It’s time to raise the bar on our conversations around school change.

For too long, we’ve been paying lip service to “transformation,” unwilling or unable to reimagine our work in schools in ways that are fully relevant for the realities of the modern world. And as we pursue half-measures to become “better,” we neglect the needs of our students who need us to be decidedly “different.”

The gap between the increasing pace of change and our inability in schools to adequately respond to it is what keeps Bruce and Missy and I (and others) up at night.

We need to close the gap.

Introducing our newest white paper: 10 Principles for Schools of Modern Learning: The Urgent Case for Reimagining Today’s Schools.

It’s our first shot across the educhange bow that we hope will get you thinking and talking and acting to lead serious, sustainable change in your schools and classrooms.

This 20-page ebook highlights:

• A framework for developing kids who are deep, powerful, curious, agile learners.
• Action steps to inform a change process in your school.
• Questions you can ask to start creating change in your school.
• Links to resources you and your stakeholders can access today to get started.
• Insights and ideas to help you make better decisions about your school’s future.
• Methods that schools are already using to transform student learning.

We’ve got more coming: a new podcast series, resources for ChangeLeaders, and an 8-week course that we think will move schools into the modern world with relevance, sustainability, and scale.

We’re not naive as to the work that real change takes. In fact, if you don’t have a healthy dose of courage and commitment to creating a new narrative for schooling in this moment, you won’t want to tag along on this ride.

But if you do, welcome. Read and share the whitepaper, join us on Facebook, and start to build your own capacity for change with a community of global leaders invested in doing what’s right for our kids in these challenging yet exciting times.

I find words fascinating, especially new ones. When I was teaching high school English, one of my favorite classes was an elective titled “Language Development” where we looked at etymologies, made connections between words and cultural shifts, and created all sorts of new words on our own among other things. We even ended up creating our own “suburban” dictionary of slang at our school that ended up being a really hefty research project that my students actually loved.

Anyway, I came across the word “learnability” this morning, and while I’m sure I’d seen that word before, in this instance it had an interesting twist. Look up the word in the dictionary and it most definitions run along the lines of “the ease with which something can be learned.” So, for instance, the “learnability” of Spanish, let’s say, would be greater than that of Chinese. Software creators wonder about the “learnability” of their products. And so on.

But in this article on the coming “skills revolution,” “learnability” takes on a different definition. Here it’s “the desire and ability to learn new skills to stay relevant and remain employable.” In essence, it’s a human characteristic, not a measure of difficulty.

And I find that interesting. And relevant.

Do the kids in your schools leave you with “the desire and ability to learn new skills to stay relevant and remain employable?” Is that part of your mission as an educator, to nurture and develop that characteristic in your students?

And even more, what does learnability mean in the context of being an educator. Obviously, aside from some really bold schools where contracts are renewed every year, “remaining employable” in education doesn’t require too much effort. But what should we expect from teachers and leaders in terms of exhibiting “the desire and ability to learn new skills to stay relevant?”

I would suggest we should expect a lot.

You can judge for yourself whether the authors’ emphasis on “learnability” is as crucial as they claim, but I don’t doubt that learning new skills perpetually is going to be a reality for most students.

We getting them ready for that?

Image credit: José Martín

So, the “2017 Predictions” posts are starting to flow, and while I’m certainly interested in the education prognostications, I’m more interested in what people are saying outside of our field. (I’m somewhat pessimistic that anything will significantly shift in edu next year, especially in terms of our penchant for trying to do “the wrong thing right.”) To that end, I came across an interesting Deloitte paper that makes a number of interesting forecasts. I’m just going to pull a few out, but the whole report is pretty interesting reading if you have the time. Remember, these are for business, but they’re for us as well.

Prediction #1: “Organizational Design Will be Challenged Everywhere”

Key quote: “Today, the key to organizational success is not “scalable efficiency,” but “scalable learning.” You, as an organization, must be able to experiment, put prototype products in front of customers, rapidly learn from your competitors, and stay ahead of your marketplace, industry, and technology trends. This means your whole organization has to focus on customercentric learning, experimentation, and time to market.”

