On April 19 and 20 0ver 60 educators gathered in St. Louis for our second annual sustainability education seminar.  This year we set the challenge to “bust several the predominant myths” of education, mental models of reality that are not actually true, and preconceptions that get in the way of meeting the needs of our students and communities.

We explored five myths:

• Independent and public schools do not collaborate
• Students don’t do real work in school
• Students are not yet citizens
• Teachers deliver curricula, students receive it
• Tests are the best measure of achievement

From the very outset we experienced that not only can independent and public schools collaborate, but that when they do, their different perspectives and cultures are fertile ingredients for new ideas, like rich organic matter for new seeds.  The faculties at The College School and Maplewood Richmond Heights Middle School worked together for four months, sharing their projects.  The extent of their discoveries became clear during the presentation workshops, each of the six representing a different area of cross-fertilization:

• Making a Difference through Experiential Learning
• Systems Thinking: A Fresh Lens for All Learning
• The Joy of Play-Based Learning
• Water, Water Everywhere
• Dirty Hands, Connected Hearts: Native Plants and Gardening
• Urban Sustainability: Chickenology and Bees

One participant observed: These were great breakout sessions; applicable to all types of educators.

The classroom observations in both schools revealed students doing REAL work in school; taking part in projects that benefited their immediate communities; and collaborating with their teachers, working together to create effective results.  Here is a list of the different classroom observations:

• Education for sustainability through poetry
• Groovin’ in the greenhouse
• Exploring rich materials and ideas in the Atelier
• Critical and mathematical thinking with trail mix
• Expedition reflections: How do unique perspectives influence how people see the world?
• Perspectives on Dred Scott – as shared conversation
• Embedding math into problem-based learning: the MRH Bee Business
• Digital storytelling: defining moments

As one participant wrote: the free time to observe both schools was wonderful.  I got many, many ideas and lots of inspiration!

Another wrote: Meeting and listening to the 4th graders articulate their connections between their experiences and their learning in the greenhouse was wonderful.

And another: [One experience especially meaningful to me] is the realization that children are citizens NOW, and that they can play an ACTIVE role in society; and that their actions can change the world!

And one more: Observing a teacher and students and then [after the class] having time to talk with her and the other teachers who were attending with me was practical and meaningful.  The joy in the environment and in the teachers and children was overwhelmingly amazing!!

Throughout the seminar there was much evidence of substantive assessment of student achievement: exemplary student work on the walls of the classrooms and in the hallways, electronic portfolios, and student reflections on progress over time.

One participant wrote: Experiencing the high level of respect for students and their work was amazing.

The generosity of both schools was underscored by their liberal photography policy…cameras were VERY busy.

There was lots of time for interchange among the educators.  As one participant reflected:

It was especially meaningful to me to gather the pearls of wisdom shared by presenters and others attending and share them with my colleagues. At school I never get to talk with my colleagues and here we had time to have meaningful conversations.

Oh, and then there was the FOOD!!!!

The food was fantastic.  I loved the food.

The food was fresh and local…served on REAL dishes!

In the end, the calm community and positive, relaxed atmosphere (created by Bob, Kevin, Louise and Ashley) gave us a sense of passion and enthusiasm.

All the genes of knowing how to be with and care for babies, and fully enjoy babies are blooming in Alden, our own first born, handed down to Alden from his father, Ashley, to Ashley from his mother and grandparents.  It is clear and marvelous to behold.  Nurture and nature coming full circle.

When I was at a baby shower for Caroline last January, one of the people there who is like an aunt to Caroline wrote on a card, “If I were a child again, I would want you two for parents.”  That is how I feel now, watching all of this unfold.  What a secure, happy, well researched, and instinctive response to a new born baby.  How I wish this could be the case for every baby born.

