A common myth about education is that students can’t or shouldn’t do real work in school.

Let me tell you a short story and then quote a real student as she reflects on her experience.

In 2008, Matt Diller, a third grade teacher at The College School, became interested in renewable energy.  He shared some of his research with a group of sixth graders.  The students became more than interested.  They were determined to act.  Over the next several months, they researched wind turbines, sourced a plausible turbine for installation at the school, advocated for its construction before the school board and then the municipal authorities, assisted in raising the funds for the project, and, finally, realized the construction of a vertical axis, Windspire turbine at their school.

A year later, one of the then seventh graders, (now a sophomore in high school), reflected on the students’ experience and presented her thoughts to a group of over 200 adults representing both public and independent schools and programs gathered in St. Louis for a conference on Sustainability Education.  The title of the conference: The Necessary Revolution from the book by the same title, by Peter Senge, who was the keynote speaker.

Here is the end of Annalise’s 5 minute speech:

Let me ask you a question: How many of you have stood before a roomful of people around my age and said something like this to them: You are our country’s future…You are the future of this world.

Well, I have heard this phrase countless times.  Here, today, at this conference, I come before you to say that I disagree with statements like this.  I am not the future of this country.  We are not the future of this world.  The time for my generation to step forward and lead is not in the future….because I don’t believe that this world can wait for me or my generation to grow up.  With problems like global warming facing us, I am convinced that my time to dream, that my time to act, that my time to create a new, sustainable world is not in the future…it’s right now.

In order for us to even have a future we have to be willing to listen to our experiences, to dream together, and to support one another’s visions; whether that dream or vision comes from a business owner, the founder of a school, a third grade teacher, or from a group of hard working seventh grade students who can see that the future is now.

I understand that global warming is a dire issue.  It is projects like these that help us take steps toward a more sustainable world.

On behalf of those seventh graders, on behalf of my generation, thank you for creating a space for us to join in this urgent conversation.

Every time I listen to Annalise’s speech I get a catch in my throat.  To so many of us the issues of sustainability are incomprehensible, overwhelming, and/or hopeless.  It is compelling to hear a 13 year articulate her vision and action so clearly and with such conviction.

Since the wind turbine, many more projects have been initiated and developed by the students at both The College School and just down the street at Maplewood Richmond Heights School District.  At our Myth Busters Seminar, on April 19th and 20th, participants will witness engaged, high achieving students in action, learning and working toward a healthy, hopeful future.  Please join us in this vital conversation.

For more information and to register, email Ashley Cadwell.

Bob Dillon, MRH Middle School Principal, pipes up,
Well, we should have our aquaponics project going by spring.
Your WHAT? asked Tim Wood, TCS Sustainability Coordinator.
At the end of Bob’s explanation, Tim turned to Sheila Gurley, Head of TCS,
Well, Sheila, looks like we need a fish production center, too.
She nods in hearty agreement.

Oh, BTW…MRH is Maplewood Richmond Heights School District and TCS is The College School in Webster Groves.  MRH is public, somewhere in the 60-70% free and reduced hot lunch demographic.  TCS is an independent school, somewhere in the 5% free and reduced demographic.

These folks are at the same table.  They’re sharing ideas.  They know they have much to learn from each other.

One of the great myths in the field of education is that independent and public schools do not collaborate.  I imagine that many of us think that public schools are inferior to independent schools.  Most of us think even think that if independent schools seek to interact with public schools that they are in competition with each other; that they’re trying to BEAT each other.

Most of us don’t consider the actual root of the word competition: from Greek, com petre; petre: to strive; com: together; to strive together to get better.

Here in St. Louis, over the past twenty years, Louise and I have experienced this original, interdependent, co-constructive meaning.  We have been a part of an ongoing history where independent and public schools collaborate to create dynamic professional development opportunities, both for themselves and for educators coming here from all over the country (and Canada, Australia, Korea, Japan, and Sweden).

In fact, the reason Louise and I came to St. Louis from Vermont (via Reggio Emilia, Italy) was because Louise was hired by Jan Phillips, Head of The College School at the time, to be their first ever “atelierista,” and to work with Brenda Fyfe at Webster University to initiate a city wide educational investigation of The Reggio Approach in ten diverse school settings.  It was Jan and Brenda’s vision from the beginning that a grant from the Danforth Foundation would support independent and public schools working together on this initiative.

After twenty years of growth and evolution, many new avenues have opened up for the schools involved.  And, at the core remains the exciting element of collaboration between public and independent schools.  A recent example was last April’s professional development seminar, We’re NOT Waiting for Superman, Learning for the Future in Action.

Current examples of public-independent collaboration will be featured this April 19 & 20, 2012 at our second annual seminar, Myth Busters: Challenge Assumptions and Learn for the Future, sponsored and led by the collaboration of MRH and TCS and Cadwell Collaborative.  The educators and students in both schools will share their respective practices in the areas of systems thinking, expeditionary, theme-based learning, and design thinking; and their curricular projects that revolve around food, water and play-based learning.