Thought: That sound like schools and classrooms to you? Innovation in schools does not tend to be driven by “scalable learning” but by usually isolated, courageous edge runners who aren’t waiting for the system to catch up. And imagine if the entire system really focused on the way students really learn best, “studentcentric” learning if you will. That would be doing the “right thing.” I doubt many school organizations will be “challenged” any time soon.

Prediction #2: “Culture and Engagement Will Remain Top Priorities”

Key Quote: “Culture creates innovation. When a company has a clearly defined culture (whatever that may be), it offers employees a sense of security and freedom— they know what to expect…In other words, today’s organizations cannot succeed in silos—so people who “fit the culture” and feel comfortable communicating throughout the company also tend to be most effective as individuals. Such a transparent and open environment can only happen when people feel authentic, included, and respected. All of these qualities come from a strong, reinforced, and well-documented culture.”

Thought: I’m becoming more and more fascinated by the ways in which culture is absolutely integral to relevant, sustainable change in schools. A lot of my work in 2017 will be around this question, but if you’re in a school environment that isn’t “transparent and open” and where people don’t feel “authentic, included, and respected,” well, good luck with changing anything for the long term.

Prediction #10: “The Learning and Design Function Will Continue to Struggle

Key Quote: “But what has really changed for 2017 is the fact that today L&D should embrace “self-directed learning” and truly build a “learning experience” that helps individuals at all levels to learn all of the time… ‘Digital organizations’ are learning all the time. This means people are trying things, discussing mistakes, and learning on the job.”

Thought:  Please let me know if that sounds like what students in your school are being prepared for. Please.

Prediction #11: “The Future of Work is Here”

Key Quote: “The essential issue we face in 2017 is the rapid commoditization of AI technology (speech recognition, natural language processing, sensors, and robotics) and the impact that could have on almost every job… New tools are becoming commonplace; they are entering the workforce at a time when jobs themselves are becoming more dynamic, more than 40 percent of workers are contingent and the gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” has increased. So we, as HR leaders, are in the hot seat to figure out what all of this means.”

Thought: Actually, we in K-12 education are on the hot seat as well. And if you haven’t already figured it out, no amount of flipped classrooms, maker spaces, “personalized” learning, Chromebooks, or “college and career”/”future” readiness is going to make any difference if we don’t step back and do a fundamental rethink of our work.

The workplace is transforming, and I don’t use that word lightly. But in education, we’re still happy to just adopt and trumpet “innovations” that at the end of the day change little because we haven’t been brave enough to do what we all know is best for powerful and deep learning (not schooling) to take place in classrooms, and because we’re loathe to keep up with and embrace the difficult new contexts of life and work that our kids are facing.

So here’s a prediction for 2017: Only those who truly feel the discomfort and challenge of these times will lead meaningful change in their schools and classrooms. Unfortunately, my sense is that too few will have the courage, the capacity, and the conviction to do that work.

(Image credit: Brian Gaid)

The one good result for this morning is this: It. Is. Over.

We know better (though not completely) what we face. The shock will wear off. The disequilibrium will subside.

For me, it’s not anger. I understand why this happened.

For me, it’s fear. Usually, that’s a reaction to uncertainty. This morning, it’s the opposite. I am so very certain that the longer term prospects for both our nation and our world are worse today than they were yesterday. And I’m also certain that the causes of last night’s result are impossible to ameliorate in the short time frame in which they need to be addressed. Progress on the issues that so urgently confront us has been set back decades.

