Will Richardson

Speaker, consultant, writer, learner, parent

Rethinking Our Roles

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Clay Shirky:

The number of high-school graduates underserved or unserved by higher education today dwarfs the number of people for whom that system works well. The reason to bet on the spread of large-scale low-cost education isn’t the increased supply of new technologies. It’s the massive demand for education, which our existing institutions are increasingly unable to handle. That demand will go somewhere.

Those of us in the traditional academy could have a hand in shaping that future, but doing so will require us to relax our obsessive focus on elite students, institutions, and faculty. It will require us to stop regarding ourselves as irreplaceable occupiers of sacred roles, and start regarding ourselves as people who do several jobs society needs done, only one of which is creating new knowledge.

It will also require us to abandon any hope of restoring the Golden Age. It was a nice time, but it wasn’t stable, and it didn’t last, and it’s not coming back. It’s been gone ten years more than it lasted, in fact, and in the time since it ended, we’ve done more damage to our institutions, and our students, and our junior colleagues, by trying to preserve it than we would have by trying to adapt. Arguing that we need to keep the current system going just long enough to get the subsidy the world owes us is really just a way of preserving an arrangement that works well for elites—tenured professors, rich students, endowed institutions—but increasingly badly for everyone else.

Read the whole thing. 

There are similar pressures on the K-12 level that make supporting the current system difficult. To date, however, we’ve been stuck almost wholly in preservation mode. 

Liberate the Learners

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Seymour Papert (1998):

The presence of digital technologies is rapidly moving us into a period where learners can learn what they need to know on their own agenda rather than on the predetermined agenda of a curriculum. We will soon be able to give up the assembly line model of grade after grade, exercise after exercise.

It would be naive to believe this could happen without resistance from the education establishment—which includes several multibillion-dollar sectors of the education industry as well as huge bureaucracies with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. I grant that most people who make and apply curriculums are underpaid and motivated by the welfare of children. But this does not alter the fact that present-day schools, to which…they have to cater in order to sell their products, are relics from an earlier period of knowledge technology.

I think the emphasis now has to be on the transition. We know from where have come. The question is where we end up. At the core, it’s about how we provide the cultures and systems and supports that marry the public good of community schools with the powerful freedom to learn which we and our children in connected spaces now enjoy. (And, importantly, how we extend that freedom to those who don’t yet have access to it.) 

Next week, let’s spring forward on more than just the clock. 

Other Questions for Teachers and Principals

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Valerie Strauss:

Nine in 10 principals (93%) and teachers (92%) say they are knowledgeable about the Common Core.

Nine in 10 principals (90%) and teachers (93%) believe that teachers in their schools already have the academic skills and abilities to implement the Common Core in their classrooms.

Teachers and principals are more likely to be very confident that teachers have the ability to implement the Common Core (53% of teachers; 38% of principals) than they are very confident that the Common Core will improve the achievement of students (17% of teachers; 22% of principals) or better prepare students for college and the workforce (20% of teachers; 24% of principals).

Statistics from the most recent MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, and just another piece of research backing up what I (and many others) have been seeing and hearing anecdotally in my travels around the country talking to teachers. And while I know we need to define “achievement” and “workforce,” those numbers are a pretty severe indictment of the Common Core if accurate.

But I’d love to be asking a number of other questions of these teachers and principals  (and I’ll put my guesses as to what the answers would be in parenthesis):

  • Do you have the skills and abilities to learn with online social media? (21%)
  • Are you knowledgable about and regularly engage in personal and professional learning opportunities online? (20%)
  • Do you regularly engage in discussions about learning with technology with your teachers (or with your principals)? (8%)
  • Do you take responsibility for your own professional development? (11%)
  • Are you “literate” as defined by the National Council Teachers of English? (5%)
  • Are you encouraged and supported to innovate with technology in your classrooms and schools? (18%)

(Add your own below if you like.)

Feel free to push back on those guesses, which, I’m sure, many will think to be too low. I’m basing my responses on visits to dozens of schools with thousands of teachers in the last year.

And please don’t read my guesses as “teachers suck.” There is no blame here; we happen to be teaching and leading and learning at what may well be the fastest, hairiest moment of change in education ever. It’s no surprise that we’re struggling to catch up. But I do think every educator has a responsibility to get moving in these directions.

