Modern Learners

Jenn Binis, President of Schoolmarm Advisors Consulting Group, shares her take on the purpose of American Public Education on today's show. She pulls the rubber band back further on the narrative of factory model schools to give us a glimpse at the more uncomfortable beginnings of public schools. She thinks the factory model narrative is comfortable, and that is why it prevails. As most people are looking to the future of schools during this global pandemic, Modern Learners is going to go back in time to see what can be learned from history and applied to our current contexts. Jen challenges listeners to ask whose story is not being told when reflecting and gathering stories from this moment. She believes that anti-racism education is at a tipping point and progress is being made towards honoring the experiences all children in schools. The hashtag movements of #disrupttexts, #cleartheair, and #31daysibpoc also get a shout out in this episode. We also explore the history of NCLB and how it came to be. Many believe it happened because people didn't trust teachers, but Jenn is convinced it has more to do with states wanting to have a better idea of what was happening in schools. There are parts of this conversation that may be uncomfortable depending your level of understanding of anti-racism work. We also talk about our use of the collective "we" which in this episode we defined as middle-aged white women who are teachers. This "we" was important as we also discussed the fact that 70% of the people in the education field are women, and yet women hold less than 30% of leadership positions in schools. The reasons for this also have a historical origin story. As always thanks for listening. If you haven't listened to the last episode with Dr. Kim Parker, please click over there and have a listen.  

Bringing you today's podcast guest, Dr. Kim Parker, brings me great joy! Dr. Kim Parker is a co-founder of #disrupttexts as well as a co-founder of the #31daysIBPOC project which we will discuss in great detail. Dr. Kim reminds us that teaching is political. To shy away from the idea of teaching being political means to divorce ourselves from our identities, and that is unjust. In this conversation we work to elevate the contributions our colleagues of color make to the field, their communities, and to the lives of the children they serve. https://modernlearners.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/teaching-is-political.mp4 Together we explore how the project came to be. Shout out to Dr. Kim's co-founder Tricia Ebarvia, who we featured in episode 72. According to Dr. Kim, Tricia gets things done. They managed to bring this project together in just a couple of weeks. They are hopeful that school leaders will reference this body of work for staff development and ongoing conversations about anti-racsim. Dr. Kim also encourages people to reach out the writers for keynotes and in person experiences. And, if you want to send them a cup of coffee through Venmo, that would be great too. Towards the end of our conversation, we begin discussing COVID-19 and the impact it is having. Dr. Kim makes mention that more black and brown people are dying of the disease than any other groups. That is not okay. She begs listeners to read the history and recognize we are preserving the same unjust systems, and we need to stop. She's also worried about her Asian-American friends and the unjust acts they have been and will likely continue to experience. Dr. Kim encourages people to pay attention to who is writing what they are reading. For me, following the writers from the #31daysibpoc project completely changed my Twitter feed. The algorithm that is now served to me is much more diverse, and I see lots of colleagues of color sharing their brilliance. I've learned so much. You can too. Be sure to read the writers and share frequently on social.

At the time of the podcast recording, COVID-19 is rocking our world. The world is practicing social distancing, many states have safe at home orders, and schools are shut down until further notice. I invited Peter Grey on the podcast before the world was turned upside down by COVID-19. I wanted him to discuss his book Free To Learn along with his recent article in Psychology Today, "School Refusal: A Crime, A Mental Health Disorder, or A Human Right." We get to those things later in the conversation, but we begin with discussing childhood, play, responsibility, and reassurance that despite COVID-19 rocking our schools to the core, our kids will learn. Last week I wrote about the 3 Phases of Response to COVID-19, and if you haven't read it yet, it's worth a read. It is helping me to conceptualize the work, and it is helping me realize nothing is an emergency. The impact of COVID-19 on education will be experienced long after the virus is gone. Change.School cohort 10 is just starting just around the corner. Sign up to be notified when dates are set.

Learning space design is the topic of the podcast today. I speak with Dr. Lennie Scott-Webber. She is a leading thinker on the evolution of what we know about learning, the learner, and the learning space. Dr. Lennie has pioneered research strategies addressing how the built environment impacts student engagement factors and learner success. Dr. Lennie Scott-Webber has served as the Founding Director of Education Environments at Steelcase and as a Principle researcher for the DLR group and VS America. This podcast will help you think about designing learning spaces from the inside out. As always we'll be continuing this conversation in Modern Learners Community. You're invited to sign in or sign up! Last week I spoke to Tom VanderArk about Place Based Education. If you haven't listened yet, take in both shows now.

I'm excited to kick off our next Modern Learners Community theme "Places and Spaces" with today's interview with Tom Vander Ark. Tom is the CEO of Getting Smart and his brand new book Place Based Learning: Authentic Learning through Place-Based Education has just been released. He co-authored the book with Emily Liebag and Nate McClennen. In the book, Vander Ark defines place-based learning as anytime, anywhere learning that leverages the power of place to personalize learning. Later the authors add the idea of connecting projects to community, delving into authentic problems, and encouraging public products which ultimately develop an ethic of contribution. My Community is My Place Based Education I live in a small, rural community along the Mississippi River. We have birds and wildlife galore, and a beautiful park maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers. The Burlington Northern Railway runs along the river and the barges carry corn down the channel. Our community is also home to the National Brewery Museum. The museum illustrates the historical and economical impact of beer on our community and the nation. Recently the brewery opened a manufacturing facility to decrease the cost of distribution. I'd be remissed not to at least mention the agriculture that is so prevalent in our community. My hometown is also the setting for the infamous YouTube channel "How Farms Work." The students in my small, rural community have so many opportunities to learn, and with so much to learn it is difficult not to beam with pride and want to contribute. As you listen to the show with Tom Vander Ark, I invite you to think about your local community. What learning opportunities are available there. Review the place based triangle. What is the ecology? What is the economy? What is the culture? I'd love to hear about your local community.  Please head over to Modernlearners.community and sign in or sign up! Once you're in, share your story! Oh...and if you missed last week's show with Peter Liljedahl, you really need to go back and listen. His work on "thinking classrooms" is outstanding.

Last week, Dr. Nicki mentioned Peter Liljedahl's research on vertical, non-permanent spaces. That took me on a journey into Peter's work, and after reading all of Peter's work around Thinking Classrooms, I had to invite him to the Modern Learners podcast. Luckily, he made time in his busy schedule before we concluded our math theme. Meet Peter Liljedahl Peter Liljedahl is currently a professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. He is also the President of the Canadian Mathematics Education Study Group and the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. He has an extensive body of work that he generously shares at Peterliljedahl.com. Thinking Classrooms Peter most prevalent work is his research on "Thinking Classrooms." In his forthcoming book, he writes, "a thinking classroom is a classroom that is not only conducive to thinking but also occasions thinking, a space that is inhabited by thinking individuals as well as individuals thinking collectively, learning together, and constructing knowledge and understanding through activity and discussion. It is a space wherein the teacher not only fosters thinking but also expects it, both implicitly and explicitly." Initially, his research indicated nine principles, and the initial publication can be viewed here. However, in the interview, Peter explained that the research has evolved, and there are now 14 principles in the Thinking Classroom. In the podcast we discuss just three. First, we discuss at length collaboration and vertical, non-permanent surfaces. The two compliment and enhance one another. Peter concludes the interview with a brief mention of the random grouping principle. He says the evidence for what random grouping does for classroom community is vast. The Bridge Between Math and Places and Spaces This podcast episode is the perfect bridge between our MLC themes. We've spent time exploring math through our Modern Learners Lens, and now we're moving into Places and Spaces. Peter does an excellent job in this interview explaining the research behind vertical, non-permanent spaces. He even mentions that he's never seen a classroom not be able to find space or budget to create more vertical, non-permanent spaces once they experience the thinking those spaces naturally produce. The research is clear, and now we just need to make it happen.

