Category: Learnings

Earlier this month, I read with interest a story about “Flexible Futures,” a public school program in Germany focused on connecting work with learning. The story, originally published by The Hechinger Report, was re-published by Reasons to be Cheerful. The story begins, “Neriman Raim, a 16-year-old student in Cologne, Germany, thought that after finishing school…

Traditional school districts have always taken a narrow view of what student success really means. During most of my K-12 career, if a young learner passed a high-stakes test, then that student was judged a success. I can’t tell you how many young learners, in my career at least, were poor readers, writers, and problem-solvers,…

I tend to stray away from pedagogical themes in this column, but we need to confront an inconvenient truth when it comes to making our young learners smarter and stronger – most of what we work on inside classrooms is a royal waste of time. For example, take the long-honored practice of finding the “main…

Change management experts will tell you that sometimes it’s more important to stop doing what doesn’t work than starting anything that might. Our present K-12 educational system would be wise to take the change management experts’ advice. Recently, Edutopia online published an article titled “5 Popular Education Beliefs That Aren’t Backed by Research.” Here are…

The solar eclipse here in Vermont was spectacular! Who would have thought the Green Mountains would host perfect weather, 60 and sunny, in early April? Go figure. A few weeks ago, I read an interesting article written by the folks at the BIG Questions Institute titled “Dopamine Culture.” In the article, BQI writes, “In our…

Artificial intelligence is going to do remarkably well when it comes to making learners smarter and stronger. Traditional K-12 leadership, trying to ban AI from their schools, will lose. AI is just too powerful a force for us not to figure out how to use it to improve learning – for everyone. I recently read…

School leaders aren’t to blame. Teachers aren’t to blame. Parent aren’t to blame. Students aren’t to blame. When it comes to failing schools, especially those who serve black, brown, and poor children across the country, no individual group is to blame. Failing schools, and under-performing schools (and there are a lot of those) happen because…

We totally underestimate the power possessed by young people when it comes to playing a more substantial role in our adult world. Young learners are capable to do so much more than just show up at 8 A.M. for “school.” We just need to give them the opportunity to show what they can do for…

I don’t know why I keep harping on grading practices in our nation’s schools. Even though there has been little change over the past 50 years in the way we assess learning inside traditional K-12 campuses, I guess I am hopeful that some day our public schools will arrive at better grading practices, or a…

Community schools are a great idea, but it seems no one is willing to pay for them, especially in the state of Vermont. Vermont Digger online reported recently that, “Tired kids don’t do their best learning.” “So when Samantha Stevens, community schools coordinator at the North Country Supervisory Union, finds out that a student is…