The larger point is this: in three years we can get everyone up to speed on the Common Core, a set of standards that have problematic origins and implementation, for which we don’t have an assessment, and around which people are profiting bajillions of dollars, but we can’t seem to make much headway on getting our practice wrapped around a much larger, more profound, more important shift in the way we and our kids are going to live and work and learn with technology.

Disconcerting at best. 

“Connect to New People on a Regular Basis”

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danah boyd:

Building lifelong learners means instilling curiosity, but it also means helping people recognize how important it is that they continuously surround themselves by people that they can learn from. And what this means is that people need to learn how to connect to new people on a regular basis.

And:

Are you preparing learners for the organizational ecosystem of today? Or are you helping them develop networks so that they’re prepared for the organizational shifts that are coming?

This is why we need to develop our own networks now. I know we’re in this hugely messy transition period into this self-directed, self-organized world, but at what point do we start making this a requirement rather than an option?

Read the whole post. 

The New Entrepreneurial Class

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Robert Safian:

For all the concerns they cite about the plight of small business, from tax burdens to health care costs and so on, what pols of all stripes are missing is that America is experiencing a wave of entrepreneurialism unlike anything we’ve ever had before. Inspired by the likes of Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, by the incredible success of Steve Jobs and Apple, by nimble new industrial designers, by the myriad app-makers and startups populating Silicon Valley, Silicon Alley, and every place in between, a generation of people–young and old–are enthusiastically and optimistically setting out to build new businesses and to invent new ways of doing business. Some of them tap into new platforms like Kickstarter, Etsy, and Indiegogo. Some tap into incubators like TechStars and Y Combinator. Sometimes these entrepreneurs are moonlighting, sometimes they work within huge corporations, and sometimes, yes, they are in a garage or a coffee house or a co-working space. But that doesn’t make this phenomenon any less real.

Wendy and I were talking the other night about the fact that very, very few of our friends are working for anyone other than themselves. It was kind of shocking when we started going through the list. Cabinetmakers, consultants, marketers, designers, app makers…the list goes on. I can’t remember the last person who came to our house with a real 9-5-ish job. 

Wondering, as always, what it will be like for my kids…

Real “Work” for Real Audiences

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Introducing my 12-year old son Tucker’s new website:

It’s all basketball drills for middle school players, and it’s hopefully just in the initial stages of becoming something that develops into something meaningful for him and others.

Right now, it’s just play. My wish is that for Tucker it might be a vehicle to learn all sorts of stuff around something he really has a passion for, and this stuff, too:

  • Networking with other kid basketball players
  • Video storyboarding and editing
  • Storytelling
  • Programming
  • Publication and transparency
  • Geometry
  • Collaboration
  • Curation
  • Writing skills
  • Website marketing
  • Presence
  • Dealing with strangers
  • Taking feedback
  • Patience
  • Revision
  • Dealing with failure
  • Etc.

I know, I know. That’s all me talking. He’s motivated by showing off his skilz, and, to some extent, by learning how to process and publish the video. But hey, a dad can dream…

I might be back at some point to ask for your help in getting the word out. ;0)

“Open Network” Tests

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I just recently ran across Jonathan Martin’s posts regarding the “Open Internet” tests that he’s piloting with some teachers at St. Gregory School in Arizona, and I’m just loving the thinking. In November of 2010, he first asked:

We know that content memorization must no longer [be] the goal of our learning programs; what our goal must be is that students can make the most sense of the voluminous and fast-accelerating quantity of information which will forever be at their fingertips, and about which they must be able to think critically, to select, to evaluate, to apply, and to amend as they tackle challenging problems. So why shouldn’t our school-tests evaluate our students ability to do exactly this?  Why not structure tests appropriately, and then invite and welcome (and require) our students to use their computers on their tests? Isn’t this real world, and real life, preparation?

A couple of months ago, Jonathan wrote about a chemistry teacher at his school who was letting students use the Internet to take tests, (check out the embedded annotated example test) and he added this piece of reasoning:

Our students are preparing to work in professional environments where they must tackle and resolve complex problems, and we know that in nearly every envisionable such environment, they will have laptops or other mobile, web-connected, digital tools to address those problems.   Let’s assess their  understanding in situations parallel to those for which we are preparing them.