I'm excited to bring you my conversation with Dr. Nicki Newton. Dr. Nicki is a renowned writer and education consultant who works with schools around the country on elementary math curriculum. She has authored over 20 books on a variety of math topics. She's most known for her work on guided math and math running records. In her math identity story, she shares that her books have been a glimpse at her own math learning journey. She leaned heavily on everything she learned in her literacy roles early in her career. Today we talk about equity in math classrooms, teacher training, and making math relevant with real problems in real communities. You can hear Dr. Nicki's passion and energy as she shares her love of learning and math. Dr. Nicki's Math Mentions A few things Dr. Nicki Newton mentions in our conversation: Mathematical Dispositions Padlet Mathematizing Your School Strategic Teacher Cyberpunk Peter Liljedahl on Vertical, Erasable Spaces Dr. Nicki on YouTube Dr. Nicki also has a great YouTube channel. She mentioned after the podcast that she loves to make videos for YouTube, and she plans to grow her channel to support teachers in the months and years to come. She mentioned she's a huge fan of the beaded number line. Check out her video explaining all the benefits of the beaded number line.   Interested in hearing more about math on the podcast? Be sure to check out our episode with Eli Luberoff, founder of Desmos. We also interview Conrad Wolfram. You can listen to it here.

Today, we welcome Eli Luberoff, founder and CEO of Desmos to the podcast. His math identity began to take shape when he was just four years old, but it didn't help him stay engaged in the k-12 curriculum. To this day, he does not have a high school diploma. He does, however, have a degree from Yale. So how does a high school drop out graduate from Yale and create an ed tech tool that impacts hundreds of thousands of learners around the globe? Accessible and Visible He set out to make math accessible and visible. He wanted to provide a tool to do math that didn't require a separate, expensive technology when the tech in our pockets had all the necessary computing power. Desmos is most well known for being and online, graphing calculator, and it's free to use. I asked Eli about the business model behind Desmos. We also discussed the modern context of math, and it's impact on math instruction. It doesn't have to be a constant battle of relevance. Desmos Teacher Fellow Each year Desmos accepts applications for their teacher fellow program. The Desmos fellows gather for an intense weekend of learning face to face, and then the fellowship continues in asynchronous online learning opportunities throughout the year. Here is a link to the application. And They Are Doing Curriculum Too? Eli mentioned the middle school math curriculum they are piloting in the upcoming school year. I told him we'd invite him back to follow up on that work. Check it out here. Did you miss last week's podcast with Conrad Wolfram? It's a good one! He really digs into the importance of computational thinking. Be sure to come to Modernlearners.community and either sign up or sign in. We continue the conversation over there. It's 24/7 professional learning at a level that will push you just a bit further than you expect.  

Today's show is the kickoff to our math theme in Modern Learners community. We'll be exploring our beliefs about math education. We'll look at what's working, what's not, and what's possible! Considering the impact that machine learning and AI are having on the world, it's important we start to consider how these fields will impact what our learners need to know and be able to do. In order to move our math classrooms forward in the next decade, we must consider our current practices and really question if they match our beliefs and serve our learners. In just a second, I'll be replaying the podcast episode Bruce Dixon recorded with Conrad Wolfram. But before I play that for you, I want to share the stories of my math education that shape my math identity. Math identity is on of the concepts we'll explore in MLC. My math identity started to take shape in the first grade when I was the first one to slam down my pencil with thirteen seconds to spare for the mad minute worksheet. Later that day I won "Around the World" twice. I was a math person! That all changed in eighth grade when my math teacher recommended the Algebra A/B track instead of Algebra. I was not a math person. I've always been self-determined and a little "sassy by design", and I was going to stand for that. I'd just work harder in Algebra, but I definitely wasn't going the down the slow track. Fast forward a couple of years, and I was copying every assignment in my Saxon Algebra II math book. I wasn't the only one, and the answers to the odds were in the back! I wasn't a math person. But why wasn't I a math person? What were the conditions in the environment that initiated and nurtured those thoughts? I'm also curious about the implication of those thoughts on my adult life...my parenting, my career choices and options, my finances? What opportunities have I missed out on because I'm not a math person? I really want to know what math classrooms around the world are doing to build every learners math identity. Truth be told, we are all math people. It's time we all work to understand and foster that! Conrad Wolfram has been advocating for an overhaul to math curriculum for years. He is the founder and CEO of Wolfram/Alfa and Mathamatica. He is particularly interested in how technology and computation can move our lives and economies forward and in turn how that affects education. He believes math in school is almost totally irrelevant from it's real-world application. In this conversation with Bruce, Conrad says there are four parts to using math in real life. They are: 1. Define the problem 2. Turn it to symbolic representation if we can 3. Take questions to answer 4 Determine what this means and does it make sense There is so much to digest after listening to the conversation. Please join us in Modern Learners Community to continue the discourse. Simply click here and sign up or sign in!

It’s hard to believe that we’re entering the holiday season already here in the US. It’s a couple of days before Thanksgiving and the real insanity is about to begin. And most of that insanity stems from the multi-billion dollar month-long war for capturing our attention. You don’t even have to turn on the television or go on Facebook to realize that the marketing beast here at the end of the second decade of the 21st Century is getting bolder, louder, and even more unending. Couple that with the avalanche of media that’s heading our way as we gear up for an election next year and I’m feeling pretty tired already. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that 2020 may be the greatest and most complex test ever for the collective literacy of our nation. Deep fake videos and Russian interference and Super PAC ads ad god knows what other stuff we’re going to have to sort through and make sense of and divine truth from. No pressure right. All of which makes this conversation on attention literacy with award-winning professor Alec Couros timely, relevant, and interesting. Alec teaches at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, and he teaches and writes extensively around the topic of understanding literacy in a connected world. In this discussion, we touch on how difficult the search for truth is these days, the idea of a literacy “curriculum,” and ways in which we use technologies to keep our attention focused. It’s a conversation that probably could have gone on for hours. Some links discussed in the podcast: The Attention Economy and the Net Writeroom Distraction Free YouTube  Century of the Self   "Epistemic Crisis" Duck Duck Go Ze Frank    

Welcome to the fourth and final episode in my month-long exploration of "power" in schools. I don't know about you, but I found all of these conversations fascinating in terms of how much the power relationships we have in schools impact the experience that kids have, and the extent to which we are functionally unaware of the many ways in which power influences almost every decision you make. But what I think I may have learned more than anything is the ways in which power is inherent in the system. The ways that we interact with one another happen in large measure because of the underlying structures and norms and expectations that are baked into a system that was created at a time that looks much different from today in terms of our individual power to learn and to create and connect. And so in today's podcast, we dive into the power that the system holds over us with Dr. Özlem Sensoy, a professor of education at Simon Fraser University and the co-author of Is Everyone Really Equal? An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education, now in its second edition. Dr. Sensoy, whose forthcoming book Why Take Media Seriously? comes out next year, talks powerfully about how we need to reflect deeply on how our actions are molded by the system, ways in which we can turn our classrooms and cultures into more equitable and more just environments, and how to work with colleagues and students to develop a greater sensitivity to the power of the system and ways to act to change it. I think it's an important conversation that I totally enjoyed.

