What Children Can (and Should) Expect from School

Earlier this week I retweeted Principal Carolyn Cameron’s Twitter post about a short video, “10 Expectations.” The video, produced by the organization Leaving to Learn, captures much of what makes learning “stick” at progressive schools such as Green Acres. At its essence, this video conveys a very important message for all educators: young people have an extraordinary capacity to learn, but in order for this to happen best, schools must be nimble, human-scale places where students’ interests and abilities can be applied to challenging, real-world problems. A one-size-fits-all model, which doesn’t account for students’ individuality, and which forces all students to learn precisely the same content at the same pace, won’t ultimately meet their individual needs. This standardized approach doesn’t reflect how adults best learn in the workplace, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that this isn’t how students learn best in school.

I was struck by the student voice that narrates the 10 expectations in the video. Hearing how students want to be educated from a young person is a subtle but powerful reminder of how important it is to gather and accept feedback from students about when they are most ready to learn a concept (timing), what they are most interested in learning (relevance), and how they can best apply their learning outside of school (authenticity). Timing, relevance, and authenticity represent just 3 of the 10 expectations students should have for schools, so check out the 3 minute video to see all 10! At Green Acres, we take all ten expectations seriously; of course meeting all 10 on every project, on every lesson, every day is a tall order.

The end of the school year is a natural time for reflection. It is when we look back on the year’s successes and on those areas where we would like to improve for the next school year. I hope all educators watch this video to hear and see what students may be trying to tell us, but typically can’t express on their own. Unlocking what children can and should expect from school is basic but critical to the work that we do every day.

Progressive Teaching Practices: Supported by Brain Research

I spent last Thursday and part of Friday at the AIMS Heads Conference. Robert Kosasky and Glen Whitman from St. Andrew’s, and Mariele Hardiman from Johns Hopkins gave a presentation on the way they are applying in the classroom what we now understand about the brain. Their essential point is that, in addition to good intuition and training, effective teachers should have an understanding of the science of the brain and how people learn. St. Andrew’s now offers workshops for teachers via their Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (www.thecttl.org). Johns Hopkins also offers a “Mind, Brain & Teaching” online certificate program that focuses on “brain-targeted” teaching.

It is validating that brain research confirms the basic premises that underlie progressive teaching practices at Green Acres School:

.  This includes:

• The negative impact of undue stress on learning
• The importance of a strong connection between the learner and the teacher
• The importance of a strong connection between the learner and the material being studied
• The role of a warm and supportive learning environment
• The level of engagement and novelty in lessons
• The importance of connections across disciplines
• The importance of arts integration
• The role of creative problem-solving and real-world contexts

These are some of the approaches that lead to increased brain function and that contribute to memory growth. Johns Hopkins researchers found that teachers who went through their “brain-targeted” teaching model training generally changed their approaches to teaching to be more in line with what’s listed above. To me, the overlap between brain research and progressive teaching practices is stunning and compelling.

In Silence or in Action, Schools Must Encourage Change

On Friday, April 19, 2013, many students across the country will take a vow of silence to bring attention to discrimination against LGBT people in our society. The Day of Silence, organized by the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, is the largest single student-led action towards creating safer schools for all. Green Acres participated in the event up until a few years ago, when after hearing feedback from students, we decided that it was more important to host a morning “Day of Action.” As one student put it: “We need to do something besides be silent all day. The Day of Silence should really be a Day of Action where we have different workshops and learn how to be allies.”

Last week, Green Acres hosted its 4^th Annual Day of Action with the goal of providing middle school students with the opportunity to hear stories of being LGBT or of supporting someone who is LGBT. We invited guests to present their stories to students in grades five through eight; presenters included educators, Green Acres alumni, local gay and lesbian high school students, and students who are straight allies at local high schools. Each student participated in two sessions on topics like “Growing up Gay,” “The Upstander Effect: How Small Acts of Courage Can Change a Life,” and “The Bully and the Bullied Speak Out.” The program also included two speaker sessions for Middle School parents. In one session, I heard a visiting panelist respond to a student’s question by reminding the group that “we don’t want to say unkind things in general, not just to avoid hurting other peoples’ feelings, but because that’s not the kind of people we want to be.” In reflecting on the event and why we do it, one thing is clear: whether we choose to take action or be silent, these important conversations should be taking place all year long.