As it happens, in the wee hours this morning, bleary-eyed and unable to sleep, I came across this interesting snip from a book titled Education and the Making of a Democratic People. It’s a collection of essays released in 2008, edited by John Goodland and others. This excerpt comes from Alan Wood’s essay “What is Renewal? Why Now?” Eight years later, it speaks volumes about last night:

The rise of the United States to global preeminence began in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. The Industrial Revolution, with had propelled Europe to world dominance between the 1830s and 1890s, crossed the Atlantic and transformed the American economy from an agricultural powerhouse into an industrial one. That same Industrial Revolution has now crossed the Pacific to China and India. The canter of the world economy and global power is shifting back to Asia, where it in fact resided for most of human history (even as recently as 1830, China produced one-third of the world’s total Gross Domestic Product). The playing field, in effect, is being re-leveled for the first time in almost two hundred years. The consequences of the economic rebirth of Asia will be profound. No longer will America dominate the world like a colossus. Not longer will it be able to act unilaterally on the international stage.

America also faces two additional challenges, one internal and the other external. Internally, the disparity between the wealthy and the poor in American society has increased to a degree not seen since the Gilded Age in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. For reasons that remain unclear, we seem to have lost the commitment to equality—a fundamental basis for any common standard of equity and justice— that for so long was one of the defining characteristics of American society. Over time, these inequalities will corrode the connective links that hold American society together. Externally, we have embarked on a series of military campaigns–from Vietnam to Iraq—that have dissipated our power, drained our resources, multiplied our enemies, and alienated the world. The impact of the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, which might have stimulated the United States to open up to the outside world, appears to have had the opposite effect, making us more defensive, more insular, and more inclined to use violence to protect ourselves than ever before. The unintended consequences are notable for their ironic quality. In the name of fighting terrorism, we seem to have abetted it; in theme of building democracy, we seem to have undermined it.

The worldwide change we confront is even more fundamental. Humankind now faces a challenge unique to its entire existence on this planet. For the first time the lethality of our weapons and the degradation of our environment endanger not just individual societies but the world as a whole. The very survival of Homo sapiens hangs in the balance. Meanwhile, the central ideology of our time—nationalism—and the central institution of our time—the nation state—are inadequate to the task at hand. Both grew out of a highly competitive, bloody stage in European history that is long since past. We face the twenty-first century, in effect, with eighteenth-century tools.  [Emphasis mine.]

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been doing some intense work with a number of schools trying to help them frame a learning response to the challenge of this modern, connected, distracted, moment we now find ourselves in. I still believe in its opportunities. But what last night teaches is that the challenges are indeed significant when it comes to the work of schools to more effectively prepare our children to embrace and overcome the significant trials that collectively confront us. We in education are, in fact, facing the twenty-first century with eighteenth century systems, structures, and mindsets. They are deeply rooted realities and narratives that will take years if not decades to change, if they can be changed at all.

Time to reflect, refresh and, hopefully, reboot.

Here’s an idea for a killer modern learning app:

Call it Tinder-Ed if you like.

Sign up, and fill in a) what you want to learn, and b) what you’re able to teach. Maybe add what time zone you’re in. Simple.

Once you’re signed on, fire up the app, and start swiping through the people Tinder-Ed has matched you up with to find some synergy.

You teach me this thing that I want to learn, I’ll teach you this thing you want to learn.

Quid pro quo. The perfect learning date.

We can add some Uber-ish ratings stuff in there as well. Cred matters.

It’s probably already been done. I haven’t really looked.

But if it hasn’t…

Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t like just about every five year old have a “growth mindset?” I mean, depending on parents and other circumstances, I’m sure even kids that age can see themselves as limited. But most of the tail-waggers I’ve seen in kindergarten feel like they can conquer just about anything. They’ve already got a “growth mindset.”

The reason we need all sorts of “growth mindset” books and workshops is not because we need to develop that in kids. It’s because we’re now in the business of trying to restore  that in kids, something that by and large schools strip away.

We really think ranking and sorting with grades are good for kids? We really think that telling them that they can’t continue to pursue their interests is good for their “growth mindset?” Or that focusing on problems with one answer makes them more confident in their potentials to achieve?

Really?

It would make more sense to focus simply on nurturing and supporting the learning mindsets that kids already bring with them, rather than forcing them to adopt a “school mindset” that has little connection to their real lives.

