The Agro Dolce Classroom

Blueberries on Salmon?  That’s what Melissa Clark of the New York Times, came up with last week in her weekly column on food.  This is a bumper crop year for blueberries at my parents' home in Pittsford, Vermont.  Their many decades old bushes are loaded with blue fruit.  So, I decided I’d try Ms. Clark’s recipe, Salmon with Agrodolce Blueberries.  It was a huge hit with my 90-year-old parents.  Mother, who is an excellent cook, was surprised and pleased.  Dad, who loves salmon, thought it looked strange, but loved the flavors.  I reprised the performance piece for Louise and two dear friends last night with great success.

Agro Dolce is an ancient formula of sweet and sour, that we inherit through Sicily (and they via Arabia).  It requires a juxtaposition of ingredients, most pointedly in the case above, blueberries and shallots, vinegar and honey.  Ingredients that would seem to be working against each other, in fact, complement each other...even enhance each other.  Each flavor brightens in contrast to the other.  The chemistry of one is a catalyst for releasing the other.

While in the midst of summer feasting, it’s fun to push Agro Dolce as a metaphor into the classroom.  Classrooms are always a challenge that include children of many different abilities and multiple intelligences.  The least informed among our educators tend to simplify things to a monotone, teaching all the children as though they are alike.  The classroom becomes as monotonous as milk-toast.  The most informed among our educators see the classroom for what it is, a diverse, rich mixture.  These educators are inventive, yet disciplined with their discoveries.  To them, their classrooms are a recipe for Agro Dolce.  The diverse ingredients are all there to be matched appropriately, in ways that enhance each other.  The results: what the children invent and produce are colorful contrasts of rich ideas, beautifully inventive expressions, and wonderful contributions to the community.

So, here’s to the Agro Dolce Classroom (try the recipe, too!).

Entering Boston

For the last few days I have been focused on three things: writing a piece on constructivist theory and practice for the Maplewood Richmond Heights School District; falling in love with my new grandbaby, Asher; and moving into a new place and a new state as well as renovating a beloved house in Vermont.  Though exhausted, I am thrilled to be  in Boston. The second night I was here, Wednesday, the 11th of July, a friend of a friend who is on the board of the Landmark Orchestra, invited me to attend the first in a series of free Wednesday outdoor concerts at the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade in downtown Boston.  She said I should also attend a cocktail party before with board members and friends on Beacon Street.  I thought this all sounded like a fabulous introduction to my new city, so of course, I accepted.

At the cocktail party, which was crowded, I found myself elbow to elbow with Howard Gardner, whom I admire, and coincidentally had been writing paragraphs on in the piece for Maplewood.  Any educator would know of the work of Howard Gardner, his theory of multiple intelligences and more recently his book, Five Minds for the Future.  We have Reggio Emilia in common and are friends and colleagues with the same people there: Carlina Rinaldi, Amelia Gambetti, Vea Vecchi.  Howard Gardner and Project Zero co-authored a book with the educators in Reggio Emilia called Making Learning Visible.  It turned out that we had a great conversation about connections and recent experiences in Italy.  That was exciting!

From the party, we walked the few blocks to The Esplanade.  The concert was all Arron Copland, Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid, all the pieces that I love, quintessential American heritage.  A chorus that was made up of all 21 Boston neighborhoods sang in full voice.  The night was clear with a breeze over the Charles River.  We sat on blankets and seats on the ground and ate picnics prepared for this VIP group that somehow I was included in.

Today I look out on the blue lace cap hydrangea through an open window where I have located my laptop. I hear children and families and birds and squirrels.  It is early morning in my new neighborhood and peaceful.  Lucky and grateful, that is how I feel.

By the Sea

This week, we are fortunate to be living by the sea on an island off Massachusetts only accessible by boat or air...Martha's Vineyard.  No one seems to know who the namesake of this island was, but we are grateful to Martha and to the Vineyard for offering us a welcome respite from the moving, sorting, and packing involved in turning our life eastward. Today, Ashley and I took a beautiful walk in the woods on the Menemsha Hills Reservation maintained by the Vineyard Conservation Society.   We found the walk because Ashley's brother, Steve, told us repeatedly to "buy the little booklet by William Flender, Walking Trails of Martha's Vineyard and take a walk a day!  You won't regret it."

