I’m just back from a fantastic three days at the NYSAIS STEAMCamp. Twitter: #steam13 So much to think about, so much to process and so many plans to make for the new year. Thank you to NYSAIS for hosting the event and to all the leaders, facilitators and participants. And special thanks to all my wonderful PDS colleagues. Design thinking…
“The Great Disruption: Technology and the Future of Schools” The latest issue of Independent School magazine is out and it’s a good one. Among many good articles there is this from retiring NAIS president Pat Bassett: The Third Great American Revolution. It’s a stirring call for action, almost a manifesto – for educators to rise to the challenge of our…
I’ve been playing with a new graphics tool – easel.ly – and this is my first effort. I took the slogan Think*Make*Improve from Sylvia Libow Martinez and Gary S. Stager’s invaluable new book Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom. The result is a bit of a pig’s breakfast and probably runs counter to every principle of good design. But…you have to start…
In his new book, psychologist Louis Cozolino applies the lessons of social neuroscience to the classroom. And here are his head (!) lines excerpted from The Social Neuroscience of Education: Optimizing Attachment and Learning in the Classroom The human brain wasn’t designed for industrial education. It was shaped over millions of years of sequential adaptation in response to ever-changing environmental demands. Over time, brains grew…
Award winning social studies teacher Ron Maggiano is leaving his job. And this is why: Our classrooms have become intellectual deserts where students are not allowed to use their imagination and their natural curiosity in order to learn new tasks and explore new ideas. Teachers who dare to be innovative and creative are more often than not viewed as a…
Come to the Edge We might fall. Come to the edge. It’s too high! COME TO THE EDGE! And they came And he pushed And they flew. Christopher Logue “Come to the Edge” frequently misattributed to Guillaume Apollinaire Sail in a new direction Simply by sailing in a new direction You could enlarge the world Allen Curnow ‘Landfall in…
Here’s a book that looks useful: Building Resilience in Children and Teens Strategies to help kids from 18 months to 18 years build seven crucial “Cs” — competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping, and control — so they can bounce back from challenges and excel in life. The book describes how to raise authentically successful children who will be happy,…
Did you see the film Race to Nowhere? The film challenged the obsession with competition and evaluation in our education system. It looked at the damage done by valuing children and their learning on the basis of test scores, grades, GPAs and college acceptance letters. It was released in 2010 and was shown to groups of concerned and interested parents, students and…
I love these quotations from the National Institute for Play home page. “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” Plato “The truly great advances of this generation will be made by those who can make outrageous connections, and only a mind which knows how to play can do that.” Nagle…
As a follow-up to my post The Perils of Education I was preparing a piece on play. My chief concern being that the word play – like the word progressive – is itself so plastic and open to so many interpretations that defining it is like holding water in your hand: However hard you try to hang on it dribbles…
What 60 schools can tell us about teaching 21st century skills. Here’s the TEDx Denver version of the talk Grant Lichtman gave at #naisac13 in Philadelphia. I take my title from an extraordinary compliment that Grant paid Poughkeepsie Day School on his blog where he wrote: “…Poughkeepsie Day School, a school that has preserved the fires of the Progressive Era, un-extinguished, for decades,…
Alfie Kohn is coming on April 25th. Just look at the great header Christina Powers created to herald the news: Go here for more information and to reserve your seat In association with Vassar College and Oakwood Friends School Alfie Kohn will present “The Progressive Schools Our Children Deserve: Helping Students Become Critical Thinkers and Lifelong Learners” on Thursday, April…
What is more discouraging in history than the way in which, again and again, the human spirit is freed from its shackles only to be more tightly bound by its liberators? – Opening sentence of The Technique of Progressive Education A. Gordon Melvin 1932. 1932 – two years before the founding of Poughkeepsie Day School and a time…
The strategic planning process to date has primarily been one of listening and paying attention. When we look at the comments from the parent and faculty surveys and the listening sessions we are struck by the thematic congruity. One thread – woven throughout – can best be summed up as Learning by Doing – a desire for school to be…