The world as it is today, the one in which we have access to all sorts of knowledge, people, and technologies, that world is not the one that most current educators thought they were stepping into when they went into teaching. The image of schooling that most had was built on scarcity of those things, not abundance. It was an image built on what most of us experienced in our own education. One of structure, of teacher as planner and assessor, of rigorous organization.

But change has happened, very quickly, with the Web.

And I wonder, how are we in education coping with it? Do we adults have the literacies and dispositions to cope with it effectively? Were we, are we prepared for it?

The good news is that despite the challenge of it, we are full force experiencing the kind of mega change that most expect our students will have to deal with as they go through their lives.

So, if you want a sense of what our kids will need as they face the future, look inward. You’re in it.

What do you need right now to deal with the change you’re feeling? And how does that inform your practice?

From the “Doing the Wrong Thing Right Department,” George Siemens on the LMS:

“You’ve made a process efficient that would make an awesome, productive employee in the 1960s, but you haven’t developed the mindsets, the networking capabilities and so on that you need for an individual—not just an employee, but a member of society—in 2020. To make a process more efficient that shouldn’t be done at all is a waste of time.”

How many things are we trying to do “better” that we shouldn’t be doing at all?

More, do we have the mindsets as school communities that push the curious, creative, agile, persistent dispositions that it’s becoming more and more clear will determine our kids’ ability to flourish?

Trying to do “better” is easier than trying to do “different.” Different means uncertainty.

But “different” in school also means understanding (or at least trying to) how the lives our children will lead will be “different” from the ones we are currently leading.

You doing that work?

One of the most frustrating moments when I give a talk to educators is the moment when I put Seymour Papert’s picture and quote up on screen and ask how many of them have ever heard of him. Nine times out of ten, maybe a hand or two goes up. Many times, no one knows of him.

I was in that camp too not so many years ago. I’ve lamented many times the fact that people like Papert, Seymour Sarason, Russell Ackoff, Deb Meier, and many other progressive, challenging thinkers on education, learning, and technology came to me so relatively “late” in life. It wasn’t until I was into almost my 25th year as an educator that I started reading these and others who resonated so deeply with my own experience but never had a chance to directly impact my classroom practice. I was never introduced to them in my pre-service courses, never talked about them in staff lounges, never knew anyone in my physical space education circles who espoused their world view.

It wasn’t until seven or eight years ago when Gary Stager started feeding me these links and book titles that my brain started melting with thoughts and ideas about what learning really is, what schooling might be, and I’ll be forever grateful. Gary worked closely with Papert, and I know his loss right now is huge. But we should all be feeling some sadness today, because there’s no question that Papert was one of the greatest minds of our time at the intersection of the work that so many of us care deeply about and do every day.

It’s not at all surprising that I heard of his passing this morning as I was working on a piece for Ed Leadership in which I mention Papert serveral times. In fact, in my tabs, I’ve got open the directory of Papert’s writing that Gary started and I’ve contributed to, and also his essay “Child Power,” which I’ve read many times and was citing in my piece. If you’ve never read Papert, it’s a good place to start:

So the model that says learn while you’re at school, while you’re young, the skills that you will apply during your lifetime is no longer tenable. The skills that you can learn when you’re at school will not be applicable. They will be obsolete by the time you get into the workplace and need them, except for one skill. The one really competitive skill is the skill of being able to learn. It is the skill of being able not to give the right answer to questions about what you were taught in school, but to make the right response to situations that are outside the scope of what you were taught in school. We need to produce people who know how to act when they’re faced with situations for which they were not specifically prepared.

I never had the chance to meet Seymour Papert in person, but I will always be thankful that his writing, his speaking, and his ideas live on, and that my own life has been made many times richer by his work. Many more eloquent tributes will be written in the next few days from those who can capture his impact and his spirit far better than I. But I can’t let his passing go by without some mention of the important role that he has and will continue to play in my intellectual life. May he rest in peace.