Today's walk winds several miles through a largely oak forest, up and down and to various lookouts over the long beaches of the vineyard and out to the Elizabeth Islands.  The trail ends by sloping down hill, becoming mostly sand and then opening out to a dramatic pebble beach.  We stretched out on big, hot granite rocks and snoozed, listening to the surf and the rolling round stones turning over as the waves rocked them.  We noticed sculptures of stones dotting the shore.  And, I began to be transported back to my childhood on the coast of Maine.

I remember building with stones and gazing out to sea with my mother long ago.  I remember the sounds and the smells of the salt air and the feel of the hot stones on my feet.  I remember the joy in playing with the most basic and sensual elements of earth...stones, water, sunlight, breezes, ripples, shadows, coolness and warmth.

I think now about the sounds and smells and seemingly endless summer days and feel grateful for those memories and for this present time, here, this week.  I am blessed that the sea and the shore are a deeply connected to my sense of place even though I was born in the heartland of the midwest.

Soon we will be joined by our family that now spans three generations and all this goodness of summer will be ours for a timeless weekend!

Happy summer to all of you and Happy Fourth of July.

Louise and Ashley

Learning for the Future: Twenty-first Century Schools

The following are excerpts from an opening presentation by Louise at our recent seminar in St. Louis: Myth Busters: Challenge Assumptions and Learn for the Future. Leading author, Ken Robinson says, "We are living in a time of revolution, we have important work to do and we are eager to be a part of it."

The revolution goes beyond school. In fact it is global, cultural, broad and deep.  It is a revolution in thinking and action about how we live, learn and act in the world and it has its own trajectory in schools.

The global revolution is born out of an awakening that we are all responsible to learn and lead together in creating a just, sustainable and vibrant future, now.

The revolution also grows from sense that we are called to nurture the human spirit, to value beauty and the natural environment and to celebrate the joy of creating together… the joy of creating and inventing the futures we imagine.

Author, David Orr writes “the crisis we face is first and foremost a crisis of mind, perceptions and values: hence, it is a challenge to those institutions presuming to shape minds, perceptions and values. It is an educational challenge.”

These are among the old myths about schools that we challenge.

These myths could also be called mental models, frames of mind, the way we have always done things….

 • 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

During our two days together during this seminar hosted by The College School and Maplewood Richmond Heights School District, we will live a new story.  We are beginning two days of dynamic collaboration and professional growth together with you who represent all kinds of schools, public, independent, charter, pre-grade 12.  We will engage with high achieving students doing work that matters, that has a real audience and that makes a contribution to the world.  We will see teachers and students learning and leading together; and we will witness tremendous student growth and achievement in many domains through many lenses.

The kind of learning that we will both witness and engage in has its foundation in of all the best thinking and practice in experiential, constructivist learning since John Dewey, or for that matter, Socrates who is probably one of the earliest constructivists.

Both Socrates and Dewey appreciated the complex process of learning and realized that the construction of understanding is the core element in this complex process. Constructivist, meaningful, purposeful, life-long learning now includes much of what are called 21^st Century Skills…the skills that we all need, students and adults, to thrive and to invent a positive hopeful future.

The way I understand it is that everything that I ever believed about education has taken on the most compelling purpose there could ever be: time in school is for learning and using concepts and skills that will serve us, serve others and serve the planet in creating a positive, hopeful, vibrant future.

Twenty-first Century Skills can inspire and transform our views and the curricula that we teach.  Myth Busting is compelling: take a stand; join the revolution; create schools where young people and adults live these ideals, and learn for the future together every day.

What’s Bubba Got to Do with It? Attention Deficit Disorder SUCCESS.

This is sequel to last week’s blog on What’s Golf Got to Do with It?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.