged them on. I also suspect that the boys thought a large segment of the community would find it funny and anoint them with stardom.

As a leader, how does one begin to deal with the Gordian knot of issues revealed in this case. Firing people, making examples of others, policy statements, public statements, special programs, curricula—any of these can help a bit, but I’m not sure they can really cleanse the sort of ugly infection that festers until bursting at the surface in such incidents. In the myth it takes a swift, decisive cut to undo the knot. In this case, I’m not sure where one would strike. I am in awe of leaders who can figure out how to respond quickly and decisively…and correctly.

I think this also points out another major challenge for leaders right now. We seem to be living in a time of increased anger, and it manifests itself in different ways. People talk about a loss of common civility; they say others are more demanding and less patient. We also see it in what have become divisive extremes, such as how the American political process currently unfolds. Violent uprisings have rippled across the Middle East. We’ve had severe beatings at sports events. European soccer has suffered a few ugly racial incidents. Sometimes I think the increasing popularity of Ultimate Fighting is because it somehow captures a subconscious desire to relieve some of our frustration by beating up someone.

Why the anger? I’m sure there are many reasons. Certainly the financial climate is one. The rate of innovation, I suspect, has accelerated in ways that not only keep producing a stream of new products but also heightening our sense of not being able to keep up. Plus we talk about how well technology has connected us. But in multiple ways it also has lessened the depth of what should be our real human connections.

But I remain optimistic. Fortunately, incidents like the one described above do still shock me. And each day I also see people do enough positive things I remain hopeful. Leaders may need that above all. As Dov Seidman, author of HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything…in Business (and in Life), writes, “Hope is a sustainable value that inspires us to see the world as a source of meaning and to connect with people in valuable ways. Hope is a catalyst.”

Follow-Up to "On Happiness"

2012-02-08T13:59:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago I published a post titled "On Happiness." In it I referenced an article by Shawn Achor, a Harvard professor who specializes in positive psychology. Today I came across a talk he gave at a TEDX event. Give yourself a 12-1/2 minute gift and watch.

On Reading

2012-02-05T13:50:00.002-06:00

"So many books, so little time..."

-- t-shirt from Vassar bookstore

During the past few days I have reconnected with a treasured friend. Reading. More specifically, reading for pleasure. Actually, that's not really specific enough, for I almost always enjoy reading. Reading for me.
I read a great deal. Just yesterday, two incidents reminded me of just how much I read. Someone said she has stopped sending me recommendations because I seem already to have read whatever she sends me. Then I mentioned something I had read, and someone in the room said, "Don't you ever sleep?" (Probably not enough.) I have had my Kindle for about a year, and it has eight pages of titles. I don't actually download a book until i am ready to read it. Plus my wish list on Amazon keeps growing. We have overflowing bookcases in almost every room of the house; my office at school has two. In fact, I bought the Kindle to save money and space. The habit isn't limited to books. The list of blogs I try to follow in my aggregator keeps lengthening. I mainly skim those unless something really grabs me, but it still involves some reading. Then there are all the things I wish I had the time and energy to read.
But here's the thing. For the last several years, just about everything I've read somehow has been primarily for work. Since I am passionate about my work and find it fascinating, I really don't mind this. The reading is still quite pleasurable.
Last Sunday, however, an article in the newspaper inspired to decide my next book would be just for me. I wanted to read it right away. It is Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking.
As a raging introvert, I am naturally drawn to reading. It's not that introverts are shy and/or anti-social, ready to run for a hermitage when an evite pings into the inbox. We actually really like engaging with people, particularly small groups in deep conversation. We even can handle big, noisy parties...for a while. Then we have to retreat. In many ways it comes down to how one draws his or her energy, and what drains it. Introverts devour ideas and reflection and solitude like Popeye downs spinach.
Along with my innate tendencies, my parents fostered my love of reading in a perfect blend of nature and nurture. Early on I celebrated over and over the triumph of Yurtle the Turtle and craved a dish of green eggs and ham. Once I could read more than picture books, I loved a volume about great athletes, with dramatic photos and tales of record-setting feats. A trip to the New Rochelle library always was paired with time at the adjacent park. When we moved to Bedford Village, the library was a converted colonial home, full of small rooms and nooks. I slowly worked my way through the collection, and I recall my great pride when I began selecting from the adult side. Later I was delighted to discover The Remarkable Little Bookstore in Westport, which had the same sort of set-up. (Alas, it was an early victim of the invasion of the big box stores.) When I first moved to Dallas in 1990, the old flagship Half-Price Books on NW Highway, with its uneven floors and random shelves, felt like returning home. And home, besides the library trips, was where my parents modeled a love of reading. Most nights Mom had a mystery novel; Dad, a tale of espionage or a historical work of some sort. I remember how even as my father lay dying of cancer that had eaten into his brain, he kept reading. He wanted to keep learning all he could.
My parents did many things right. Among them, helping me love reading is one for which I am particularly grateful. Now, as an educator, I consider it perhaps the most important intellectual habit parents and teacher must nurture. Think of it as follows:
Open the cover of a book or flip on an e-reader. Voila! That easily you tap into the most elementary form of access to learning. Ideas, exposure, information, data, opposition, affirmation, expansion, connection--all this and more can happen when you really engage with the written word. I still find it utterly amazing how various combinations of 26 letters (in English) can lead to an endless variety of writing, each piece capable of taking us someplace different. Thus, while reading provides simple access, it also is remarkably complex. In fact, neurological studies have revealed that the only time the brain is more active than when we read is when we dream. That's not surprising. After all, the two are highly similar activities. Reading thus provides mental exercise, be it a series of short sprints or a grueling marathon through the world of ideas. We now know that intelligence is not fixed and that we can keep rewiring and strengthening synapses throughout our lives.
Reading is a party for we introverts; and, if they don't already attend, I invite any extroverts to drop by, at least for a little while. We may be at opposite ends on the Myers-Briggs scale, but it's a middle ground where we both can find plenty of what everyone needs. To those of you already in on the fun, I'd love some suggestions.

Pride and Perspective

2012-01-30T22:33:00.000-06:00

About a year ago, I read a bit of wisdom from a veteran school head. It was something like, "A head of school cannot love his school too much. What he really has to love is the vision of what that school can become." I understand the logic behind this statement. There has to be a degree of objectivity and a certain distancing to allow for certain hard decisions. But recently some ongoing work and a couple of meetings have made me think quite a bit about this statement.

In my year-and-a-half here, I've been learning more and more about my school community and developing a better sense of just what it can become. I first laid out some notion of this in a presentation last spring. It was expansive and far-reaching; no one could have taken all of it in. Recently I've been trying to reduce all those thoughts to a short, yet comprehensive written package. It's getting there. The process is very invigorating. Who doesn't like to have big dreams? Who doesn't like to wax idealism?

At the same time, I've been deep in the budgetting process. Sometimes I feel like a parent telling his children what they may and may not have. Everyone has his or her idea of where those limited dollars should go, and inevitably the wants are greater than the dollars.

Both these processes--the visioning and the budgetting--share an inherent danger: each can cause one to focus heavily on what's missing. Certainly I have found myself doing that at times. Often the two go hand in hand. For example, as I work on the vision, I wonder how we will find the money. I have to weigh each decision carefully, and it can become frustrating. Sometimes I just want it all!

But two visitors last week helped me regain perspective.

The first was a young woman from one of the most famous and prestigious schools in the nation. In fact, the school is also one of the most expensive, with tuition for day students close to $39K. It's a gorgeous place, with incredibly bright, well-credentialed faculty and students from very prestigious families. You'd recognize plenty of names from the alumni list. As I toured her around the school, she commented on many things that she found engaging. The warmth of the colors and artwork filling the building, and also of the interactions she saw between people. The spirit of our prayer wall. The incredible lab and teaching areas we have in our middle school science wing. The media center and our daily student broadcasts. A SmartBoard in every classroom. She may be moving to Dallas and is looking at schools that she finds attractive.

The second was a young man in the Teach for America program. He told me about how he has 161 sixth-graders during the course of a day and how he tries to differentiate instruction as much as he can so they learn to read. Out of all those kids, only 20 parents showed up on meet-the-teacher night. If he calls a home, the automatic response is fear about what the child has done wrong. He has several conversations each week trying to convince students not to drop out as soon as they can. He tries to inspire them with stories of positive role models. Sadly, this idealistic, talented young person may leave teaching because of his circumstances. After spending some time here, he is thinking about looking for a position in the independent school world.

Both these people reminded me of some of the many reasons why this school is special. They helped me to recall anew why I joined this community. Yes, there is plenty of work to be done, various enhancements and changes to be made over the next however many years. After all, we can never stop improving. Yet at the same time, we must take caution not to lose our soul. As I see my role, it is not to turn this school into my ideosyncratic notion of the "perfect" school. Instead, it is to help this school become the very best possible version of itself. In the best cases, those notions match.

There is, as I alluded to in the paragraph on budgetting, something parental about being a head of school. About teaching, for that matter. The endless and exhausting work of parenting and education both are re-fueled by love, by dreams, by the art of possibility. We see those young people, and it's hard not to imagine who they might become. But it's also vital--for us and for them--that we celebrate who they are right now.

Generation Gap

2012-01-27T13:27:00.000-06:00

Ever since I can recall, I have been a soccer fanatic. Player, coach, fan--I love the sport and every role/connection I've ever had to it. I've also studied a great deal about the history of the sport.

My twelve-year-old son Stephen also has the fever. He can, for instance, give you all sorts of World Cup trivia. What to know who scored in opening match for Italy in 1934? He may know. Every weekend we watch matches, and we love the Premier League Review Show on Sunday evenings. Sharing this love of soccer is one of the great pleasures of parenthood for me.

Yesterday, the soccer page at cnn.com had a fascinating package of articles. Their ten soccer writers conducted a fantasy draft of players from any era, based on their prime. Each pick told about the writer's reasoning and also gave some info about the player. Computer projections the determined how the season would go. I loved it, and I was very excited to show it to Stephen.

His reaction? Meh. He loved the concept; that wasn't the problem. He immediately asked, "Where do I make my choices?" I explained it was just the writers. He asked, "Why shouldn't I be able to take part?"

It was just the latst, powerful and personal reminder that students today are different, mainly because of digital technology. It’s about more than agile thumbs, shorter attention spans, and an LOL lexicon. Young people today learn differently and are motivated differently. No longer a TV-watching generation, they grow bored by one-way communication channels. Instead, they revel in participation and collaboration. They love to work with content, not just absorb it; they believe in collective rather than individual knowledge. Indeed, young people today learn actively all the time.

Growing up in the early 21^st century facilitates and demands such an outlook. Ubiquitous information, media, and resources are easily available. Easy-to-use tools keep becoming increasingly inexpensive and powerful. All this is happening against a world backdrop that is increasingly multi-cultural and inter-connected. Thus, collaboration has grown more essential. Innovation and creativity are key qualities. The rapidity of change shows no signs of slowing. Instead, all the factors continue to accelerate steadily.

These changes pose a literal and symbolic challenge for schools. Since the onset of the Industrial Age, schools have operated per the factory model. Now, as we have jetted into Information and Creative Eras, schools must reconsider how to meet students’ needs. Key questions include: What should future learning environments look like? How should we organize time to learn? What types of relationships and communities will nurture our students? What tools do they need? How will we assess student progress?

I'd love to know how you answer these questions.

On Happiness

2012-01-23T08:33:00.001-06:00

This morning my daughter was sitting at the kitchen table, one ear bud in, eating breakfast as she glanced through the newspaper. She suddenly declared, "I love having all my music on my phone. This makes me irrationally happy." She turns 15 tomorrow, and yesterday we finally upgraded her phone to a new iPhone. It was long due (well, long due in tech terms), and she is a very responsible tech user. I enjoyed her comment, just as I had enjoyed watching her and her brother come up with ridiculous questions for Siri the day before.

But those words irrationally happy keep running through my head. Recently I have been working my way through the latest edition of Harvard Business Review, the cover of which proclaims "The Value of Happiness." I found particularly intriguing the piece by Shawn Achor titled "Positive Intelligence." Achor is a Harvard professor who specializes in the study of happiness. In fact, his courses on finding happiness are among the most popular at Harvard. Ironically they are so oversubscribed that many end up sad because they can't get in the class. (This probably deserves an entire post by itself.)

Here is the article in a nutshell. We believe that hitting a certain mark of success will lead to happiness, when it actually works the other way around. People who have a positive mindset perform better in the face of challenge. The happiness must come from within, not from without. This also belies the common notion that genetics and environment determine happiness. They have an impact, but three other factors matter more. The habits we cultivate, the way we interact with others, and how we think about stress--these seem to have the closest relationship to happiness. We can train ourselves and our brains to increase our happiness. For example, we almost automatically think of stress as a negative. Certainly it can be, particularly if it becomes overwhelming. But stress also is what spurs us to innovate, to create, to problem solve. Stress motivates.

Achor says small exercises can form a happiness training regimen. Some of the things he recommends doing on a daily basis include jotting down three things for which you are grateful; writing a positive message of support to someone; meditating for two minutes;exercising for ten minutes; journalling about a meaningful experience in the past 24 hours. People who did these things while participating in study moved their life satisfaction scores from an average of 22.96 to 27.23 on a 35-point scale after four months.

While Achor focused on a work environment, I think the article and entire issue holds a key reminder for parents. Ask parents what they want most for their kids, and the first response is usually to be happy. I say reminder because Achor doesn't say much that most of us don't already know on some level. But in the hustle and bustle of life, blinded by shiny gadgets and our love for our children, we can forget.

I want to believe that when my daughter used the words "irrationally happy," it was to some degree because she already grasps these truths. If she doesn't now, I hope that someday she will. Then I can know I've done part of my job as parent. In the meantime, I reveled in the moment. It made me truly happy.

Dear Nicholas Kristof

2012-01-17T23:43:00.001-06:00

I apologize for using the same rhetorical trick twice, but this seems to be my time for responding to nationally renowned columnists. Two weeks ago, Jay Mathews. This week, Nicholas Kristof, for his recent column “The Tangible Value of Great Teachers.” I’m not as upset with Kristof as I am with Mathews, but I do feel the need to point out some of my concerns with his argument.

Dear Mr. Kristof:

Thank you very much for your recent column on the amazing difference a great teacher can make. In particular, I want to commend you for two points.

First, while you cite test data, you talk about trends of data over a period of time. That makes a great deal of sense. Any test, no matter how well structured, gives a snapshot of a point in time. Tests also can provide very important insights into particular knowledge and skill sets. But they may not tell that much about how a student can apply those discrete bits. And they certainly cannot capture the attitudes fostered. I’ll share an anecdote to illustrate my point. I once worked with a teacher—and he remains one of the best writing teachers I’ve ever seen—who wanted to see student scores rise on the verbal portions of the tests being used at that school. That year, kids’ scores soared. When I talked with the teacher, he took no joy in this. Instead, he lamented, “I think I improved their writing less than I ever have with any group.” Still, used correctly over time, standardized tests can help through the revelation of patterns. Thank you for not falling into the high-stakes, single-test trap.

Second, you focus on the long-term benefits of an education, those that come out much later in life, often in ways that one cannot necessarily see coming. Considering the impact of a fourth-grade teacher later in a student’s life takes care of that. At first glance, the numbers don’t seem all that significant: 1.25% more likely to go to college, 1.25% less likely to get pregnant as a teen, likely to earn an average of $25,000 more through a lifetime. But they are massively significant to those who benefit. I’m even more struck by the notion that having a very poor teacher is equivalent to missing 40% of the school year.

The obvious conclusion is that we need more great teachers. Ideally, schools would get rid of all the poor ones. (Determination of such is another long, complicated topic.) I believe it was Newsweek that, a few years ago, had a cover story about firing all bad teachers. The natural question is: And replace them with whom? After all, we’ve said there are not enough great teachers. Hmmm…

Here is where I start to take issue with your argument, particularly the way you use the financial implications. We need more of the right people going into education. That is not going to link well with financial gain. No, I’m not about to rant on how teachers are underpaid. (Another long, complicated topic.) My point is that if we want the right people to go into education, along with many other lines of work that provide social service, we can’t focus on material gain as the measure of a meaningful education. We need more great teachers. Well, what if one of the measures of a great teacher were how many people he or she inspired to become a teacher? Or to serve others in some other crucial fashion? Not realistic in any way, but worth pondering.

One truly difficult aspect of being an educator teacher is often not knowing for sure if one’s work truly matters. There are myriad reasons for this, and all are real. If you don’t immediately sense why, stop and think about all the demands teaching really entails. Plus, as your column suggests, many of the pay-offs come later, long after a student has left a particular classroom. But when a teacher does know—such as when we hear from a former student who is doing beautifully, having found meaning and purpose—the feeling is amazing.

I’ve been fortunate enough to hear from many of my former students who have entered the education field. Some have joined the independent school world. Some have gone to the other extreme and worked in Teach for America and KIPP. Some do policy work, believing they can make a difference that way. I am very proud of them, and I am proud of myself, for I know those former students are contributing positively to a virtuous cycle.

To flip that coin, I’m saddened when I hear of people who have given their children wonderful educations, only to tell them they do not want them to become teachers. The reason usually has to do with the salary.

So, Mr. Kristof, I’m not condemning your argument. Nor am I against the notion of making money. I see why you have grasped onto this study. Rather than focus on the dollar amount, I probably should stress that this means those students have found steadier employment. My having to do that points to our needing a broader definition of success. Perhaps then we can find many more great teachers. Enough of them for every student to have one more often than in fourth grade. Imagine the value, tangible and intangible.

