Step inside Big Picture Learning schools.

The Advisory Series tells a great story of the work, relationships and culture of the BPL school, 

The Met in Providence, RI.

Episode 1:

Episode 2:

Episode 3:

Episode 4:

Episode 5:

These videos speak for themselves. The level of engagement, responsibility, and learning is amazing.

The discoveries the students make are powerful. The most important of these discoveries is what they are capable of accomplishing.

We can do this here!

Let's talk about it.

Support starting a Big Picture Learning School in RSU 3!

"I love you because you breathe"

"The best gift you can give anyone is to believe in them." --Jeff Pulver

This was tweeted and retweeted by the attendees of Educon when they heard Pulver say it at a panel discussion on entrepreneurship. The educators who attend Educon are there because belief in children is a driving force in their teaching practice.

But...under what circumstances? What is the context of that belief? Does an adult typically say, “I know who you are, I understand your goals and your strengths, I know you can succeed and that is what I believe in?”

Or does an adult think “I tell you I believe in you because that will enable you to do this work that you are unwilling to do, don’t find relevant to your life and simply don’t care about?”

Pia Martin, a teacher at the Science Leadership Academy and a leader of the Educon session on Care For vs. Care About: Creating the Ethic of Care,  told attenders, “I tell students, “I love you because you breathe.” She communicates her unconditional love to her students, and says, “I respect you, I’ll nurture you, I’ll care for you, because you breathe.” What is the basis, though, for this unconditional love? It's grounded in the faith that the student will bring whatever he/she has to the class. “If all you have is crap, I’ll work with that...People give you 100% of what you have on a given day, and sometimes all they have is crap, ”

Unconditional love for who you are, whoever you are, today, tomorrow, or yesterday. It starts with identity.

So which do you think teachers should bring to their classroom? Think about what the phrase means when students hear it.

“I believe in you!” says the teacher to the student. “I believe you can do this work that I have given you. You need to believe in yourself.”

“She believes in me,” says the good student. “I can do this. It has no meaning to me, but I’ll push myself harder. It will start to make sense, and I then I will learn who I am.”

“She says she believes in me,” thinks another student, “But I have no idea why. I don’t even know what I can do.”

“I’ll try,” says the anxious student. Looking down at his book, he thinks. “How can I get this stuff into my head? I just don’t understand.”

“You don’t believe in me,” thinks another student. “You don’t know me. You have no idea who I am.” He pushes the paper away and reaches for his iPhone.

“What does she want?” another student asks. “As soon as I figure it out, I’ll do it, and she’ll move on and leave me alone.”

“How can my teacher believe in me? thinks a fourth student.  “Who am I?”

“I believe in myself,” says the self-aware student to the teacher. “I believe in what I need to learn, and this is not it.”

Or do we say to students, "I believe in you and base this belief on my knowledge of you and my acceptance of who you are and the work you find most meaningful."


Then the student thinks,

“My teacher knows me, understands my life and my goals, helps me follow the work that is most meaningful to me. She will not give up on me. In every sense she provides the support I need.”

The statement we heard from students at SLA most often is, “My teachers are really invested in my education.” It’s not a blanket, one-size-fits all belief. It is the product of a system that values the identity, the individuality of every student.

A school board member at Educon?

Educon was overwhelming. 


The Educon gathering is "an innovation conference where we can come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. Every session will be an opportunity to discuss and debate ideas — from the very practical to the big dreams."


Philadelphia, PA. It's old-home weekend for hundreds of people who have been coming together to share and learn for six years. 

It brought on the same self-conciousness that tends to fall on me when I'm in rooms full of happy talking people catching up. I was told repeatedly, "Just start talking to people," and every time I did that, I was rewarded by a nice conversation and an exchange of some common ground.  I wouldn't let myself leave a room until I initiated two (2) conversations. Then after sufficient connections made, I'd allow myself to run home to the hotel.

By Sunday I realized what Educon means for me. I tweeted out, 

#educon: the place where, when I turn to the people next to me & start talking abt education, they don't think I'm weird & annoying.
— lisa cooley (@coollit) January 27, 2013

It was like taking a bath in chocolate.

After a conversation (Educon's name for breakout sessions) about how to close the gap between public education today and the public education we all want, (Mind the Gap) I ran after one educator with whom I shared some thoughts at the session, and asked, "Can you tell me, am I right to mistrust curriculum? Am I right when I have a negative reaction to any curriculum, because it imposes learning from the outside instead of starting with the student?" She hesitated and then said, "Yes," and we parted. I'm sure there's more to the story, but the important thing was, she knew exactly what I was asking. I need the confirmation from people with a lifetime of educating behind them, that I am on the right track for kids.