This is our third podcast on the theme of power, and when you think about both the good and the bad aspects of technology and the Internet and social media over the last decade, it's hard not to conclude that like it or not, the individual has much more power in her hands today than ever before. We have unprecedented power to connect, to communicate, to create and to publish, and the reality is that many of our young adults and even younger children are beginning to take advantage of that in powerful ways for both good and bad. Look no further than the ways in which students at Stoneman Douglas have used technology to create a movement around gun control, or how Greta Thunburg has amassed millions of followers from around the world to take on climate change. There's no question that the potential of these technologies to empower every one of us to make change happen in the world is amazing. And it changes the way we think about power and success in the world today. And that potential is an important context for the work we do in schools, right? It begs all sorts of questions about our responsibilities as educators in this moment in terms of how we should be preparing kids to use their newfound power well. Or about the literacies that we ourselves have to exhibit to help students understand these opportunities at a deep level. Or about the stories that we tell students about what a "successful" path forward looks like today. Which is why I reached out to Dr. Craig Watkins to be my guest in this weeks podcast. Craig is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas in Austin, and he's the author of five books that explore young people's engagement with media and technology. He works with the Connected Learning Research Network, and is the founding director of the Institute for Media Innovation in the Moody college of Communication. In this discussion we cover the changing nature of power in the world, how technologies are impacting the way we learn and interact with the world, how the concept of work is quickly changing, and much, much more. I think you're going to enjoy it.

We're in our second week of exploring power and power relationships in schools which is a topic that I don't think we reflect on nearly enough in schools. (Here's the first "power" podcast with Rob Fried.) There's an inherent tension when it comes to learning and power, namely how much power do you as a learner have in any learning interaction to choose not just what you learn but how and where and when. And one of the things that casts such a long shadow over this conversation is the fact that going to school is compulsory. Learners have no or very little choice but to attend a school which then decides almost everything about the what, where and when of learning. So right from the start, we take agency away from kids, and we rarely seem to think about the implications of that. Someone who has been thinking about that for quite some time is my guest on this week's podcast. Sylvia Martinez is the co-author of what I think may be one of the best books on learning and schools in the last five years, Invent to Learn which has come to be known as "the bible of the maker movement." She's an advisor to the Stanford University FabLearn Fellows, and she has a long history in leading educational non-profits and in product design and development in educational games. And, she was one of the early designers of the software for that GPS navigational system that gets all of us to where we want to go in today's world. All that aside, what I love about Sylvia is her genuine passion for creating environments in schools where teachers and students can explore learning on their own terms, and in this podcast, we talk about that as well as the dynamics of power in classrooms, the cultural movements that lead to change in schools, and the complexities around the idea of empowerment in the various hierarchies of schools. It's an important, and on many levels fascinating conversation. As always, if you enjoy the conversation, why not head over to iTunes and give us a review and a rating? And tell your friends about our podcast as well. Thanks for listening everyone! For more resources and links about this podcast, check out the "Podcasts" topic in the Modern Learners Community.

So it's a new month, and that means a new theme for our conversations, and it's a theme I've been looking forward to diving into, namely "power" and the ways in which power relationships basically define the schools we're in. Power is not something we often talk explicitly about in schools. It's a complex dynamic that is a part of almost everything we do, and it has a huge impact on any efforts we are making to change the experience of school for kids. And we are thinking about it...I mean how many times have you heard people talking about "empowering" students or teachers, which ironically is something we wouldn't need to do if we didn't disempower them in the first place. And the way power works in the world is changing as well. As individuals gain more and more ability and agency to create and share ideas and make connections, they are finding ways to influence what happens in the world in good and bad ways, right? I don't know if you saw a recent study from Common Sense Media that found 54% of teens get news from social media, and “Of those teens, six in 10 say they are more likely to get it from celebrities, influencers, and personalities rather than from news organizations utilizing the platform.” And that's just one example. So, this month, the idea is to peel back some of the layers of power and look at what really happens in the interactions we have in schools, and to start that conversation, I got a chance to talk to Rob Fried, the author of several books, most notably The Game of School: Why We All Play It, How it Hurts Kids, and What It Will Take to Change It. And, importantly for me at least, Rob was the editor of The Skeptical Visionary: A Seymour Sarason Educational Reader. Those of you that hang around here for even a short while know that Sarason is one of my biggest influences and that his view of the world and particularly of power in schools is foundational to our work at Modern Learners. In this conversation with Rob, we talk about how teachers and students can work with existing power dynamics, the difficulties of change because of power, and how we can recover our personal sense of power that schools in many ways take away. As always, if you enjoy the conversation, why not head over to iTunes and give us a review and a rating? And tell your friends about our podcast as well. Thanks for listening everyone!

This is the fourth and final episode in our exploration of the theme community this month, and I want to say from the start, that this conversation you're about to hear on equity, community, and culture has been one that I've been struggling with recently. There are many challenges and tensions that we face in schools and education today, but none may be more complex than the one surrounding equity in terms of race and gender. There's no question that white male privilege is finally being challenged in many healthy ways, and around the world I think what we're seeing is perhaps the last gasp for white males attempting to maintain power over the narrative of society. That's long overdue, but we have a very long way to go. "I Don't Know What to Do" For me personally, that struggle hit home about a month ago at a workshop I attended in Pittsburgh put on by Education Reimagined, a non-profit group out of Washington, DC. It was, in a word, transformative for me. As we were discussing ways that we could bring the idea of learner-centered education to schools as a way of changing the experience of school for the better for all kids, a number of people of color in attendance gave impassioned reflections on what it was like to live in a culture and a society that is still dominated by primarily white narratives. They argued with great emotion and frankness that these issues of equity reached well beyond schools and classrooms, and that there was still little widespread understanding of the injustices and fears that People of Color still carry with them today. It left me deeply moved, and to some extent speechless. I was almost happy when the white education secretary of a Central US state stood up at the end and said, "I don't know what to do" because she took the words out of my mouth. Since that weekend, I've been reflecting deeply on my own biases, on the societal narratives that re so rooted in white history, and on what I can do to not be complicit in perpetuating them. I know I'm at the start of a journey, one that for me begins with reading the book White Fragility, and also begins with bringing more voices of people of color and sexual orientation into my networks and my interactions. Creating Cultures of Community Which leads me to today's interview with Tricia Ebarvia. Tricia is in her 19th year teaching high school English, and she’s the department chairperson at Conestoga High School in Berwyn, PA, located outside Philadelphia. She was a Heinemann Fellow from 2016-2018, where she wrote regularly about creating an inclusive literacy classroom, and she's developed into a leading voice around anti-bias, anti-racist pedagogy. She co-founded the #DisruptTexts conversation on Twitter and elsewhere, and she's the co-director of the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project. Tricia and I talk about the difficulties of creating cultures of community, the many biases that educators bring to their work, and some ways in which we can begin to build more understanding of equity, race, and gender issues into our personal lives and into our classrooms. I learned a lot from our conversation and I hope you will as well. Don't forget, if you like what you hear today, please head on over to iTunes and give us some love via a review and rating, and I hope that you'll continue the conversation around story with us in our modernlearners community.