Ready or not?

2012-01-12T07:55:00.000-06:00

Please watch this video.

Are we ready or not? More important, are we helping young people become ready? Or not?

Art for More than Art's Sake

2012-01-10T07:36:00.000-06:00

Recently my family attended a wonderful performance of Les Miserables. Normally I don’t care for musicals, but I love this one. It’s thematically and philosophically rich, and it doesn’t feel as campy to me as many do. This occasion marked my fourth time seeing it, but the first time with my children. Perhaps for that reason, I feel prompted to write about a topic I have mentioned in passing but never explored in much depth: why the arts are a crucial part of a great education.

Art makes us want to learn more. Since we saw the performance on New Year’s Day, we’ve had several conversations about the French Revolution. They have been more than your standards facts and figures, although that is where they started. We’ve talked about what motivated the students to rebel. We’ve talked about idealism versus pragmatism. We’ve discussed classism. We connected the show to recent events in the Middle East and to the 1988 uprisings in Tiananmen Square. Some of the staging has led to analysis of how certain effects were produced. The learning has unfolded both broadly and deeply. In fact, my daughter received inspiration for her research paper in history.

Art reminds us of what we can create and achieve. It inspires; it challenges us to discover and harness our talents, particularly those which distinguish human beings. I listened in absolute awe as the performers created a world for us, really believing that Jean Valjean had aged 20 or so years within those three hours. Their voices filled the opera house, with incredible range and an amazing ability to hold dramatic notes. Even the entire stage was a work of art, quite literally so in the way some of Victor Hugo’s paintings were used as backgrounds. Who among us hasn’t seen a dynamic performer and imagined ourselves in that role? Believed we could create a post-modern painting or sculpture? Exemplars surround us.

Those are rather trite thoughts, ones that others have expressed many times in much more eloquent fashion. And while important, they also do not capture nearly the entire argument. To begin doing that, we must cast the net in the opposite direction—away from consumption and toward creation.

The attempts to create art hold invaluable lessons. It’s about more than the fundamental lessons of drawing or music or drama. It is beyond tapping into our innate creativity. Once we develop a certain level of awareness, we quickly sense our shortcomings. Creating art is not something we can achieve through memorization or drill, through passive absorption or simple regurgitation. We have to persevere through disappointments and even failures; to celebrate all the steps of the process of steady improvement while waiting patiently for a quality product. Perhaps because we are so aware of our artistic shortcomings, we are more accepting of these truths in this realm than in others.

I think it also happens because of another key notion. At some point, the creation (whether process or product) becomes public. The artist cannot hide. A recital, a piece in a gallery, appearing on stage—the medium and forum don’t really matter. In some way, the artist must present. Yes, it’s about the work. But it still remains highly personal. It’s the most authentic, most personal type of assessment. That’s why doing this can foster courage, resilience, confidence, empathy. These are lessons which may not be part of any explicit curricula, but truly matter. It’s why we need art for much more than art’s sake.

Dear Jay Mathews

2012-01-05T02:11:00.004-06:00

Jay Mathews is an education columnist for The Washington Post. Before that he wrote for Newsweek. He started the annual rankings of the nation’s high schools. If you read this blog regularly, you know how I feel about such things. You will understand why his December 28, 2011, post—“Revealing private school secrets”—struck a nerve. The following is my response:

Dear Mr. Mathews:

I respect you as an important voice in much-needed discussions concerning education in country. You have strong beliefs, and you stick to them. I hope that, at the same time, you are willing to consider some points that don’t fit your world view.

In a recent post you were celebrating that this coming spring’s Challenge Index will include private schools. You also refer to the first publication of the list in 1998 and how “the headmasters and headmistresses of our nation’s tuition-charging high schools reacted as though I had invited them to a strip joint. They were offended.”

As one of them (and, by the way, most of us prefer the title “head of school” for many reasons), I still am offended. And the strip joint analogy is apt. Most heads of school find your approach against their ethical code. Obscene, even. And while your approach has a certain allure, we know that ultimately it's teasing promise provides no real satisfaction. It’s why we choose to be in independent schools. Repeat: independent.

Why independent? What does it really mean for us? It can take many forms, but the most important is quite simple: we have the freedom to establish our missions and to teach our students in the way that is best for them.[1]

You have established a very simple formula by which to judge a high school’s quality with your Challenge Index. You figure out the college-level test participation rate of the students. One thing I haven’t seen is whether or not you consider how students do on those tests. Even if you do, it doesn’t change my essential concern with your approach.

I ask you to think about schools such as these. A school that takes students very much at-risk, immerses them in experiential and outdoor learning, and has them end up attending college. A school which does not teach AP American and AP European History but has a course called Understanding 9-11 that students call the best experience of their lives. A school for kids with extreme learning differences, who learn how their minds work and grow in intellectual confidence. Schools for young people who are passionate about the arts or athletics or science. Schools which are small enough that anyone, no matter their talent level, can participate in activities often open to only a select few. Schools in which character matters, and it matters more than a particular score on a particular test at a particular point in time. The National Association of Independent Schools comprises hundreds of such schools.

And our society is better for it. In another gross oversimplification, you “think this will help parents who wonder whether public or private schools would be better for their children.” To some degree, that is the choice. But the beauty of independent schools is that they provide a much greater choice. They provide families with the possibility of finding a school with a mission and culture that meshes with their own. Of finding a school that can best serve a unique student’s—and each is unique—particular interests and needs. Since you clearly want to help families make an informed choice, it strikes me that rather than deride such a world, you should be advocating such a model for all education.

But you don’t. Instead, you promote a one-size-fits-all approach when the issue cries for custom fits. I’ll give you a concrete example why that doesn’t work. Recently I was able to visit with a student at what, per your index, is one of the absolute best high schools in the United States. This is a very bright, curious, intellectually lively young person; her sense of humor is particularly sharp. Listening to her describe her school experience saddened me. Very little writing (only paragraphs), plenty of fact memorization, constant drill work—little about it engaged her. No doubt she will do quite well on the tests. But will her education have truly served her as well as it could have? (In fairness, I will say that the same thing could happen at a poor independent school. I also will acknowledge this approach could be the best for some students.)

I don’t expect to change your mind. After all, you’ve probably considered all my points at previous times. The thing is, Jay, you have one of the true bully pulpits when it comes to education. I just want to see the dialogue elevated. Right now I’m afraid you are doing more harm than good.

[1] Another by-the-way point of clarification. Not all private schools are independent schools. The differences and implications are great. Your failure to distinguish is a bit misleading, and it is another example of your failure to consider how finely-nuanced this issue is.

Some Thinking about Thinking

2012-01-03T12:08:00.000-06:00

During the recent break I started to read Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow. The book had come highly recommended, and I used to teach a course on ways of knowing. Started, but didn't finish. The book was disappointing mainly because of how it was presented: each chapter followed the same basic pattern with a slightly different focus. However, the book's primary thesis holds some important implications for education.

Kahneman contends that our thought patterns operate in two ways--System 1 and System 2. System 1 consists of our automatic, almost instinctual reactions to things. They are often based on prior knowledge, assumptions, things we take for granted. System 2 involves deeper thinking; it is more reflective and analytical. Not surprisingly, Kahneman contends that we operate mainly per System 1. He says that this occurs in large part because we are intellectually lazy. But there are other reasons. Heuristics cause us to see things in certain ways. For example, the way information is presented can "anchor" us and influence how we respond. Other heuristics include availability, emotion, risk, sample size. We also have a poor grasp of statistics. I would add that we are simply busy, we want quick answers, and we haven't really been trained to think deeply.

Therein lies the challenge for schools. Too many of our current systems do not foster System 2 thinking. We race kids through curricula, through multiple classes each day, through plenty of extras both inside and outside of school. Assessment practices don't lend themselves neatly to System 2 thinking. It's simply much messier; it’s essentially non-measurable. Surely you can expand on the brief generalizations in this paragraph. I suspect you could draw upon much of your own experience in schools.

The ultimate conundrum is that much of our educational practice is, in itself, based on System 1 thinking. Besides human nature when it comes to change, our practices are based on many long-standing notions that function as heuristics. The ways we organize schools, how content drives curricula, the motivational devices, grading practices, the role of the teacher--the list could go on and on, capturing traditional notions of education which seem inherently true. After all, it's the way we've always done it. And it worked well enough for us, didn't it? That question is rhetorical. If you answered yes, Kahneman could make you rethink that. The answer might be still be well enough...but not as well as it could have.

In what serves as an interesting parallel, I came across this piece on the training methods of the Standard Liege Football [Soccer] Club from Belgium. Their coach uses the latest research from neuroscience as part of the players' individual and group training regimens. His goal: to help the players become better thinkers on the field. He wants them to be able to think as quickly as they can perform physically. To accomplish this, he has had to reconsider the entire way practices are organized, with a greater focus on the geometry of the game, among other points. The method also places greater emphasis on small-sided games rather than drill work and full scrimmages. This allows the players to practices their skills in more realistic context and to see the relevance more immediately. Throughout the article are ideas that resonate with any forward-thinking educator.

There is another key, unstated point. As much as I support such changes in pedagogy, if we want to think deeply and help kids to learn to do the same, we have to make time and space for it. It's vital--in the most literal, life-sustaining sense--for young people. And don't just take my word for it. Read this article from salon.com: "Why Kids Need Solitude." I think the points hold for everyone, not just kids.

Now, take some time and think about all this, fast and slow.

New Year's Resolutions

2011-12-31T08:50:00.000-06:00

I don't make New Year's resolutions. Doing so never has worked for me. Instead, I take a different approach.

I know that I should do something. It needs to be done. Whether for myself, for someone else, or for my institution. Maybe it's simply the right thing to do. So why wait for a new calendar before acting?

I try to make daily resolutions. Perhaps I have to complete a specific task. I may want to make significant progress on a long-term project. More than anything, I try to do things at least a bit better than the previous day.

The College Decision--Public or Private?

2011-12-23T06:41:00.000-06:00

You wouldn't think that I, as head of a school ending in 8th grade, spend too much time thinking about college admission. Normally I don't. But I have been recently. The New York Times education section has been chronicling several high school seniors' college application adventures, with many of the decisions documented this past week. Also, my 9th grade daughter came home last week, full of stories about all the loud declarations of college notification and the reappearance of the Wall of Rejection. I'm not sure just what she made of it all.

Since I used to work at her school, I know the scene. It's being repeated at schools across the nation. A certain date arrives, and crowds gather for the e-mail to be opened. Sometimes parents come to school for the event. Massive drama then ensues. Repeat several times.

A once private event has taken on a very public dimension. That's not surprising, given how much more of life has become spectator sport. More and more we seem willing to make multiple aspects of our lives, many formerly deemed personal, accessible to all. Indeed, more and more people seem to crave the attention, no matter how it comes. Some even expect that everyone should care about each part of their lives, and they are offended at any indifference. With the college decision being such a massive rite of passage, of course that becomes a chance for a major announcement.

To a degree that last part always has been true. However, over the past two decades, it has taken on a profound, even concerning weight. I understand why. We are living in particularly anxious times. A struggling economy, rapid and profound change, global competition, political distrust--the reasons for our discomfort are many, any one of which could prove unsettling. Because of that uncertainty, we seek guarantees, even when our rational sides know such things don't exist. For our children, those guarantees become admission into the "right" school. It can become rather narcissistic. As one of the students in The Times pieces put it, "I don't have to fit the institution; the institution has to fit me." She said this while comparing the process to buying a wedding dress. I can imagine the reaction of the admission officers feel at the schools to which she is applying.

The idea of a single perfect school for anyone is, of course, wrong. One could go to any number of wonderful colleges and have a fantastic, life-altering and life-affirming experience. I've seen many students who were convinced a letter of rejection meant their lives were ruined. They ended up flourishing where they matriculated. Or one could, as I did, spend four years at college and enjoy it but feel no particular affinity for one's alma mater. That is not the college's fault. It's mine. I chose not to become very engaged. There is the real point. The college matters, but only to a degree. The real determinant of the experience is what any individual makes of the opportunities that appear.

Ultimately, we have responsibility for our life-long educations. When we focus too much on one college, we cede the power we have to determine the quality of our experiences. That's true in other life arenas as well. When it occurs, we also tend to quickly assign blame. At times it seems everyone blames the media for everything. Students and parents blame teachers; one political party blames the other. The two scenarios have much in common, and the result is the same, literally and metaphorically: gridlock.

As the adults in the situation--meaning the ones with life experience and perspective--we have to help young people break through this. That is easy to say, much harder to achieve. From the beginning, we have to be very careful about the subtle and overt signals we send about everything. Consider grades, for example. They are important, certainly. More important is how we discuss them with our children. Grades can be examined as markers of effort and progress. They also can be seen as currency which buys entry. Both are to an extent true. The pointed question involves which you emphasize. The answer has massive implications.

In just a couple of years I will become heavily involved in the college application process with my daughter. While I have written references for students, it will be my deepest foray into this jungle since I was a college counselor over twenty years ago, when the landscape was less foreboding. We will see how well I can practice what I preach. I do know one thing: we won't let it resemble a TV reality show.

Scattershooting

2011-12-16T12:36:00.000-06:00

Years ago a sportswriter named Blackie Sherrod used to write a Sunday column called "Scattershooting." Recently Dallas Morning News writer Kevin Sherrington has resurrected the tradition, and sports radio broadcaster Junior Miller does it on KTCK. I decided to take that approach in this post. Mainly for fun, somewhat as an experiment, but also as a way to put down a bunch of random thoughts which I might not use anywhere else or develop into full posts.

Writing in this fashion reminded me of my days as a deejay on the campus radio station. My broadcast partner and I had completely different tastes in music, and we alternated songs. The show's name was Classic Whateverness in Full Operation.

So don't expect what I want to believe you've come to see as the expected depth. But I hope you find a few nuggets that make you think.

Scattershooting while wondering what ever happened to Lumpy Ward (my best friend in first grade) ... Recent New York Times article talked about how some colleges have sharply reduced length of application essays while trying to give more "clever" topics. Some are even giving prompts such as "If I had to wear a costume for a year," to be completed with 25 or fewer words. I guess it's part of the Twitter phenomenon. It's worrisome that universities are lessening the premium on higher-level thinking and clear, developed expression ... I think there is a logical link between this and the growing scandal from Long Island, where dozens of students hired people to take the SAT for them. The test simply doesn't mean much when it comes to key skills and attitudes, particularly not the way the world is changing. But we want to quantify everything. It gives us some assurance. It also has too much weight ... Anyone actually remember your SAT scores? How about particular grades? I was kind of floored the other day when I overheard a woman who looked at least 60 talking about how she had done on a test in college ... How would I do on a high school exit exam? ... Now that scientists have discovered a planet that could support life, any knowledge we've safely assumed has to be questioned ... Recently the Yale quarterback had to choose between playing in "The Game" against Harvard and his Rhodes Scholarship interview. He chose to play. My question: Why should he have had to choose? He seems to exemplify what we should want in all our student-athletes. But we end up seeing much more press about sad events such as the brawl at the end of the Xavier-Cincinnati basketball game ... Watching our lower school choirs, I'm reminded why schools need arts programs, far beyond the current argument about creativity (although that is key): the arts are an intrinsic and gorgeous form of human expression. Cutting arts equals cutting an essential literacy program ... Managing enrollment, balancing classes, and cobbling a schedule is a massive challenge at time. Imagine trying to do it in the high school I just read about, where students and teachers have to go in shifts--and class size is still way too big ... I recently received an e-mail from the Race to Nowhere folks, calling for "no homework weekends." Nice idea, but it doesn't work. The kids just end up slammed on either side of it. This highlights the problem with movements such as RTN: complicated issues are reduced to over-simplified "solutions" when what's really needed is sustained, thoughtful dialogue ... Harvard Business Review blog recently ran a post on the law of disminishing returns. Here's the basic idea. Let's say you have two people who put in equally long days. Person A goes as hard as possible the entire time. Person B takes some well-timed breaks. As the day goes on, A's productivity lessens so much that even at less than full effort B can end up having accomplished significantly more worthwhile work. There are so lessons there for how we structure school--and kids' lives in general ... For however long, the universal brand logo of a teacher has been chalk, a book, or an apple. Not sure what it should be now ... Similar to the logo idea, I keep trying to thing of great tag lines for a school. I wish I had thought of the one The Rivers School in MA uses: "Excellence with humanity"... Recently I've heard many people talk about a quality education in terms of "maximizing potential" (a phrase I've used). I don't like it, particularly not when referring to kids. I'm 50, and I hope I haven't maximized my potential. A great education should set people up to approach their potential far down the road, when that potential may actually be clear...

I Would E-Mail You The Link to This, But...

2011-12-08T21:41:00.003-06:00

I'm quite jealous of Dana Boyd, who is a renowned researcher on social media, particularly its use among adolescents. Recently she announced her annual e-mail sabbatical. Here is the basic idea. She works "obscene hours"--travelling globally, researching, writing, presenting. To keep that up, she rightly argues, she needs a total break, one in which nothing is building up in her inbox. So for about a month starting in early December, she sets her e-mail so that all incoming messages are automatically and totally deleted. Only her mother can reach her. If someone wants to reach her, he or she will have to resend the message. (Read her full post on the announcement here. As a bonus, there is a link to a post on taking an e-mail sabbatical. Her blog, though not updated that often, is amazing.)

