The Real World, you know that place when you grow up that you are supposed to go. The place where when you wake up in the morning, put your suit and tie on, grab your briefcase, drink down a cup of coffee and go to work. The Real World where all of our children will go when they are done with the artificial world of school Not the Real World that resides on MTV, but the world in which not only can our children grow up and get a job, but do the job once they get there. Now, there is this belief, that educators have never spent time in the Real World but rather they were born, raised, and never been allowed to leave the confines of K-12 education, so they have no context of what it takes to be successful in the Real World, only those that are in this real world know what it takes to be there, what must be learned, and how it should be assessed. The result of this is a long list of standards and some really long language-embedded tests. In order to prepare the students, we should have some very scripted recipe-based instruction and tests every Friday. Which, of course, the children can review for on Thursday.
The funny thing is in doing this we are required to create an environment that looks nothing like the Real World. While I have not spent a lot of time in the Real World, I am more of a rarity in education rather than the standard. Our teaching staff is composed of some college graduates that became teachers right away, but it is also composed of former attorneys, engineers, and construction workers. Members of our staff have worked in the corporate world and the world of education. Many of them as they reflect on their professions note how much more work they do now than then. In their former Real World lives often their work ended when they left for the day as opposed to the many hours of preparation and assessment feedback they do now in their evenings.
When they spent time Real World, there weren't many tests. Employees were evaluated on projects and products they created independently and collaboratively. As they worked, there were opportunities for questioning and feedback. Employees worked at different paces, adjusting to meet the demands of the project. Feedback frequently was an ongoing process. Content knowledge was downplayed and effective product design and implementation was praised. This was their Real World, one if we want to prepare our children for we need to rethink what we do in our classes.
In a test happy educational world we need to realize that this form of assessment is the smallest component of Real World experience. Tests will be gate keepers for college and possibly graduation from school. They will occur rarely through our adult lives. While we need to be able to do our best on tests, in the Real World, we need to be able to create products and work collaboratively on projects. On a daily basis, our children will need to be able to work with others, take feedback and adjust what they are doing. They will need to think creatively, research information that they do not know, and integrate it into their products to meet their client and employers needs. As such, in schools, if we want to prepare them for the real world, we need to stop thinking about the grade we are going to report out and instead cultivate project-based learning opportunities that they will need to continuously revise, adapt, and develop. This is Real World. This is a world that can exist in and outside of school. It may not be easily measured by a standardized score, but will enhance our GDP much more than our current study and test methodology. It's a world that is better for our students now and in their future.
Special Educators and ELL teachers are awesome. When it comes to content, they are jacks of all trades, learning each subject area at every level. They find out the information, translate it, and make it meaningful to our neediest students at a variety of levels. These teachers focus on the most important challenges by focusing on each child first and foremost. One of the most memorable Special Education teachers that I had the opportunity to work with was Pam. She knew each of her children's skills, needs, and personalities. Each day she walked in with four bags, 2 in each hand, filled with binders and papers. Often they would be put down three times as she walked the long hall to her classroom so that she could conference with teachers on the way into school. Each day in her classroom multiple student groups would be doing a plethora of activities. Each day, she would walk out with four bags filled with binders, papers, and assessment data as she worked to plan for her next day.
Pam spent many years in our field making a difference for students. She, like so many teachers, was an extremely hard worker who found ways to create connections from the silos of materials that we handed teachers in Social Studies, Science, Reading, Language Arts, and Mathematics. As a leader, mentor, and difference maker, each day she gave all that she had to change the lives of children and families. As district leaders, we certainly didn't make it easy. We purchased materials, this program for Math, that program for Social Studies, this basal for Reading but those Guided Readers go with. Each day, 4 bags of binders went home and 4 bags of binders came back. The digital age in education did not come soon enough for Pam.
In the educational technology world there is a term called "App-Smashing." It means putting to computer applications together to make a better product. This may be taking a picture with the camera app, adding a voice to the picture using Chatterpix, and then making the product come alive in a video using Explain Everything or iMovie. We can develop learning ecosystems by "smashing" curriculum objectives such as integrating learning topics from Social Studies in with learning experiences in English-Language Arts by explicitly selecting materials that connect those curriculum objectives. The Internet provides a multitude of materials for us, it's simply do we put in the time as district instructional leaders to put the tools together to make this possible.
Pam may have taken 4 bags of binders home each night, generating shoulder pain and back pain, to make a difference for her kids. Perhaps this generation can carry one bag of student products along with their laptop and tablet while even having more resources than Pam did.