Then, this week, Jonathan added a third post that documents the experiences of a Theater History teacher, and he refined his pitch for “Open Internet” tests even more:

I think this assessment approach is a highly valuable one for promoting deeper learning, information literacy, and analytic and organizational skill development over memorization and regurgitation.  I think that many tests in most subjects can be, with the right intentional design, “open internet” and that they will be the better for it.  Some argue against tests altogether, but I still love a good test, and taking the time to think through as a teacher what kind of questions can we ask which will continue to be meaningful assessments when Google and Wolfram Alpha are available is, I think, a highly productive exercise, and, of course, will generate a more authentic assessment experience far more well aligned with the real world of professionals for which we are preparing our students.

The student feedback about the test structure included in the post is instructive. For instance:

I liked this test because it allowed me to show what I know. With multiple choice tests, that’s not always obvious (it could just be a lucky guess or limited knowledge of something).  Short answer takes too much time and also isn’t the best option for full explanations. I also liked how we had some input on the test, because not only were the suggested questions helpful for studying, but it also forced me to think about the test long before the morning of.

Read the rest.

Now a couple of quick points and then a push. First, as both teachers that are featured in the posts point out, the thinking is a bit different when creating tests like these. For instance:

In his Chemistry class, Dr. Morris recognizes how radically the questions he asks must change if he knows his test-takers have access to the internet, Wolfram-Alpha, and a myriad of other sources on chemical information.   His questions must require his students to genuinely sort out what information they require, get that information, evaluate it, and then apply it to solve his now much more complex and rich questions. This is assessment for genuine understanding, not assessment of recall and regurgitation. It is far [more] likely to be assessment of lasting understanding and future applicability than typical memorization based testing.

Second, while the idea of going online to find answers may strike some as “cheating” and/or making things too easy, many of our students will find this more difficult:

This test does not have multiple choice or terms that we had to define. This is more about testing your ability to find resources that you need, write a quality essay under pressure. I find I like the multiple choice and defining terms better.

And now the push. What if we didn’t just make it about giving kids access to Google and Wolfram Alpha for test taking? What if we invited them to use their networks of peer learners and teachers as well? 

Awesome.

I know that this goes back to the “what do we really need to make sure kids are carrying around in their heads?” debate, and it speaks to the fact that not every child is going to have access to the Web at every moment (at least not in the near term.) But just think of all of the new ways we would be able to prepare kids to answer the questions that they will be asked in their real lives if we gave them a handful of “Open Network” tests before they graduated. I mean, why wouldn’t we be doing this?

And if you really want to go there, why wouldn’t we let kids access their networks for the Common Core assessments that are coming down the pike? 

Curious to hear your thoughts. Anyone else out there moving in this direction? Why or why not?

(Note: Jonathan will be presenting on these ideas at the NAIS conference next month in Seattle.) 

Then the Internet Came Along

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I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of Cathy Davidson’s new book Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work and Learn, and I couldn’t put it down during my five-hour flight to Calgary yesterday. I want to cover it more completely when I finish the last 75 pages or so (more flights tomorrow) but I wanted to just pull a quick passage that I think frames the struggle that traditional schooling as well as we as individuals are starting to wake up to right now. 

Keep in mind that we had over a hundred years to perfect our institutions of school and work for the industrial age. The chief purpose of those institutions was to make the divisions of labor central to industrialization seem natural to twentieth century workers. We had to be trained to inhabit the twentieth century comfortably and productively. Everything about school and work in the twentieth century was designed to create and reinforce separate subjects, separate cultures, separate grades, separate functions, separate spaces for personal life, work, private life, public life and all the other divisions.

Then the Internet came along. Now work increasingly means the desktop computer. Fifteen years into the digital revolution, one machine has reconnected the very things–personal life, social life, work life, and even sexual life–that we’d spent the last hundred years putting into neatly separated categories, cordoned off in their separate spaces, with as little overlap as possible except maybe the annual company picnic (13). 