Imagine that: logging in and opening your e-mail. The inbox is empty. Imagine that ever. After a couple of days. A month! Sounds like a technological fantasy, some sort of virtual Xanadu. For a while I had managed to have my inbox empty at the end of the workday. It was a great feeling, but it was fleeting. It meant that e-mail drove my task list in some ways. Plus inevitably my phone would buzz as I drove home, and the inbox would have plenty of messages (most deletable) the next morning. I could have made Sisyphus my avatar.

Recently I gave myself a mini-hiatus. During the Thanksgiving break I went three-and-a-half days without checking my e-mail. It was very nice, and I didn't miss anything pressing. Still, the entire time I felt guilty and wondered what was in there. I couldn't really detach. Of course, I hadn't set up any sort of announcement and process such as Dana Boyd had. I'm not sure I ever could. I want to rationalize that my job really won't allow for it. There is some truth to that. But when I'm truly honest with myself, I also know that I would never be able to do it because of wanting that connection, that semblance of awareness and control, however illusory. I would wonder about what was being deleted and who might become angry. I used to joke when I would see people compulsively checking their phones that "I control the Blackberry; it doesn't control me." It used to be true. But last weekend our e-mail went down for about 18 hours and I started to have withdrawal symptoms. It was reminiscent of a time at my former school when we lost all our e-mail.

So on some level I really am quite jealous of Dana Boyd and admire her confidence in doing this. Most of us could never do such a thing because of temperament or demands or both. Yet it holds an important challenge for us to consider, even beyond e-mail questions. It raises some big, hairy questions about how we communicate with each other: the volume (in all meanings), the tone, the impulsiveness, the expectations. These questions become even more pointed when you consider platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Questions that could lead to dozens of posts, but no clear answers.

Meanwhile, I am trying to become much more conscious of my use of e-mail. I'm going to try to change some of own habits, such as not feeling I have to shift from whatever I'm working on to deal with e-mails right away. Also, I know how much I receive almost every day, and I know other people feel the same way. So I plan to be more thoughtful about how much I send. After all, I can't do much about what ends up in my inbox. But I can do my part to give others a bit of a break.

To Tweet or Not To Tweet?

2011-12-03T10:02:00.000-06:00

By now you likely have heard about Emma Sullivan, the teen girl whose derogatory tweet about Kansas Governor Sam Brownback went viral rather quickly. Perhaps the original tweet somehow made it into your account if you have one. You may even have re-tweeted it yourself. Just do a quick search and you’ll find all kinds of things about it. In case you want, here’s a link to a search on CNN’s site.

I don’t know what prompted the tweet or what issues people may have with Governor Brownblack. Even if I did, I’ve promised myself that I would stay away from political topics on this blog. If I do venture into that dangerous area, I intend to try to be as neutral as possible. I say that because I may be treading a fine line here, as I’m going to start by referencing the first amendment and the notion of free speech. That’s because most of the teen’s defenders have used that rationale in their arguments.

Per Wikipeida, “The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.” I’m not a Constitutional historian or legal maven. I think of the Constitution growing out of the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Even if that’s not factually true, I believe we can fairly connect the two, with the rights reflecting the idea that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Ultimately, it strikes me that all these notions were an attempt to articulate and to some degree codify the emerging social compact that lies at the heart of the vision of the United States. In that compact we willingly exchange some natural rights for social rights and responsibilities. People often cite the pursuit of happiness as an individual right. But when Jefferson included this idea in the Declaration of Independence, he meant it as a moral claim. He believed the right to pursue happiness involves a reciprocal obligation: that it can happen only in conjunction with others’ happiness.

I’m not about to condemn the girl’s right to criticize the governor, or even to say that she shouldn’t have done it via Twitter. Actually, I’m thrilled to see a teen involving herself in public dialogue, assuming that she done some thinking on the issues before tweeting. I encourage all of that. I used to have kids write letters to the editor before we had blogs and tweets. My concern lies not in that she did it, but in how she did it. Just in case you don’t know even the basic details, the girl tweeted that she had told the governor she didn’t think much of his performance, using a once-vulgar term that has become commonly accepted. The hash tag was more vulgar. It also boasted that she had done so to his face.

The case captures the difference between a right and a should. Yes, we are fortunate enough to have the right to free speech, something people all over the world protest to gain. Yet with rights come certain responsibilities. If we ant to express our concerns about something, we need to do so respectfully and thoughtfully. Certainly this is true when addressing people in particular positions. In this case, whether I agree or disagree with a public official is immaterial when it comes to the language and tone I use. The person deserves my respect because of his or her commitment to public service. I also contend that everyone deserves basic respect.

And that is what I fear is getting lost as our electronic media becomes more ubiquitous and easier to use. Combine that with the hectic nature of our lives and the general anxiety about economic/cultural issues, and mixture can be combustible. Check out a few random chat fora. Most of us have received and/or sent e-mails that we wish we hadn’t. Even the most benign e-mail can lead to misinterpretation. I’ve taken two approaches to try to help with this. First, I’ll tell people when I think a topic needs to be handled via phone or a meeting. Second, sometimes I will use my word processor to write the e-mail my emotions want to send but my mind knows not to. It’s cathartic and, and least for me, helps to defuse the issue.

We have some powerful tools at our disposal, right in our pockets. Tools that can do some real damage. Because of that, we need to remain very cognizant that we are helping young people become not just adroit users, but humane users. Modern technology provides mazing ways for us to engage in the life of the mind. When we do that, we acknowledge that thoughtlessness is a crime, with ramifications in our daily lives. The mind is our unique powerful gift. It raises us above other creatures. It can elevate us even higher. Tying all these ideas back to our Founding Fathers, eighteenth century philosophers such as Jefferson assumed illiteracy and ignorance cause barbarism and violence. They believed the spread of education would lead to superior ethical judgment and social justice.

That sort of idealism seems worth re-tweeting. Much more so that some superficial, nasty comment about a public figure.

Be Like Steve?

2011-11-27T07:33:00.000-06:00

I'm typing this post on my ipad2, which I got the day after Steve Jobs died. I can't say I was inspired by his passing, as I already had placed the order. Similarly, Walter Isaacson's superb biography of Jobs came out soon after his death, on the previously set date. I would have read the book anyway, because of both the subject and the author. Years before Jobs had requested that Isaacson write the book, and he had amazing access to Jobs and many other people. Jobs wanted the book to be honest, and it certainly seems to be, given the complexity in which it presents him.

The book is stunning in many ways, from the level of research to the quality of writing. I found myself reading bits whenever I had the chance, even a couple of pages at a time. The entire time, I found myself wondering about one basic question: Would I want to be Steve Jobs?

Near the end of the book, Isaacson makes a list of the innovations that Jobs spearheaded. You know the details, so I won't bother running it down. Surely Jobs, as he set out to do, made "a dent in the universe." If you want a more objective measure, based on rate of return, Jobs is the most successful CEO of all time. No one can seriously question his singular greatness and historical significance.

Yet, I have to ask, at what cost?

If asked to choose one adjective to describe Jobs, I would say haunted. Whatever his demons--and, in classic armchair psychiatrist fashion, I diagnosed him with bipolar disorder, type 1 with some raging narcissism--Jobs found life painful. He raged. He sobbed. He abandoned. He embraced. He scoffed. He honored. All these often in rapid succession, frequently at the same target. He ended up enemies with some he had seen as best friends; he even basically abandoned Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and kept him from getting some stock options. One thing I don't recall him ever doing, and that is apologizing.

Jobs obsessed over every detail of each product--not just the function, but the design. In fact, the latter sometimes overruled the former. Once Jobs decided on a design, he simply expected engineers who called it impossible to achieve Herculean feats to make it work. Usually they succeeded. But Jobs could become neurotic about certain design aspects, such as when he wanted internal screws on a computer, which had nothing to do with performance, to have a certain finish that added greatly to the cost. Jobs had to control everything, mainly because he was truly convinced that only he could be right. For this reason, he also was known to blast ideas, change his way of thinking, and then take credit for having had the idea in the first place.

Brilliant? Truly visionary? Revolutionary? Without a doubt. Greatest CEO ever? Maybe.

In pondering that, I have to raise questions about my leadership as a head of school. After all, as one of my trustees likes to ask when we're discussing something, "What does the CEO want to see happen?" Well, I certainly don't ever see myself operating like Jobs. I like to think I still function like a teacher, but with a different classroom. The greatest teachers help others realize what they can become and help them fulfill that potential. They also know how to set things up and get out of the way. Yes, I want to be a great head of school. But that doesn't mean that I have to set out to change the world on my own. Instead, I have to strive to make the most positive difference I can in my corner of the world, the trust that the ripple effect will spread the benefits. That's my goal in all aspects of my life. Then my life and work will have mattered.

At the same time, I hope that I can keep my ambition in perspective. True excellence comes with costs. If he weren't so driven, Jobs could not have achieved all he did. Therein lies another lesson for us a educators. We need to be very careful about the mixed message we send to young people when we encourage them to achieve excellence and to maintain balance. The concepts are mutually exclusive. Similarly, we preach the values of altruistic service, yet we remind students to build their resume. We also need to make sure that we don't let the wrong payoffs cause us to forget our values. Recently a Dallas principal was receiving all kinds of accolades for how much the reading and math scores had risen at her school. Then it was discovered that her teachers had been told to abandon all science and social studies instruction to focus on test preparation. Now what is her legacy?

When he died, Jobs was with several family members. His last words were "Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh wow!" People have interpreted this in a positive fashion--that he was finally gratefully in touch with the people who had stuck with him. I'm not so sure. Jobs always had been obsessed with his own mortality, and I think he was commenting on his imminent death more than anything else.

So back to that one question: Would I want to be Steve Jobs? I am in awe of his talents and grateful that he saw what people wanted even before we knew it. As I learn more and more about what I can do on my ipad, I believe it is the best device for kids to have in school. Yet rather than being the creator of the ipad, I'm very content conceiving of the possibilities it holds for education. What about you?

Giving Thanks

2011-11-17T13:45:00.000-06:00

     Each work day, I finish by making a mental list. I select the three best things that had happened that day. There are no specific criteria. One might be some way I believe I had helped someone. A finished task. A great meeting. Positive feedback. Even negatives can usually reveal a positive glimmer if you look hard enough.
    I do this somewhat for practical, personal reasons. It helps me sleep better at night, and it keeps me optimistic. But there also are some larger philosophical reasons: as I've written previously, I think our society--individually and collectively--is losing a sense of gratitude.
     So here we are, near Thanksgiving; and at the risk of being totally cliched, I want to share with you some of the things for which I am grateful. Since this is my head of school blog, I'm going to stick to professional points. I could go on and on about my family and personal blessings. For many reasons these also will be generalities. More than anything, don't want to hurt anyone through inadvertent omission.

I feel very fortunate to head a school with a meaningful mission--and that the school is true to its mission. At a time when many schools are cutting programs and taking a very narrow academic approach, we continue to take a truly holistic approach. We work on every aspect of human development: intellectual, physical, artistic, social, emotional, spiritual...and probably some I'm forgetting. We also see them as totally integrated.
The faculty here (and when I say faculty, I refer to all the adults who work at a school and thus somehow influence kids). They work tirelessly and truly care about the students. Even though many have extensive experience, they are quite growth oriented, always seeking ways to improve their craft and thus better serve the students. The relatively long average tenure speaks to their dedication.
We have a committed board of trustees. Individually and collectively, they take their responsibilities very seriously and provide tremendous support. Their talents mesh beautifully. I always feel enlightened--and a bit in awe--after watching them in action, either working on a task force, doing committee work, or convening as a full board. Like the faculty, they strive to grow even stronger.
Our school community is a very generous one. People here give and give in many ways--time, talent, and treasure. Two amazing statistics bear this out. A recent study revealed that approximately 85% of our parents volunteer in some way at the school. That's an amazing number, and it doesn't capture how much energy and time so many of them give. For some it's like a second job. The second is our five-year streak of 100% family participation in our Annual Fund.
Parents here are involved in their children's education, and they place great trust in the school. Many studies show that parent engagement is perhaps the most important factor in a successful school.
Great kids, who work hard, act respectfully, and inspire everyone mentioned above. Two quick stories. Recently our dean was talking to a student about a small disciplinary issue. Rather than make any excuses, the student simply said, "I wasn't being a very good person." In the second story, a teacher heard during a class from an alum whose mother has died. A student instantly wrote a letter for the teacher to deliver.

I wanted to avoid being cliched in taking on this topic, and now I realize that my list of items is rather cliched. There's a lesson there. The things that make for a great school are not that complicated. But they can prove elusive. Often at least one is missing, or they are out of balance in some way. It comes down to culture. So, along with being so thankful for the opportunity to head this school, perhaps I'm most grateful that our culture is so healthy. It's what will enable us to keep growing better and better as a school and as people.

Educational Value(s)

2011-11-10T16:45:00.000-06:00

Three things recently have converged to prompt this post. The first two are entwined: it’s budgeting season, and that means we have to look at tuition rates for the coming year. Those topics have been foremost in my mind. In fact, early Monday morning I was thinking about them when CNN had a piece on whether or not a college degree is a worthwhile investment.

In fact, that’s a rather hot topic right now. I Googled “Is college worth it?” and received 725,000,000 hits. The recent press about the Thiel Fellows who were granted $100,000 to skip college and begin start-up businesses drew some attention. It’s prompted, of course, by the epic tales of people like Gates, Jobs, and Zuckerberg having not completed college and endingd up incredibly rich and influential. (I’m reading Isaacson’s biography of Jobs—stay tuned for my thoughts when I finish.)

I understand the concerns. After all, in a few years my ninth grade daughter and sixth grade son will be deciding on college. The costs have skyrocketed to what a few years ago would have been incomprehensible levels. Most of the anger is directed at the colleges, but I think there is plenty of blame to go around. Certainly colleges took advantage of the economic prosperity we enjoyed for a while, and they also reveled in the demographic bubble and consumer anxiety that led to hyper-competitive admission activity. At the same time, though, people began looking for features and amenities that really had little to do with the ultimate goals of college. Take a look at some of the luxurious student centers. Heck, take a look at some dorms.

Let’s briefly recap the general points on each side of the argument. Yes, I know that I will be oversimplifying.

The anti-college side argues that one can succeed without college. After all, look at the examples above. These are people who dented the universe, and they didn’t finish college. The anti-college folks also say that most of what one needs can be better learned through experience; that one needs to be in the real world, not the ivory tower.

The pro-college side points out that the average person’s potential income is much higher with a college degree. The CNN piece pointed out how unemployment levels drop as degrees grow higher, i.e. people with a master’s are less likely to be unemployed than those with a bachelors, who are less likely than those with just a high school degree, and so on.

With just a little bit of basic Internet research and a modicum of logic, I could support or refute either one of these arguments. Even without the research, I would ask some simple questions. For example, I’d ask if Steve Jobs really makes for a compelling example since he is such an outlier. But I’m not interested in intellectual debate here, particularly over what strikes me as an ultimately unsolvable issue.

My issue with both sides is much more basic than that. It’s one in which my idealism trumps my practicality. It’s one at which I can hear some people scoffing. It’s one that I sometimes forget amidst the realities of life. It’s one I hope I never lose.

My issue is simple…but it’s not. Both sides reduce the value of a college education to pure dollars. To return on investment. By extension, I guess this thinking applies to all education.

It’s worth more than that. At least, it is when done right.

It’s about the growth that happens when someone discovers potential she had never perceived in herself. It’s about a person becoming enamored with a topic he had once dismissed. It’s about being challenged by the experiences and perspectives of those around you. It’s about those aha moments. It’s about a young person figuring out what sort of person he or she wants to become…and doesn’t want to. It’s about pondering the ever-morphing complexities of the human experience. It’s about training the mind for even heavier lifting. It’s about making a contribution. It’s about life-long learning.

I’d also contend that society would be much better off with a more highly-educated populace. Imagine, for instance, if people were better critical thinkers when it comes to political elections. In another example, we might be less doomed to repeat history if we understood its arc better. Perhaps we would consider meaningful discourse to be more than the current cacophony of sound bites and vitriol.

I know these are rather quixotic musings. Sometimes I also wonder if all the tuition I pay for my kids is worth it. But I believe that, ironically, when we think of education in purely financial terms, we actually cheapen it. We shouldn’t think of it in terms of price point. After all, ultimately it’s priceless.

Successful Thinking?

2011-11-03T15:30:00.000-05:00

This morning Ian Jukes’ Committed Sardine blog alerted me to John Maxwell’s How Successful People Think: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life. More specifically, a link brought me to this slideshow highlighting the main topics of the book. If you don’t feel like clicking over, here’s the list:

· Figure out where you need to focus your energy, and then use the 80/20 rule

· Smart thinkers expose themselves to different ideas and types of people

· It's one thing to have an idea, another to follow through

· Thoughts need time to develop. Don't just settle on the first thing that comes to mind

· Smart people collaborate with other smart people

· Reject popular thinking (which often means not thinking at all)

· The best thinkers plan ahead, while leaving room for some spontaneity

· To think differently, do different things

· To appreciate others' ideas, you need to value other ideas

· Have an agenda -- for the day, and when you meet with people

· Reflective thinking gives you perspective and confidence in your decision-making skills

· Get over negative self talk. Winners think in terms of "I will" and "I can"

· Creative people are dedicated to ideas

· Naturally optimistic people find it hard to be realistic thinkers

· At the end of the day, it's important to remember we can all change the way we think

· Smart people make good decisions

This, of course, prompted some big, hairy questions:

· How is success being defined in here?