So in case you may be new to the pod, each month we take on a different theme from four different angles, and this week, we're looking at our theme of community through our third lens, that of classroom practice. As in what would the classroom look like if the community itself was the curriculum? That's a question that this week's guest Dave Cormier has been grappling with for over a decade. His work around "rhizomatic learning" has generated a ton of new thinking about what classrooms might be in the modern world. In this model, curriculum is not driven by predefined inputs from experts; it is constructed and negotiated in real time by the contributions of those engaged in the learning process. That idea fits pretty neatly into the self-determined learning world of the Internet where we can choose our teachers, our information sources, and our experiences in profound new ways. But it's not as neat of a fit into traditional classroom systems, structures and, of course, curriculum. In this episode, Dave and I talk about what a "rhizomatic" learning environment is like, the importance of language in change, the difference between complicated and complex, and the struggle to shift students away from being experts as students to, instead, be experts as learners. I'm sure it will tweak your thinking in good ways. Fall Professional Learning Don't forget to check out our two big professional learning opportunities coming this fall for those of you who are wanting to continue pushing your thinking and expand your global PLC in the process. Our 9th Cohort of Change School starts on September 30th, and at this moment we have a few seats left. It's an 8-week intensive dive into how the world is changing, the ways in which schools are already changing, and how you can lead a long-term, sustainable change initiative in your school or in your community. And also check out the five Modern Learners Labs that we have on the calendar for October through January. My friends Gary Stager and Homa Tavangar and I will be in five different cities up and down the east coast doing these 2-day events that will exhaust and inspire you in very good way. Get all the details at on our Labs page. And finally, as always, at the end of my conversation with Dave, I'll be back with three things that you can do right now to move your schools and classrooms to a deeper sense of community. Don't forget, if you like what you hear today, please head on over to iTunes and give us some love via a review and rating, and I hope that you'll continue the conversation around story with us in our modernlearners community. Cheers everyone...thanks so much for listening.

Welcome to our second podcast on the theme of "community." While the web has been around for about 25 years now, learning on the Internet really started way before the web was even in development. For those of us old enough to remember the days of computer modems and online bulletin boards, if you had the time and the money, you could connect to people around the world and learn all sorts of things through online communities that relied solely on text...as in no audio, video...not even any pictures unless you were able to draw them with the keys on you keyboard. Back in those days, the Internet was a new frontier for connecting and learning, and there from almost the beginning was Howard Rhiengold, who I'm happy to say is my guest in this week's podcast, our second around the theme of community. Howard was one of the very early users on The Well, what many regard as the first real virtual community on the Internet. As you'll hear in this conversation, even on slow modems and expensive connections, many of the qualities and experiences that define community in our lives were present in those spaces. And what makes Howard's perspective so important is that he was the first to think deeply about the potentials and downsides of these connections. His first book titled "The Virtual Community," is a chronicle of those first interactions and questions for groups online. And I so appreciate the sense of perspective and history that this conversation brings to our current understanding of community. For more links and resources associated with this podcast, check out the podcast topic in our Modern Learners Community. And don't forget to check out our previous podcast on the theme of community with Peter Block. Next week, I'll be interviewing educator Dave Cormier on his suggestion that the community become the curriculum. See you then!

It's a new month as we turn into September 2019 and that means a new theme for our podcasts and for our conversations in MLC, our Modern Learners Community. Podcastwise, I'm a little sad that our dive into the theme of Story in August is over. What I've learned is that we tell stories in schools in more ways that we realize, and that the narratives that we create have a huge influence on how kids and teachers experience school on a daily basis. I really hope you enjoyed that series. But now we're moving on to our next theme, "Community." It's another one of those words that we use often but don't fully define when it comes to our systems and practice. And At a moment in the world when so many things seem to be moving apart, we want to take a look at how we might work to bring things together, to create closer bonds, especially of course in the context of schools. In other words, what does learning within community look like, and what practical steps can we take to make community, rather than individuals, the operating system of schools. Just a reminder, we do have some structure to this. As we do each month, we'll use the four parts of our Modern Learners Lens to guide our podcast conversations. This week, we'll focus on how community is built on our beliefs. Next week, we'll ask how our ideas about community are changing given the modern contexts we live in. Our third framing will be around classroom practice; what happens when the community becomes the curriculum? And finally, we'll explore how cultures in schools change when community is placed at the center. I can't tell you how excited I am to kick off this series with the person who wrote the book on community, literally, Peter Block. Through his company Designed Learning, Peter has worked with thousands of people to use the community-building skills he writes about. And let me just say that his book "The Answer to How? is Yes" should be on every school leaders list who is looking to engage in meaningful conversations around change. In this episode, Peter and I discuss the definition of community, the ways in which schools are focused on competition and individualism, and how to build a different narrative for what learning looks like in schools. Be prepared to be challenged and inspired all at once. Hope you enjoy it, and don't forget, if you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe and give us a rating and review on your favorite podcast app. Real fast, inside of MLC+ this month, we are discussing Peter's book. Join us!  

This is the fourth and final podcast in our series on the theme of "story," and I hope you've enjoyed listening to them as much as I've enjoyed recording them. As many of my guests have expressed, we are in between stories in education, and this is both a challenging and exciting time for us as we grapple with the barriers to change but also dream about the possibilities of what we might create together. One aspect of the current story of schools that is especially important today revolves around our individual differences in terms of race, gender, sexual orientation and everything else that makes us unique. It's important not only in the sense of how our school cultures embrace or reject our differences but, more significantly, how we build the capacity of teachers and students to talk about and embrace these differences. At a moment where research shows our public schools are more segregated and separate than ever, it may be the most important story that we need to revise. To that end, by guests today are Winona Guo and Priya Vulchi, the authors of an amazing new book titled "Tell Me Who You Are: Sharing our Stories of Race, Culture and Identity." It's a powerful anthology of individual stories that they collected during a year-long "gap year" trip across all 50 states that started right after their graduation from high school. They interviewed over 500 people asking them simply "Tell Me Who You Are." Let me just say, the stories are powerful. In this podcast we talk about their journey, about how race and difference plays out in schools across the country, and what we can do to bring these conversations more fully into the classroom. If you're like me, you'll be struck by the honesty of teachers who freely admitted a weakness around how to create and facilitate cultures of understanding and acceptance in their classrooms and schools. Winona, now a sophomore at Harvard, and Priya, currently a sophomore at Princeton, are making it their life's work to help with that. Show Notes, Links, and More For more on this podcast, head on over to our Modern Learners Community where not only can you get a list of links and show notes, but also where you can join 1,300 other educators who are having powerful conversations and taking part in all sorts of professional learning activities that will build your capacity to change your practice and the experience of school for your students. And finally, if this topic is of interest, check our our podcast from earlier this year with Homa Tavangar and Eric Dozier from the Oneness Lab. Thanks for listening everyone!

If you listened two our previous two podcasts on the topic of "story" I think you'll agree that we educators are at an interesting spot when it comes to the way we think and talk about education and schooling moving forward. The old story that you have to be somewhere at a particular time with a particular teacher with a particular group of kids who are your same age from your same neighborhood to learn a particular curriculum at the same pace and be assessed the same way is breaking, not only because it makes little sense in a learning context, but because the world doesn't operate that way any longer. The question is, what do we as educators do to create a new story, a new way of thinking about what the experience of school looks and feels like for this latest generation of kids? Few educational leaders are better positioned to answer that question than Mary Anne Moran and John Clements, co-principals of Nipmuc High School in Upton, Mass. Over the last three years, they have led a powerful process to create a coherent story of learning for their students that is increasingly different from the one most schools are telling. John and Mary Anne are alums of our Change School program, but more impressively they were named 2017 state principal and 2016 assistant principal of the year respectively. And their high-energy, inclusive approach to generating important and powerful conversations around learning in their school community are unparalleled in my experience. As you'll hear in this conversation, while every school story and journey is unique, there are a number of important starting points that all leaders can take right away to begin the process of creating and telling a new story of learning. And hey - we know you'll learn a lot from listening to John and Mary Anne in this episode, but if you're looking for a deeper learning experience, why not enroll in the course they've designed, which is available NOW: Launching Modern Learning: First Year Strategies for Change Creating an aspirational vision for school is exciting and inspiring work; however, it can be difficult to know where to begin in the journey to reimagine school. You need support in your effort to redesign your school as well as actionable strategies that can be borrowed, adapted, and put into place. Our Launching Modern Learning course is designed to help you go from ideas to action. Learn firsthand from John and Mary Anne through the engaging modules they've designed for you. There's much to read, see, and do in this course. The course content will challenge your thinking, inspire you, and leave you with practical takeaways you can implement immediately. It's the perfect learning opportunity for school teams, too! No matter your "first" - first time in a new leadership position, first year launching a change initiative, or in your first steps of reimagining the school experience for your students, this course is for YOU. Enjoy the podcast everyone, and if you like what you hear, please give us a review on Apple Podcasts!

