Sugata Mitra: "The child-driven education" (2010)

The following is Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences (@secls) at Newcastle University (@StudentsNCL) Sugata Mitra (@Sugatam)'s 2010 #TED Talk in which he elaborates upon his ground-breaking "The Hole in the Wall" experiment and Self-Organized Learning Environments (SOLEs) (@schoolincloud).

How do we define "teachers" when children can educate themselves using technology?

For a post discussing Mitra's "Build a School in the Cloud," please click here.

For a post discussing Mitra's "School in the Cloud: What Happened after TED Prize 2013," please click here.

Charles Leadbeater: "Education innovation in the slums" (2010)

So we are on the verge, 2015, of an amazing achievement:  the schoolification of the world.  Every child up to the age of 15 who wants a place in school will be able to have one in 2015.  It's an amazing thing. But ... actually the school system is recognizably an inheritance from the 19th century, from a Bismarkian model of German schooling that got taken up by English reformers (and often by religious missionaries).  Taken up in the United States as a force of social cohesion... It's recognizably 19th century in its roots. And of course it's a huge achievement. And of course it will bring great things. It will bring skills and learning and reading. But it will also lay waste to imagination.  It will lay waste to appetite.  It will lay waste to social confidence.  It will stratify society as much as it liberates it. And we are bequeathing to the developing world school systems that they will now spend a century trying to reform. That is why we need really radical thinking and why radical thinking is now more possible and more needed than ever in how we learn.

~ Charles Leadbeater (@LeadbeaterCh), Education innovation in the slums (TED Talk (#TED), 2010)

 

"Octopus's Garden," by Matthew Philipose

Don Buckley: "Kildonan School students use design thinking to drive their own course of learning with faculty as support systems" (4/​30/​2014)

I’ve been teaching many design thinking workshops this year for NYSAIS (@NYSAISnow), helping faculty and administration understand how this creative problem solving process can be used in education. Most schools still follow a 19th century industrial model – the observation followed by a proposal to try some unproven system with the idea of preparing students for the 21st century. Design Thinking on the other hand is used as a problem solving methodology in many 21st century organizations. It’s always great to hear what people do with this creative problem solving process after they leave my workshop and head back to their schools to apply what they’ve  learned. Part of the Kildonan’s School (@KildonanSchool) curriculum is The Independent Project –  an inquiry-based, self-directed approach to learning. Here’s a great example of design thinking applied to engage students and deepen their learning:

Sandy from the Kildonan School relayed the following to me:

I got a lot out of your presentation and took one aspect of the work you did with us back to a program I initiated at my school.  It’s called the Independent Project, and students in the program drive their own course of learning with faculty as support systems, not teachers.  That has been an amazing experience for the kids because for the first time, they feel empowered by their minds and choices.  As to be expected, they also ran into “problems” being the at the helm of their own ships.  Using your template, I posed the ‘draw your problem‘ to them, and the results were remarkable and quite moving.

The conversations between students and faculty as a result of their drawings were far more revealing and complex than verbal communication alone.  Their images brought depth to their understanding of their problems and opened up better pathways for verbal communication.  One student commented on the importance of recognizing, confronting, and grappling with her problem.  She felt without that process, she would not be able to move forward and grow in meaningful ways.  In some respects, it’s a new form of educational therapy!

http:/ ​/​donbuckleyblog.wordpress.com/​2014/​04/​30/​ killdonan-school-students-use-design-thinking-to-drive-their-own-course-of-learning-with-faculty-as-support-systems/ ​

Sir Ken Robinson: "RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms"

English author, speaker and international advisor on education Sir Ken Robinson (@SirKenRobinson) offers a powerful vision of education's present and future.

For a post discussing Robinson's "How schools kill creativity," please click here. 

For a post discussing Robinson's "Bring on the learning revolution!," please click here. 

For a post discussing Robinson's "How to escape education's death valley," please click here.

"STOP STEALING DREAMS," by Seth Godin at TEDxYouth@BFS

Direct Marketing Hall of Fame inductee, author of 18 books, and creator of Yoyodyne and Squidoo (now known as HubPages), Seth Godin is a comprehensive thinker.  He speaks towards "post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything" in a blog (@ThisIsSethsBlog) that has become one of the most popular sites of its kind throughout the world (quoted content found on Godin's bio).  

In the following #TED Talk delivered at the Brooklyn Free School (#TEDxBFS) in 2012, Godin speaks toward what education is currently and how it needs to change.

It's up to each of us to make a difference.

For a post discussing Godin's "Reckless abandon (is neither)" blog post, please click here. 

"Why Daydreaming is Critical to Effective Learning," by Katrina Schwartz

Katrina Schwartz (@Kschwart) offers fascinating thoughts concerning how children best learn.  One of her more memorable passages is the following:

'Children shouldn’t be overly scheduled,' Levitin said. 'They should have blocks of time to promote spontaneity and creativity.' Without that time, kids don’t have the mental space to let new ideas and ways of doing things arise. Daydreaming and playing are crucial to develop the kind of creativity many say should be a focal point of a modern education system.

For the rest of the article, please click on the following link:  http:/​/​blogs.kqed.org/​mindshift/​2014/​10/​why-daydreaming-is-critical-to-effective-learning/​

Sudbury Valley School

Sudbury Valley School (@SVS_School), a democratic learning environment located in Framingham, MA, places great value upon student initiative.  Pupils not only decide what and how they learn material, for they also organize their own schedules and participate in the administration of the school.