· What do I think about each of these items?

· Can these be taught/learned?

· If these are common to successful people, and they can be taught, shouldn’t these be near the top of any curriculum?

What do you think?

Gut Check

2011-10-27T16:03:00.000-05:00

Consider two people. First, think about someone in a typical student leadership positions—team captain, student council officer, et cetera. Now, think about a student who reaches out to the “weird new kid.” Who shows greater leadership? Who may grow up to become a stronger leader?[i]

Leadership is a hot topic right now, particularly in independent schools. Many schools have added leadership to their mission statements. It seems simple enough. After all, of course we want to foster leadership. And I believe that leadership can be developed in many ways. Plus I think everyone has opportunities to lead and must be ready to grasp them when they appear.

I appreciate all the traditional ways schools have helped students develop their leadership skills. Many schools have added special leadership programs; kids go off for special leadership experiences; and I’ve toyed with the idea of teaching an elective on leadership. Many such programs are excellent, and I’ve certainly grown through participating in some. Still, I feel we’re missing something.

I think about great leaders from history. (Rather than name them, I encourage you to create your own list.) I recall examples of truly inspired leadership shown by young people. They all have one common secret ingredient.

Courage.

For kids to develop leadership, we have to allow them to face discomfort. Even more, to wrestle with big, hairy challenges. They must be able to stare at themselves in the mirror and promise themselves that they will do what is hard and uncomfortable and right. They have to grow more and more resilient.

Contrast this to another hot topic in schools—snowplow parents. Unlike helicopter parents, who hover and are ready to swoop whenever necessary, snowplow parents try to clear any obstacles from their child’s path. They jump out in front and smooth the way.

That leads to a logical question: How does a child learn to lead if he or she is always following?

The quick answer is that he or she can’t, except in theory. And in theory leadership can be taught. But in practice leadership is learned mainly by discovering what lies in one’s gut.

[i] The answer is, I think, “Depends.” Many factors could come into play here. I’ve seen fantastic student leadership in those positions, but also some poor leadership. Please understand I am not disparaging those roles. It’s just to start myself—and, I hope, you—thinking.

An Athletic Education

2011-10-21T16:05:00.000-05:00

Watching Game 2 of the World Series last night, I had one of those moments that reminded me why I love sports and their educational value.

I think it was in the fifth inning. I say think because, despite the tension of the game, I was dozing off a bit. Suddenly there was the Rangers shortstop, Elvis Andrus, lunging full length at a sharp grounder straight up the field. He snared the ball, managed to prop himself up on his other elbow, and flipped the ball out of his glove towards second base. Second baseman Ian Kinsler arrived just in time—he had been shaded towards first base and thus had extra far to go—to catch the flip right before the runner arrived. Crisis averted. Without this play, the Rangers probably don’t win. (Amazingly, the defensive duo had pulled off a pretty sweet play to end the previous inning as well; it just wasn’t as spectacular.) I snapped wide awake.

Let’s think about what qualities were captured in this play. There was pure athleticism on display. Both Andrus and Kinsler made great individual efforts. They reacted instinctively, and Andrus was amazingly innovative. At the same time, they had to collaborate in perfect sync. In those couple of seconds, we saw the result of thousands of hours of practice. Interestingly, in the past both players have been criticized at times for making too many errors, so they certainly have shown resilience. Andrus also put aside individual ego for the team. After game, when asked about the play, he said, “I always say when you're not hitting good, you better do something good defensively.” And he did get a key hit in the ninth inning rally.

Certainly my experience playing soccer drilled into me the importance of these qualities. In fact, I think about the reasons I was drawn to the sport. First, I simply found it fun because it challenged me in ways no other sport did. Second, soccer provides ample room for tremendous individual creativity and flair within a strong team concept. One of my favorite players was Vladislav Bogicevic, a Yugoslavian who played for the New York Cosmos in their glory days. Bogie had magical skills and amazing vision. Rather than look to score, he continually tried to make the unexpected killer pass. He derived pleasure from untangling the knot and from making others look good. I found myself trying to play that way (admittedly, sometimes to my coaches’ consternation, when I would not take certain shots). Today, I frequently say most of the qualities that serve me well emerged during my soccer career.

This notion calls to mind the story I once read about an upper-level math teacher’s response to the inevitable question, “When are we ever going to use this?” He told the students that they might have to, but they very well may not. Then he compared it to lifting weights as part of training for a sport or for better health. They weren’t, he explained, doing math for the sake of doing math. They really were pumping intellectual iron to strengthen themselves. The analogy works better than the response I’ve often given to that question: “You may, or you may not. But you want to be ready because you never know what life may throw at you.”

All schools actually teach two curricula: the explicit and the implicit. The explicit is what you normally think of—the objectives, standards, content, skills, et cetera. The implicit curricula encompass all the other lessons that occur along the way, such as self-discipline and perseverance. Both certainly matter; and, structured well and intentionally, they feed each other in a virtuous circle. It can happen anywhere. I know people who talk about their theater experiences, for example, in the same way I talk about soccer. In fact, the implicit curricula is learned in very powerful, often longer-lasting ways than the explicit. I don’t recall much calculus, but I do remember the logical precision that Dr. Haytock required. And while my touch on the ball is now rather pathetic, I draw on other skills every day.

How Time Flies!

2011-10-14T14:15:00.002-05:00

A few days ago a post appeared on the Fast Company blog that made me think, “Wow! I want one of those gadgets. In fact, I want one for every classroom. I want one in my house. I think every family needs one."

No, it’s not some super-cool tablet that will replace the iPad. It’s not a robot that will do routine chores. It’s a clock. A clock that takes a full year to complete its cycle: “This Seasonal Clock Will Keep You thinking About the Present.”

In many ways time is a form of currency. How we spend it sends signals about our priorities, and we never seem to have enough of it. We often say that we didn’t get something done because we ran out of time; what we’ve really done is choose to use that time doing something else. We all have 24 hours in a day, although our ultimate amount of mortal time obviously varies. And when we do toss off that mortal coil, how do we want the epitaph to read—“He simply ran out of time” or “He made the most of it, and it mattered”?

That’s pretty big picture. As the article points out, “our obsession with small increments of time often keeps us from focusing on the bigger picture.” This manifests itself in some obvious ways in education. Curricula is organized into discrete units, usually with a defined time frame and marked by a test at the end. Add enough of those and it’s suddenly time for a “final” exam. Seat time becomes a key measurement of assumed progress. Grade levels and divisional organizations become major transitions, like flipping months on a calendar and then buying a new one (a metaphor becoming rapidly obsolete, but that’s another post). Teachers fret about having to make sure students are ready for the next level. A student having to apply to another school in 4^th or 8^th or 12^th grade imposes another deadline.

The problem with all this? Too often we feel that we have to finish kids. And we often want it to happen on our timetable, not theirs. Plus it should come with a certain payoff.

Such an approach is not a healthy one for children, particularly when it comes to their long-term development. It fosters a product-focused orientation, one in which a certain result takes on too great an importance and becomes a measure of self-worth. That can obscure what led to the result, which is what really needs to be examined for growth to occur. Similarly, struggles become “catastrophic” and provoke finger-pointing rather than reflection and lessons in determination and resilience. It undermines natural inclinations to love learning for its own sake. (Read more about this in an earlier post on Carole Dweck’s Mindset.)

What are the not-so-long-term effects of this? Recently National Association of Independent Schools president Pat Bassett was part of a panel with the president of Georgetown, the president of Stanford, the dean of the faculty of Arts & Science at Harvard, and the Director of the Initiative for Innovation in Engineering Education at Olin College. Afterwards, Bassett wrote on his blog:

The university leaders also confirmed with what a professor at Harvard told me last year, that 30–40 percent of the undergrads are on anti-depressants, and 10 percent of girls suffered from eating disorders. While the university leaders were quick to point out that their universities were mirroring national data, it is particularly interesting to me that the students at these colleges had already “won the lottery” by matriculating at places that were nearly impossible to get into for mere mortals, and yet so many were still stressed beyond belief and needing medication (prescribed or, probably in much larger numbers, self-medicating — see the next bullet point).

Footnote to “success-driven parents and college counselors”: beware of what you wish for: What we actually do well is place students in the “best match” college, where they will be successful and can pursue interests that will keep them engaged and balanced.(http://www.nais.org/about/article.cfm?ItemNumber=155607&sn.ItemNumber=4181&tn.ItemNumber=147271)

In The Path to Purpose: How Young People Find Their Calling in Life, educational psychologist William Damon cites a meta-analytic study of college students which points out that 45% of them show serious signs of depression. Per that same study, only 20% could be called “truly purposeful.” The rest possess a “foggy self-identity” and can see only the short term rather than have long-term aspirations. I can’t help but believe that this is caused in part by children feeling rushed and thus pressured at younger and younger ages.

Helping young people remain life-long learners has longer term benefits. Particularly in this day and age, when so much changes in a constant swirl, people have to be able to react and adapt and evolve, and quickly. It’s also a matter of long-term health and quality of life. In A User’s Guide to the Brain, Dr. John Ratey talks about the nuns of Mankato. Many live into their nineties and even past one hundred; on average they live much longer than the general public. They also show far fewer cases of all mental and neurological diseases. Why? It’s not just living in a convent and perhaps escaping many of life’s stressors. The nuns vigorously play intellectual games, engage in debates, and earn advanced degrees. Many of the nuns donated their brains to science, and examination revealed unusually great dendritic growth. The brains of those nuns who were more intellectually engaged showed more growth than others. The implication, as Ratey explains:

Like the nuns of Mankato, if you constantly challenge your brain to learn new things, you may develop more neural connections that help you delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, recover from a stroke, and live a longer life. And your life will be more interesting. It’s never too late to start: studies show that the adult cortex retains its basic plasticity. You can indeed teach an old dog new tricks. (364)

That depends largely on how we nurture our pups and make sure they get what they need when young. As a former colleague of mine is fond of saying, “It’s easier to build children than to repair adults.”

It’s a tremendous challenge to keep the long view in mind. We want the best for our children, and in this hyper-competitive world we fear their falling behind in the race to whatever goal. Life comes with certain realities, including deadlines. Sometimes I watch both the children here and my own kids and feel as if I’m holding a stopwatch, ready to click the buttons as milestones are passed. I can grow impatient; I think, “Shouldn’t you be able to do this by now?!?” I have to take a deep breath. I remind myself of what really matters. And I realize that I need to trade the stopwatch for one of these new clocks.

I Take the Challenge

2011-10-07T12:47:00.000-05:00

About two weeks ago, I posted a challenge. I asked readers to complete the phrase “School as a ___.” I would then have the challenge of completing a “meditation” explaining the completed phrase.

There were several strong suggestions, and I would have found any of them fertile ground. But “crucible” both struck me as most interesting and received two votes…so “School as a Crucible” it is.

Before I launch into this, I need to make a disclaimer. As this is a “meditation,” I’m really figuring this out as I write after having done just a bit of poking around the Internet and thinking. It isn’t thoroughly edited and polished. Apologies for that!

School as a Crucible

School as a crucible: a sturdy container in which the contents are challenged, altered, and fused to create beauty, strength, and resilience. (Kara Name’s comment on the post posing the challenge)

The crucible has always been a melting pot for valuable materials, the origin of new alloys, materials of innovation. How should the post-industrial Crucible melt and blend ideas? (from the website of Crucible: Research in Interdisciplinary Design)

Kara’s quotation defines a crucible. While the basic purpose of a crucible has remained the same, they actually have a rich history. The first ones date from the sixth/fifth millennium in Eastern Europe and Iran. You can follow their development in terms of composition and specific purpose through the Iron Age and Roman Era and Medieval Period right into current days. (If you’re really interested, click here.) Of course, the advances have appeared more rapidly as science and technologies have improved. In a way, the history of the crucible could become metaphorical for the history of modern human development in some ways. Certainly you could draw enough lines to branch into multiple areas.

So here I will draw my first one to school—the really big one. How we educate our children—the whole system of education—really follows this same pattern. Particularly now, science and technology have started having an enormous impact on the possibilities within education. We know more and more about the human brain, which promotes a new form of cognitive science far removed from simple behaviorism and rote learning. Technology has shifted humans from pure consumers of information to creators and collaborators, and great schools are preparing them for that role. In less grandiose terms, think about the time-honored research paper. The process and preparation of the final product will never again rely on index cards. We may even have to scrap using the word paper. Research project, perhaps? Why not a multimedia presentation on…?

But that doesn’t really capture school as a crucible. Consider it context, and it becomes relevant.

Just as the basic purpose of a crucible has not changed, the basic purposes of education have not really changed even if curricula, settings, approaches, et cetera have. A crucible takes materials and breaks them down. They are then often recombined to form something new and better. Education is not just about giving students knowledge and equipping them with skills. Often it involves breaking down their assumptions and misunderstandings; then the effective teacher helps a student reconstruct the new points into greater understanding. That’s the Socratic method in a nutshell.

The process, of course, involves both science and art. There are objectives and measurements and certain set processes. Formulae must be followed along the path to higher levels, i.e. drill your math facts so you can do algebra without having to think about basic computation. That’s all scientific to a degree. The art comes in when the teacher heats the crucible. Keep the flame too low and the right challenge isn’t there. Overheat things and the stress impedes the desired learning. One has to add just the right elements to the mix. That becomes more like my grandmother making chicken soup than any recipe.

Interestingly, I see some of the other ways in which the word crucible has been used fitting in with the metaphor. Crucible: Research in Interdisciplinary Design ( the Cambridge, England-based group cited in the second quotation at the start) focuses on interdisciplinary education. This approach breaks down the traditional academic disciplines in the hopes of forging new understandings. We hope that students do this, but I suspect it occurs mainly when we rearrange programs for this express purpose. Crucible is the name of software used for the peer review of computer code. This approach harnesses the power of collaboration, a method that draws on each person’s respective strengths and allows him or her to learn through the process. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible as a commentary on McCarthyism, but one could also see it as a story of adolescent rebellion against adult repression.

Finally, the crucible is the last stage of recruit training for the U.S. Marines—when a Marine has to draw on all the knowledge and skills gained during boot camp. Some of you may recall this commercial for the Marines that highlights a glimmering sword being forged.

In the really big picture, that best captures school as a crucible. Early on, a student enters the crucible. For the next number of years, myriad experiences are added to the combustion. When all the factors combine correctly, the student emerges not as something new, but as an improved version of him- or herself.

Taming My Lizard Brain: An Unforeseen Lesson from Blogging

2011-10-03T10:00:00.000-05:00

Renowned business writer and marketing expert Seth Godin frequently writes about the “need to ship.” To oversimplify, per Godin you can have all the great ideas you want; but unless you ship, they don’t really matter. In other words, you have to deliver the product. Literal in certain areas, the idea of shipping becomes a metaphor for just about any endeavor. When people don’t ship, says Godin, it’s frequently because their “lizard brain” takes over. This is the brain stem, the reptillian base of our brains, and we react in the simplest possible fashion and allow the fear to take over. If we could, we’d drop our tails and flee.

Writing this blog, I feel real pressure to ship at least once per week. As someone pointed out to me, “You create a monster; then you have to feed it.” At first this was easy: I was new to my school, wanted people to learn about me and my ideas, had plenty to say. It was purely rational, grounded in my cerebral cortex. Now, shipping has become harder. I find myself asking questions that, while logical, still drip with juices of the lizard brain. What am I going to say this week? Haven’t I already written about that? Is this worth posting on? What are people thinking about my posts? Have I gone too far in some of my points and overly offended someone? Would anyone notice if I didn’t post for a while? If I stopped posting at all? Why isn’t my mind working the way I want it to? When did I forget how to write? How in the world does Godin manage to post every single day, and it’s almost always great?

Suddenly I think about students, and the dominant emotion turns to empathy. We demand that they ship, on time and at a high rate of production. Some of the work is fairly mechanical, and students can simply churn out the product. But the really important higher-level stuff such as creation, analysis, synthesis? We bring kids along so that they can do that sort of work, and they often do it surprisingly well for their respective ages. At any level such work takes time and space for reflection, yet we keep kids hopping. I have to wonder how this affects deep, long-term learning.

Consider the demands of a school day for a developing child. (I’ve shadowed kids in various grades for a day, and it’s exhausting.) Now imagine that you have to go home and have products ready for the next day. Meanwhile, the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex don’t fully mature until the late teens and early twenties. All told, it’s rather amazing how well kids can keep the lizard brain at bay.

Another blog post seems a bit less daunting.

Your/My Challenge: School as a _____

2011-09-23T08:52:00.000-05:00

Recently I read Peter Gow’s What is a School? A Philosophical and Practical Guide for Independent School Leaders, Trustees, and Friends. Peter is very well known in independent school circles, for both his prolific work and his sharp thinking. (I learned of the book when I discovered Peter’s wonderful blog: Not Your Father’s School.)

The book presents a “series of meditations,” each of which considers the qualities of a successful school by considering school as a ___. Some of his topics include: a name, a utopia, a laboratory of human experience. I won’t list them all because I hope Peter sells more books; and I don’t want to limit you as, hopefully, you take my challenge here.