What I like about her approach to all of this in the book is that she makes it pretty clear that we don’t have a choice as to whether or not we try to make sense of these shifts. We’re not going back to those neatly separate containers of our lives, that if anything, all of this is going to be more intertwined as we move forward. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s a different thing, hugely different in some ways, but there is also great opportunity in the change if (IF) we begin to work to understand it more deeply than just a Twitter hashtag and blog post. We literally have to change the way we interact with the world.

And as educators, our struggle is especially acute. We not only have to “train” our kids for the twenty first century, we have to train ourselves. 

“How the Hell Could They Have Let This Happen”

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I mean really, can this be said any better than the way Alfie Kohn says it?

We are living through what future historians will surely describe as one of the darkest eras in American education – a time when teachers, as well as the very idea of democratic public education, came under attack; when carrots and sticks tied to results on terrible tests were sold to the public as bold “reform”; when politicians who understand nothing about learning relied uncritically on corporate models and metaphors to set education policy; when the goal of schooling was as misconceived as the methods, framed not in terms of what children need but in terms of “global competitiveness” – that is, how U.S. corporations can triumph over their counterparts in other countries. There will come a time when people will look back at this era and ask, “How the hell could they have let this happen?”

As Kohn suggests later in the article, educators need to drive these conversations, not politicians and businessmen. And I get the sense from the comments on my last post that people are looking for ways to do just that but are frustrated with the lack of scale. We can only start so many wikis…

One of the benefits of the Web is that everyone can have his or her own voice. One of the drawbacks is that everyone can have his or her own voice. Used to be only a few people started movements. Today, anyone can. So the question is, how do we pull our individual movements together into something that gets some real push behind it? Or do we even need to do that? Is there another path?

In other words, how do we not let this happen to education?

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Gov. Chris Christie proposed Thursday that private companies play an unprecedented role in public education, managing some schools and creating others from the ashes of dysfunctional ones.
The governor said the state would launch its experiment in five chronically failing schools where students are hopelessly mired in traditional approaches to education that have utterly collapsed.
“This pilot program will provide an innovative alternative for those children who need it most, bolstering our efforts to ensure opportunity for every child in our state,” the governor said. “This program will begin to restore hope in communities where failing schools deny children hope and opportunity.”

What he didn’t say: We can’t trust educators to fix this. We want to make money off of our students’ backs. I need more campaign contributions. I need a job after I lose the governorship next year. Etc.

Gov. Christie proposes private firms manage some failing N.J. public schools | NJ.com

https://willrichardson.com/gov-chris-christie-proposed-thursday-that-private/

What We've Always Known About Education

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So this morning it’s David Weinberger that’s got me thinking. No doubt, David has been one of my favorite Web philosophers for a long time, someone who almost always seems to open the window just a bit more for me. Today, it’s this:

…we knew all along that atoms were never up to the job. We knew that the world doesn’t boil down to even the best of newspapers, that it doesn’t fit into 65,000 articles in a printed encyclopedia, that there was more disagreement than the old channels let through. (What they called noise, we called the the world.) We knew that the crap pushed through the radio wasn’t really all that we cared about, or that we all cared about the same things within three tv channels of difference. The old institutions were the best fictions we could come up with given that atoms are way too big.

And I’m wondering, deep down, have we known all along that this idea of an “education” was really a fiction, something we created out of necessity with the implicit understanding that in a world limited by atoms, it was never really the end all, be all, but it was the best we could do under the circumstances? And if we didn’t know that, can we admit that now?

The circumstances have changed. We’re no longer constrained by atoms. For 125 years we’ve been making the learning world small, and now the world is all of a sudden big…huge. All of a sudden, the walls have been obliterated. Learning is unbound, and “an education” is next.

The work now is in making the transition happen in ways that don’t hurt the kids or teachers currently in our schools. In ways that prepare our kids for a learning world where atoms still matter, but for very different reasons.  A peaceful revolution of sorts that starts…where?

The "New" Normal

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Tim Stahmer’s post “There’s No Normal to Return To” has me thinking this morning. He writes:

At the same time we in education are also doubling down on the “back to basics” and on teaching kids how to follow someone else’s instructions. Our leaders, both political and business, want us to think that if we just combine greater effort with more standardization that we can recreate the glorious old days where every kid was above average and US test scores topped every other country.