The April seminar will be filled with these stories, practical knowledge and skills and joyful learning and collaboration among all of us.  We invite you to join us!

For more information and registration forms just email Ashley.  The seminar is limited to 75 educators.

This question comes up when working with educators and my answer has been, It sounds like a chicken and egg proposition, doesn’t it; however, my sense is that it really doesn’t matter which comes first.  21st C. curricula and 21st C. school design are interdependent.  They clearly influence each other.  Also, one can cause the other. The tragedy is when neither exists and there is no catalytic reaction to cause either to develop.  (BTW, I specialize in these particular catalytic reactions.)

On the curricular side of this conundrum there is the development from the 20th C. reductive preoccupation with instruction in Reading/Writing/Arithmetic to the 21st C. expansion to include development of new skills: technological literacy, critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, and innovation (to summarize the core skills).

On the school design side, to cite one of several patterns, is the development from the 20th C. simplistic repetition of double-loaded center corridors of uniform rooms…a monotony of form; to the 21st C. complex design of flexible, transparent spaces of varying sizes connected by hallways that are galleries…creating a “hologram of narration” (Children, Spaces, Relations, p. 24)

The interdependence of curricula and school design is obvious.  The 20th C. instruction in the 3 R’s dictated uniform classrooms; and, visa versa, uniform classrooms structurally forced academic disciplines, even new ones, into silos.  Similarly, the 21st. C. development of new skills has caused an integration of disciplines that have called for flexible classroom forms; and visa versa, patterns of flexibility and transparency in school design has supported innovation in curricular approaches.

The St. Michael School Atelier

In the next few blogs I will explore several more specific areas of the interdependence of curricula and school design.

I love this powerful statement.  It seems obvious though it is not a common occurrence in schools or in life.  One of the tenets of Sustainability Education is Authentic Youth Engagement.  This means that young people are doing real work that matters in the real world.  It also means that they are experiencing as well as creating positive regard, possibilities and democracy.  At Maplewood Richmond Heights, leadership is one of the four cornerstones, for all ages.  There, leadership is understood as: Bringing people together to accomplish important work.  (At Maplewood Richmond Heights aspirations and inspirations are written beautifully on the walls of the school.)  Leadership skills in students are nurtured through authentic relationships and shared leadership with adults.  One of the ways that leadership can be developed and shared is through the practice of structured conversations where participants listen to one another’s reflections on past goals and hopes and dreams for the future. 

As we have turned into a new year, I have been reflecting on practices that cross over from my personal life to professional life and visa versa.  I realize that our family’s practice of family meetings is one of those cross overs.  Our family meetings started many years ago when Ashley and I attended a class called Parent Effectiveness Training.  One of the rituals that they recommend is a weekly family meeting where honest, productive and clear listening can occur between children and adults and shared responsibility and leadership dispositions can develop.

When we started, our youngest son was 5; now he is 28!  As our sons have moved into their own homes and careers and families, our family meetings have moved from weekly to yearly.  We hold these family meetings some time during our winter holidays together.  And now, we look forward to them as times to support one another’s goals and dreams year in and year out.  We still start by reading the notes from the last meeting, now a whole year ago.

With this ritual and practice, we are bringing together a group of people, in this case our family, to support authentic relationships and all of our best work in the world.  I am grateful to my family members as I am grateful to the students and educators with whom I work from Portland, OR, to Indianapolis, IN, to St. Louis, MO, to Middlebury, VT for authentic dialogue with people who work to create more and more possibilities to build a healthy, hopeful future.

In less than a week 2011 will be gone and we will be launched into another year.  Cadwell Collaborative has been up and running for three and a half years now. Ashley and I are enjoying our work and our collaborations with schools and educators in so many productive and happy ways.  During this month we have been updating our website and blog and we are almost finished with this round.  A wonderful friend and colleague, illustrator and graphic artist, Penny Dullaghan, is helping us.

This morning I came across an idea on a photographer friend’s blog to reflect on the year in photographs, Beautiful 2011.   We will do that in this post, sharing several of the new photos that are up on our website and a few other favorites from our work in schools this year.  With continuing thanks to the schools where we have worked as part of learning teams in 2011: The St. Michael School; The College School; Maplewood Richmond Heights School District; Indianapolis Public School Butler University Laboratory School; and Opal School.

These students are working on a triple bottom line business plan for their small non profit business.  The holiday concert which followed the Winter Market featured the MRH exemplary bands and and choirs.  Several students from this small district have been chosen out of hundreds of competitors state wide to play for a state music educators conference in 2012.

We also were so happy to attend the St. Michael School holiday concert where students sang songs and carols in different languages and from different religions surrounded by a glow of twinkling lights.  On Friday, we witnessed the extraordinary talent of all ages at The College School at their Winter Arts Share.  At all of these events we were in awe of the skill, passion, presence and grace of all of the students ranging from age 3 to 18 who sang and danced and played with all of their hearts.  It is such a privilege to see all three schools’ students on stage at this time of year.