Please add a comment and fill in the blank for me. Be as literal or as creative and funky as you desire. But just give me the word or phrase—nothing more than that. Then I’ll choose the most intriguing one and expand on the idea. I’ve challenged you. Now make it challenging for me.

No App for That

2011-09-16T15:24:00.001-05:00

When I first saw this cartoon by Hugh MacLeod (follow his wonderful work at www.gapingvoid.com), I found myself recalling the recent story about an Israeli couple who named their baby daughter Like. Yes, after the Facebook feature.

For me, angels symbolize our higher natures. I see them as somehow having transcended human limitations and having achieved a perspective most of us lack. They embody (is that really the right word?) ideals to which we should aspire. I see them as particularly discerning. In that regard, the humor becomes rather obvious and ludicrous. Like many humorous pieces, however, this one points to a more serious issue.

Clearly the Israeli couple has a penchant for unusual names. Their first two children are Honey and Pie. They had a clear reason for naming the girl Like:

When they chose the name Like, the sound was at least as important as the meaning, explained Lior.

Like had a nice and [sic] international ring to it, he said, and Facebook had become the icon of today's generation.

"If once people gave Biblical names and that was the icon, then today this is one of the most famous icons in the world," he said, joking that the name could be seen as a modern version of the traditional Jewish name Ahuva, which means "beloved." http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/inspired-by-facebook-israeli-couple-names-their-daughter-like-1.362118

Still, while I’m trying not to be judgmental, this strikes me as implusive for many reasons. But this is not a post about parenting decisions. However, because the like button represents “the icon of today’s generation,” this naming story hits at what struck me about the cartoon.

The combination of our hectic lifestyles and the technological ease of social media has made some things too easy. Have an opinion on something on-line? Simply click if you like it or not. I understand the thinking behind this: that if your “friends” like it, and enough of them click on it, then you’ll probably like it also, etc. It’s the collective wisdom of crowds notion. The feature has become so ubiquitous that this effect has become weakened. Meanwhile, what about the rationale? What about paying attention to nuance? Yes, people can provide comments. Most that I’ve seen aren’t much deeper than the button and often resort to vitriol.

Similarly, being connected all the time, particularly with smartphones, sometimes leads us to do things rather impulsively—fire off that angry e-mail, leave an accusatory message—before we have all the information. I almost did just this the other evening, when I heard something that really ticked me off. Luckily I was in a place where it would have been totally inappropriate for me to be tapping away. By the time I left the event, I had calmed down enough to know that I needed to gather more information before making any conclusions. I have other strategies I use at various times. For instance, I often draft e-mail in Word so I don’t send something off before I’m ready; sometimes I write the response I’d like to send in the heat of the moment but know I shouldn’t. Still, I make mistakes. And, no, I’m not going to share any examples of how I learned my lesson the hard way.

Like the angels in the cartoon, we risk giving away some of our key human qualities. We need to think quite carefully about our relationship with technology—and how it’s affecting our relationships with others. Human identity and interaction is too complex for reduction to binary code.

That’s why great schools remain vital. They are about so much more than the transmission of information and quick, over-simplified analysis. Yes, a student can study something and say he likes it. But he also has to be able to articulate why in a stylish and graceful fashion, to connect it to other understandings, to consider it from multiple perspectives, and to see why it all this matters. Plus so much of what happens in those schools comes down to meaningful human relationships. When I send my children to school, certainly I worry about their academics. But I also pay my tuition because of the people with whom I want my kids spending time as they form their identities.

Ultimately, no matter what advances are made in artificial intelligence, I don’t foresee a day we can simply download an app for wisdom. We have to keep channeling our inner angels.

The Difference a Letter Can Make

2011-09-10T14:29:00.000-05:00

Last ThursdayDr. Kristen Ohlenforst [i]presented“Helping the Racing Child” at our first Parents’ Association speaker event forthe year. We asked Dr. Ohlenforst to come as a follow up to our screening lastspring of Race to Nowhere, an event shefacilitated. (You can read prior postson RtN: thisone, thatone, anotherone.) She made a great number of wonderful points and gave sage advice withconcrete suggestions.

Immediately Dr.Ohlenforst stressed an important reality—that no one is going to change thecomplex socio-cultural system which has produced the issues captured in RtN. It comes down to family choicesbased on values, beliefs, wishes, et cetera. Another key factor is how we talkto our children about these issues. The questions we ask, the attention we heedto certain particulars, the feelings we expose, the words we use—kids pick upon these things immediately.

Similarly,certain aspects of school are not going to change. There are going to beassessments and homework; there are going to be areas in which students shineand areas in which they struggle. As in anything else, for a young person toprogress and thrive, he or she is going to have to work hard. A student shouldno be allowed to see that as optional. School is inherently going to bring withit a certain degree of stress. That can be okay. As Dr. Ohlenforst pointed out,the right level of stress actually serves as a motivator. The problems arise whenthe stress grows too great, even if it’s just a bit too much over a long periodof time.

Since Dr.Ohlenforst emphasized points about the language we use, I began thinking aboutone of the most popular words used to describe curricula: rigorous. It’s hard to argue against rigor; certainly we wantstudents pushed and prodded. But let’s consider what that word really means: “rigidlysevere or harsh…severely exact or accurate.” When applied to weather orclimate, it means uncomfortably severe or harsh; extremely inclement.” The very Latin root of the word refers to “stiffness.”Think rigor mortis. I’m reminded ofDr. Ohlenforst telling us that too much stress beginning at a young age canactually cause someone’s full brain growth to be smaller.

We need to change justone letter for a better word to describe what we should want student experiencesto be.

Vigorous.

Think about the meaningsof vigorous: “full of orcharacterized by vigor… strong; active; robust…energetic; forceful…powerful inaction or effect.” Vigorous plants and animals grow well. The root refers toenergy and and has ties to thrive. Other words that come to mind are vibrant, vivacious, and invigorate.They all suggest life and joy. No undergrown brains there.[ii]

That littlesingle-letter change holds massive implications. After all, other than ouractions, language is our most powerful tool in educating our children. Theconversations we have with them are crucial. Yet they often can prove troublesomein obvious and hidden ways. RichardWeissbourd explores this idea in his wonderful book TheParents We Mean to Be, and he provides many talking points andstrategies for conversations with children, teachers, coaches, and otherparents. I highly recommend it as a follow-up to Dr. Ohlenforst’s presentation.To Dr. Weissbourd, all of this is a moral calling, one operating in “thedeepest forms of love” (Kindle edition, loc 3095). I find that truly invigorating.

[i]She also is a very talented artist. See http://www.ohlenforst.com/.

[ii]All dictionary information taken from www.dictionary.com.

Thanks to My Two Best Teachers

2011-09-08T17:00:00.001-05:00

Recently New York Times op-ed columnist Charles Blow wrote “In Honor of Teachers” because he believes too many educators are unfairly maligned. A few days later, the paper’s education blog had a post “What Teacher Would You Like to Thank?” Serendipity strikes again, I mused, since I recently had written about my concerns that our culture is losing a sense of gratitude. I also found myself trying to answer the question.

The late Fred Frank, my advisor at Allegheny College, tops the list. I decided to become an English major while taking one of his intro level courses, and three years later he sponsored my thesis. During my junior year, I took Prof. Frank’s seminar on Gothic Literature. I had no real interest in the topic…but he was the professor. The first day he showed up as a headless spirit, which captures why I loved him as a teacher: the incredible passion for his subject and how that infused his teaching. My thesis topic ended up growing out of a small piece of that course, but in a way that followed my own interest in more contemporary literature. During my thesis, Prof. Frank allowed—actually encouraged—me to dive head-first into any rabbit hole I discovered. Some worked and some didn’t. What stuck more than anything was the faith he showed in my emerging intellectualism. During the thesis time he also asked me to teach his seminar one day, the first time I ever really taught a class. But the real highlight of my relationship with Prof. Frank came right after I passed my oral defense. For the first time, he called me not Crotty, but Mark. I felt I had graduated.

In high school my sophomore English teacher was Brendan Loonam. We were a motley crew: grinds, nerds, jocks, druggies, loners…and a teacher unlike any I’d ever experienced before or since. I’m not sure exactly how Mr. Loonam did it, but he created a dynamic in that classroom which made us all practically pant in anticipation of what we might think about on any given day. He prodded and poked; he asked giant questions; he was contradictory and contrary; he told us things maybe he shouldn’t have. More than anything he made it matter. In his class I discovered Shakespeare and Springsteen, and I learned to think about how and why both speak to us on multiple levels. My friend Rick and I used to look forward to the days Mr. Loonam had hall duty at lunch. We’d sneak past the other proctors, who would have insisted on seeing our non-existent hall passes, so we could visit with him.

I feel very fortunate to have had two teachers like this in my life. However, it also saddens me a bit that I feel there is a wide gulf between these two and what I recall about the rest of my educational experience. Much of that is simply because I was the type of kid for whom school didn’t work very well, although I did fine and wasn’t any sort of problem. It’s not that I had many bad teachers; in fact, several were quite good in many ways. I don’t question their dedication. I truly am grateful for what they gave me in terms of basic skills and knowledge. But they weren’t passionate and inspiring; they gave me no sense of wanting to be like them in certain ways. Prof. Frank and Mr. Loonam did that. More importantly, they helped me begin to envision a better version of myself.

I know I never properly thanked Mr. Loonam. Sadly, he left the school at the end of that year. No one knew if he resigned or was fired; we all had our romantic versions of what happened. I like to imagine him standing up for some noble reason. know he ended up tending bar after that, and I hope he eventually went back to teaching. (I Googled his name and saw a link to a Facebook page for a teacher in New Jersey.) If he’s still alive, perhaps he’ll get on-line someday, do a little ego surfing, and stumble upon this blog post. I draw some solace from my often mentioning him when I give presentations on different educational topics.

I’m proud to say that a couple years into my teaching career, I wrote Prof. Frank a long letter in which I tried to articulate his influence on me. I probably failed miserably, in that it was still too soon. I know I talked about my teaching and things I had picked up from him in that arena. At that time, however, I could have no idea how the larger lessons would resonate almost thirty years later. Still, I know he appreciated the effort. I had signed the letter “Crotty.” His reply began with “Dear Mark.”

What teacher would you thank? What would you say?

If Buildings Could Speak: A Final Flood Lesson

2011-09-01T18:51:00.001-05:00

Almost two weeks into the school year, and the flood has receded (pun fully intended) into an increasingly distant memory. Five hundred kids bustling through the building each day helps one focus on more immediate issues. At the same time, the flood recovery holds important lessons about working with those kids.

When the flood first occurred on August 5, I figured there was no way we would be able to open on the 23^rd. I put on a brave face and spouted confidence, but now I can admit to serious doubts. Adding to my frustration was this coming after we’d had to open late last year because of construction. Then we had numerous weather-related interruptions, beginning the second day of school and culminating in two closures because of ice—one of them unprecedented in Dallas. So the thought of a delayed opening had my nerves churning.

I found myself desperate hoping, willing, praying the recovery would go faster. I begged for constant updates. I kept asking what else could be done. How were the workers going to make sure we opened on time?

In reality, they were doing everything they could. The damage recovery people had all the machines going and were adjusting them accordingly per multiple measures. The carpentry folks had to adjust depending on the rest of the progress. For example, they couldn’t really do anything about millwork until sheetrock had been repaired and or deemed sufficiently dry. Once the crew could work on things, they put in some amazing hours.

But I kept wanting the progress to be faster. Thank goodness I couldn’t control things and we had experts guiding us. If we had rushed things, we could have ended up with damage that emerged weeks, months, even years down the road. Rotten wood and sheetrock, warped millwork, mold and mildew, insects—who knows what else? Call it Hurried Building syndrome (apologies to David Elkind, but appropriate for the metaphor).

We had to create the proper environment and then be patient, allowing the process to develop per its own unique, complex characteristics. Had we not been able to open on August 23, things would have continued to improve until we were ready. And we could have trusted that we would open at the appropriate time.

I’ve said many times that at a great school every nock and cranny has potential as a powerful learning space. In this case, the school building itself has held out some powerful wisdom.

Gratitude

2011-08-26T16:19:00.000-05:00

Thank you.

I mean, thanks for reading this blog. Seriously. With all the media vying for our attention all the time, you have gifted me with some of your mental bandwith. I’m honored, humbled, and appreciative.

I wanted to say that right away because lately I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the notion of gratitude, and I realized that I’ve never thanked my readers except for those who have spoken to me around school or left some of the few comments. (Hint, hint.) That’s not right. So thank you. And now maybe I won’t appear hypocritical in the coming rant since I offered myself as Exhibit A.

I fear that as a culture we’ve lost a strong enough sense of gratitude. Sure, we still offer the mannerly thanks that come with social niceties. I’m talking about a deep sense of gratitude, one that manifests itself in the way we live our lives each day. Instead, I see more and more people who seem frustrated when things aren’t just as they want. I’m sure you can think of examples, and I know I’m guilty also. (For a hilarious take on this, you might want to watch Louis CK’s “Everything’s Amazing, Nobody’s Happy.” I’d embed it, but parts push the envelope a bit, so it’s your choice. Thanks to Jonathan Martin of St. Gregory’s in Tucson for leading me to it.)

Among other reasons, the video is one of the things that prompted me to start reflecting on this topic. Recently I’ve been very grateful for certain things (read flood posts 1 and 2). I’ve witnessed a few beautiful expressions of gratitude. Sadly, I’ve seen some of just the opposite. I began to wonder if I do a good enough job of expressing my thanks to people, and to fear I take too much for granted.

I have my own theories on why our culture has become this way. We’ve become a microwave age, accustomed to instant nourishment and gratification. Much of the media of modern technology encourages narcissistic behavior; and while it raises the possibilities for amazing discourse and moving towards collective wisdom, too often it becomes polarizing vitriol. It’s as if we have to build ourselves up by knocking down others. Socially, economically, materially, whatever-ally—we feel immense pressure to keep up and assert ourselves and feel affirmed and right. And so much of it is very public.

More than anything, I think we’ve lost a sense of perspective—one that recalls how much is really quite good for many of us. It’s as if we would go to buy a bar of Ivory Soap and focus on the .56% which isn’t pure. None of us is owed perfection. And if everything were perfect, then what would we appreciate? After all, as I once heard Arlo Guthrie point out at a concert, you can’t have a light without a dark to stick it in.

I think gratitude is also one of the most important qualities we can try to help young people have. Anytime I engage in some sort of Portrait of the Graduate exercise, it’s always one of the first things I think of for the “Attitudes” column. Service learning, chapel, certain essential questions, social-emotional curricula—schools can address this in many ways. I also like to remind students that just through the lucky circumstances of their birth, they are in the top 5% of humankind in terms of wealth, health, security, and potential. That’s not a bad starting point. To help them maintain this advantage, their families have given them myriad opportunities.

It strikes me that people who feel a deep gratitude are happier. They are more content, more at peace. They focus less on what’s missing. They have a true sense of meaning and purpose driving their lives. It’s not that they see the glass as half full. They realize, as a student once told me, the glass is always full. Even if there is no liquid, it’s full of air, that most vital substance.

I also believe that gratitude is contagious, and I encourage you to start an epidemic. Think about all for which you are grateful. Your talents, your blessings, certainly. But, most of all, the people. And don’t stop there. Let them know. Surprise them with an expression of your gratitude. Just something small and heartfelt. A call or a note. And tell them why. Try genuine words.

Thanks much for reading. And I’ll be even more grateful if you share your thoughts.

A Teacher's Epic Failure

2011-08-24T12:53:00.000-05:00

I’m having trouble figuring out exactly how to approach this particular blog post. I feel very compelled to write on this topic, but I’m muddling through such a mélange of thoughts and emotions on the topic, ranging from total outrage to deep empathy. It particularly galls me that I’m moved to write this post by an article I came across on the first day of school, when idealism and the belief in possibility flow more than any other day of the school year. The article is from a publication focused on the Philadelphia public schools, and it is a veteran teacher’s explanation of why she helped her high school students cheat on the state tests.

Some of the teacher’s actions include:

- Answering students’ questions;

- Pointing to the part of a passage where an answer could be found;

- Giving students definitions of unfamiliar words;

- Discussing reading passages students didn’t understand;

- Commenting on students’ writing samples;

- Pointing to correct answers to difficult questions.

Why? She has several explanations. The teacher said most of her students were reading well below grade level, poorly prepared, unable to relate to the middle-class content of the tests, and had major challenges in their lives. She considers herself a good teacher and wishes she could have found a way to address students’ deep-seated academic deficiencies and the troubling school culture that she believes was created by high-stakes testing. According to her, school administrators did nothing to stop “constant” and “widespread” cheating, even mandating certain protocols against the legal guidelines. She claims that teachers who questioned the system were coerced into cheating: “My only defense would be that I lost track of what was right because it was so stressful to be there… It’s easy to lose your moral compass when you are constantly being bullied… I was someone I didn’t recognize by the end of my time there.”

At various points in this blog I’ve written about my concerns with standardized testing, mainly as a very limited and limiting tool. I’ve talked with enough public school educators to understand the pressures they feel because of the state testing. Cheating scandals have erupted in 22 states and D.C. I know I would hate working in such circumstances. I’m trying to walk in this teacher’s shoes. I get what she is saying, and I really do feel for her…to a point. But then my outrage erupts again. At the risk of seeming sanctimonious, all I can say is, “Really?!? Give me a break.”