Clearly the field of learning is at a precipice, whether one supports or rejects the current platform of educational reform, things are changing and moving. Both nationally and internationally, the expectations for educational systems and the needs from educational systems are changing. The world that many of us entered school in is simply not the world our current students need to graduate from. If this is true, then why are we still organized and assessed by through the same framework as students were 20, 50, and 70 years ago.
When one walks into most classrooms, anywhere throughout the land, on the board their is a schedule. While the order may vary based on the teacher, the school, and the students, the contents have not changed. The schedule contains Reading, Mathematics, and Writing. As the children get older, it may specifically break out Social Studies and Science. The state mandates each classroom have a certain allotment of instructional time in these areas. The state assesses in some of these areas. The vocabulary itself - instruction a) a statement that describes how to do something b) an order or command c) the act or process of teaching: the act of instructing someone, is focused on "the what". "The what," simple content knowledge and procedural outcomes. The fabric of our educational system. Based on an age old idea, the more you know the more successful you will be. The problem with this, and perhaps most of the focus of most reform efforts, is that the what itself is no longer something of limited access. The Internet has changed this. Mobile technology has changed this. Knowledge is everywhere. Simply framing school around knowledge silos is preparing children for a world that no longer exists. Framing learning standards and assessments around knowledge silos is standardizing education for generations past not generations forward.
Education is on the precipice. On one side of the field is that of the standards-based reform movement, learning experiences based on thorough knowledge and reasoning based on content. On the other side of the field is a group focused on the way, an innovation-based reform platform. This group of technological and instructional reformers are focused on innovation, passion-projects, and genius hours. This group or reformers seeks engagement of students in a variety of activities that encourages children to research concepts, explore ideas, create new paths, and present their ideas. Regardless of the content knowledge, they are focusing on the practice.
In here lies the question, do we as leaders look at how we will be measured in the short-term through Common Core assessments like PARCC and Smartbalanced? Do we look at our student products in the long-term creating innovators, entrepreneurs, filmmakers, and scientists? Is the learning about the content knowledge and application within a limited, but rigorous, assessment or in cultivating the products of a longer thoughtful process? Depending on what we choose, the very frame of how we schedule each day and the learning experiences within the day change. Is the schedule centered on the 3R's or are the 3R's embedded into some greater learning? In Mike Meyer's old SNL routine, Coffee Talk, he stated the following "The Romanesque Church design was based on the Roman Basilica, discuss." The key question for educators, is it the knowledge of Romanesque church design or the discuss that is the fundamental outcome.
Each week I have a trip down memory lane as I watch The Goldbergs on ABC. I was a child of the 80's, growing up with Garbage Pail Kids, finding out that "knowing was half the battle" from GI Joe, and learning life was "more than meets the eye" from Bumblebee and Optimus Prime. Childhood included pinball machines, Atari*, Intellivision*, and Colecovision*. Sure we played basketball in the front yard and bicycled to the library. We read books, magazines, and irritated our siblings. We went to the pool and camp during the summer and spent an inordinate amount of time in front of the television in the winter. We grew up, got jobs, and now we have our turn to raise kids.
Frequently, I hear parents complaining about their child playing Minecraft. Not only they are playing Minecraft, they are watching all of these videos about Minecraft. Parents are concerned that it will never end and that its a waste of time. Well, I made the mistake. I watched some of the videos with my 1st grade son and watched him play. No, lets be honest, my wife is traveling with my oldest right now so I had some free time. I earned some father of the year points and was an audience for his interests. I discovered a few things in the process:
Minecraft is teaching my child to read. For a child who began the year with limited decoding and who's teachers have helped him break the code. On Minecraft he is learning to read words like potion, swift, and obsidian. Not only is he learning to read them, he is learning to spell them. He needs to label things from time to time, so he does. My child knows that no one will be coming to help him, so like many great utilitarian learners, he is figuring it out.
Minecraft is intensely social. There is a common language that we adults really don't speak. Whether they are five or fifteen, they know what a creeper is, what spawning is, and what mods are. Furthermore, it is a forum that welcomes all to play if they choose. How often do we hear children say, "Can you join my world?" This is the start of a collaborative conversation that happens both orally and digitally. Children learn to work, share, and play together. They are helping each other. Occasionally, a child plays improperly and destroys things on another child's world. This is like every other childhood challenge that the children need to work through and figure out how to handle. The best part is, because we don't understand Minecraft, they often develop solutions to this without the assistance of adults.