Ever since we changed from a Day of Silence to a Day of Action, students have engaged more and more with the conversations around LGBT issues. We have also been able to address questions and concerns from parents about whether the Day of Action was age-appropriate, sufficiently relevant to our children’s experiences, and/or worth the time taken. Initially, even parents who are normally willing to trust the school’s judgment found this topic more threatening than we had anticipated. Undoubtedly, sexual orientation and gender identity are topics not easily addressed, even under the best of circumstances. However, this doesn’t mean that schools should shy away from the challenge, but rather they should learn how to have these conversations in developmentally-appropriate manners.

As a school leader I can’t help but worry about how addressing anti-gay discrimination can be considered a “best practice” in some schools, while taboo to many others. Simply holding a singular event will have no credibility with students or parents if a school does not walk the walk. Teaching and understanding diversity goes beyond a mission statement—it is worked on each and every day through a school’s actions. An event such as the Day of Action would not be possible if there wasn’t clear communication to the school community about why we value this initiative and how it fits within the diversity curriculum of the School. Schools have started moving away from teaching diversity as a set of celebrations, but we can all do a better job of continually reflecting on transformative conversations like the ones experienced at events such as the Day of Action.

For more information on this year’s Day of Action, view Bethesda Magazine’s online slideshow and recap of the morning.

Progressive Education is neither Pro-Business nor a Leftist Movement

Two articles caught my eye this week.

One Op-Ed piece in the Sunday New York Times by Thomas Friedman highlighted the ways in which schools today should be most focused on creating “innovators.” Citing the recent book by Tony Wagner, Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People who will Change the World, Friedman describes the very skills that progressive schools like Green Acres have been focused on teaching for decades–critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, problem solving, and communication. Interestingly, these are the same skills demanded by our new economy, where motivation, grit, and an ability to take the initiative outweigh holding in one’s head the information we can now access on our iPhones. Daniel Pink describes this new era as the “conceptual age.” No longer in the “information age” of our parents, success today and tomorrow will hinge much more on our adaptability and on our ability to solve problems we have never seen before–in short, our ability to innovate and initiate. In this way, you could say with a straight face that progressive schools like Green Acres are about as pro-business as one could find, because we are teaching children 21^st Century skills, in demand now more than ever.

The second piece came from Education Week. David Bernstein’s commentary “How to Build a Progressive Education Movement” takes this theme a step further by arguing that progressive schools should stop bashing the connection between the world of work and the work of schools. Rather than opposing all forms of standardized testing, Bernstein believes that progressive educators should offer authentic alternatives—assessments that measure what the world outside of schools most value. This doesn’t mean that progressive education is simply about preparing children to build our economy, but the skills and habits emphasized in more hands-on school environments like Green Acres serve this purpose and many more. As we unleash each child’s creativity and initiative, we contribute in so many ways to their intellectual and psychological development, as well as to greater common societal causes. I continue to be amazed as I meet Green Acres alumni at the ways in which each has followed a passion and used his or her talents and perseverance to make a difference, in whatever realm.

Where I take issue with Bernstein is when he suggests that “progressive education” is a term that should be given up, because it smacks of a “left-wing political agenda.” If teaching children to ask questions, to take ownership over their learning, to follow their interests, and to collaborate effectively with others is “leftist,” then progressive educators are guilty as charged. Clearly Bernstein has a point, though, that the word “progressive” is still misunderstood in this educational context, and that more “mainstreaming” of progressive education would be good for all schools and all children. The best graduate schools of education understand this even if most schools across the country cling to a curriculum that continues to emphasize information over the use of information.

Progressive education may make sense now more than ever, but it’s always been built around concepts having to do with learning and child development, rather than around any economic or political agenda.

Talking Back to Facebook: What’s at Stake for our Children?

This week we hosted a parent book discussion of James Steyer’s Talking Back to Facebook. His compelling book chronicles the ubiquitous influence of social media and technology, not only in our adult lives, but in the lives of children and teenagers. Unfortunately, as we know too well, this influence is far from uniformly positive. Steyer cites the ways in which many children are developing addictive relationships with technology, and he points to their loss of privacy, their growing distractibility, and their loss of innocence. The ways in which we communicate has changed, and thus so have our children’s and teens’ ability to build relationships, to read body language and vocal tone—and even the very development of their brains.