I want to give this teacher the benefit of the doubt, at least when it comes to her motivation. One article I read on the case says, “She considers herself a good teacher and wishes she could have found a way to address students’ deep-seated academic deficiencies and the troubling school culture that she believes was created by high-stakes testing. Instead, she took another route.” Perhaps she felt she had no other choice except to engage in what she called “self-styled subversion.” But we always have a choice to do what’s right. We may just not like some of the consequences of taking that stand.

There are two ultimate ironies to the story. I like to take the first as another sign of cosmic justice—that perhaps the teacher’s accusations are actually false alibis. The district is investigating 28 schools because of suspicious results on the 2009 tests. This teacher’s school is not among them.

The second irony captures so many of the issues raised by the story. It’s much sadder. The teacher says, “I wanted them to succeed, because I believe their continued failure on these terrible tests crushes their spirit… I wasn’t willing to say, ‘Just do your best.’ They were my students, and I wanted to be there for them.” The article doesn’t say how the students did on the state tests. In some ways it doesn’t matter since the results are so tainted. Plus what those students really learned—the lesson that is going to stick—is that their teacher helped them to cheat. So they may have “passed” the state test, but their teacher failed a much larger one.

Happy New Year!

2011-08-21T20:16:00.000-05:00

             Happy New Year!
             Few events bring with them as much positive energy as the start of a new school year. Schools are nice enough places in the summer, but they lack their essential buzz until the students return. They are, after all, why educators do what they do. The students see nothing but possibilities in the year ahead. And for the parents, the start of the school year is when all their hopes and dreams for each of their children crystallize in visions of amazing growth.
              To bring about such growth, schools need to provide plenty of opportunities for appropriate challenges. These stretch the students and encourage them to take risks. It’s all necessary to help them gradually develop mastery and autonomy. The process, when done well, helps the students to grow in confidence. At that same time, it inevitably brings stumbles, setbacks, and perhaps even failures.
              Our reaction as adults—whether as teachers or parents—often determines how the child deals with life’s tougher moments. We can try to help them put things in perspective, offer words of wisdom, point out the positives, et cetera. However, digging beneath even the most laid-back demeanor can unearth some natural anxiety.
              I recall my own concerns regarding my children when it came to two key developmental milestones—walking and reading.
              I wondered if my daughter, Kate, ever would walk. All the other kids in her play group were walking; the child across the street had started walking at an early age. Plus she showed no real interest in walking. Once Kate decided to give it a go, she didn’t exactly take right to it. Finally, when she was 16-1/2 months old, my wife called to tell me Kate had taken off running. The past two years she ran cross-country.
              I also worried that my son, Stephen, would have problems with reading. My concern arose because he has severe hearing loss, and there is a link between that and reading difficulty. Even though he proceeded pretty much on schedule, with each miscoded word I would draw a quick breath. He figured it all out rather quickly, as his teachers told me he would. Now Stephen reads a great deal, and he reads with unusual insight.
              In retrospect, while my anxiety was perhaps normal, it also was misplaced in many ways. Neither of my children had given any actual signs that they were not going to reach these milestones. And I certainly never gave up on them. Imagine if the first time Kate had pulled herself up and taken those initial, faltering steps, only to keel over…and I just decided, “That’s it. She’ll never walk.” Instead, at those times we keep encouraging, prodding, celebrating…confident in the knowledge the child will walk. Now I can even laugh about it, seeing it as a sign of intelligence. After all, I imagine her thinking, why walk when people are willing to carry you everywhere?
              I encourage you to keep the walking metaphor in mind through the year. Revel in all the myriad successes, and try to see rough patches for what they are. As one of my mentors keeps telling me about being a head of school, “Take the long view.” I try to do that as a parent also.
              Enjoy all the wonders of the new school year. There aren’t that many of them before your kids leave home. But there are enough of them for your kids to learn what they need to become wonderful young adults.

Drying Out

2011-08-12T11:02:00.000-05:00

Many people have been quoted on the topic of people responding to challenges. They all seem to touch somehow on the general topic of resiliency and community, ideas that certainly underlay my last post on the flood our lower school suffered. As we recover from this challenge, two things have struck me about myself as a leader. First, I didn't realize how much of a control freak I can be--not about minutae, but about generalities. I say that because it's driving me absolutely crazy that I can do absolutely nothing to fix this situation on my own. All I can do is try to reassure people, to make sure we're on track, to adjust as the situation changes--but I can't do the real work of repairs. Second, I like to pride myself on the fact that I don't get too wigged out about anything. But "the flood" is somehow always on my mind and keeps me from focusing totally on other things I need to be doing.

Let me back out for just a second to provide a bit of context. When I've spoken to some people, they haven't grasped just how much water we had in the building. It covered the floor of our lower school, some office space, part of our library. In places it was at least an inch deep. When I first saw the building last Friday, I couldn't begin to guess at the extent of the damage. I didn't think there was any way we'd be ready for school to open on August 23rd.

But it looks like we will be...and here come the real points.

For the last week I have watched true experts at work. They came in a knew exactly what to do, and they did it quickly and efficiently. The lower school ended up resembling some sort of laboratory, as you can see in these pictures:

They had blowers, desiccant machines (the big silver things in one of the photos), tubes snaking everywhere, machines to measure moisture and to check for mold and mildew.

The result? It's amazing. A week later, and it's almost bone dry. We lost several boxes of supplies, and a great deal of sheetrock had to be cut several inches above the floor. The base of extensive millwork was damaged and must be replaced. But the carpeting is fine and the damage is much less than we all had feared. Most importantly, there are no signs of any mold or mildew, so the air will be safe for everyone here.

As they're slowly removing and shifting the drying equipment, another team of experts has come in--people replacing the sheetrock and getting ready to deal with the millwork. I'm amazed how quickly they have been able to patch walls.

Watching these workers has made me think hard about what we ask students to do in school. These experts are putting all their training and experience to work in a meaningful, important fashion. Talking to the, I can tell how sincerely they take their mission of helping people recover from damaging situations. It is the latest evidence for me of why I believe schools need to be integrating more and more project-based learning and service learning. Students needs opportunities to show all the great things they can do, and they need to feel that it matters. Given those chances, students often provide wonderful surprises.

Soon these experts will be done with their work. Then another set of experts will move in--all the people of St. John's who are expert at community. I can't wait to roll up my sleeves alongside them.

In the Abundance of Water

2011-08-06T10:52:00.001-05:00

“In the abundance of water, the fool is thirsty.”
--Bob Marley, “Rat Race”

Yesterday I arrived at my office around twenty minutes later than usual because I had to drop my kids somewhere. I also was a bit more dressed up than my typical summer attire because of some important meetings. Right when I sat at my desk, my cell phone rang. My facilities director.

“Mark, are you coming in today?”

“Already here,” I replied.

“Please come down to the lower school.”

A flood. Water covered the floor of the entire lower school and part of the library. In some places the water had puddled nearly an inch deep. Because it’s summer, many of the supplies—including those newly-purchased and recently delivered—were on the floor rather than sorted and put away. Immediately my head filled with questions. First, how?* Natural, but foolish question, because it really didn’t matter right then. Next, what are all the implications? Insurance, amount of damage, in-service schedule, replacing materials, opening of school—once again, natural but at that point foolish. Until the clean up began and the situation was assessed by professionals, I couldn’t do anything about any of those other points.**

What happened next is what slaked my fool’s thirst.

We sent a phone blast to employees to let them know what had happened.*** Within thirty minutes, the building was packed with people who had arrived to help. And not just employees. There were students, from second graders through seventh graders. There were new employees who hadn’t even worked in the school yet. Employees brought family members—spouses, their grown children. Our new second grade teacher had her two younger sisters and her parents there. Our seventh grade science teacher’s massive adult son—a former marine who’s between jobs in Alaska and Antarctica—was tossing around classroom furniture. I saw a parent methodically working a wet-vac.

What were others doing? They were using squee-gees and brooms to push water towards drains. They were figuring out where to move things. They were moving hundreds of things—ranging from tiny boxes to large tables to even a cast iron bathtub—so that the restoration company could get right to work. I saw wisps of little girls with their arms full, toting things to dry rooms. They were assessing what could be saved and documenting what needed replacement. And despite all of the damage and the hard work and the looming questions, they were doing all this with smiles and laughter and optimism.

By around 12:30, we had finished what we could do, and we had to move aside to let the experts take over. I had asked my assistant to order some food for everyone, and people filled one of the workrooms to eat. They had busted their tails, and they thanked me so sincerely for the food; they genuinely believed I didn’t need to do that. It sounds hokey, but I truly was humbled. From my perspective, providing a bunch of quesadillas was the least I could do. They had given so much of themselves that morning. Not just their physical labor, but their hearts and souls.

They reminded me once again about the incredible community of St. John’s Episcopal School. (Plus that evening some parents e-mailed me to say they were ready to organize help for all the teachers.) I can only imagine how glad the new faculty were to see what type of place they had joined, and I imagine people loved to see the new folks already have that same spirit. It’s how they work with kids every day—with the same determination and purposefulness and love. I remembered that great schools depend on the people there.

I’m still worried about all the immediate concerns that filled my brain. But now I don’t feel quite as foolish because of what I re-gained through the day. I recall educational writer Parker Palmer’s oft-quoted line “You teach who you are.” The people of St. John’s Episcopal School are deep wells, from whom we can drink abundantly and fulfillingly.

______
*In case you’re interested, the plumber theorizes that a valve broke when the city turned the area’s water back on after working on some local mains the evening before. He said when they do so, trash in the pipes can hit the valve with so much force that it breaks it.

**I imagine I also looked quite the fool. I had removed my loafers and socks, and rolled up my slacks. As we worked, my button-down shirt quickly soaked through. I felt pretty gross also. But it made a good opening for my meetings.

***I intentionally leave out names in the following section. I’m afraid I’m going to miss someone, and I am truly grateful for and humbled by what I’m about to relate.

Questions for Tech Leaders

2011-08-05T05:10:00.011-05:00

Lately I have found myself wondering what Socrates would have done with modern digital technology. Blogging probably wouldn’t be for him, and Twitter doesn’t really allow for sustained, ever deepening dialogue. (Some may disagree, but I’ve never grasped the Twitter culture.) I imagine Socrates as part of a chat room or on-line forum, advancing the discussion with all sorts of pointed questions.

While much of school rolls along as it has for over a century, certainly much has changed with technological innovations. Enough? Probably not. Certainly not if you were to ask most of the leading technology advocates in education. For them, things can’t change enough, and sooner rather than later.

Why haven’t they? Well, there are many reasons, many of which simply deal with the nature of change. Schools seem especially resistant, the reasons for which would take several more posts to examine. But when it comes to technology, I have some questions for educational technology leaders that I hope they take as suggestions. And understand they come from someone who loves his gadgets.

• Why do you claim that you can see the future? We’re told all the time that we need to do certain things because of how the world is going to be when our students become adults. I’ve certainly been guilty of that argument. But we don’t know about a few years from now, let alone a generation. I think claiming too much foresight doesn’t add credibility; instead, it creates skepticism. I think this approach is also what leads to an obsession with the latest, greatest tools rather than helping students developing transferable skills and understandings. It also creates a spiraling black hole when it comes to technology budgets.
• Why do you use such extreme examples to prove your case? We hear all the time about the kid who created a blog that went viral, or about the massively successful business tycoon who was dyslexic and/or dropped out of school yet made it big. Those are incredible exceptions. Possible, yes—but very, very unlikely. Let’s try to focus on what technology can do for every student.
• Why do you tell us that we should use technology because that is “the world kids live in”? Hmmm. Once they reach a certain age, most kids want to keep certain parts of their world clear from adults. But that’s not really my point. And we’re being remiss in our professional responsibilities if we don’t arm them with the tools. But an incident in my class a couple of years ago made me rethink this point. I’ve always tried new ways to approach courses, often using technology. Some students approached me and said, “Mr. Crotty, we think it’s great you try all this stuff, but we live in it all the time. At school we want a more human connection.”
• Why do you resort to denigration of other educators who aren’t on the technology train? Yes, I believe all educators need to keep learning and to use technology to some degree. But I don’t believe a teacher can’t have a great, important impact on a student without using technology. Ask kids who their best teachers were. They point to those who loved and nurtured them and created dynamic learning environments.

Therein lies the real reason for using digital technology—done right, it helps to promote student empowerment that heightens learning. Without becoming bogged down in examples, this occurs in four areas:

• Creative expression—From the now taken-for-granted power of word processing to video production to blogging, technology provides a spectrum of options for students to find their unique voices.
• Connection—Students can connect with peers and area experts in ways never before possible.
• Curiosity—Students can pursue their interest, and they can make discoveries based on both passion and serendipity. They are no longer bound to a superficial textbook.
• Critical Thinking—Maneuvering throughout the digital world necessitates exercising critical thinking skills.

I know those who have done successful work involving technology could add other categories, and that would be awesome. In fact, that really lies at the crux of my argument and advice.

The real key is not advocating technology first. The issue is advocating for students. That’s the bottom line, and it should also be the starting point. Zero in on how technology can help teachers to serve them. After all, once you move past the urgent pleas and the defensiveness, we all want the same things for our students.

One final suggestion. Please stop calling them 21st Century Skills. They are not. Educators for centuries have advocated them. Socrates certainly did. He’d ask you some pretty tough questions.

Private and Public

2011-07-18T14:22:00.001-05:00

Next week is the national Save our Schools conference, with the main event being a mass rally and march on Washington scheduled for July 30. It certainly has noble purpose: “As concerned citizens, we demand an end to the destructive policies and rhetoric that have eroded confidence in our public schools, demoralized teachers, and reduced the education of too many of our children to nothing more than test preparation” (http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org/) I can’t argue with the group’s Guiding Principles. They would make for better schools overall—not just public ones.

Looking at the site, I see that the organization has attracted many prominent supporters from the education world and from many other areas. One noteworthy group, however, is missing: The National Association of Independent Schools. So it’s somewhat ironic that I wasn’t aware of the organization or event until learning of it on the independent school educator’s list-serv. Fred Bartels (who specializes in pushing buttons) said “it sure would be nice to see NAIS” (e-mail, July 9, 2011) on the list of supporters, but NAIS president Pat Bassett wrote back that after consideration it was determined that “an endorsement from the private school world was not appropriate at this time” (e-mail, July 15, 2011).

I’m not writing this to criticize NAIS. Pat Bassett has been quite vocal about independent schools’ moral imperative to serve the public welfare. In fact, the theme of the most recent annual conference was public purpose. I trust NAIS leadership on this. Also, while I should, I don’t really know enough the SOS organization agenda, politics, et cetera to have a valid opinion.

In a quick, get-rich-quick sense, the troubles with the public schools—and I doubt we’ve seen the worst of it, with even more budget cuts looming in many states—serve to benefit independent schools. But I feel sad as we receive applications from parents afraid to send their kids to public school and resumes from teachers fleeing their situations. We can’t serve/hire all of them. In fact, the percentage is rather small.

I want public schools to thrive for many reasons. The most obvious one is so that every single kid has a great education and a shot at the best possible life. Trite, but true. It also would send a signal that we’ve finally come to value education in this nation as much as we claim to.

Were that to happen, it would be good for independent schools. We are the ones who currently have the freedom and the resources to provide a quality education, one that is responsive to student’s current and emerging needs. In such a situation, we’d have to raise our game even more when people had more choice. Effective public education also could teach us a great deal, such as how to meet the various needs of an incredibly diverse clientele. If the current trends continue, some private schools may just grow fat and happy.

While I won’t be at the rally or march, and while I won’t criticize NAIS, I will feel some liberal guilt. But I won’t feel any guilt that my children, wife, and I are all in independent education. Indeed, I feel even more fortunate.

For the Long Term

2011-07-15T07:26:00.000-05:00

A few days ago I was having lunch with St. John’s board president. Our conversations always are interesting, and we cover a wide range of topics—most directly tied to school, some not so much. Well, at least not as directly…but I find myself later bridging the gap.

At this particular lunch we somehow reached the topic of short- versus long-term thinking. He’s a finance guy, and he pointed out that people don’t think long-term when it comes to investing and financial growth. As an example, he used the way we react to quarterly statements.

Too often education operates with this same sort of short-term thinking. We organize by short term units, assess by limited instruments, motivate with carrots. Some of this is necessary. We are dealing with young people, who have limited ability to think long term. We have to ensure that certain scaffolding occurs as part of the learning process. At the same time, however, I want to think that we do so with a long-term vision in mind of what an education really should be for.

It brought to mind a video I had not watched for a while. In it Tom Peters finishes with some examples who really used their learning for a grand purpose.

A Googly Education

2011-07-09T11:32:00.001-05:00

This past week I’ve been reading In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy. Basically it’s the story of Google past, present, and future. It’s a very good book, although Levy could have used an editor to cut some of the redundancies. I chose to read it for three reasons, and I readily admit that I’m behind the times on each of them. First, obviously Google is a driving force behind seismic shifts in how we live. Second, Google has some fascinating ways in which it operates as a business, trying to retain their entrepreneurial spirit as they grow increasingly massive. Third, education has tried to pull some lessons from the success of Google. This final point is my focus here.