All this month in the community we're talking about the theme of story, how the story of school and education is changing, and what we need to do to help create a new story for teaching and learning moving forward. And so along those lines, in this week's podcast I interview long time blogger, author, and futurist Bryan Alexander to help provide some larger contexts for how life stories are changing in general and how we educators might help our students navigate the next 20 or 30 years of transition. I first met Bryan about 15 years ago at Middlebury College, and since then he's been one of my most respected resources for tracking how the world is changing and what those changes mean for education. Bryan is currently a senior scholar at Georgetown University and teaches graduate seminars in their Learning, Design, and Technology program. He recently finished Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education for Johns Hopkins University Press (forthcoming fall 2019). As you heard in that opening snip and as you'll hear throughout this conversation, we are in and are heading into some challenging times on a lot of levels. But despite the obvious headwinds, what I appreciated more than anything about this conversation is Bryan's unyielding faith in "Generation Z", that group of late teen and early twenty somethings in which he and I both have two children. Our question now is how do we prepare them to flourish in this moment, and how do we prepare the next generation of students that are coming after them. Don't forget, at the end of the podcast I offer up three things that you can do right now to get your brain and your practice more deeply wrapped around the ideas that Bryan discusses in this podcast. And for more resources related to this episode, head on over to the Modern Learners Community and click on the "Podcast" topic.

Each month our Modern Learners Community (MLC) , we take on specific theme, and in August, our theme is "story." As in what is the current story of learning we are telling in our schools, how is that story changing, and what might the new story be? And so to kick things off this month, in this podcast I interview Stephanie Pace Marshall, whose life's work has been centered around the transformation of learning and schooling. She is the founding president of the National Consortium for Secondary STEM Schools, and a past president of ASCD, and most relevant to our conversation today, her book The Power to Transform: Leadership that Brings Learning and Schooling to Life, is all about her work to name a new story, create a new map, and design a new landscape for life-affirming learning and schooling. If you've been following our work at Modern Learners, you know that we talk a lot about being "in-between stories" as in the traditional story of education is breaking down but we've yet to really get clear on what the new narrative is. What I found so interesting about this conversation is Stephanie's perspective on how the story we've been telling got started, and why it's seems to be shifting so dramatically right now. As I wrote in our latest blog post, we choose the stories we tell about learning and schooling. We're not required to promote an old and dying narrative just because others want or expect us to. And to that end, the story that Stephanie tells at the end of our talk speaks to the power we have to create new narratives if we choose to do so. Hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. For more resources and links from this conversation, just click on the "podcast" topic in our MLC.

Unpleasant Truth about Education #47: Kids learn more deeply in school when participating in extracurriculars than they do when being taught in classrooms. That's one of the many provocative conclusions drawn by authors Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine in their book In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake the American High School. It's a fascinating in-depth look at how learning happens at three very different schools in the U.S., and it's also a primer on what we can do to bring more authentic learning opportunities to students on a regular basis. In this hour long podcast, we talk about what deep learning actually is, what some of the barriers are to making it happen within the traditional school structures and systems, how teachers and leaders can reframe their practice, and why it is that more powerful learning conditions are easier for some teachers to create than others. Here's a quote from the book to whet your appetite: In the spaces that teachers, students, and our own observations identified as the most compelling, students had opportunities to develop knowledge and skill (mastery), they came to see their core selves as vitally connected to what they were learning and doing (identity), and they had opportunities to enact their learning by producing something rather than simply receiving knowledge (creativity). Often these spaces or classrooms were governed by a logic of apprenticeship; students had opportunities to make things (newspapers, collections of poetry, documentary films, theater productions, debate performances) under the supervision of faculty and / or older students who would model the creative steps involved, provide examples of high-quality work, and offer precise feedback. Not coincidentally, the most successful teachers and extracurricular leaders whom we encountered had themselves been apprenticed into their fields in a similar way—and these experiences had helped them develop a stance about what they were doing that differed from the “teaching as transmission” view that was so prevalent (Kindle 6-7). Enjoy!

For over 30 years, Gary Stager has been at the forefront of those arguing for a more constructionist approach to learning. In this podcast, he discusses the power and importance of letting students experience learning by doing in every interaction with school. Gary has been greatly influenced by the work of Jean Piaget, Seymour Papert, and many others. His keynotes and presentations around the world continually push people's thinking about the ways in which children and adults learn most powerfully and deeply. Don't forget to check out Gary's Constructing Modern Knowledge Summer Institute which will be held July 16-19 in Manchester, NH. Now in its 12th year, CMK is a unique, deep-dive into learning unlike any other featuring amazing speakers and thought-provoking ideas for classroom practice. Gary's Blog Constructing Modern Knowledge Press Gary on Twitter Watch the live webinar/podcast interview with Gary on Crowdcast  

A lot of schools tout a "global curriculum," but not many can say that they have a truly global campus. But that's what "Avenues: The World School" is building. With physical campuses in New York City and Sao Paulo, a Shenzen, China opening this fall, schools developing in Miami, Silicon Valley, London, and Mumbai, and now an online campus for grades 6-12, Avenues may be the first school to truly span the world. In this podcast, Tim Carr, Co-Head of the Avenues Online campus not only discusses the ambition of sharing a common experience of school across continents, but also about how to bring "transformative" change to traditional schools as well. As the former head of the Jakarta Intercultural School, Carr turned a highly successful traditional school into an even more successful progressive school. Be sure to explore the Avenues World Elements (pictured here) as one example of what it means to have a clear roadmap for the outcomes that you want your students to achieve. Make sure to click on a few of the boxes to get a picture of what they've tried to do to build not only common language but also common practice.

Is it possible to create a different school experience? Given the chance to do things really differently in your school, what would you do? That's the opportunity that Peter Wieczorek has as the director of Northwest Passage High School in Coon Rapids, MN, a public charter school that is pushing the envelope when it comes to carving our new ways of preparing students for the world today. They are creating a different school experience! While a lot of schools are doing project-based learning, as you'll hear in this podcast Peter stresses that at Northwest Passage projects are chosen by students, based on their interests, and supported by a staff of educators that is adept at making sure students learn deeply and navigate all of the expectations of the state standards and assessments. But what might be most out of the box for the school is that they offer students over 20 "expeditions" which are overnight excursions of up to two weeks into the real world. The emphasis is on building relationships between students and adults and create learning opportunities that simply can't happen inside the four walls of the school. If you're looking for a story of school that is driven by student agency and autonomy, you'll enjoy this interview immensely. When you finish listening to this, please check out our podcast with Megan Power. She discusses Design39campus which is another public school doing great things.