At the same time, Steyer points to positive outcomes for children and teens in the digital age, as new forms of communication offer increased opportunities for the pursuit of learning, creative expression, and active citizenship. Talking Back to Facebook isn’t a call to reject the digital revolution, but it does call upon us as educators and parents not to simply roll over and accept all the negative ways in which technology is changing our children’s lives.

So, how exactly do we adopt technology while at the same time fight back against it for our children’s benefit? How do we help children and teenagers make good decisions online that will keep them safe and enable them to build healthy relationships? How do we set guidelines at home that balance technology use with face-to face social interaction and physical activity? Clearly there is no one approach that will work for every family.

Stephen Balkam, the Founder of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), spoke last month with our students about what it means to be a responsible digital citizen. He also met with our parents to examine a range of approaches that families can adopt to achieve balance and to protect children and teens from falling prey to some of the pitfalls mentioned above, not to mention cyber-bullying and digital depression. FOSI’s Online Safety Contract is a valuable resource which outlines technology safety expectations not only for teens, but for parents to understand their role in familiarizing themselves with and monitoring their children’s technology use. Clearly the development of responsible digital citizenship is a learning process, both for adults and our children.

We are faced with a dramatically changed landscape—one brought on by the nearly daily explosion of new forms of technology and social media in particular. We need as parents and educators to support one another in facing the challenge of raising children within this new environment. I encourage you to read Talking Back to Facebook, to become familiar with FOSI, and to stay in communication with your children’s school leaders and teachers about how to best navigate this digital revolution. And I look forward to continuing our work at Green Acres to raise these important issues with parents, students, and among our staff.

The Misleading Quest for Structure… aka Order

This week Green Acres is hosting a breakfast for accepted families. The event is a great opportunity for our students, staff, and parents to articulate what we do and why. At last year’s event, our Head of Middle School addressed a parent’s concern about structure – i.e. did we have enough? He explained to this parent that Green Acres’ teachers had ample classroom structures in place to facilitate purposeful learning, but that we were not primarily concerned with orderliness for the sake of orderliness. As I would put it, while we need our students to follow directions, we certainly don’t want them simply complying all day. If that’s all they’re doing, when will they learn to make good decisions? Or to learn from the poor ones that they will inevitably make?

On a recent visit to a nearby Montessori School, I was struck, again, by the ways that children learn from exercising some level of control over how they use their time—and by the way that children learn best when they envision school as something that isn’t simply done to them. Certainly structure for the sake of order doesn’t lead to the kind of learning and growth we want children to experience.

Preparing Writers in a Digital World

An op-ed piece by Lance Ulanoff on the digital news site Mashable asks an important question that schools need to consider as technology and social media are integrated into the curriculum: Is social media weakening students’ writing skills? Most educators have accepted that we must address the changing needs of society, namely the need to use new technology devices and platforms effectively, responsibly, and in innovative ways. Part of addressing this change means accepting that the way students write has changed—and how they communicate in general has changed dramatically!—but this doesn’t mean that today’s students necessarily are doomed to become weak writers.

At Green Acres, we have chosen to embrace technology in part because it raises student engagement. Our students are excited to use devises and apps, which in many cases has sparked enthusiasm among reluctant readers and writers. One parent, who was somewhat skeptical of our iPad program, reported soon after its inception last year that her 6^th grade son had done something he had never done before. He had read past the assigned chapter and well into the next one—mostly because he found the e-version of the textbook more engaging.

Technologies such as iPads also are tools for writing, and they are tools for using social media. Accepting this connection is an essential part of effective writing instruction in this new era.  However, educators have good reason to express concern for the influence these digital platforms are having on writing skills. Writing for social media and texting typically applies acronyms, abbreviations, and incorrect grammar—characteristics that are troubling in academic and other forms of writing. These habits are here to stay, though, so our challenge as educators (and users of social media ourselves) is to embrace the benefits of digital tools while also nurturing well-rounded, passionate writers who know and can demonstrate the difference between tweeting and writing a formal essay or letter. Both have value; both have something to teach us. It’s definitely a new era for those of us committed to teaching students to write effectively.