Whenever I’ve heard presenters talk about Google, I’ve heard them focus on certain points: how such a powerful search engine changes research, the need for information literacy, Google’s practice of giving employees 20% of their work time for individual projects that may extend the reach and vision of the company. I don’t dispute any of these points, and I’m probably forgetting some. But as I’ve been reading, I’ve been struck by something even more basic—a point that I think is even more vital for education as it prepares kids for a Googly world.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page question everything. They constantly ask “Why?” and “Why not?” This goes for the possibilities of technology to Google’s sparse design to major business decisions to employee dining. They have retained the spirit of children, and Levy refers regularly to their both being Montessori educated. The book has made me wonder—once again—whether most schools overemphasize how to do things and how things are. Educators need to keep asking “Why?” and “Why not?” And we need to listen carefully when our students do the same. I’m curious about the answers.

Thank you, David Perkins

2011-06-28T12:51:00.000-05:00

Recently I vented my mock indignation about the title of David Perkins’ latest book, Making Learning Whole. I promised to post on it again after I had read the book. I recently finished it, and I have one overall reaction I want to emphasize:

Read this book!

It’s an important book, one that should be an integral part of any conversation about education. Perkins mixes idealism and practicality, theory and reality, with plenty of excellent true-life examples blended in. The essential idea is that we learn best when we are doing so in a holistic, integrated, natural fashion. The metaphor Perkins uses throughout—broken into seven categories—is baseball. You can quickly see how apt the metaphor is, and it’s easy to substitute many other experiences.

I found myself nodding and notating more in this book than I had in many years. Since you will, of course, be reading it, I don’t want to give too much away. But I’ll gloss over a few of my favorite parts:

· Every section ends with a great set of prompts that begin “I wonder…” They force reflection on the ideas from the chapter. I could see a teacher reading the chapter and then journaling, then adding to an entry as ideas arose.

· Perkins’ coining of the term elementitis to capture the piecemeal approach to education, which leads to “an informational backdrop rather than an improving and enlightening body of understanding” (Kindle edition, loc 252).

· His argument that, unlike the irrelevance students often complain of, that education as playing the whole game “gives the enterprise more meaning” (302).

· The contention that the “real criterion of understanding has to be performance” (964).

· The vision that, instead of individual work being so dominant, students engage in “extreme team learning” (3247).

· His notion of education resorting to a “hearts-and-mind” (1600) approach. I simply can’t capture it in a bullet point.

I know I’m giving such a positive review because I’m a member of the choir . But I’m also trying to be gracious. I already said I was mad about the title. Now I’m neon-green-eyed with jealousy that I didn’t write this book.

Skin Deep

2011-06-26T12:44:00.000-05:00

Today Seth Godin posted an interesting take on the sunscreen industry and marketing ethics. As usual, Godin nails the issue with some provocative questions. At the time of the year when high school rankings are getting some press, the piece serves to remind us of what can happen when education is reduced to some piece of very limited data. If someone ranks a school by number of AP tests taken--and not how students did on said APs--that's not much different than moves pulled by the sunscreen industry in the name of short-term profit.
The sunscreen analogy becomes fitting in another way. Too much of what passes for quality in education is only skin deep. What about the soul of education?

Superman or Superteam?

2011-06-21T08:35:00.000-05:00

Bill Taylor recently posted a piece on www.hbr.org titled “Great People are Overrated.” He uses a comment from Mark Zuckerberg as his starting point: "Someone who is exceptional in their role is not just a little better than someone who is pretty good…They are 100 times better." Of course, Taylor goes on to show numerous examples of why this is not the case. (On a personal note, I am thrilled to see the Dallas Mavericks and F.C. Barcelona as two of them.) Taylor ponders whether one would rather have 100 pretty good people or a single exceptional person. Here’s the real kicker, from another Harvard Business School professor, Boris Groysberg:

After examining the careers of more than 1,000 star analysts at Wall Street investment banks, and conducting more than two hundred frank interviews, Groysberg comes to a striking conclusion: star analysts who change firms suffer an immediate and lasting decline in performance. Their earlier excellence appears to have depended heavily on their former firms' general and proprietary resources, organizational cultures, networks, and colleagues. There are a few exceptions, such as stars that move with their teams and stars that switch to better firms. Female stars also perform better after changing jobs than their male counterparts do. But most stars who switch firms turn out to be meteors, quickly losing luster in their new settings.

While I have some initial reactions, I haven’t quite figured out the implications of this for education. They strike me as vast. Yet I can’t crystallize them in an articulate fashion. Thoughts?

How Dare David Perkins!

2011-06-17T08:40:00.000-05:00

Here I am, posting all year on an education blog called To Keep Things Whole—and one of the hot education books on people’s summer reading lists is David Perkins’ Making Learning Whole: How Seven Principles of Teaching Can Transform Education. Totally opposing my thoughts, is he?

I’m faking the outrage, of course. (Should I have used mockery tags?) I’m actually quite a fan of Perkins, and I loved his book Smart Schools: Better Thinking and Learning for Every Child. I suspect I’ll find many more similarities than differences in our most recent writing. Plus, as co-director of Harvard University’s Project Zero, where some of the real cutting edge thinking is going on, he certainly has earned the right to call his book whatever the heck he pleases. Perkins is one of the educational thinkers to whom people should pay attention. All those reasons are why I’ve just downloaded Making Learning Whole to my Kindle.

Still, the difference in title raises an essential point. Perkins’ title suggests that we have to take discrete parts and unify them. My contention is that learning begins as a naturally holistic activity, only that too much of education breaks it up in convenient but artificial fashion.

I’m going to begin reading it today, and I’ll report back soon. In the meantime, your thoughts?

Blog? What blog? Oh yeah...Summer Blogging

2011-06-07T15:09:00.000-05:00

This past Monday felt weird. It was the first time since starting this blog that I didn’t see that box on the calendar as a monstrous deadline, fangs gnashing and drool flying as it snickered at me. Despite my keeping a little notebook of ideas, I always struggle with all the final decisions—from starting point to ultimate point.

But it’s summer. The kids finished school on Friday (strange how it already feels empty without them here), and the urgency of certain things departed with them. Don’t misunderstand. I love the reflection that comes with maintaining this blog, and I still plan to post when I feel inspired. That likely will wax and wane. I probably will try doing some different types of posts. Plus I’m likely to store some posts up for the next school year.

What else will I be doing this summer? Plenty of action items at school; after all, I have a year under my belt and plenty of ideas that we’ve thrown on the table. Two wonderful vacations: San Diego and Boston. Re-establishment of an exercise routine. Lazing and lollygagging. Focused time with family. Some time off the grid (though I’m thinking about a new gadget. iPad?).

So, regular readers and followers, don’t forget about me. Just don’t count on Mondays.

Pulling Back the Curtain...Just a Bit

2011-05-28T06:47:00.000-05:00

As I near the end of my first school year as a head, naturally many people ask about my overall experience. The questions vary, but they can be grouped into three overarching themes. How do I like St. John’s? How do I like being a head of school? What has been the biggest surprise? The first one is easy to answer. I’m thrilled to be part of this community. The latter two are a bit trickier to answer, so bear with me. There really haven’t been any true surprises in the standard head-of-school sense. That has a negative connotation. Certainly there have been things I didn’t expect, issues I had not foreseen, decisions for which I thought I would have more time. I can’t share the most disconcerting ones. As I explained to some faculty who expressed their wish for transparency from the new head, they wouldn’t really get it, but they would get a degree of opaqueness. Confidentiality and privacy simply can’t be violated.

I haven’t been totally surprised for a few reasons. One is simply my innate tendency to remain calm. I’ve prepared for this role for a long time, debating for years whether to take the leap. Several people served as powerful mentors along the way, from the very first days of my career. There is no area of school life I hadn’t experienced to some degree. I’ve studied a great deal in every way possible—observation, workshops, conferences, reading, interviews, visitations, projects, reflection. So I went into this with my eyes pretty wide open. I understood completely when my previous boss said I’d see the best and the worst of human nature. To some extent that’s already happened. Fortunately, much more of the best.

Still, the learning curve has proven steep. I’m reminded of my soccer career. With each step up—better clubs, college, adult, semi-pro—there was always an adjustment. The pace quickened; the physical contact and demands increased; pieces shifted faster and more frequently. Eventually it would begin to feel just like the game I’d always played. Players could tell fairly soon if they could compete, as the markers of success were quite clear, although not always measurable.

The move to headship strikes me as very similar…except the sense of success is much more elusive. Even when I feel it, I still wonder. Here I am, functioning as the school’s leader, at the same time I am just beginning to understand its culture. I don’t sweat just the big decisions; I deliberate on the small ones because I know each move and word carries extra gravity. I weigh the attention I give to faculty and administration and board and students and families and spouse and my own children and pray I’ve meted it appropriately.

Experienced heads have told me this is perfectly normal. This helps. At the same time, their advice can prove confusing. Some say be patient and spend a year learning; others, strike immediately, while you have the most credibility. Some say focus on internal affairs first; others, spend most of your time on board issues. Some recommend micromanaging; others emphasize delegating. However, they all agree on one point from which I take heart: the role begins to feel more natural. That already has begun.

So what does one do? Try to do it all, and eventually you’ll grow dizzy. You have to hit your own stride. I have found that it helps me to have what I’ve learned to use like a mantra. I’ve come to think of it as my P-Statement: You are in this place for a certain purpose at this point in time because of the person you are.

This helps me re-center myself. I regain that balance and move forward. I can learn from the difficulties and refocus on the long view. When this happens, I am once again surprised anew by the joy I experience in being a head of school. Particularly of this one.

Words Can Hurt

2011-05-22T11:01:00.000-05:00

Recently Scott McLeod’s blog reminded me of a post from last fall by David Warlick titled “Are They Students or Are They Learners?” Warlick includes a wonderful table in which he delineates the difference. Rather than give details here, I encourage you to think about it and then look at the table.

As usual, Warlick makes some excellent points. But he also makes a false distinction. The kids in our schools always are learning. The question is: What? In many ways they are learning how to thrive as a student, but not necessarily as a learner in the modern world. The majority of the standards from various associations stress discrete bits of knowledge and rather pedestrian skills. That’s bad enough. But many of education’s traditional practices exacerbate the problem. What have we taught a student by warning he needs to learn something because it will be on the test? Or threatening that she needs to do her best because this is for a grade? Why do we provide set frameworks and lengths and templates for assignments that should be about students demonstrating what they have learned and can do in myriad complexity? (N.B. As a former English teacher, one of my pet peeves in this regard is the five-paragraph essay. I can’t recall ever seeing a quality professional piece of writing which uses this structure.) What is the message when we tell a student to choose a course because of how it will appear on the transcript? A colleague always fumes when she hears a teacher exhort students to learn something because they will need to know it next year. I’m certain you can think of some other examples besides these rather obvious ones.

There exists a direct relationship between language and thought and action. So the words we use matter. Greatly. Obviously they can affect how students perceive education. Furthermore, in The Book of Learning and Forgetting Frank Smith presents an interesting twist on how teachers may be victims as well. Smith draws his argument from an unexpected source: military history. Early in the 19^th century, most countries had rag-tag armies. They comprised social riff-raff and lacked any discipline. Then, in direct contrast, appeared the Prussian army, which “dressed as on, moved as one, thought as one, and confounded everyone who confronted it” (46). This army had rigid recruitment and training policies. Education officials took note, and these practices moved into the one room schoolhouse. It proved a perfect fit for the emerging industrial world and mass education. Smith points out:

Numerous relics of the militaristic origins of modern educational theory survive in the language we use today. We talk of the deployment of resources, the recruitment of teachers and students, advancing or withdrawing students, promotion to higher grades, drills for learners, strategies for teachers, batteries of tests, word attack skills, attainment targets, reinforcement, cohorts, campaigns for achievement, and wars against illiteracy. The fact that this language seems natural to us, that we have all become so accustomed to it, perfectly illustrates the insidious infiltration of militaristic thinking in education (47).

Our use of such language is part of why many people have such a hard time reimagining schools.

We need new language to talk about education. Language that is holistic and flexible and adaptable. Language about growth and creativity and insight. Language that opens us to any possibility. Language that expresses what students will need to thrive in the modern world.

I’m hopeful. In the independent school world some important work is emerging that can provide pointed agenda items for crucial conversations. A great resource is NAIS’ A 21st Century Imperative: A Guide for Becoming a School of the Future. Many thoughtful people are fomenting mini-revolutions in their parts of the world. Ironically given my point above, here we can draw some important lessons from the military. The U.S. Armed Forces, long the paragon of hierarchy to the point of paralysis, has realized modern warfare necessitates allowing front-line soldiers to make more decisions and to innovate as necessary. The government just revealed that the SEALs had to go to plan b during the Bin Laden raid. Soldiers today cannot just be students; they have to be life-long learners.

While we may not be at war except metaphorically, the stakes are still plenty high—our kids’ futures.

"Oh, the times, they are a'changin'"

2011-05-18T12:39:00.000-05:00

Think the pace of change is fast now? Agree it's being driven in large part by technology? Still find it interesting that people use their phones to send mail and check the time?

Just wait…

Per a post on mashable.com: “In ten or twenty years, what we now call ‘computers’ and how we do our computing are both guaranteed to be radically different and almost unrecognizable.” This infographic illustrates the past, present, and future.

(Click here to read the post

and to see the entire chart.)

It’s probably not going to be even just good enough to keep treading water. “You better start swimming, or you’ll sink like a stone.”

Hiring Mission

2011-05-15T13:02:00.002-05:00

Fortunately, this year we have little hiring to do. There is not much turnover, and those leaving are doing so for family reasons. People stay here a long time, which is a tremendous tribute to them and to the school. Having received resumes from many strong applicants, I feel certain that we will find wonderful additions to the staff.

For those few open positions, we’ve had many, many more applicants than I anticipated. People want to work in this community. Many applications have been unsolicited and general, the person simply hopeful that we might have any opening in which he or she person could fit. This means we have a wealth of options. At the same time, I feel a tinge a touch of sadness. Several applicants have either been affected by budget cuts or grown totally disenchanted with their roles in the public system. Some people are making a career change, and I wonder if it was really by choice. Many seem to be fleeing a situation more than moving towards something. Also, teachers looking for their first position have it particularly tough.

Hiring in a school is more complex than many people realize. The annual cycle imposes restraints. It’s not simply a matter of finding, for example, a sixth grade math teacher. Of course, basics exist: degree, experience, love of kids, et cetera. But then it becomes like fitting a tile into a mosaic. What are the person’s relative strengths and weaknesses? How would he fit into the team? The division? The vertical team? The school culture? What would she bring outside the classroom? Can he help advance a larger vision of where the school needs to go? What is the potential, good and bad? Does she add a missing ingredient? Does he have “it”?

Risk always exists in hiring, no matter how much you try to calculate and minimize it. So much of what comprises a quality teacher defies objective quantification. Plus effective teaching is much easier to spout expertise about than it is to achieve. I remember one case from many years ago. A woman impressed everyone with her vision for teaching writing and a great lesson to which she kept referring. In her demo she used something similar. We were blown away. Unfortunately, she turned out to be a two-trick pony. (Yes, we checked her references. I could write another long post on reference checks.)

In some ways the entire interview process has flaws. The end goal is to hire the best possible teacher for kids…yet most of the day is spent talking with adults. The teaching demo can prove revealing, but even that has inherent limitations. In some key ways the candidate is in an unfair position. She doesn’t know the kids, the curriculum, the progress, the gaps, the lingo. She and the students haven’t negotiated the implicit contract of expectations.

Despite those issues, to me the classroom demo is key. In the classroom, the candidate can’t fake it. I can gauge the comfort, the instincts, the rapport. And just as I do when watching any teacher, I focus much of my attention on the kids. Very quickly I can sense the kids’ gut reaction. Also, what really matters in a class is student activity. Even in a demo lesson, the most impressive candidates create a student-centered experience. This kind of teacher focuses on student growth, on setting up kids for an engaging activity and guiding them towards successful understanding. It suggests how he enacts his philosophy. It also demonstrates courage.

And therein lies the key. In Good to Great, Jim Collins emphasizes getting the right people on the bus and moving them to the right seats. In schools, I link this notion to the common saying “You learn by the company you keep.” Similarly, much of what directs learning is a conception of whom a student imagines becoming. So it’s about much more than hiring the best possible classroom teacher for the job. It’s about hiring an adult who embodies the ideals of our mission.

Presenting Lessons

2011-05-11T16:10:00.000-05:00

Over the past few weeks I’ve given several large presentations to different groups. I enjoy doing it quite a bit. During my preparation—which is extensive—I often find myself experiencing flow. After a presentation I’m pretty amped up, almost like the high after great exercise, only to crash hard afterwards. Each presentation takes quite a bit out of me.

While for some presentations I rely on words, I prefer to use PowerPoint to create a richer experience for the audience. It’s not death by PowerPoint, however, with bullets firing off one by one. Instead, I practice Presentation Zen as preached by Garr Reynolds. This entails a great deal of attention to slide design and the use of effective images, supplemented by just a few words at key times. I also tend to incorporate video and music; for a recent one I even created a short movie of images with a soundtrack. (I would post a slide deck, but they make little sense without my commentary. You can see Part 1 of a presentation from a couple of years ago here.) So when I plan a presentation, it’s a multi-step process drawing from a wealth of resources.

I contrast this to a chapel talk I gave at my school back in the mid 1980s. I was urging the students to become involved in a service project, and I wanted to play a short song by Harry Chapin. So I dragged my CD player, amplifier, and speakers to school and set them up...then had to drag them home afterwards. Graphics? Maybe some sort of poster.