The former, of course, is statistically impossible (only in Lake Wobegon) and the later a myth, but we spend large chunks of money, instructional time, and public discourse trying to make it happen.

So when do we acknowledge that our current education system, built to support that industrial society, also needs to change?

Good question. And even more, past acknowledging the need, when do we make it happen?

Most of the edusocialmediaverse sees a compelling need to change…but to what? What is the “new normal” in 20, 30 or 40 years?

I have little doubt any longer that it will be a “roll your own” type of education, one in which traditional institutions and systems play a vastly decreased role in the process. That the emphasis will be on learning and what you can do with it, not on degrees or diplomas or even test scores. As I Tweeted out yesterday, my new favorite quote comes from Cathy Davidson:

“‘Learning’ is the free and open source version of ‘education.'”

I do believe that the emphasis will turn back to the learning process, not the knowing process. And while I don’t think schools go away in the interaction, the “new normal” will be a focus on personalization not standardization, where we focus more on developing learners, not knowers, and where students will create works of beauty that change the world for the better. At some point, we’ll value that more than the SAT.

That’s my hope at least. As Gary Stager points out, it’s a pretty dismal moment:

The problem with the rehab or resurrection myth was that I never anticipated the chance that American public policy regarding public education was that there IS NO BOTTOM to rise up from. It now appears that schooling and the way in which some Americans treat other people’s children has no bottom. Things can and will get worse, perhaps indefinitely.

And that is the scary part, that for most kids, there is no bottom. Over the next decade, we’ll see lots of kids opting out of schools as we know them, many because they feel disenfranchised or disinterested and would rather just complete the same old curriculum online, but some because there will be a growing number of “education providers” who will offer a much more personalized, passion-alized learning experience for those who can afford it. And I’m not talking here about the Amazonification of education where we’re delivered content based on our interests (though that’s coming too.) I’m talking about places both online and off where highly motivated kids will gather to learn under the aegis of any number of different school-type entities that look little like the current brick and mortar spaces most of us send our kids. What concerns me is what happens to those that aren’t well off enough or highly motivated enough to create their own new, better paths to learning.

Tim’s post references a Seth Godin post where he writes:

It takes a long time for a generation to come around to significant revolutionary change. The newspaper business, the steel business, law firms, the car business, the record business, even computers… one by one, our industries are being turned upside down, and so quickly that it requires us to change faster than we’d like.

It’s unpleasant, it’s not fair, but it’s all we’ve got. The sooner we realize that the world has changed, the sooner we can accept it and make something of what we’ve got. Whining isn’t a scalable solution.

In other words, this is going to take a while, and it’s not going to be without pain. What does eventually rise from the ashes will be dependent on each of us seeing the world differently for ourselves, our willingness to lead and participate in the change, and at the end, fighting hard for what we believe is best for our kids.

How Hard is Too Hard?

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So the latest edition of ISTE’s magazine Learning and Leading calls me out by name and wonders if I, in my attempt to “cajole, inspire, persuade and demand, sometimes with righteous indignation that readers bring forth radical change in education, might unwittingly discourage the very educators who are fighting the good fight, often unsuccessfully.”

Fair question, and one that I think about all the time, actually. I absolutely mean to provoke the conversation around change in schools and in ourselves; anyone who has read this blog for any stretch over the last nine years knows that’s the case. But I also try to do so in a way that doesn’t demean teachers, a way that challenges their thinking about the profession and their roles in the classroom while at the same times honors the realities of the classroom. The vast majority of the time, I think I strike that balance. And on the rare occasion that I might miss, the comments usually set me straight.

The ISTE article is worth the read, and since there’s no way to engage these ideas on the Leading and Learning site, I’ll offer it up here by proxy. Take a minute to read it, and feel free to let loose here. How hard is too hard to push for change?