Now…all of our work toward creating conditions in schools for students, teachers and families to thrive and grow, to tap the best of their abilities, to create and offer beautiful, meaningful work to the world, and to share responsibility for bringing a healthy, hopeful and vibrant future into being…all this takes on a whole new meaning.  Now our family’s future stretches much farther out in time.  And our love for youth and the beauty of our world is deepened.  Praise be.  And love to all.  Louise and Ashley

Chapter 1

A few weeks ago I was getting into my car to drive out of a mall parking lot in St. Louis when I noticed a female mallard step off the curb a few car rows away from me and start across the street with several, well actually,… ten ducklings following her!  I could see that the ducklings were having a hard time getting up the curb on the other side and I sped over, making a U turn and stopping my car right in front of the scene of the duckling crossing.  Meanwhile, cars were swerving to miss them and other passers by began to make comments and or stop to watch or try to help.

When I got close enough I realized that there was a wide grate across the road with gaping openings and oh, my gosh, five of the ducklings had fallen through the grate!  Peeping away and running underneath the road. Oh my, oh my.

By now, we were three women to the rescue: Pam, a young mother with baby Arthur on her hip, on her cell phone trying to reach the Wildlife Rescue Center and Salma, a professor at St. Louis University.

We were all shouting instructions to each other…“Get the mother. She will be mad. We need to put the ducklings in the box…Throw my jacket over the mom, and try to calm her down…”

Salma and I agreed to take the mother and the five ducklings to water, and the pool and waterfall in the middle of the swirling traffic did not seem like an alternative.  We put the ducklings in the back of my car in the box that Pam had donated to the cause and Salma held mother duck in her lap covered with my jacket, stoking her.

We drove to Forest Park, built in 1876, a beautiful stretch of about 1300 acres with lakes and lagoons throughout.  When we put the mother in the water, the ducklings jumped in behind her and they high tailed it across the lake, mother duck throwing water across her back with her beak. They seemed thrilled to be free and swimming to safety.

Salma looked at me and said, “We did a good job.”

Chapter 2

When we arrived back at the parking lot, there were two police cars, Pam and Arthur and one woman who had stayed to see what would happen. “I couldn’t leave,” she said.

Salma was excitedly telling the relocation story to the policemen out the car window.  “Keep moving ma’am, we have a fire truck on the way.” And sure enough, the Brentwood Fire Department arrived just then.  Three firemen emerged from the truck, and one, David, was 6′ 3” I would say.  The firemen removed the round cement storm drain lid and Fireman David disappeared down the sewer with that same rescue box and climbed back out a few minutes later with all five ducklings! What a hero. The other firemen were smiling and snapping photos.  And then, the Sewer Department truck pulled up.

“Where are those ducklings? We want to see them, “ they inquired.

Chapter 3

We decided to take the five ducklings to the lake where we had released the others in hopes of finding their family, and this time, Pam and Arthur followed us.  We circled the lake, asking people if they had seen ducklings.  Pam was on the phone with a Wildlife Rescue Center.   They said all the lagoons were connected and it was unlikely that we would find the mother.  “She is probably long gone, and trying to protect her babies somewhere else by now.”  So, after an hour of looking, Pam volunteered to drive the ducklings to the Wildlife Rescue Center in Ballwin, about 40 minutes from Forest Park, with Arthur, who is the most agreeable companion.  This adventure started around 4:00 and by now, it was 7:00.

Chapter 4

April 9, 8:28 p.m. Text from Pam:

“Hi Louise. They are checking ducklings in now at MO Wildlife Rescue Center in Ballwin.  They are their first mallards of the season they said.

April 11, 2:28 p.m. Text from Pam:

“Hi there.  Just received very nice call from Vol. coordinator at Wildlife Rescue Center. Ducklings are doing great. Very complimentary of everyone. She is going to call Brentwood police/fire/MSD.

This week I will take a copy of Make Way for Ducklings to the Brentwood Fire Department. They had not heard of the book. If you have not read it, get it. It is a heartwarming, true story. And now, there are two versions, at least.

Bubba Watson won The Masters Championship on Sunday and a whole nation of Attention Deficit Disorder citizens should stand up and take notice.  Why?  Because here’s a young man who knows he has attention deficit issues and has grown to understand his learning style, or, knows how he learns best, and he lives his life accordingly…and, I might add, to the fullest…the MAX.  Here he is describing his approach to golf to David Letterman.