Minecraft is engineering. My oldest child is my digital learner, my younger one is my engineer. He is the Lego child. However, he has discovered Legos are limiting. We only have so many, finding the right piece can be a challenge, and projects can only become so big. Minecraft is his own CAD tool. He builds structures first in Minecraft and then, if he wants, he builds it in Legos. Minecraft is a realm of unlimited virtual Legos. He can build anything, anywhere. It has rules of 3D spatial arrangement. There are limitations that impact each world. Gravity still exists. Furthermore, these are Legos he can build with anywhere and show friends anywhere. These constructions are ones he can give everyone a tour of. Minecraft has tools that he couldn't build easily with Legos. It has switches and tracks. It has lights and torches. It has all sorts of textures. The little man has created roller coasters out of coal cars and tracks. He has built Rube Goldberg like contraptions with switches and tracks. He has also discovered that some resources are limited, that he has to work to discover them and have patience as they develop. Minecraft provides a realm for him to develop and explore.
The children are developing their 21st century learning skills from Minecraft. Those videos, yes the annoying ones that they watch endlessly, are simply walk-throughs that are teaching concepts and skills from the game. They are no different than adults watching HGTV, Food Network, or students learning from Khan Academy. Children are taking key information from video and applying it in an area of interest. This is a flipped classroom that the students want to attend. Furthermore, in a digital world, this is how they are going to gather information. They will be searching the web to find small chunks of data just as they search now to find Minecraft Wikis. They will be watching videos with bursts of procedural knowledge just like they watch the videos of Minecraft now. They will also learn from their colleagues, just as they are having to learn from other children through the game.
Finally, Minecraft allows children to build their own worlds and create their own stories. It has moved beyond block construction, allowing for animals and vegetation. Growing up, many of us wanted to build new cities and new civilizations. Minecraft is providing the beginnings of this for our children.
While the neighbor stills plays basketball outside daily, my children prefer soccer. They like to go to camp and the pool, just like we did. While they don't play pinball, their version of Atari is far more interactive than mine. Minecraft is allowing children to safely build wings in a connected society. It's doing it in a relatively inexpensive way. For some bandwidth, the family computer, and $27 for a family membership ($7 if you are in the android/iOS world), the children enter into a creative space of exploration. It prepares them for a connected society in a way the toys of our generation never did. Whether I was playing with the Obi-Wan Kenobi action figure or Grimlock the transformers Dinobot, the interaction was only a couple of us, often dominated by the limitation of the toy itself. Minecraft connects children into a world of discovery, preparing them for a future of innovation in a global economy.
So I heard a teacher talking to another teacher the other day. They were discussing changes in the district and their practice. One teacher said, "I don't get it. Why should we do all of this guided instruction? I've worked with kids for years. They are growing, I see it every year. The ISAT's come back and we achieve well. Now we have the NWEA MAP data and they are growing faster than average. Why should we do all of this?" I continued to walk and ponder these thoughts. What are we asking of our teachers? Why are we asking it? What is the right thing?
The other day I was listening to a podcast of one of my favorite sports radio shows. Barry Rozner was describing Hall of Fame second baseman, and now manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, Ryne Sandberg. He described Sandberg as the guy who got up every morning and took 180 ground balls each day for practice. Sixty to the right, sixty to the left, and sixty to the center. He wondered aloud if Sandberg's drive and work ethic would translate in the modern Philadelphia Phillies club house. Would that work ethic, drive to be the very best resonate with 35 year-old three-time all star and individual noted to slack off at times Jimmy Rollins.
Jimmy Rollins is a talent individual. He has had a nice 13 year career. He was on a World Series championship in 2008. He was National League MVP in 2007 and also won the Silver Slugger award that year. He has been successful. As he reaches the sunset of a good career, is he a Hall of Famer? Does he belong with the elite 237 players that have been selected to join this noted club out of the over 10,000 players that have played the game at the Major League level? Or is he a next group, the Hall of Very Good. Talented individuals who made a difference but didn't do quite enough to be in the select Hall of Fame. Is he more of the likes of Fred McGriff, Lou Whittaker, Ray Durham, and Alan Trammel? Good, but not quite elite. Furthermore, if Jimmy Rollins had the work ethic of Ryne Sandberg, would he have been able to propel his career into that elite stratosphere.