A couple of points for the record first. Since the link to my blog post cited in the magazine is incorrect, you can read it here for context. As you’ll see, I’m not chastising “teachers who are also parents” in the post; I’m pretty much throwing all parents under the bus. And while it’s correct that I’m not currently in the classroom, I think it’s worth pointing out that for three years I actually did “Try That in My Classroom,” blogging and wiki-ing with my students, bringing authors and experts in virtually, asking my kids to problem-solve, collaborate, sift information and use technology to connect with others around the world around their passions. I also spent a number of the rest of my 21 years in a school struggling with technology integration in general, and I’ve also had the opportunity over the last four years to work with thousands of teachers close up through PLP. So it’s not like I have zero context for what teachers are dealing with in their own attempts to shift.

Finally, let me just point out that while I was in the classroom, my blogging was about the classroom. My book was written when I was still there as well. But as my work has evolved, so has my writing. It’s been a long time since I’ve done a “30 Ways to Use (insert your new tech tool here) in the Classroom” post here, not that those types of posts can’t have great value; they can. But that’s no longer my main interest. As I tell just about everyone one of the audiences I speak with, at the end of the day, this is less about technology and more about learning, less about schools and classrooms and more about individuals experiencing these shifts deeply for themselves so they can then bring them into their curricula and conversations with real context and meaning. That’s been the focus of our work in PLP, and it will continue to be my focus here; how are you changing as a learner and connecting with the world despite the barriers you may be up against in your classrooms, your schools and your districts? It all flows from that.

I’m sincerely interested to hear your thoughts.

Who's Asking?

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1.

The thunder clap makes all of us stop. It’s one of those loud, long, rumbling ones, the kind that rolls around in your belly like when you hit one of those hard, deep potholes in your car. It shakes the window panes in the old house, and in that initial crack, we all duck into ourselves a bit, feeling that split second of doom that big summer storms in the Georgia countryside often cause. My kids are throwing the Frisbee in the downpour, and they freeze for an instant as well. I start to tell them to jump inside, here under the porch and wait it out, but before I get the words out they’re leaping the puddles, heading in my direction. Smart kids.

The weird thing is that on every porch that I can see on the block, people are out, watching the rain, listening to the thunder. I don’t know if they’re passing time or just immersing themselves in the strange beauty of the storm, the sheets of water, the muted light, the heaviness of the air. But we’re sharing it, my wet, dripping kids, the dog across the street who’s sticking his nose out from under the tar paper roof of his doghouse, and the old black man on the opposite corner, folded into his porch swing, puffing on a pipe. We’re all watching, and waiting for the break.

Eventually it comes; the thunder rolls are farther away, the rain abates. We pick up the conversation that the noise silenced, the one about our kids and their schools. Miss Frances isn’t listening too hard, I can tell, as she gently glides back and forth on her own porch swing. At 91, her concerns are elsewhere. But her son Mike is deep into the troubles of the school system. “They had to cut 15 days out of the school year ’cause they run outta money,” he says as he lifts up the brim of his dirt-stained John Deere hat. “They’re gonna keep the kids longer during the days, but they just can’t afford to keep everything running on those other days.” And before he says it, I know what’s coming next. Not that it means less educational opportunity for his grand kids. Not that it’s a shame to cut the art and music programs to save the football team. Not that there will be fewer teachers, less technology, less learning going on in school this year. Mike runs his hand through his hair.

“I just don’t know what we’re gonna do with those kids for those extra three weeks outta school,” he says.

2.

There’s no doubt, I’m not from around these parts. I’m just looking for a pack of gum at 7:45 in the morning in Sidney, Iowa, and as I drive into the center of town, in my white Hyundai rental, I’m not seeing a lot of open stores to choose from. It’s one of those old, small Midwestern country towns, one with the “we-really-mean-it” city square built around the county government building smack dab in the center of town. I’m looking for some signs of activity, and as I start to curl around the courthouse I spy it; a line of pick up trucks outside a small gas station-convenience store on the corner. I zip into the parking lot and, not seeing any spaces, park awkwardly in front of the double glass doors. I’m running late; I’ll only be a minute.