He fully embraces his own learning style.  Bubba himself described his winning shot, a miracle shot to everyone except himself as follows: I got in these trees and hit a crazy shot and I saw it in my head and somehow I’m here talking to you with a green jacket on.   [If you need more validation of his ADD, note the sequence of his explanation...it’s out of order.  Of course he saw it in his head, first, THEN, he hit a crazy shot, that earned him the triumph.  Cognitively, it's difficult for him, especially in front the hot TV lights, to recall the proper sequence.]

To give you a better idea of what Bubba envisioned and then actually pulled off, here’s an overhead view of his shot.

I doubt that Bubba would use these words, but as an educator and golf couch potato, watching him over the last three years, and reading about him, I’d declare quite securely that he is a kinesthetic visual learner.  And, as such, I’ll bet there was little room in his educational environment to work with him…he’s 33 years old, that puts him in elementary school 25 years ago.  So, best to declare him “attention deficit.”

It’s easy to imagine Bubba in his elementary school, if it was typical of what we saw and now see all across this educationally challanged land today,…and his teachers’ responses to his behavior.

    Bubba, sit down.
    Bubba, did you fall out of your chair again?!!
    Bubba, could you please go back to your seat, and not get up to talk with your friends again.  Just sit down and do your worksheet.
    Bubba, can’t you understand the directions on the page?  It’s right in front of you.
    Oh, Bubba!  That’s it!  You’re outta here.  Go sit in the hall until you can behave!

Somewhere in his young life Bubba found an advocate, and from the scene on the final playoff hole, after he won, the first person in his arms after his caddie, I think I know who it was/is: his Mom.

I’ll bet she recognized that this boy needed an outlet for all his physical energy, and if the school wasn’t going to give him enough recess time and Physical Education to allow him to express his physical (kinesthetic) gifts, then she would help him find places outside of school.  And, if the school wasn’t going to integrate hands-on experiences in art, performing arts, science, and math, then somehow, she would organize outlets for these.

Now, it’s entirely possible, and I pray it’s true, that Bubba went to a school like The St. Michael School, or The College School, or Maplewood Richmond Heights, where the scenario played out above, instead, sounded like this:

    Bubba, how about you try this desk.  Yeah, it’s taller than the others.  You can stand at it, or you can sit on the stool.  You’re welcome to move around.  You’ll also see that the desk is big enough room for your buddies to work with you during our team projects.

    Hey, Bubba, before we do this math assignment, come over to this group table. With three of your buddies we’re going to work with some blocks that I think might help you get to the bottom of this idea of fractions. Oh, and Missy here is going to help, too.  [Missy's a 6th grader, who's empathy reading is off the scale and for whom each of the "buddies" would do ANYTHING.]

    Yo, Bubba, what are you doing in here now?  Remember, we’ve arranged that first thing in the morning you can “work out” with the PE teacher for a half hour.  Remember how good that felt yesterday?  Get outta here, dude.

    Bubba, that is amazing clay sculpture you’ve made.  You’ve been at it for over an hour.  Can you tell me about it?  I’ll write while you talk.  [Later] Bubba, here’s what you told me about your clay sculpture.  Can you read it out loud to me, to check that I’ve got it right.  We can change and add whatever you want.  [Later] Yes, indeed, Bubba, we will  print this up and put it next to your sculpture in the exhibition.

I don’t know this, but I wonder how else could Bubba have gotten through elementary, high school and college without some experiences like this, either in school, or at home, or, praise the Lord, in/at BOTH.  Somehow Bubba learned how he learns best.

Bubba plays golf from a purely visual and kinesthetic point of view.  He’s never had a lesson.  He doesn’t approach golf from a cognitive point of view.  He sees shots in his head and then he imagines what he’d have to do to create the shot.  Then he tries it…over and over…until he’s got it grooved in his physical memory bank.

Karen Crouse described it this way in today’s New York Times:                                                                                                  

Watson’s Masters triumph was a victory for creativity and feel and fun. His mind may be cluttered, but not with swing thoughts. He is the antidote to Tiger Woods, whose obsession with the nuts and bolts of his swing calls to mind an auto mechanic with his head buried under the hood.