What if diversity is NOT the goal? That's the question that our two guests dive into in this our 60th episode. Bruce and I chat with with Homa Tavangar and Eric Dozier who are collaborators at the Oneness Lab where they "seek to discover, learn and live models of cohesion and unity, toward building a better world." Together, Homa and Eric help schools and organizations "unlock mindsets that are truly global" in order to build our collective capacity to have the "social-emotional skills needed simultaneously for global citizenship and local engagement." Homa is the author of Growing up Global: Raising Children to be at Home in the World. And Eric describes himself as "cultural activist, singer/songwriter, and educator leveraging the power of music to promote healing, justice and racial reconciliation." Tune in to hear Homa and Eric's perspectives on the power of knowing history, learning how we build qualities of deep respect and relationships, the importance of reflection, and creating opportunities for shared community experiences. Our guests share insights and strategies into how school leaders, teachers, and parents can embrace the vital need to lead learning of global, cultural and racial competence.

In this episode, Bruce and I chat with with Stephanie Rogen, author of a great new book titled "Creating Schools That Thrive: A Blueprint for Strategy." Like the title implies, it's a roadmap for schools who are on a journey to create mission and vision driven change that's relevant for modern times. Stephanie's work with schools around the world is deeply focused on the importance of common language, how to utilize design thinking in a change process, and how to build cultures that support innovation. She also talks at length about how our current narratives and structures about schools get in the way of change at all sorts of levels. Stephanie is a consultant, coach and facilitator to educational and not for profit leadership. She has worked with a diverse range of nationally recognized schools and not for profits ranging from Columbia University to The White House Project. She also served as Educational Advisor to the 2015 Sundance Selected Documentary "Most Likely to Succeed."

Education is changing, and schools are still struggling to adapt. That's the key takeaway from this interview with Rich Halverson, co-author of Rethinking Education in an Age of Technology which just came out in its second edition. First published in 2009, Halverson's book is one on the most underlined and dog-eared of all of the books on my shelf, and after listening to this podcast, I think you'll have a pretty good sense of why. In this podcast, we talk about the good and bad of personalized learning, the digital divide as it applies to learning opportunities, and the growing trend toward learner agency. We also discuss the what the future holds for those schools who are unable to figure out a path forward that incorporates a different vision for what education is and needs to be. A former high school teacher and administrator, Rich is currently a full-time professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He's also a Fellow at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.

Our recently released 10 Principles for Schools of Modern Learning whitepaper provides a synthesis of the unique characteristics of schools from around the world that have taken on high-bar change initiatives responding to the new opportunities and challenges of learning in the modern age. Since its publication, the white paper has been downloaded by over 10,000 people who are using it as a way of starting conversations and as a framework for their change efforts. Now, we’ve introduced a companion piece to the whitepaper: The 10 Principles for Schools of Modern Learning Audit. Simply, the Audit provides a benchmark for those schools who want a more concrete sense of where they sit in terms of providing the type of educational experience that today’s students need to thrive in the world. This Audit gives school leaders, parents, and teachers a quick assessment of current practices as well as clarifies starting points for planning long term change initiatives in schools and districts. The audit covers four benchmarks for each of the 10 Principles. Your results will be e-mailed to you immediately after completion. Included in the e-mail will be three action steps you can take right away based on your results. The more honest you are in your assessment for each benchmark, the more you'll be able to tailor your own next steps as well. Finally, in the future we'll be sending out an analysis of the audit results we gather as a way of painting a picture of where efforts to employ these principles stand on a global scale. In this 30-minute podcast, Bruce and Will discuss the background of the audit and talk about two of the principles in particular. Please let us know if you have any comments, questions, or feedback via email to will@modernlearners.com.

Given the opportunity to start a new community public school from scratch, what would you build? What process would you employ? And if you really wanted to create something really different, how would you convince parents that really different is not something their kids need but also something they should want? Those questions and more are the core of this fascinating conversation with Megan Power, co-founder and designer of Design 39 Campus, a four-year old public K-8 school in the Poway, California Unified School District. As you'll hear, Design 39 is not a different school on the edges. It's different through and through. Megan focuses on the very intentional and deliberate process that she and her team used to bring the school into existence, and she talks at length about how to change the mindsets of both students and parents when it comes to what the classroom and school experience should look like. Megan has been in education for 17 years, and spent the last year as a Campus Teacher Ambassador Fellow for the US Department of Education. She was recently selected as one of 20 to Watch by the National School Board Association with the purpose of identifying emerging leaders that will help shape the national education conversation for the next 20 years. She was also selected the 2009 Time Warner Cable National Teacher of the Year. Links: Design39 Campus

Show notes coming soon.

Why do so many students leave high school without the ability to write in compelling and interesting ways? According to John Warner, author of a new book titled "Why They Can't Write: Killing the Five Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities," it's because we're teaching them to write to a test, not to real life audiences. But that's only one of many problems with schools today, places in which well meaning and talented teachers are constrained by outdated expectations and a lack of appreciation, and where students are constrained by standardization, stress and much more. Warner, who is also a columnist for the Chicago Tribune as well as a blogger for Inside Higher Education, suggests some wholesale changes in the priorities and commitments we keep in schools. Among them to grant more agency to both students and teachers to do meaningful work that matters, to get rid of the scourge of grades, and to generally reduce the amount of stress that today's high schoolers are feeling in their lives. This 45-minute interview touches on a wide range of topics relevant to anyone seriously interested in rethinking the status quo of schools. Resources Mentioned: Why They Can't Write by John Warner I Love Learning, I Hate School by Susan Blum Modern Learners Podcast #44 with Susan Blum Modern Learners Podcast #38 with David Gleason The Testing Charade by Daniel Koretz  

The compelling case for reimagining schools is not difficult to make. It's a combination of common sense and a clear understanding of how the changes in the world are creating new challenges and opportunities for learners both in and out of school. In other words, the compelling case is built on a sense of urgency that comes both from what we know and what we don't know. That's the discussion that Bruce Dixon and I are having in this our 54th episode of the Modern Learners Podcast as we get back behind the microphones after a short hiatus for travel and invention. If you're looking for some really challenging conversation about the purpose of schools and what the future requires of our kids, I'm thinking you'll really enjoy this discussion. Just to whet your appetite a bit, here's a quote from a powerful speech we reference from Carol Black: So, one of the weirdest characteristics of education in our society, and there are a lot of them, but one of the very weirdest, a lot of indigineous people from around the world will tell you, is that our approach to education is extraordinarily authoritarian. It is obsessed with compulsion and control. So the child in a modern classroom, may not move, speak, sing, laugh, eat, drink, read, write, think her own thoughts, look out the window, or even use the toilet without explicit permission from an authority figure. (UPDATE: Just realized that most of this speech is adapted from her post "A Thousand Rivers.") And, from Yuval Harari's new book: The best advice I can give a 15-year-old is: don’t rely on the adults too much. Most of them mean well, but they just don’t understand the world. As always, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comment thread below. Enjoy! Links: Carol Black: Alternatives to Schooling Carol Black's Blog 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Harari International Baccalaureate Modern Learners Podcast #45 - "Watching Our Kids Too Closely" (Discussion of a Carol Black post.)

Will and Lyn talk with educator and library administrator Bud Hunt who asks us to consider when we stopped making schools a place of wonder? We discuss the connections between literacy and making ("making is a fundamental thing that people do"); a library's purpose as a community space where people can engage in civil discourse; "drone literacy" (it's a thing!); what we actually mean by "modern literacy" and how we can support teachers and learners in becoming most literate; and the algorithms influencing and often censoring our digital interactions with one another (Noble's Algorithms of Oppression is referenced). Thanks for tuning in!