As I get out of the car, through the windows, I see them, a line of men, most north of 60 I’m guessing, coffee cups in hand. They’re regulars, no doubt, and before I even step inside, I feel their gaze. They’re all jeans and caps and country, and I’m beige khakis, golf shirt and a pony tail. A couple of them nod kindly as I give my own silent, demure “good morning,” and after a couple of heartbeats worth of pause to take me in, they go back to their conversation. “It’s the schools that should be doin’ that,” one is saying, and all of a sudden, I’m tuned in, listening over my shoulder as I reach for a pack of Dentyne Ice from the candy shelf beneath the counter. “They’re just not teaching it as much as they should be.” I step away from the counter, buy a little time by pretending to look closely at the chocolate bars down below, wonder what the system is so deficient in, wondering, maybe…

“These kids just don’t know nothin’ about managing money,” he says, and I hear various sounds of assent from the others.

—

So here’s the deal with the change that many of us in this conversation are clamoring for in schools: we’re about the only ones talking it. The townsfolk down at the corner store aren’t demanding “21st Century Skills,” technology in every student’s hand, an inquiry based curriculum and globally networked classrooms. By and large the parents and grandparents in our communities aren’t asking for it. The national conversation isn’t about rethinking what happens in classrooms. No one’s creating assessments around any of this. And in fact, outside of the small percentage of people who are participating in these networks and communities online, the vast majority of this country and the world doesn’t even know that a revolution is brewing.

And, while it’s no shocker to say it, that’s what makes it really tough to be a leader in schools right now. Because if you’re doing your job, you’re thinking about doing things that no one out there is asking you to do. Which is, after all, what leadership is all about, isn’t it? I love Seth Godin’s quote from Tribes: “Leadership is a choice; it’s the choice not to do nothing.”Especially if basically standing pat will get you by.  Given the current expectations for “student achievement” and adequate yearly progress, most school leaders can continue to get away with tinkering on the edges and not do anything to really upset the chalk tray. You want to make it into Newsweek’s top high schools list? Just keep pumping those AP courses and prepping those test scores. Constructing “modern knowledge” and sharing it with other global learners online? Not finding the check box for that.

I’ve said it before, you want to lead right now, as an administrator or as a teacher? You have to do both: you have do all of those things the parents and the town fathers and Newsweek (well, maybe not Newsweek) want you to do, but you also have to start shifting and seeing what the future holds for the kids in your schools, regardless if anyone else can see it. You have to, as the superintendent at my old school Lisa Brady has begun to do, lead your staff and your school community to the place where they understand the need for change as well, a place that’s not just about test scores and AYP, but that’s about student learning and literacy in new forms, forms that look much different from our own but that will be crucial to our kids’ success. You have to be an advocate, wherever and whenever you can, to convince people that while doing both is hard and takes time and effort, that it’s worth it, that it’s the right thing to do for the kids in our schools.

Because if you’re waiting for the conversation in the coffee shop and the porch swing to act, you’re going to be waiting a long time.

The New Story…Who's Doing It?

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Probably about five years ago now, I remember David Warlick and others trying to frame the conversation around the shifts we’re seeing in learning under the umbrella of “Telling the New Story” of education. And I also remember being frustrated for a number of years after that at our inability to come up with that new definition of schools, that new story of learning at least in a school sense. I’ve come to realize that we’re not going to be able to write “a” new story for schools, that there will be many new stories in the coming years as the institution tries to adjust to the explosion of learning opportunities outside the school walls. Should be fun to watch (or not.)

But through reading the comment thread on the last post here, it looks as if there might be a desire for some type of site or listing of schools that are telling a “new story.” Schools that are doing things differently in terms of taking advantage of what the Web and other technologies afford around learning. Schools that have a more “progressive” approach to learning through inquiry or immersion using social technology or something other than standards based learning. I know there are many pockets of innovation in individual classrooms, and many of those are well documented. But what about entire schools and, perhaps, systems that are modeling a different path? A few come easily to mind: Science Leadership Academy, High Tech High, CIS 339 in New York City, VanMeter High School in Iowa, and Hunterdon Central High School, my old stomping grounds here in NJ. From what I’ve seen and heard, these schools are beginning to significantly rethink what’s happening in their classrooms, not just infusing technology and tools, but really delivering networked learning to their students at a schoolwide level. And I’m sure there are others.

So I guess I’m wondering if it might be time to create a resource of these types of schools. Maybe a wiki where if people were interested they could create a page of overview for what they are doing that’s different? Anyone have any thinking to share around whether or not that might be a useful idea and how it might be structured?