A Vermont buddy of mine, a fellow golf nut wrote in response to last week’s blog and to this weekend’s Bubba win at Augusta,

I recall an interview with Bubba either late last season or earlier this season when Bubba opined that Tiger was thinking too much and that perhaps he should just play golf.  Very ironic.  There are a lot of pros who suggest that we all have our “own swing” and the task is to find your own swing, and then work with it.  There is an obvious translation to how we approach life and contribute to society.
Then he added: Golf is such a stupid game!  Golf is such a great game!

The point is, we learn whatever we learn through the modes that work for each of us, individual learners.

Another part of this most recent experience of Bubba’s is that he, not surprisingly, was fully embraced by his best professional golf buds.  I’ve never seen what I saw on Sunday after the victory putt at Augusta.  First, the hug with the caddy.  Sure.  Always.  Then, the hug from a parent or wife.  Yes, frequently.  But next, gushing grabs and hugs by three fellow PGA’ers, Ricky Fowler, Ben Crane, and Aaron Baddeley (and their families!!!).  What?

YES.  HIS victory was in no small part THEIR victory!!!!!!  Bubba’s natural interpersonal intelligence has manifest on the PGA.  He LOVES personal contact.  Just as he did in 3rd grade.  And, even in that most buttoned down, conservative, dog-eat-dog, competitive environment on the PGA, Bubba cultivates relationships; genuine, honest friendships.  Along with his visual kinesthetic learning, these relationships are his life blood.  Why else would a champion be reduced to tears before a national audience?

Here’s to all of you out there in Education who are doing your darndest to create learning environments for ALL learners.  BUBBAS AND ALL.

This is a sequel to an earlier blog on baseball and the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals.

As I write this, The Masters Tournament, one of four major tournaments on the Professional Golf circuit, is beginning in Augusta, Georgia.  It’s a GREAT tourney, always; played every year on the same golf course.  There have been many great champions.

Yesterday, one of the greatest champions, Gary Player, from South Africa, three time Masters champion, gave a thirty minute interview to the press. (Of the thumbnail choices, Gary Player is the gent top right, in a green jacket)

He reflected on his professional career highlighted by his long standing competition with Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus.  Player is now 76 years old, Palmer 82, and Nicklaus 71.  Player recounted that together they have won over 350 tournaments world wide, and 56 major championships…playing against each other all the time.  Player said, I have such a deep and abiding love and respect for Arnold and Jack.  We’ve been so competitive with each other.  We always want to beat the heck out of each other, and when we’re done with the match, we look whichever of us won in the eye and say WELL PLAYED… and I’ll get you next time.  We’re such great friends.

And then he went on to say,  You know, there’s a famous American football coach who once claimed, Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a non-winner.  I say, that’s nonsense.  You lose way more than you win.

I’ll always remember what my father told me very early on.  He was a miner in South Africa, and he loved to play golf.  He gave that passion to me.  He told me, You’re going to lose more than you win.  Enjoy the success of others because when you have success you want them to enjoy yours.

It’s this attitude that we want to engender in our students.  We want to create collaborative environments in which excellence is the norm, in which children strive together to get better at everything from math to public speaking, writing to movement, reading to throwing pots.  We want children to compare themselves to each other in healthy ways.  We want children to appreciate the success of their peers.  And when a child succeeds at something, anything, we want her/him to feel the joy that comes from the applause of others.

This morning, Arnie, Jack and Gary were the ceremonial starters at the Masters.  They represented years of tradition and good sportsmanship.  Their role was purely ceremonial.  They were each to hit a drive from the 1st tee.  Arnie drove his 210 yards down the middle.  Jack hit a towering ball, 230 yards.  Gary striped one 250 yards.  He “won.”  They all cheered, laughed and shook each others hands looking into each others eyes with pure joy on their faces.                                              Photo by Jack Gruber, USA TODAY

I am so happy to be alive and living here in this place, so gratified to be doing the work that we are doing in the world with such inspiring and aspiring educators.  We are glad that we are all part of a positive conspiracy, a revolution in education that seeks to overturn low expectations and low opportunity for a vision of what is really possible and what is truly, clearly and absolutely needed in education now and for the future. That is an education and learning experience in school that is full of meaning and human flourishing and happiness, that prepares informed and educated citizens and cultivates communities that learn together.  We are all in this life together, all connected to one another, to our planet’s natural systems and to our shared world.  School must now align with this reality.  We wish you all a beautiful, mindful and joyous spring in your place on earth, wherever you are.