Any time I present, I remember some of the basic lessons of public speaking: eye contact, slow and clear enunciation, guided movement and catchy gestures, et cetera. I’ve been using some of the same tricks to mark my notes for many years, although now I try to go note-free whenever possible. Still, I feel empowered tremendously by the easy-to-use, powerful tools at my disposal. Even my clicker frees me up to move as I want.

Metaphorically, I think this highlights a real challenge for modern schools. How do we continue to stress the basic and essential, yet at the same time embrace the new and harness its potential?

Seal Training

2011-05-08T09:36:00.001-05:00

--Slogan on back of my US Navy Seals t-shirt

With the recent killing of Osama Bin Laden, we’ve heard incredible stories about the U.S. Navy Seals’ training, talents, and execution—they truly are the elite. It’s fascinating stuff, and I’ve always admired them. Of course, many talk shows have had former Seals on for interviews. Last Friday I heard one on the radio. Along with being a Seal, he had attended the Naval Academy in Annapolis and had three professional football try-outs.

The entire interview intrigued me. In particular, two sections struck me as holding important lessons regarding education and the development of healthy, mature young people.

First, Seals obviously have physical gifts that evoke superhero status. The long swims in frigid water, marathon runs with gear, surviving sleep and food depravation—it’s kind of freakish what they can endure. This guy described how the Seals learn to be drownproof. With hands and feet bound, the Seal is thrown into a 10-foot-deep pool to “figure it out.” (I’ll let you think about how you might survive that; you wouldn’t have long.) But what really struck me was that the interviewee said this about his fellow Seals: “These guys are the toughest, hairiest athletes I’ve ever seen. Physically they can do anything. But what really stands out about every one of them is what great, creative thinkers they are. They have to size things up immediately and innovate on the spot.”

I’ve written many times about how we have to help kids become creative, supple thinkers. Here’s the interesting personal connection for me as an educator. I taught a young man long ago who became a Navy Seal. I mentioned to my family the other day that none of his teachers would have expected it, given what we had seen from him. School was a constant struggle; while he was a wonderful person, some questioned if he belonged in the school because of his academic shortcomings. Compare that to the interviewee’s comment, and you can see the moral of the story.

Second, he made two powerful points about the grueling training. We assume a Seal survives the program because they can endure anything. In fact, he stressed, “The point is not to see if you can survive everything. The training will destroy you. It’s how you respond to it; that’s what they want to see. It’s if you’re resilient.” A moment later he added, “Life is going to throw bad things at you. You can’t control that. You can control how you choose to respond to them.” You’ve all heard about the concept of helicopter parents. They are always hovering, ready to swoop in to rescue a child in mild distress. Recently I heard a new twist on this idea: the snowplow parent. This is the parent who keeps clearing any obstacle out of a child’s way. These types of parents end up with what Wendy Mogel has termed “teacup children”—beautifully crafted but incredibly fragile. Tiny bits of stress—let alone life’s bigger challenges—can cause them to crumble. Over the past decade college health staffs have reported higher rates of anxiety and depression, and studies reveal more students with a “foggy sense of self.” If someone has never had to deal with failure or even struggle, how will he or she respond when life throws them in the pool?

This summer I’m going to be in Coronado, CA, where the Seals do much of their training. I’m in even a bit more awe of them and what we can learn from them, and I suspect I’ll buy a couple of new t-shirts.

Loud and Clear--Lessons from The King's Speech

2011-04-27T16:08:00.000-05:00

Recently I watched the critically-acclaimed film The King’s Speech. I’m not a huge movie fan and certainly not a reliable critic, but I have to say that this film deserves all the praise. It’s amazing.

In case anyone doesn’t know the basic story, here’s a recap. Prince Albert, Duke of York (“Bertie”) has a severe stammer. It’s the dawn of radio broadcasting as a political tool, and the film opens with his inability to deliver a speech across the empire. Having tried multiple approaches to overcoming the stammer, the Prince begins to see Lionel Logue, a speech therapist found by his wife Elizabeth. In short order his father dies, his brother both ascends to and abdicates the throne, leading to Bertie being ordained as King George VI. Meanwhile, war is declared against Hitler’s Germany. The film climaxes with the king’s speech about this event. (If you want to know more of the basics or delve more into the film and the history, here are the official site and the Wikipedia page.)

The main plot and various sub-plots reveal insights into most complicated human relationships. Leadership, marriage, family, therapist-patient, politics, social class—certainly I’m missing some others. Naturally, I had on my education lenses. Without spoiling anything, I want to highlight how the film reaffirms some essential truths about education:

· Meet the Student Where He or She Is—Lionel has treated many patients and experienced a great deal of success. But he doesn’t assume what has worked for any other patient will work for Bertie. Instead, he studies his patiently carefully and asks numerous probing questions. He learns exactly how to help Bertie with specific sounds and in particular situations; in one scene he literally becomes a conductor attuned to every nuance of Bertie’s speaking. It’s emotional and intellectual empathy.

· See the Possibilities—One of my favorite quotations is by Bengali artist Rabindranath Tagore: “Every child that is born is proof that God has not yet given up on human beings.” Keeping this idea in mind stresses what each child may be able to become. Lionel sees the greatness ready to burst out of Bertie. He helps Bertie believes it’s there.

· It’s Always about More than the Subject—Lionel determines quite early that the problem is not a physical one, meaning that Bertie has all the basics in place. In other words, he can learn the subject. Other factors are in play. And what enables the men to work together is not just Lionel’s expertise, but also the relationship that develops between them.

· Create a Safe Place—The entire situation is unnerving for Bertie, and from the beginning Lionel seems a threat because of how he breaches standard royal etiquette. Yet he gradually makes Bertie feel safe with him, enabling the breakthroughs necessary for him to progress in his treatment. Almost always emotions rule over the rational.

· Motivation is Major—Bertie has pressures and the related motivation that few of us could imagine. It’s an extreme response to the age-old student question, “When am I ever going to use this?” It also reminds us that students learn best when they see some relevance, and they want meaningful opportunities to use the skills they are developing.

· Resilience is Huge—Unless a person develops the tenacity and grit and determination to overcome challenges, he or she will suffer from limitations, particularly in difficult situations. In many ways, failure of some sort is necessary for learning and growth to occur. Great teachers know to frustrate students in just the right way, then help them build themselves back up. We aren’t really helping kids if we are always clearing the path for them and/or picking them up when they stumble. If we do, how do they learn to persevere?

· It’s about Who You Are and What You Give—Lionel is not a doctor or even a licensed therapist. Yet his personal gifts and his generosity with them make him a master teacher. Bertie’s heart and courage override his shortcomings. It’s like the strengths finder concept.

As I ponder this list, I’m reminded of Parker Palmer’s oft-quoted line, “You teach who you are.” It also suggests that learning in many ways means finding out who you are…and what you can become.

Growing Conversation, Growing Courage

2011-04-23T13:50:00.000-05:00

I love serendipity. In several places recently, I’ve seen references to Seymour Sarason’s seminal book And What Do You Mean by Learning? (I haven’t read it, although I should have. So many books, so little time…) In particular, while looking at a presentation by education reformer Will Richardson, I saw this quotation from the book: “Productive learning is the learning process which engenders and reinforces wanting to learn more. Absent wanting to learn, the learning context is unproductive or counterproductive.” The passage encapsulates many of the thoughts swirling through my mind since our evening on Race to Nowhere.

It also links well to many of the points made that night. To help us gauge the overall tenor of reaction, we gave the audience two index cards. One was for them to make note of something they could change in their own lives. This card went home. On the other card we asked for something directly related to school. As we read through the comments, we saw four general categories emerge:

· Teaching Children How to Learn—Most said there is too much focus on grades and competition, with some references to all-around perfectionism.

· Support System for Children—People want more conversation and awareness regarding the stress students may feel.

· Whole Child—This category was a bit of a catch-all, with topics ranging from play to creativity to individual passion.

· Outside Work—Most the responses simply called for less, and even no, homework.

These are all so complicated and intertwined that it’s difficult to know where to begin. Indeed, the key first step may be parsing exactly what questions need to be asked—ones that cut at the issue. Also, the same human elements that have plotted the sort of course depicted in the film drive our current concern about it: love for our children and worry about their future.

The Sarason quotation above provides a solid benchmark by which we can ponder some of the issues captured in the four categories. Let’s take the issue of homework. First, it’s difficult to assess homework load because it’s very individualized. I’ve talked to students in the same classes and heard widely varying answers about how long their homework took. It depends on their grasp of the material, work habits, efficiency, perfectionism, drive, et cetera. Second, I know some schools have tried to ease the stress by incorporating plans such as no-homework days or weekends. Students at those schools reported this simply increased the load on other days. Some of this occurs because over the past twenty-five years or so, schools have responded to familial calls for schools to include more and more in their programs without removing anything, all in a more competitive culture.

I’m not opposed to homework. But we need to reconsider it in terms of the quotation and the issues raised by the film. Here are just some of the questions we need to explore:

· At what age should homework begin?

· What is an appropriate/reasonable amount at each age?

· Is the homework being given simply for the sake of giving homework?

· How does this homework extend student learning?

The answers to these questions intersect with thoughts on the other categories. The right sort of homework, for instance, will help children learn how to learn. That’s part of their overall development in many ways. Humans are learning creatures, and the better we are at it, the more we will thrive in any area. I often say that most of what serves me well now came from my soccer experience rather than school. Speaking of which, rethinking homework also can allow room for out-of-school activities. Of course, families must do their part in not over-scheduling kids with too many demanding commitments. All together, perhaps kids then won’t be so tired—one of the main impediments to effective, joyful learning.

Untangling this knot will be a long, hard process requiring two things. One, conversation. Two, courage. Both are growing.

Better than This?

2011-04-16T11:41:00.002-05:00

This past Friday I witnessed education at its best. At St. John’s the middle school took part in a special ceremony called Whistleblowers for Peace. It was the culmination of several months work by a group of ten students, who had been inspired by a speaker from Falling Whistles whom they had heard at an SMU TedX for Kids event. Falling Whistles is an organization whose mission is to end the long, violent war in Congo.

First, a bit about the ceremony. We held it in our chapel. It began with an African hymn, after which I gave brief remarks about service and responsibility to others. We had more hymns, a Bible reading, and some prayers. Yves Muya, a young man whose family fled the war and lived in a refugee camp for over a year, spoke to the students. He emphasized the importance of having dreams and never letting go of them. He urged, “Even when it seems you can’t dream any more, then dream some more.” This warm, exuberant young man embodies that idea, as he came to the United States on a Fulbright scholarship despite the ordeals of his youth. Now he is an aspiring documentarian. Then the students presented Yves with a beautiful montage of St. John’s images and announced they had raised $5200 for Falling Whistles. Several of the students who worked on the project shared their thoughts—through original poems, poignant passages from memoirs, and personal reflections. A priest then blessed the whistles. Then, behind two student playing African drums, everyone walked in absolute silence from the chapel to the field, where they were directed to form two circles, one inside the other and facing each other. On a signal, they all blew their whistles. It was an amazingly powerful occasion, particularly because of the solemnity displayed by the students.

What makes this even more wonderful, from an educator’s perspective, is that the entire thing was student driven. From the moment they heard that speaker, they determined to do something. Over the past few months they have planned, organized, educated, marketed, raised the money, coordinated the ceremony—they did it all. They formed a collaborative team that tapped into the respective strengths of each member. Through the process they learned a great deal about themselves, how to get things done, and saw real purpose to what they’ve learning. Their words resonated with a beauty and passion far beyond typical school writings. The students’ words and actions illustrated how they have internalized the larger, more eternal life lessons of a St. John’s education. In the meantime, they also lifted us as a community, reminding us of ideals and possibilities, in a sense challenging their peers to determine how they are going to create a better world. The other students' support of the effort and comportment during the ceremony shows they are hearing that message. It fills one with great hope.

Their faculty sponsors also deserve special mention for how they worked with these students. Rather than jump in and try to control, they encouraged and guided; they facilitated and suggested. At no point did the students have to cede ownership of the project. In some ways the teachers learned as much as the students, as they ended up embracing the cause themselves. It was a wonderful example of the traditional roles morphing as they all learned together.

Recently I wrote a bit about the idea of capstone learning experiences—those culminating projects that pull together many aspects of a student’s education. Think about what happened in particular case. These students confronted the world in a powerful way. In doing so they faced a meaningful problem and asked important questions. They reflected in a way that enabled them to develop and to become part of the solution. In that process they gained new knowledge and understandings while honing multiple skills. They shared their growth for the betterment of others near and far. What more could we ask of education that that?

Never Mind Lions and Tigers

2011-04-11T07:28:00.000-05:00

You may be familiar with the practice of drawing dragons and other fierce creatures on maps to represent uncharted areas. The first known instance is a 13^th century map with a dragon, asp, and basilisk in what we now call Southeast Africa. This practice slowly became more common, with all sorts of monsters. It really took off as a cartographic tool in the Victorian Era, for some reason, when people had stopped believing in dragons. Currently, “Here be dragons” prompts a long list of cultural references on Wikipedia. Where There Be Dragons is a successful study abroad program that focuses on developing nations. (Ironically, though, the phrase itself never actually appeared on any known maps.)

Geographically, I wonder if any unexplored and unmapped territories exist. If there are, they’re small and incredibly remote. With satellite imagery, not only have we tracked everywhere, but we can zoom in and visit virtually on Google Earth. GPS systems keep us from getting lost (at least most of the time, but I digress). A new app even helps you navigate the inside of large public areas, such as major airports.

All this provides a degree of comfort, of security. It’s nice to know where you are and to have a path laid out that will lead you where you want to go.

But as Seth Godin challenges in his most recent manifesto, Poke the Box:

Please stop waiting for a map. We reward those who draw maps, not those who follow them (Kindle edition, loc 425)…

There is no guarantee, though. There are no maps. They’ve all been taken, and their value is not what it used to be, because your competitors have maps, too.

The opportunity lies in pursuing your curiosity instead. Curiosity is not allergic to failure. Curiosity drives us to the haunted house because the thrills lie in what we don’t expect, not in what’s safe. (location 482)

Godin is writing about the business world, but his words suggest some relevant questions for educators. Are we training kids to wait for maps they can follow? Or do we help them develop the courage and inquisitiveness to enter the haunted house? Do we allow them to explore in new directions and thus draw original maps? Pondering these questions and the metaphor of maps brings to mind a post by Shelly Blake-Plock at TeachPaperless on why teachers should be like travel agents.

The world continues to shift in massive ways. Consider just the geo-political upheaval of the past few months. The maps need to be redrawn, at least metaphorically. As we do so, we may not indicate where there be dragons. But we better consider trying to chart the black swans.

Academically On Course

2011-04-02T10:55:00.000-05:00

The authors of Academically Adrift paint a dismal picture of higher education. The essential image is sadly predictable: too few students engaged regularly in the sort of complex reasoning and critical analysis that will help prepare them for democratic citizenship and economic productivity, let alone a meaningful life of the mind. Mounds of data from various studies reveal college students scarcely improve their higher-order thinking skills, although they begin woefully low in these areas.

Enough blame exists for just about everyone to swallow a few mouthfuls. The authors do not let educational institutions off the hook. They cite many problems, including the lack of priority on instruction; the decreasing number of full-time professors; their focus on tenure and research; the massively increased number of administrators; and an economic drive to admit as many students as possible, whether prepared or not.

Tied to that final point, more students see college simply as a necessary investment for a return, usually in the form of employment. A greater percentage of high school students assume they will attend college, although they do not tie it to any particular ambition or plan. The authors point out:

Many students come to college not only poorly prepared by prior schooling for highly demanding academic tasks that ideally lie in front of them, but—more troubling still—they enter college with attitudes, norms, values, and behaviors that are often at odds with academic commitment. (Kindle edition, loc 141)

Over the years, the number of hours that students they spend studying has been cut in half. Graduation rates also have plummeted; and of those who do graduate, many are now taking 5-6 years.

I don’t question either general argument. As for the people involved in higher education, shame on them, for they should know better. As for the students, I feel sorry for them. In many ways, they have been victimized by a backwards system.

The overwhelming majority of students in America have proceeded through an educational assembly line with various checks along the way in the form of standardized tests. Before they can leave the plant, quality control comes in the form of one final test—the exit exam. Of course, along the way they have spent countless hours on practice problems, pre-tests, test review, tests in other classes that will be just like the big test. Ultimately, I’m not sure this really proves anything other than how well a student has learned to take a very limited form of assessment—a type of test with little resemblance to anything he or she will ever encounter in real life.

Here are the real questions we need to ask a student about to graduate. What can you do with what you’ve learned? How can you show me that you’ve synthesized and internalized all the key elements of your education?

For that reason, I’m very excited about our eighth graders’ service learning projects. They are a wonderful capstone experience. Working in small groups, students have researched various societal issues, brainstormed solutions, presented their cases, and chosen an area on which to focus. They spend most of the final trimester engaged in actual service based on their plans. Some have joined the Falling Whistles project for peace in Congo. Some are working to encourage literacy. Some are working with senior citizens. Some are combating child obesity. At the end of the project, students will present again for their peers, teachers, and families, along with preparing a final report. By showing how both their minds and spirits have flourished, the students will embody the rich and truly holistic education they have gained throughout their time at St. John’s. To invoke a Quaker ideal, they are letting their lives speak.

It also means that St. John’s students are anything but academically adrift. Indeed, they graduate ready to navigate high school and life with confidence and purpose.