Ashley and I are  lucky to work with these three schools where we collaborate with dedicated educators, students and families.

Especially at the darkest time of the year, what light and joy they offer the world of education, their communities and families!

We wish all of you a joyous holiday!  Louise and Ashley

I just listened to an impassioned TEDx Talk given in Reggio Emilia, Italy a few months ago by Vea Vecchi.  I found the TEDx because I was reading Jennifer Azzariti’s blog, In Dialogue.  Jennifer is a friend and colleague who I greatly admire and with whom I have been lucky enough to work.  We were together in Reggio Emilia and Ligonchio last July.  There, we both had the privilege of spending a week with Italian educators and other educators from all over the world in the stunning natural environment of the Apennine mountains.  Among those we spent the week with was Vea Vecchi, an atelierista who worked closely with Loris Malaguzzi, the founder and philosopher behind the Reggio Approach.

Vea recently authored  Art and Creativity in Reggio Emilia which I recommend to everyone  who is interested in how children learn and the role of creativity in learning.  It is a beautiful book written in a direct, narrative voice.  Vea tells lots of learning stories, some about her grandchildren that are enchanting and amazing.  The kind of stories we might all tell if we were keen observers and listeners, and life long researchers of creativity and the imagination.

The TEDx Talk is in Italian.  It is worth watching even if you don’t understand the Italian to feel Vea’s passion, courage and vision.

A few excerpts:

We are convinced that it only through education that we can confront the difficulties of our time that have the attention of everyone, that humiliate us as citizens of the world.  What is a school and an education of quality?

For one, we give so much importance to the environment.  Beyond the right of having a school is the right to have a school that is beautiful and taken care of with an attitude of care so that parents, children, and teachers want to come to school every day.  We have in some ways confused luxury with care.

The atelier has brought many materials and techniques, but also has illuminated a need, not only for children, but for human beings to communicate in a way that rationality and imagination travel together.  We believe in a multiplicity of languages that are integrated and not separated.  We believe that this makes learning and understanding more rich and more complete.

Poetic thought does not separate the imaginative from the cognitive, emotion from the rational, empathy from deep investigation.  It lights up all the senses and perceptions and cultivates an intense relationship with what is all around us.  It constructs thoughts that are not conformist.  And this creates two important elements: solidarity and participation, both of which are the foundation of democracy.

To conclude, we believe that identifying and researching beauty and ethics is the indispensible foundation for a livable, sustainable future that everyone speaks about but that seems so difficult to bring about.  It is only with an intelligent heart, with courage and with vision that we can proceed.

Myth Busters: Challenge Assumptions and Learn for the Future

We are fortunate to collaborate with three schools: The College School; The Maplewood Richmond Heights School District; and The St. Michael School.

Participants will 

• participate in student led tours of eco school yards and innovative school design
• observe dynamic classes and students in action
• learn in presentations by students and teachers
• join in Open Space dialogue and idea sharing
• challenge assumptions and learn for the future

A Seminar for K-12 Educators

April 19 & 20, 2012  

St. Louis, Missouri

Join us as we challenge common assumptions about schools and explore new ways of thinking about learning in the 21st century. 

Assumption: Independent and public schools do not collaborate.  Instead, learn from the dynamic collaboration and professional growth among two independent schools and a public district.

Assumption: Students don’t do real work in school.  Instead, witness engaged, high achieving students in action, learning and working for a healthy, hopeful future.

Assumption: Students are not yet citizens.  Instead, explore with teachers and students stories of effective projects that contribute to their communities.

Assumption: Teachers deliver curricula, students receive it.  Instead, observe students and teachers collaborate and work together to create effective results.

Assumption: Tests are the best measure of achievement.  Instead, look at a long view of achievement through electronic portfolios of exemplary work and student reflection on progress over time.

REGISTRATION LIMITED TO 60

discounts for groups of 4 or more

limited scholarships available 

questions may directed by email to:

ashley@cadwellcollaborative.com

or call 314-614-9889

People are amazed when they see it, like a perfect manifestation of the goodness of the planet, offering lemons in a cold climate all winter long.  We give lemons to friends when they visit.  They exclaim, cup the lemon in their hands, close their eyes and bring the lemon to their noses and sigh as they take in a long whiff.

Today, as I often encourage others to do, I sat down to draw a lemon.  To notice the beautiful curve and the tiny, bumpy texture, and the shiny, dark, dark green leaves of all sizes brings me happiness.  Taking the time to draw as adults, and especially with children, with soft colored pencils of many hues and satisfying pens, is such an important and lovely way to be present, to be awake, to be thankful and to make something that you will remember.

So, this Thanksgiving season, pull up your chair, get out some pens, and draw with the children you are with.  Draw the pies, the apples, the flowers, the people, the joy and the gratefulness that we share this time of year.  Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Louise and Ashley