A Better Path to Learning

Category: Learnings

  • Relationships Matter…They Matter A Lot

    —

    by

    svb802
    in

    Here’s another Best of the Best from the archives. I wrote this article for The Education Game back in 2021. Hope you enjoy it. Traditional schools struggle establishing relationships within academic settings. Most schools begin their relationship-building by the teacher receiving a student roster telling them who is assigned to each of their teaching periods,…

  • Debating with a Traditionalist

    —

    by

    svb802
    in

    A dear friend just retired from a central office position in a traditional suburban school district. He used to buy me beers at happy hour during my first year of teaching in Houston, Texas because I didn’t have money to pay for my own. We watched each other get promoted inside our Houston district, with…

  • Learning Like Picasso

    —

    by

    svb802
    in

    I just returned from Spain. While there I visited the Picasso Museum in Barcelona for a second time. I’m glad I returned since there is too much to capture on just one trip. Picasso was born in Spain in 1881. Throughout his long career as an artist, he created more than 20,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures,…

  • Public Schooling Over Public Schools

    —

    by

    svb802
    in

    Lots of folks think I no longer appreciate public schools. That might be true. Public schools, at scale, are mediocre at best. Public schools have produced flat line National Assessment of Educational Progress (the nation’s report card) results over the past 40 years. Out nation’s public schools have been rated a “C” by EdWeek, a…

  • Necessity is the Mother of Invention or 5 Ways Traditional Schools Can Try to Improve

    —

    by

    svb802
    in

    Somewhere along the way I saw a sign stating: “Necessity is the Mother of Invention.” Few schools follow this type of advice. Instead, most campuses double down on tried and not so true strategies like improved teaching, better principals, stronger curriculum, high stakes testing, and the list goes on and on. The traditional school system…

  • Schools Are Inequitable and That Can’t Be Fixed

    —

    by

    svb802
    in

    Lately I’ve heard a lot from traditional school districts that this coming year they are really going to work on the equity issue inside most, if not all, schools. School leaders realize black, brown, and poor kids are getting the short end of the stick and now they have decided they are going to do…

  • Talent, Space, and Time

    —

    by

    svb802
    in

    Today’s public education system doesn’t understand the importance of talent, space, and time when it comes to producing smarter and stronger learners. Schools depend on a finite set of teachers, hired to insure student learning. In my old district, our human resources department had to fill 10,000 teaching positions for 200,000 students enrolled in our…

  • Let’s Try a New Type of Learning Cohort

    —

    by

    svb802
    in

    The school year is coming to an end. Research tells us more black, brown, and poor kids will end this year more under-performing schools than white, middle-class youngsters – a lot more. Most of the black, brown, and poor kids, attending these low-achieving campuses are, destined for summer school, a place traditionally reserved for kids…

  • What’s a Learning Coach?

    —

    by

    svb802
    in

    A learning coach is not a teacher. Most public-school teachers utilize lesson planning, which includes instructional strategies, to present a state-approved curriculum to their students. Most of those strategies are judged successful or not by a state-approved standardized test at the end of a teaching cycle, usually 36 weeks. A learning coach creates a learning…

  • Have You Ever Used a Learner Whiteboard?

    —

    by

    svb802
    in

    In yesterday’s column, I described The Game Plan as a way to organize your learning. But The Game Plan is a long and rather unwieldy document, so we need to streamline the weekly learning process a bit. The Learner Whiteboard and Learner Whiteboard Part 2 are better ways to organize your learning goals over the…