The Latest Brain Research: How People Learn

Another myth that we aim to bust at our Myth Busters Seminar on April 19th and 20th in St. Louis is this one:

Teachers deliver curriculum and students receive it.  If this sounds like handing off information, filling empty vessels, and the industrial model of school as a factory, it is.

I’ve been reading Howard Gardner’s essay in The Wonder of Learning catalogue from Reggio Emilia.  He writes, the idea that knowledge is transmitted from older, bigger, smarter people is a default assumption all over the world; it’s a naïve, folk theory of the world.  He adds that this theory makes schools more easily controlled, even if ineffective.

Gardner writes that the constructivist theory of learning, even now, as it is confirmed by brain research, is still radical.  If this is true, we suspect that most of you who are attending our conference or reading this blog, are radicals!

Among the many resources and researchers on this subject, I found Sugata Mitra's talk on Child Driven Education on TED thought provoking.   He sees the learning process as a self organizing system with emergent properties.  He uses the language of systems thinking, the sciences and social sciences to describe how we learn.   Also, if you have not yet watched Sir Ted Robinson's talk, Bring on the Learning Revolution, please do.  Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we're educating our children.  He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence.

Gardner predicts that this naive folk theory of learning is on its way out and will soon become old fashioned and anachronistic.  If you want to join in the learning with schools where this old view is long gone, come visit us.

If you come to The College School or Maplewood Richmond Heights School District, you will see teachers and students working together to share their learning, explore new territory and new ideas and become fervent learners along the way.  If you come to the conference in April, you will join in this kind of learning with us and it will be fun!  Registration is still open.  For information and to register, email ashley@cadwellcollaborative.com.

Authentic Youth Engagement: Students Are Citizens Now

  Last week’s blog explored the educational myth that students don’t do real work in school.  I recounted the story of Annalise and The College School’s wind turbine, a powerful example of authentic youth engagement.

The myth, of course, is that students are not capable of making meaningful contributions to society.  The sad truth is that many schools are organized in ways that are purposefully meant to limit students’ innate capacity for action and involvement in real issues.  Schools that unleash the true potential of students to be active citizens equip and experience students as leaders.

In a speech to a group of 200 gathered at Shelburne Farms, Vermont on July 17th of 2008, Peter Senge put it this way:

School is the  most influential institution in modern society.  There are many ways to design an organization that promotes learning and the present industrial model of schooling is not one of them.  There are some exciting counter examples, but they have not spread.  The community, cultural institutions and business have to be involved.  We need a broader base of change.  In the eyes of a child, the future is alive.  Maybe children need to step forward as leaders.

Students are fully capable of exploring the questions essential to citizenship. Developmentally, in an empowering way, students' innocence and lack of cynicism lead them to inquire and act with their hearts as well as their minds.  They are not only citizens...they can be model citizens.

Terry Tempest Williams speaks eloquently on this in her book, The Open Space of Democracy.  She writes:

The human heart is the first home of democracy.  It is where we embrace our questions. Can we be equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds and offer out attention rather than our opinions?  And do we have enough resolve in our hearts to act courageously, relentlessly, without ever giving up--ever--trusting our fellow citizens to join with us in our determined pursuit of a living democracy?

To see and listen to students in action as citizens making vital contributions, we invite you to St. Louis on April 19 & 20, for our Myth Busters Seminar.

For more information on the seminar email Ashley <ashley@cadwellcollaborative.com>

A Myth to Bust: Students Don't Do Real Work in School

 

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.

Which comes first: 21st Century Curricula or 21st Century School Design?

Which comes first: 21st C. Curricula or 21st C. School Design? 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.

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

Shared Vision and Shared Leadership

I am reading, The Constructivist Leader, recommended to me by Linda Henke, superintendent of Maplewood Richmond Heights School District.  Linda Lambert writes the introduction and she begins with a list of themes that will recur in the book.  The first: The lives of children and adults are inextricably intertwined. Democracy must be experienced by both children and adults as must trust and positive regard.  Authentic work must be experienced by adults as well as children, as must authentic relationships and possibilities.   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.