This teacher is not a slacker. This person has come to work for years and done exactly what was expected. However, when we ask for different things, the questions arise, "Why? What difference would this make? For all this work is it worth it? Aren't we good enough already?" Here is the difference between an individual that is working for the Hall of Fame and an individual that is working for the Hall of Very Good. Hall of Famers work each day to be the very best at their craft. Hall of Famers recognize that there is an unlimited capacity within each of their students. They don't see ceilings but opportunities. They are driven each day to help each of their children thrive. They look to adjust their work in order to maximize the outcomes for themselves, their teams, and their students.
The Hall of Very Good compared to the Hall of Fame is why we change. In suburban education, many schools, many teachers, many students are doing very well. Can we do more? Can we achieve higher? Can we help our students grow faster? Can we open more doors for each child? Do we have an obligation to accomplish this? When you compare school districts in the suburbs on international tests, we score equivalently with the top nations of the world. Lower rates of poverty than urban and rural help us guarantee this success. Our children, in general, come in at a higher readiness level. We know we will be relatively successful, the question remains, "Can we accomplish more?"
NBA Hall of Famer, Michael Jordan, was know for his relentless practice habits. His willingness to push himself and his teammates harder daily in practice and throughout the grind of the NBA regular season. He his widely recognized for being the greatest player of all time. Throughout his career, he changed moving from the above the rim player in that in 1991 flipped hands as he flew to the rim against the Lakers to the 1998 champion who had an unstoppable crossover and jump shot.
These are the differences. If it is worth it, we make the changes. We drive and we adjust as kids change, content changes, assessments change, times change, and teaching techniques change. Each of us makes the choice if we will be members of the Hall of Very Good and the Hall of Fame. Each of us decides if we will be the one who helps to reach the highest peaks. Yes, our achievements to date are very good. The question is, "Do we want our students to be great?" If so, we need to be relentless in our pursuit of greatness.
Reunions are funny things. Opportunities to reunite. Rekindle old friendships. Share stories of times gone by. Frequently these homecomings give us the chance to walk the streets of our home town and even the halls of the schools of our childhood. Reunions flood us with memories, times gone by, experiences, odd incidents triggered by a corner of a wall or a poster on a bulletin board. There's the "oh yeah" moment, when we realize that's why I know this. As an instructional leader in the community where I grew up, I have these flashbacks all of the time. Daily I pass spots in my old schools and memories flood back. With this comes the realization, learning didn't simply start when Mrs. Stewart wrote the date on the chalkboard. It didn't end when Mr. Wild sent us tumbling out of class. Learning was always happening.
Often in schools we errantly believe that our curriculum objectives and identified learning targets are the source of students' knowledge gains. The lessons that we directly engage the students in are the ones that result in student learning gains. While for specific skills this might be true, the reality is significantly different. In Krashen's theory of language acquisition, he identifies that language is acquired through exposure and experience. He notes in this natural approach that there are certain conditions that must be met for learning to occur. He talks of the affective filter, situations in which we feel less stress, more comfort, and safety, are ones in which the learning mechanism can maximize its potential.
The question becomes is this natural approach limited to language acquisition or is it applicable to most learning contexts. The answer to this is simply, yes! We know from the work of David Golman, that emotional intelligence can have as much of an impact as innate skill when interacting with the environment. This means that our feelings of self-worth and internal motivation impact when we are available to effectively undertake challenges and develop skills. Often the times when we feel safest are ones in which we can learn the most. When one pieces the work of Krashen and Golman together, it becomes evident that learning can be occurring in 3 contexts: Learning through engagement within our environment, Learning through interaction, and Learning through direct instruction. Furthermore, the learning mechanism probably does not turn on at 8:25 in the morning and turn off at 2:55 in the afternoon, but rather continues throughout are days. Put into context, we always have the opportunity to learn, we simply will learn more when it is something we value and we feel safe while we will learn less when it is not valued as much or we feel uncomfortable.
Understanding learning as a continuous process has dramatic affects on how we approach Value-Added Measures in teacher evaluation and the Achievement Gap. Simply put, direct instruction is not the only variable in either of these components and may not even be the driving variable either. Learning as a continuos process requires us to look at and influence the entirety of a students environment. Increasing reading opportunities in the home, providing exposure to technology, developing opportunities to create new experiences beyond the schools matter as much as the experiences within the school walls. As we realize this, parent education and strong community partnerships become vital if we want to raise our children as successful learners because the children's knowledge and skill gains are as impacted by these outside experiences as they are from those within school.