In the following 2009 documentary, staff member Daniel Greenberg expresses some concern about limited personalization in schools.  He argues that a whiff of independence merely "seduces you into thinking that [that] little bit of freedom, when you're really being manipulated, is the real thing.  And that opens you up to being manipulated your whole life."  I believe that Greenberg would be impressed were he to note the extent to which IP values academic freedom and personal responsibility.

"I don't see any reason to treat children different from other people.  My experience is that they are human beings just like everybody else.  And to view a child - certainly after they become articulate, when they can make some judgment (which is usually about four or five) - to view a child as any less competent to make decisions for themselves than adults...that's ridiculous." - from Daniel Greenberg, Staff Member

Richard Elmore on Education Reform

Richard Elmore (@RichardElmore3), Gregory R. Anrig Research Professor of Educational Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (@hgse), delivered truly revolutionary remarks on education at the Aspen Institute (@AspenInstitute) in 2012.  Now, two years later, the IP and similar programs are beginning - and continue - to explore creative models of education and learning not unlike those for which Elmore continues to advocate.  

...one question remains:  what is the future of the traditional classroom model?

 

For more information on Elmore's views, please consult the following article by Gary Houchens (@gary_houchens), former teacher, principal, and school district administrator now serving as Associate Professor of Educational Administration, Leadership, &​ Research at Western Kentucky University (@wkunews):

http:/​/​schoolleader.typepad.com/​school-leader/​2012/​10/​richard-elmore-i-do-not-believe-in-the-institutional-structure-of-public-schooling-anymore.html

"A Retrospective," by Matthew Philipose

Early birds get the worms….

The loons were not the only ones making preparations for the winter. The IP (independent project) room was buzzing with preparations of a different sort.   Perhaps it was my ignorance that prompted me to assume that everything would go awry. There was a sense of the gravitas, of taking on too much to chew at once. However, none of my anxieties came true. ‘IPians’ were on the ball from the get go. In an event such as the IP program first steps are the most arduous. Finding that topic becomes an obsession, and only an obsession would suffice. A conglomeration of ‘out of the box’ thinkers collected in one place. Young minds assuming such a responsibility from the very beginning, bent double, stumbling along the path to success in an Independent Project. So there they were, all engaged, in that first firm step.

By the first two weeks an amalgamation of sorts had taken place. Nearly all of the students had discovered their project title and proceeded to open the Pandora’s Box of their commitment.  Even the student that arrived three weeks late to school had apparently reached a subject for study. This was of immense relief and interest to me, as it showed what positive processes were in play at the very onset.  There is nothing like that success to keep us teachers going.

I imagined the topic for IP to be the head of octopus with its tentacles reaching out towards the history, science, math and literature of it. The chosen subjects for study varied as much as the students themselves.  Amongst them were titles such as Drones, physical fitness, Fantasy, illusions, Dyslexia, Automobiles and combustion engines, Real Estate, Charter Boat Fishing along the eastern seaboard for Tuna and Striped Bass, Music/​Sound engineering, Photojournalism, Generation and music, and (God help us) the abyss of knowledge!

Located amongst this buzz of activity, were my first days at the school this year.  As in any school, it was fraught with confusion, anticipation, excitement, trepidation, exhilaration, and many other emotions all mixed up in a quagmire of unreality merging into reality. Almost like the prayer in the Upanishads that goes like this: From the unreal lead me to the real, from darkness lead me to light, from death lead me to immortality…..and so on.

I was overcome with pride when I knew that the students in IP - despite their own confusion - had amalgamated their opening gambits in fine time. I felt like I needed to step up to the plate myself and handle the confusion with Confucius like equanimity.  My motto for those first few weeks was and still is: ‘go with the flow.'  My inspiration was the students in IP class.

A Kindred Pedagogy

Fairhaven School - a democratic school located in a suburb of Washington, D.C. - strives for a similar balance between freedom and responsibility that Kildonan's IP program values.

http:/​/​blogs.kqed.org/​mindshift/​2014/​10/​students-lead-the-learning-experience-at-democratic-schools/​?utm_source=​facebook.com&​utm_medium=​social&​utm_campaign=​npr&​utm_term=​nprnews&​utm_content=​2035

New Habits of Mind

'Bravery' replaces 'Mindfulness,' reflecting the courage of students who desire a different way.

Bull: Growth of the Octopus

At the beginning of the school year, one of the IP faculty, Matthew Philipose, brilliantly conceptualized any single project within IP as an octopus.  He emphasized that each student needs to look at her larger topic as the "head" and follow her research along individual "tentacles":  metaphors pointing toward the Literature, Science, and History components as well as other areas of interest.  

The octopus has since become an important guiding concept for this year's program.

Though the faculty have been designing octopuses to track each student's work, one pupil - Bull - has decided to create his own in order to reflect upon his project.  Below are the ongoing results of his work; this post will be regularly updated to reflect Bull's latest contributions.

Update # 2:  A close-up of Bull's work (10/​7/​14).

Update # 2:  A close-up of Bull's work (10/​7/​14).

 

Update # 3:  Bull's work, later in the day (10/​7/​14).

Update # 4:  Bull's expanding octopus (10/​20/​14).

If students designed their own schools...

Thoughts on a Tuesday evening:  stop "teaching" &​ start "listening."