Hundreds of educators were in the same building (and expect a blog post on my thoughts about the Science Leadership Academy, where Educon takes place) eager to learn and share their experiences about putting children directly in the center of their learning...in the center both intellectually and emotionally. Chris Lehman, (SLA's principal), in his session on "Creating an Ethic of Care" said that they provide "professional development on caring" for SLA teachers. It's an acknowledgment that learning done well involves the whole child, and a whole community engaged in caring and inquiry.

Focusing on children as the center of education is a sea change in public education today, and needs a special kind of leadership. Chris is that leader, and "his" teachers are, as well. But there were leaders in every session, both in the front of the room and at the tables. 

When called upon to introduce myself, I found myself saying, "I'm a renegade school board member, which is to say, I have no power." People were surprised to have a school board member there; as far as I know, I was the only one in the building. It makes it all the more difficult to come home from Educon. I can't take anything I've learned and put it to work in the classroom. All I can do is...well, what I do. Stay on my Board. Keep trying to ask the right questions, incite conversation, expose people to different ways of thinking.

I can't transfer my Educon experience to my school board colleagues, much as I try. It's a game of throwing ideas at a wall, and seeing what sticks. If people are curious about this intersection between progressive education and technology, there's stuff to view, to read, to listen to. I'll post as many of those resources here as I can in the coming days. 

A well-educated public?

Sometimes a reader will ask a really good question, and I get to advance my own thoughts in the process of articulating an answer. Chris C. commented on Can Learning Be Joyful...

"How do you reconcile your ideas about allowing kids to pursue their own passions (which I agree with), with that grander idea of a well educated public?" (for the full comment, see the post.)

and here is my response (slightly edited for clarity):

Hi, Chris, thanks for "throwing me a bone" to chew on. The fastest answer is that right now, by pushing education at kids regardless of their interests, we are NOT getting an educated public. The well-educated public is my ideal as well. If we do honor and support the interests and passions of children, we WILL reap the benefits of having not only an educated public but an empowered and connected one.

Big Picture Learning, the secondary school model developed by Dennis Littky and Elliot Washor, is based on a foundation of following kids' passions. And because they work very hard to develop a respectful culture, it doesn't matter if teachers think that interest seems un-scholarly! They help them pursue it. It could be doing nails. It could be a rap group. They make sure and find internships and projects that will help kids develop those interests. But here's the thing...it never stops there. Kids who are allowed to open their own doors NEVER stop there. A girl who studied Tupac Shakur went on to be one of a friendship tour to South Africa and is an activist for human rights. The girl who wanted to be a hair stylist went on to be a youth leader and will probably have her own spa someday. These are all examples from the various books about Big Picture.

Neuroscience, behavior science, metacognition, all these areas of study tell us something we already know: that people learn best when they are interested. Simple. If you are allowed to follow your interest you become connected.

Also, not to make this into a book or anything, but the curriculum right now, because of NCLB and the Common Core, is morbidly obese. We teach kids a very very little about an awful lot but dig deeply into nothing. Surely we can afford to drop a couple things that individual kids show no interest in, when their own interests might lead them there and they'll learn the stuff better that way...and the disregard for what they really do want to learn is causing them to disconnect from education in general?

Thanks for asking such a good question and let's keep the dialogue going!

Lisa

On Twitter: Let us know the reasons you think we should #listen2kids!

The testing rebellion & opt-out movement in NYC has a supporter -- inside Tweed

Guest Post By Leonie Haimson, 
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-testing-rebellion-opt-out-movement.html

A nationwide backlash has erupted against the obsession with standardized testing.  In February 2012, the Texas Commissioner of Education, Robert Perry, announced that testing had become a "perversion of its original intent.” Over the last year, 86 percent of Texas school boards representing 91 percent of the state’s students, havepassed resolutions against the use of high stakes testing. The view is now so mainstream that in his introductory remarks before the Legislature, Joe Straus, the new, conservative GOP Speaker of the Texas House recentlyannounced,

"By now, every member of this house has heard from constituents at the grocery store or the Little League fields about the burdens of an increasingly cumbersome testing system in our schools…Teachers and parents worry that we have sacrificed classroom inspiration for rote memorization. To parents and educators concerned about excessive testing: The Texas House has heard you."

Joining the movement is Joshua Starr, the superintendent of Montgomery County, Maryland, who has called for the nation to “stop the insanity” of  evaluating teachers according to student test scores, and has proposed a three year moratorium on all standardized testing. Starr has joined forces with Heath Morrison, the newly-appointed superintendent of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, a Broad-trained educator no less, who calls testing“an egregious waste of taxpayer dollars” that won’t help kids.  

