Category: Learnings

Need more reasons to start thinking about what a new learning system might look like for our kids? Take a look at some of these comments from teachers when EducationWeek online asked them why students shouldn’t be allowed to redo assignments. Here are some comments falling under the “students might not try their best the…

It’s amazing to me how much school misunderstands and therefore misuses time. In school learning takes place and is therefore rewarded between 8 AM to 3 PM, August to May. Grades are determined and assigned based on a grading period, usually 6 weeks. Assignments are due on a daily basis, and if late, usually penalizes…

Last week I read with interest an article written by Kelly Young, leader of the Washington-based Education Reimagined group. In her piece, titled “Demand Is Here to Stay (And Might Have Been There All Along), Young writes, “Over the past decade and a half, I’ve been in conversations with thousands of families. From my days…

White parents have been catching a lot of heat these days inside public schools. Whether it has them criticizing critical race theory, books in their school library, or the new AP African-American curriculum, white parents have become media darlings when it comes to ranting and raving against our public school system. That’s why I read…

By now, all of you know my loyalty to a “define, plan, execute, and evaluate” approach to deep learning. I’ve seen this cycle work for countless kids in countless situations. The sad news is that not enough teachers and administrators in the traditional public school system believe in this process, and even less train young…

I continue to be fascinated with how our current public school system struggles to use time differently. Public schools continue to define their time by 8-hour days, 5-day weeks, 6-week grading periods, and 180-day school years. Even those districts that attempt to deviate from the norm run into challenges. Take for example the 27J school…

I worked in the public education system from 1984 to 2018, at the height of standard-based accountability based on high-stakes testing. Students were held back, teachers and principals fired, campuses labeled “sucky schools”, and school boards voted out because of test results. We were convinced that this type of accountability would fix our public schools.…

Last fall I read an interesting article written by Adam Haigler. Adam is the co-founder of Open Way Learning, an organization that helps schools and school districts to co-design cultures of sustained innovation. In the article, Haigler uses the beaver as an example of an ecosystem disruptor. Haigler writes, “There are some species in an…

“Portraits of a Graduate” has again become a buzz word in our public education world. The Texas district I worked in created a “portrait” back in the 1990’s. The frustration at that time was that most of the “pieces of the portrait” were not backed up with the coursework students were asked to take throughout…

Last fall, Will Richardson posted an interesting article on “best practice.” Here’s what he had to say: “I remember when I was teaching, my supervisor was always in search of ‘best practices.’ We would research them from other schools. We would share them within our departments and, sometimes, school-wide. We worked to create them.” “What…