Teacher-librarian and Senior Fellow for the Foundry Makerspace Heather Lister joins us for a conversation around this month's Modern Learners Community theme: modern literacy. Heather provides valuable insights on the changing role of libraries as she works to fulfill her mission of "abolishing the stereotype of libraries and librarians." In this podcast we discuss copyright ideals, how to best help teachers and students understand the nuances of information in the digital age, strategies for discussing "fake news" and evaluating credibility of sources and other media literacy topics, and the connections among making and literacy. A number of resources are referenced including: Eli Pariser's The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think and TED Talk James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me The work of Angela Stockman Asking the right questions

Change School alumni Mark Heintz joins Bruce and me in another episode of the Modern Learners Podcast. You can join is in Change School. All the details are on the site! Mark is a Teaching and Learning Facilitator at Elk Grove High School in Illinois. Tired of viewing success only by a score. he and other school leaders at Elk Grove are pushing the boundaries, refocusing on learning, and bringing back the autonomy to teachers and students. Big Questions Facing Educators Mark opens up on a number of topics regarding schools and education. He also shares some personal stories of how he and his colleagues are grappling with some of the big questions that are facing educators regardless of where they are in the world. For example, "What could I change?" and "Why should I change?" The Collab Lab Blog Mark writes an almost daily blog for The Collab Lab (@EGCollabLab), a community of learners--staff, students, and parents--who partner to transform learning across the school, District 214 and beyond.

Now that everyone is turning their focus to developing the skills and dispositions kids need to thrive in the future, many are starting to ask "Well, how do we assess those things?" As in how do we create a data point for curiosity or creativity or persistence? And what skills and dispositions should we be measuring? Should coping skills and "finding humor" be in the mix? In this our 50th podcast, Bruce and I discuss our visit last month to an extraordinary school in Christchurch, NZ where the emphasis is on doing and making and developing all those aforementioned skills. The Haeata Community Campus serves about 800 children who were forced out of their own local schools when the earthquake hit the area in 2011. It's an open classroom environment that mixes grade levels, is almost totally student-directed, project based, and without traditional assessments. Afterwards, we go into depth on two articles which appeared recently online that discuss the challenges of trying to measure what by all accounts is very difficult to measure. The first is in EdWeek titled Schools Should Teach (and Measure) 'Soft Skills,' Parents and Educators Agree. The second is a great piece from the Brookings Institute titled Firetrucks on Ivory Towers. We discuss how very few of people's most powerful learning experiences happen in classrooms, and that we might want to think about discussing what important learning is to kids in order to guide our own conversations around assessment.

In episode 49 of the Modern Learners podcast, Missy and Lyn talk with Superintendent Dr. Joe Sanfileppo of the Fall Creek School District in Wisconsin. Joe is known in educational leadership circles as "the relationships guy," a dynamic school leader who speaks often about the role of relationships in learning and who celebrates loudly the accomplishments of his teachers, students, and community. The #gocrickets message is more than just a hashtag, but a rallying spirit around the ideals this school community stands for. Throughout this podcast we talk with Joe about: *ownership of learning throughout the organization *how teachers share their learning at Fall Creek *buy-in vs. trust *the need to provide time, resources, and opportunities for learners and adults *making ownership of learning a priority in a time of standardization and mandates *his belief in the power of affirmation to approach critical conversations about learning #gocrickets! Resources mentioned: The Power of Moments (Chip & Dan Heath)

As I wrote about in last week's column, this new book titled Timeless Learning by Ira Socol, Pam Moran, and Chad Ratliff may just be the best book I've read about how to change schools and bring all the things we know are important about progressive learning to traditional public and private schools. In this interview, I get a chance to talk to Ira and Pam about a number of topics: Why this is the right time for progressive education to take root The challenges of moving centuries old practice in classrooms forward Some of the best ways to make change happen in schools And what skills, literacies and dispositions kids need to have to thrive in the modern world. I know you're going to enjoy the conversation. The illustration at right, by the way, was done by Linda Ashida, a Change School alum who was watching and listening on Facebook during our live interview. (Click the image for a larger version.)

Could it be that one of the biggest barriers to change is that we rarely have any real shared understanding of the language we use around learning? That's one of the many interesting conclusions that Dr. Beth Holland arrived at while doing her recently published dissertation from Johns Hopkins University. And it's one of the many topics we discuss in this great conversation about the intersection of learning, language and leading in today's modern schools. Among some of her conclusions: That leaders really need to embrace models of learning that may be foreign to their existing mental models. That great systems around the world share a language of pedagogy. That the role of the leader now needs to shift to be more about brokering relationships and helping people navigate the different layers of their organizations. That trust and collegiality are the most important parts of culture when change is in the offing. And that we're going to have to get beyond "symbolic language" like "personalized" and "blended" and "future ready" if we are ever going to see real change occur. For more about Beth, please visit her home page.

In the kickoff to our Modern Learners Community July 2018 theme of "Refresh, Renew, Relax," we hand the podcast reigns over to Missy Emler and Lyn Hilt of our Modern Learners team who talk with Dr. Joyce Young and Liza Engstrom from the High Health Network, an organization dedicated to helping leaders harness the power of networks to spread real health throughout their organizations. Missy shares why this topic is such an important one for educators, and Joyce discussed the work of their organization, addressing common misconceptions about employee health and wellness. Joyce and Liza outlined the 7 Essential Skills for Real Health, and they talked about the necessity of school leaders to not only plan to provide support for the well being of teachers and students, but to also commit to self-wellness in order to lead the changes we want to see in our schools. We'll be having month-long conversations with Liza in our community, and we hope you can join us for other health and wellness related events.

Do we have an evaluative gaze in schools? In this episode, Bruce and I discuss a powerful essay written by Carol Black titled Children, Learning, and the Evaluative Gaze of School, one that discusses the very real effects on kids of a culture of surveillance and assessment. Some of the questions we kick around: Why have we gotten to this point where we want to monitor and assess every mood and movement of kids? How do we provide more of a balance for students between their school and personal lives? How do we break out of traditional narratives and habits to start with a different question? How do we start with the question "Is this good for kids?" How do we start a process for bringing people together to hold different conversations around our interactions with kids? We also chat about some first steps that school leaders might take to create some new conversations forward in their communities. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Today I am excited to welcome Dr. Susan Blum to the show. Susan is a professor of anthropology at Notre Dame University and the author of one of my favorite reads of the last couple of years, a book titled "I Love to Learn; I Hate School: An Anthropology of College." And, she's also the author of the blog "Learning vs. Schooling" which should give you another indication of why her work intrigues me, so I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Some of the more challenging topics we discuss are: Why schooling as we know it prevents learning Why she sees that as "a crisis preceding a radical transformation" in education Why we should get rid of grades And why we should aim to make college strange instead of familiar to students Show Notes: Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn Hacking Assessment by Starr Sackstein The End of College by Kevin Carey

How important is it to ask what students think of their education? It's vitally important for us to ask this of our students even though we may not be satisfied with what they say about their classroom experiences. Bruce and I are discussing this concept today, along with my recent eye-opening visit to a school in Ontario, homeschooling and self-determined learning, and an impressive new school opening soon in Albemarle, VA spearheaded by retiring superintendent Pam Moran.   Show Notes: Albemarle Tech Center for Creativity and Invention Change School The Modern Learning Lens Lisa Harvey Smith Article Phillip Adams Bio Pam Moran Podcast    

