Most Likely to Succeed @ The Kildonan School

Poster for Most Likely to Succeed.  Promotional
advertisement provided and shared by permission
of mltsfilm.org.

Having completed the first month of the 2015-2016 school year, the students of The Kildonan School have realized a fundamental fact:  we (the faculty) spend a vast amount of time discovering how they learn best.  Our pupils engage in innumerable conversations with tutors, subject matter faculty, and administrators to design those conditions under which they can receive the greatest academic benefit.  In focusing on education at the individual level, the community ensures that our students experience success while developing their particular learning strengths.

Despite the benefits of this process, we occasionally forget to extend these specific thoughts toward larger questions.  Because they concern the nature and design of education on a fundamental level, these queries also deserve our attention:

• "What is school for?"
• "What does school look like right now? 
• "Going forward, what can school be? What should it be?"
• "What do students need to know in the 21st century?"
• "If we can agree that students need to know something, how should they learn that content/skill?"

Cover of Most Likely to Succeed (print version). 
Image located at amazon.com through
The Global Achievement Gap.

Fortunately, we did not need to invent the wheel in order to probe this conversation on-campus.  Spurred by an insightful analysis of 21st century learning that he co-authored with Dr. Tony Wagner (@DrTonyWagner), Expert in Residence at Harvard University's Innovation Lab (@innovationlab), entrepreneur Ted Dintersmith (@dintersmith) teamed up with American filmmaker Greg Whiteley to create a fresh perspective on American education in the form of a documentary:  Most Likely to Succeed (@MLTSfilm).  After MLtS gained recognition at notable festivals such as Sundance and Tribeca, interested educators, administrators, community members, and entrepreneurs began a movement to spur screenings (and conversations on innovation within education) nationwide.  Passionate about the philosophy contained within the film and excited to bring the conversation to the Mid-Hudson Valley, Kildonan signed up and applied for a screening during the summer.

Fast-forward to Friday, October 9th:  the beginning of "Parents' Weekend."  During this annual celebration, parents and family members join faculty and administrators in celebrating student work, raising money for the school, and discussing student progress.  This year, after observing all of their children's classes and meditating upon the day's information over a communal meal, parents and families sat down with administrators, students, and faculty to watch Most Likely to Succeed in its entirety.  Eighty-seven individuals brought eighty-seven different educational perspectives with them to our screening.  Though our distinctions remained to color our impressions of the documentary, they nevertheless fell away due to a shared sense of earnestness.  Indeed, our common threads, already exposed by the day's preceding events, tightened and manifested as an expectant hush.

(What occurs within the film, you may wonder? For that, we refer you to mltsfilm.org to request your own screening.)

Faculty, students, alumni, and administrator representatives on the MLtS panel. 
Picture taken and owned by The Kildonan School.

At the conclusion of the film, representatives of administrators, students, faculty, and alumni came together as a panel to help the community reflect upon the documentary.  They began by discussing their own school-based experiences with dyslexia as well as their thoughts towards the future of education.  They then meditated upon Kildonan's programs using the film as a lens.  They highlighted the innovative, project-based learning (PBL) approaches practiced by the Kodiaks and Middle Years Program (MYP).  Additionally, because a majority of the panel members are (or have been) affiliates of Edge, the panel then switched gears to consider questions of 21st century learning using the program as a reference point.  We explored questions concerning self-directed learning, interdisciplinary content, organic collaboration, marketability to colleges, and the future of the program in relation to Kildonan and its Orton-Gillingham (OG)-based tutoring approach.

Due to time constraints, we adjourned the screening to a complimentary sale of Wagner and Dintersmith's book (graciously supplied by a local bookstore, Oblong Books and Music).  However, as with any good film or striking news story, the conversations did not end there; they took on a life of their own.  More than one Kildonan parent has expressed gratitude for the film, claiming that it has helped them align themselves with the School's vision, maintain faith in the face of the college application process, and even negotiate parent-teacher conferences with Kildonan staff more effectively.  The immediate school community has seen changes, too.  One junior has cited the film as his inspiration in electing to join Edge.  A freshman, too, felt inspired to ask his Science teacher to continue working on a project because he wished to present the very best product (to himself and his parents).

Image of High Tech High student at work.  Promotional advertisement provided
and shared by permission of mltsfilm.org.

As our community continues to feel the positive reverberations of this film, let's thank everyone involved in this event.  Thank you panel members for your participation; your words towards the film, towards the strategies that allow your dyslexia to work to your advantage, and towards your educational histories served as great pivot points for discussions between students, faculty, and parents.  Thank you, Dr. Mary Taft and Kevin Pendergast, for assisting the book sale and supporting this project from its inception.  Thank you, Admissions Staff and Logistics, for helping to embed this event within an already busy day; we could not have done this without you! Thank you, Oblong Books and Music, for facilitating the purchase of books for the event and thereby extending the message of MLtS across media.  The entire MLtS staff (Nora Parent, in particular) have proven endlessly generous in helping us negotiate the finer details of the screening; thank you for your aspirations and your film! Finally, thank YOU...the student, the parent, the faculty member, the administrator, the staff member, or the reader for proving brave enough to advocate for a new vision of education.

Have thoughts on the movie? Please post in the comments section below!

(P.S. Curious to see the film yourself? If you would like to host your own screening, please sign-up via mltsfilm.org.  If you would like to purchase Wagner and Dintersmith's book, we refer you first to the proper page on Oblong's site.)