Then last week, the movement jumped into the headlines when teachers at Garfield High School in Seattle voted unanimously to boycott the lengthy computerized MAP exams, which take weeks of classroom time to administer; the teachers were supported by the school’s PTA and the student government.   Other Seattle schools have now joined the boycott, and yesterday, more than sixty educators and researchers, including Diane Ravitch, Jonathan Kozol, and Noam Chomsky, released a letter of support for the boycott, noting that "no student's intellectual process can be reduced to a single number." [Full disclosure: I was among the letter's signers.]

Even before this, more than one third of the principals in New York State had signed onto a letter, protesting the state-imposed teacher evaluation system, which will be largely based on test scores, and Carol Burris, a Long Island principal and the letter’s co-author, has more recently posted a petition that has now over 8200 signatures from parents and educators, opposing all high-stakes testing.

Though many NYC teachers and principals have spoken out against the particularly onerous brand of test score-based accountability imposed by DOE, with decisions over which children to hold back, what schools to close and which teachers to deny tenure to, based largely on the basis of test scores, no one inside the halls of Tweed, DOE’s headquarters, has up to now been brave enough to speak out publicly against the system.

Until now.  As reported in yesterday’s NY Post, Lisa Nielsen, the  newly-appointed digital guruat Tweed, has not only stated that she believes that high-stakes testing is severely damaging our children and schools, she has also offered creative suggestions of activities that parents can offer their children rather than allow them to be subjected to the state tests.  On her personal blog, the Innovative Educator, she writes:    “There are so many ways kids can learn on opt out of state standardized testing days.  All it takes is community coming together to take back our children’s freedom to learn.”

Lisa also runs the Facebook NY State Opt out of Testing page, and has pointed out the “12 Most Unconventional Reasons to Opt Your Child Out of Standardized Testing,” including the fact that they are a “horrific waste of money”, and cause unneeded anxiety and stress.  She adds: 

“Instead of spending billions of dollars on funding testing this money could go toward providing resources for children or lowering class size. Let the teachers do what they were trained to do — teach and assess. Keep big business out of the equation. Keep the billions of dollars out of the pockets of publishers and let it remain in the classroom.”

We now have our own anti-testing advocate at Tweed, and  we should all celebrate Lisa’s honesty and her courage in speaking the truth. 
  

Pasi Sahlberg, expert on Finland’s renowned educational system, had said that if his government decided to evaluate their teachers on the basis of test scores, the “teacherswould probably go on strike and wouldn’t return until this crazy idea went away.” 

It’s time for all our educators to join the movement, follow the inspired leadership of Lisa Nielsen and the teachers in Portland, go public with their opposition, and refuse to participate in this oppressive system any longer.

#Listen2kids

Lately I've been tweeting to the hashtag, #listen2kids. Every so often, I think of some way to illustrate how and why we should #listen2kids more. Here is a video that Joe Bower featured on his blog today.



As adults we give ourselves permission to dismiss what kids say. But kids haven't learned cynicism. They haven't learned corruption. They are much closer to being pure of heart, and they are way better at getting down to the heart of an issue -- if you give them the chance.

And as Joe Bower says, they are always watching us.

Go to Twitter and tell us how you will #listen2kids today!

Send In the Clowns

The New York Post

NY Post's "journalism" features this photo 
of Nielsen at a birthday wine tasting 
in an attempt to damage her reputation.

Dear Editor,

Clearly from the headline “Ed big is a class clown,” authors Susan Edelman and Candace Giove intended their article to be a real expose of shady practices, a denunciation of a city employee. I suppose the authors were hoping for shock and outrage. My response was more along the lines of, “Oh, good! An education bureaucrat who is doing her job -- standing up for kids!”

Standardized testing rules the education world. What do you think this does to the classroom? Enliven it? Enrich it? Make kids love coming to school? Love learning? Love taking those tests?

No. Constant testing shrinks the curriculum of our schools only to that which can be measured on a multiple-choice, short-answer test. But how do you test for the ability to ask a good question? Solve complex real-world problems? Work well with others? Be innovative? Be compassionate? Be a good citizen of a democracy?

You can’t. And that’s why our education system is failing.

So Lisa Nielsen takes risks. So she uses her influence to stand up for every child’s right to meaningful learning. You don’t denounce a person like that. You send them flowers and a thank-you card.

I wish Lisa Nielsen the best of luck. And I am ready to stand with her.

Lisa Cooley
School Board Member
Maine