Louise and Ashley

The group of 18 people assembled ranged in age from early 20′s to early 60′s.  We were administrators, professors, undergraduate and graduate students, and teachers.  All of us were captivated by the different kind of school that Opal is and by the life long learning that takes place there every day.  We focused on learning in three areas: Mathematics, Literacy and Social/Emotional Development.  Before our week together, everyone read To Understand, by Elin Keene, and the first volume of Young Mathematicians at Work by Fosnot and Dolk.

At Opal, we felt as if we were living inside those books as we witnessed students speak with an extensive math vocabulary that they understood, dive into and solve complex problems in pairs that they then presented to peers during “math congress.”  “We do not hold anything as truth unless we are all convinced,” Mary Gage, one of the math teachers explained to us.  We observed students uncover and savor the meaning and beauty of books that they were reading and invent and craft stories that evolved over days using materials and the arts as well as writing.

We entered into the field of respect and joy that all community members experience at Opal no matter their age.  We saw independent and collaborative thinkers, joyful and serious students, creative and careful learners.  And, we became our own vibrant community of learners in a week-long learning group that carried over into dinner and breakfast conversations and into the night.  Opal has many publications that are now available for purchase that I highly recommend.  Contact The Center for Children’s Learning to preview what they have to offer.  The Portland Children’s Museum is now host to The Wonder of Learning Exhibit from Reggio Emilia, Italy and they are holding conferences through June in collaboration with the North American Reggio Emilia Alliance.

Opal is indeed a place to encounter the wonder and power of learning in a school where the community commits itself to nurture and develop creative, active citizens who live a rich, imaginative and productive life of the mind and heart.

Carlina Rinaldi, president of Reggio Children, in Reggio Emilia, Italy spoke at a conference we hosted in St. Louis in 2001.  Just when the generations ushering in a new century were filled with all the promise a new beginning brings (like this spring filled with new blossoms and new growth), September 11, 2001 brought our fresh optimism crashing down.  Yet, in the face of that, Rinaldi spoke to over 200 educators to describe schools as the hope for the future; because (and I’m paraphrasing here from notes I took then) schools create culture,  she said; and, she went on, that culture can be insulated among the children doing the creating or it can be all that AND offered to the community where the children live.

Rinaldi points to a profound shift in how we can perceive schools.  The predominant view of schools in the 20th Century was, by in large, that they are factories for producing useful workers.  Rinaldi obviously advocates for something much greater, more essentially generative, more organically part of the whole society.  This latter view is that taken by Cannon Design in renovating Stevenson High School.

At Stevenson, Cannon created several spaces that manifest and support the mission of school as community, both internally and externally.  Two spaces, in particular, dramatically represent this point.

The first is the central commons, shown in the photo below.  Note: several levels in the one open space, natural light from the clerestory windows, distinct smaller areas within a much larger whole, easy passageways throughout, dramatic view points from which one can take in the whole, nooks and crannies where one can retreat and still be part of the whole.  The Stevenson Commons is a remarkable space.  And, to top it off, note the quote from a Stevenson student below…we are proud to be environmentalists….

The other space I’d like to feature is an ingenious redesign of an interior connection between the upper floor library and a lower floor common study area.  Rather than restrict the passage from one space to the other in a typical enclosed concrete stairway, Cannon opened and expanded the area to essentially couple the library with the lower area, making it all one space, though separated by floor level…and the separation is actually a visual connector…a stairway…but it is a stairway, stage, meeting place.  Notice how the students are using it!

The photo below is the lower floor common study area, complete with computer stations.  The stairs/stage/gathering area is to the left in the photo.