Is instruction really necessary in schools? That's just one of the many intriguing questions we dive into in our latest podcast with our friend, mentor, and educational leader, Gary Stager, in a conversation that will have you thinking hard (once again) about teaching and learning in the modern world. Gary’s focus is on the nature of teaching, and he says that since the mid-80’s, we have removed the art of teaching from teacher training, and now we have a generation of teachers who don’t know how to teach. To rectify this, we need to create a productive context for learning and “bridge the gap.” We do that by creating interesting, relevant projects instead of “reckless instruction.” Gary believes that deep, meaningful learning is often accompanied by obsession, and his focus is on answering the question: How can we create experiences and context in classrooms where kids can discover things they don’t know they love? This is done by implementing good projects that spur creativity, ownership, and relevance. "A good project can replace a great deal of reckless instruction." - Gary Stager Through his professional learning conference Constructing Modern Knowledge (CMK), Gary has teachers put on their “learner hats” and learn how to create obsession, since, he says, very few of us have experienced what greatness looks like. In our conversation, Gary explains why he started CMK, what he wants to accomplish, and what he wants for educators. He shows teachers that the future of education can be much brighter. He also explains why he wants to spend more time advocating for arts education and why he thinks there is great value in a new focus and NOT committing to a curriculum. Resources: www.constructingmodernknowledge.com Choice Time by Renee Dinnerstein and Kathy Collins Loose Parts book series by Lisa Daly and Miriam Beloglovsky  

Would you ever think that Justin Bieber would be the starting point for one of our conversations? Though it may sound crazy, that’s where we begin today, discussing what is possible through social media and technology, since there is no better poster-child for the subject. As always, we’re talking about what learning is and how to make it more relevant. Stay with us for a meaningful discussion about learning, competency, assessment, politics, and more. "The fear is that high achievers will not be rewarded with a non-traditional model of learning." Today’s show revolves around a recent article about Maine’s move to proficiency (or competency)-based assessments. In the article, arguments against these assessments were presented, and although neither of us are fans of giving grades in the current state, we have mixed reviews of the opinion stated. Proficiency-based assessments change the role of teachers and shift attention to those students who are struggling. The common response to these assessments shows how deeply-rooted tradition is regarding what schools have to be and how grading has become increasingly difficult for teachers AND parents to understand.  The article shows that there hasn’t been enough investment in proficiency-based assessments to communicate the intent. Students will push back because they’ve been trained in the traditional system, and it could --and should--take several years to implement a new system. Communication will be key, as it beats compliance every time. Does it really make sense to repeal a learning system, grading system, and teaching system that has existed for so long? The bottom line is that everyone is scared to do things differently. For any new learning system to bring change in education, we have to be intentional in the process and be willing to invest the necessary time. Check out additional podcasts where we discuss more about undoing traditional grading practices.    

If you haven't heard (or seen) the movie "Most Likely to Succeed," you may be in the educational minority today. The documentary highlights the problems of traditional schooling through the eyes of students, parents, and teachers who are seeking, and in some cases participating in a very different education, and it's become one of the most watched (maybe the MOST watched) film about education ever. Millions of people around the globe have seen it, and now, you can even rent your own personal screening via the film's website. While the movie takes it's cues from Tony Wagner's book of the same name, it's producer Ted Dintersmith has been doing the yeoman's work in getting the film out to global audiences and in pushing the conversation around change to state legislatures. And Ted is our guest in our 40th episode of the Modern Learners Podcast. Our conversation runs the gamut from what the change narrative is evolving into, to places where change is happening at high levels, to the barriers that those seeking change are facing, to some predictions about what the future looks like for education. In addition, we discuss parts of Ted's brand new book, What Schools Could Be, which is a chronicle of his visits to all 50 states to get a bigger sense of education, both good and bad, as it stands in the United States today. If nothing else, the movie is sparking some different conversations about change as it challenges the narrative of schooling that we've held on to for over a century. And to hear Ted talk about it, some of the conversations are beginning to reach the highest levels of state government. That's great news. Here's hoping this interview helps in that cause.

Do you know the difference between technical change and adaptive change? Most change in schools involves technical change, like “dressing up” the current situation, but not really addressing the underlying issues. Adaptive change, as defined by Harvard’s Ron Heifetz, is changing culture, worldview, and self-worth. These are the changes that are the hardest to make and require a re-imagination of our culture and our basic roles. The message is that we need to stop “playing around the edges” and make changes that really get to the core. The work of leadership is to constantly keep redefining the destination. We know we are not doing the right thing in schools today, but people get defensive with anger, confusion, and uncertainty when their deeply-held beliefs are challenged. Doing the right thing in schools means more than adding a piece of technology here and a change in curriculum there. The goal is to go FROM a traditional teaching culture TO a modern learning culture. This is accomplished by letting go of tradition and our entrenched notions of learning, by being committed to rethinking and examining what we do, and by building an environment of inquiry.  Resources mentioned in the episode: The Human Side of School Change: Reform, Resistance, and the Real-Life Problems of Innovation by Robert Evans The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World by Marty Linsky and Ronald Heifetz www.audreywatters.com 

Why do we as parents and educators push our kids to do “whatever it takes” to get into the best college they can? We think we are helping our kids, but are we really setting them up for all kinds of challenges in which they cannot be successful? Do we tie our own self-worth into their accomplishments? Do we realize the connection between our “pushing” and the increase in anxiety and suicidal ideation? All those questions are up for discussion in our latest podcast with Dr. David Gleason, author of At What Cost: Defending Adolescent Development in Fiercely Competitive Schools. It's a book that will make you uncomfortable in a much-needed way. I met David last month on a trip to Johannesburg, South Africa, and his presentation there was my most profound learning moment to date in 2018. Our conversation touches on the bind we are in as educators, parents, and society when it comes to keeping our most heartfelt commitments to our kids. Join me as we talk with David about his book and the research that brought it about—and prepare to be challenged. We flaunt our success in front of our children, making them think they have to compete with us. Why the emphasis on the narrow path of academic success? There are many reasons for this, such as the economy, securing our kids’ futures, and the college application process. All of this is leading to more stress, more anxiety, and an increasingly louder problem of suicidal thoughts in our children. David discusses his research into brain science, “immunity to change,” and much, much more. We must recognize the bind we’re in, the problem at the heart of it, and what’s keeping us in this pattern. We overschedule, overwork, and overwhelm our kids---and they are paying the price. Resources: Leadership Without Easy Answers by Ron Heifetz At What Cost: Defending Adolescent Development in Fiercely Competitive Schools by Dr. David Gleason Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization (Leadership for the Common Good) by Robert Kegan

Templestowe College, or TC as we call it in Victoria, Australia, was built to accommodate 1,000 students. At the start of 2010, those numbers had dwindled down to just over 200. Peter Hutton took on the challenge of rebuilding the school, despite severe challenges. Today, you will get to hear the story of the past 7 years, and how Peter revolutionized one school by testing assumptions and changing the way they thought about education. TC desperately needed a new brand and a new vision. Peter was longing to see how a school could actually nurture their students while also instilling in them the skills and knowledge they will need to succeed in life. Peter will describe for you today how those logistics play out for TC students today. We will also discuss how the students, parents, and staff have all responded to the changes over the past 7 years. TC is producing committed, happy students with impressive work ethic and a thirst for learning. Peter claims that culture was built from the top down, and now he is working to consult with other schools to try and scale these principles for everyone to use. Peter will be the first to say that the world does not need more TCs. He is excited about a future of education where it is guided by a vision of support and respect for students. We can learn a lot from administrators and visionaries like Peter! Resources: Change Leaders Templestowe College