In our school district, it has been a busy winter. Each month, there have been additional learning opportunities for students. Musical performances, a science fair, the Student Involved with Technology Conference, and the "Reading Games" have been school-led but parent involved learning opportunities. These seem like extras, but in reality are as core to the learning opportunity as the algebra quiz we studied for on Friday. The power of these experiences may be more valuable than those learned in algebra as the children who participated choose this challenge on their own and such were more available to the learning experience inside.
I think back to my early learning experiences. As a young pre-teen preparing for his Bar Mitzvah. I think of when learned to read decode Hebrew on Wednesday nights at Etz Chaim and when I learned to speak and read Hebrew at OSRUI summer camp. Learning occurs all the time. We learn the most when we feel safest. Environment impacts all that we do.
March has come and while the snow hasn't yet completely melted through the Chicago area, it is the season of standardized testing for the State. A principal called the other day and shared a story of one of his students who's parent wished to have the child opt out of the standardized test. This was a high achieving student who does well on many things. It was a caring child whom he described as knowingly choosing to pause and suspend our Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) Measurement of Annual Progress (MAP) test three or four times during the testing sessions, doing a little bit each day so the child could be fully aware of the assessment experience and perform at top capacity. It was a child who sets goals and wants to do well. The parent's simple reasons for wanting to opt out was why should the child go through the artificial stress and anxiety of the test for the State when we have accurate data, we won't be receiving the data from this test in a meaningful time to impact learning, and the test would only show a minimal estimate of the child's knowledge because it would not allow the child to perform in an optimal situation. Great questions and great reasoning for which many educators would have no reasonable answers.
The interesting turn of the story is that neither the child nor the parent is against the concept of standardized testing. In fact, they find data and accountability meaningful and want to use it to impact their goals and learning. Simply, the family wants the opportunity to invest powerfully in the assessment situation and be able use that information to move forward. This is a child willing to spend 3 or 4 days taking a reading assessment in small chunks in order to provide an accurate assessment of their learning.
This idea of investment spurs a question, how often do we allow our children and ourselves to operate in situations that allow us to become so invested that we are lost in our work. At Sunday School, we have begun our study of Modern Israel. The children pick a city in Israel, develop a tour guide for their city, and create a visual representation for their city. This learning experience, designed by my wife, allows children to develop knowledge and interest in a place that we hope they may want to visit later in life. In creating the visual representation for the city, children have the option to create a float (a shoebox upside down with pictures & 3d artifacts on top), a poster presentation, a slide presentation (Keynote, Powerpoint, Prezi, etc.) or build their city in Minecraft. The work frequently starts slowly, with 10 and 11 year olds learning to scour the Internet for meaningful information about a location. However, after a couple of sessions, the work speeds up, the children find many of the key data points and start to create the visual product. When they start the product, children frequently become lost in the work. They search out images of their cities, agonizing over the right pictures, deciding what they should and should not choose. Those who opt for Minecraft start to share their worlds and help each other build structures and buildings representing vast layouts. The work moves from the Sunday School classroom to the car ride home, the halls of the house, and in our house, our eldest child who also is in our class this year has dragged his younger brother into helping him build Tel Aviv. Simply the children become so invested in their work that it leaves the confines of the classroom and engages the child to explore more.
Yesterday at our instructional coach's meeting, one of our coach's shared a story of a second grade learning lab. The children, who were participating in a three-week trial of 1-1 devices using iPad minis, were learning about the nutritional value of a variety of different common foods. Typically each year the children would be asked to go home, look through their refrigerator and write down about the foods they have inside and their nutritional value. This year, using the devices, students went home and created a wide-variety of products demonstrating the food they had and explaining why it was nutritious. What had once been a five-minute scramble and get it done homework assignment had become elaborate videos with parents and children advertising different household foods. The children and families developed an excitement for the learning and the work and turned a simple assignment into one in which they could become lost in the work.
In each lesson, we have the opportunity to decide the level of meaning and interest that we will allow our students to have. We can choose whether the activity is simply to transfer content knowledge or to have the children seek out and discover information on their own. As classroom leaders we have the choice to decide who owns the learning experience and what diversity of products we will accept. Finally, we can choose if children have the space and opportunity to own the learning or if the parameters of the experience will be teacher-centered. Like the two different standardized testing situations, in each lesson we decide who owns the experience and whether the product outcome will be a minimal estimate of a child's capacity or one which expands their world.