Rethinking the design of schools with spaces for students and adults to congregate, think and imagine together is to build a container to accomplish the vision that Rinaldi shared: schools create culture.

Among the many connections I made, I renewed an acquaintance I’d made with Trung Le several years ago at a school architecture symposium convened by Reggio Children in Reggio Emilia, Italy.  Trung is a principal at Cannon Design.  Since I’d met him he had been a key contributor in the writing of The Third Teacher (Abrams 2010).  I’d read the book immediately upon its release and was taken by the synchronicity with my own experience and thinking.

To begin to explain, I’ll point to a wonderful project Cannon has completed, Booker T. Washington STEM Academy in Champaign, IL.

I’ve scanned the photos above from a brochure Cannon Design composed.  In the photo you see interior classrooms that open to an “hallway” space.  There are many architectural patterns manifest here that reinforce 21st C. pedagogy, including:

• differentiated spaces for differentiated learning
• varied spaces for collaborative, interactive learning
• natural light for improved learning
• low energy lighting for energy savings and sustainability
• flexible walls for flexible group arrangements
• glass walls for transparency and interconnectedness
• soft carpet floors for different learning styles
• carpet floors and acoustical tile ceiling for auditory sensibility

In their book, Trung Le and his partners outline in graphically dynamic and simple, straight forward terms, 79 ways you can use design to transform teaching and learning.   If you are involved in changing the spaces in your school, this is a must read.

I have been reading about Stanford Professor, Linda Darling Hammond’s research using the results of the PISA, (Program for International Student Assessment) to investigate the consistent low rank of U.S. students on this assessment and the consistent high achievement of students from countries like Japan and Finland.  She points out that the PISA assesses higher order thinking skills and performance tasks which students in high achieving countries practice every day as part of their teaching learning systems.

Performance Assessment is a a way to assess what students understand and what skills they have by actually asking them to use their knowledge and their skills.   Performance assessments involve students in constructing various types of products for diverse audiences.  Through her studies, Linda Darling Hammond found that students in high achieving countries are engaged in inquiry, project based learning, the design of experiments, the analysis of data, collaborative work, and reflection on their own work in order to improve it.  In other words, instead of memorizing facts which can be coughed up for multiple choice tests, students are being challenged to THINK.  She advocates for a teaching learning system that focuses on equipping students to be big thinkers and to apply and adapt their learning so that as they use it…it becomes life long.

Along the way, if we adopt this process, we might rise to the top of the PISA assessment instead of hovering at the bottom.

At both The College School and Maplewood Richmond Heights School District, we are influenced by the work, research and practice of expeditionary learning and particularly Ron Berger who champions beautiful, exemplary student work that is directed toward an authentic audience.

To quote Ron, If you’re going to do something, I believe that you should do it well.  You should sweat over it and make sure that it is strong and accurate and beautiful and you should be proud of it.  There is much evidence of original, beautiful work  designed by students of all ages at both schools.  If you come to our conference in April, you will see it, take it home with you, engage in dialogue about it with students and teachers.  We will all be inspired to take these words of Ron Berger to heart and into our classrooms.

We can ask ourselves how are we assessing for 21^st c skills like innovation, creativity, collaboration, communication, ecoliteracy, citizenship?  When will these crucial skills for the future matter enough to be highly valued and assessed.   Maybe we need to push for measures for the heretofore unmeasured and demonstrate the high achieving results in these domains by students in schools like the Maplewood Richmond Heights District, where stewardship, leadership and citizenship are as important as scholarship.

Ashley and I, and Bob Dillon, middle school principal of Maplewood Richmond Heights Middle School,  just returned from the Green Schools Conference where we met many people who are thinking, researching and practicing all kinds of ways to improve our own teaching learning systems.   I heard Louise Chawla say, We need to stop and think that out of our schools, we don’t want to graduate only “good workers,” we want to think about human happiness and flourishing and how we can nurture and develop it.

Come to see us in April and experience learning where students achieve success in many ways… on tests, through their beautiful work, through their good works and through their own pride, self-confidence and happiness.