Redesigning School

Recently, the Mastery School of Hawken hosted our newly accepted families for a Covid-safe on campus event during which they could tour the buildings, speak to faculty, and experience a bit of the pedagogy that makes the school so distinctive. Families could also stop by the ReDesigning School booth to record a question for Julia Griffin, Director of the Mastery School, and Rasa Drane, Director of Admission.  In this episode, host Terry Dubow poses those and other questions to Julia and Rasa, whose responses shed more light on the Mastery School.

Now that it’s winter break, we all have a chance to take a breath and reflect a bit about the fall and just what we accomplished and what it asked of faculty, students, and families. And just in time because many schools will begin 2021 in remote...In this episode, Terry Dubow and Garet Libbey invite Courtney Martin, Hawken’s Director of the Lower School, and Dr. Michelle Harris, Director of the Middle School to talk about lessons learned and tips for how to make the most from the next round of remote learning. Educators and parents will get a glimpse into best practices for helping young students thrive during this heightened but temporary (!) moment.

Recently, the Mastery School of Hawken hosted a virtual Open House that invited members of the community to learn more about the school, its values, and its ambitions. As a part of of the program, the ReDesigning School podcast hosted two sessions with students and Ambrose Faturoti, Dean of Students of the Mastery School.In the first session, Ambrose and the students describe life at the school, and in the second, they explore how issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice are woven through everything from activities to the real-world challenges they face in their Macros.Edited by Nick FletcherMusic by Krackatoa track and Scott Holmes

As schools consider ways to redesign their approach and programming, they might want to investigate a field that likely does not appear in the established curriculum: architecture. While teaching architecture in high school is a rarity, it may actually offer deeply effective ways of helping students learn everything from complex mathematics to the intricacies of collaboration. Founding faculty member at the Mastery School of Hawken, Katie Zielinskijoins the podcast to describe her architecture Macro and the ways it can help students grow in more ways than one might expect.

ReDesigning School is not a political podcast -- there are enough of those -- but a few days before the 2020 election, Terry Dubow and Garet Libbey sat down (virtually of course) with Laura Tavares, Program Director for Organizational Learning and Thought Leadership at Facing History and Ourselves. The goal: to explore how schools can build programs and cultures that inspire what's become something of a rarity in our democracy -- civil and engaged citizens. The good news is that many educators are working hard on this necessary, urgent enterprise. Laura leads strategic partnerships, designs learning experiences for educators, and creates innovative classroom resources. She writes about history, current events and education for publications including the New York Times, Educational Leadership and Social Education. Laura joined the staff of Facing History in 2005 after several years teaching history and literature in independent schools. She is also a faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Project Zero Classroom. Laura graduated from Wellesley College and received graduate degrees in literature and history from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. A few helpful resources mentioned in the episode:Resource Guide for teaching about the 2020 electionHow to Foster Civil DiscourseDanielle AllenThe Better Arguments Project Ron Ritchhart and the Eight Forces of Culture

It's been a long time coming. The Mastery School of Hawken was a mere idea a few years ago, and now it's a thriving school with students, faculty, and an approach that upends how school generally works. Julia Griffin, Director of the Mastery School, and Nick Cheadle, return to the podcast to share their reactions and reflections on the opening and what's next.Be sure to check out the Mastery School's new website to learn more about some of the program elements discussed.

And we're back.Here at ReDesigning School, we've had our collective heads down for the past months, and now we're ready to look up. As have many in schools across the world, the Hawken administration and faculty have had to redesign just about every facet of school while staying true to our purpose, which is to deliver "Forward-focused preparation for the real world through the development of character and intellect."No easy task, but we've learned a few things that we can share.In Episode One of Season Three, Scott Looney, Head of Hawken School, and Garet Libbey, Hawken’s Associate Head of School for Program, join to discuss the hows and whys of Hawken's decision to open in person in early September.This season of ReDesigning School features a few exciting shifts:Our aperture is widening. This year, we'll explore how and why schools Pre K-12 are reassessing their approaches and redesigning their programs.We have a new co-host: Garet Libbey will share co-hosting duties with Julia Griffin, who is quite busy being the Director of the Mastery School of Hawken, our brand new high school.We plan to use portions of this season to go behind the scenes of the Mastery School during its inaugural year. We also plan to hear from experts and practitioners in other schools about opportunities and pitfalls in this very unusual school year.Thanks for listening! Please share and review, and don't forget to go to redesigningschool.org for more content.

The transition to remote teaching and learning has surely stretched all teachers, students, and parents, but something distinctly challenging is happening in lower schools. To keep younger students engaged and learning requires planning, patience, and grit from all parties. It also requires a genuine strategy and a relentless focus on student well-being and growth. Courtney Martin, Hawken's Director of the Lower School, joins the pod to discuss how her teachers, students, and families are adjusting to the new normal and to provide a glimpse into the challenges and rewards she's witnessed. As an aside: This episode is a bit of a sneak preview of what you'll find in season three of ReDesigning School when we'll expand our focus to include topics and stories from Pre-Kindergarten to High School. Coming to your podcast feed in the fall!

In the latest edition of our series on Remote Teaching and Learning, we wrestle with the whys and hows of creating inclusive, dynamic, and meaningful community while we're all working away from each other. Heidi Wilbrandt -- teacher, coach, dean, and member of the Diversity Equity Inclusion and Justice team -- joins the pod to discuss strategies for forming connections during a time when we risk many students -- and teachers -- feeling disconnected and alone.A few helpful resources:Elena Aguilar’s The Art of Coaching TeamsDaniel Coyle’s The Culture CodeAna Homayoun’s Social Media Wellness

Problem-based, place-based, project-based -- pick your P to accompany your BL. These days, many teachers are trying to figure out how to adjust their experiential learning plans when our shared experience is that we're all working from home. Many schools have projects and classes that ask students to engage with the community, but here at Hawken we have whole courses that we call Macros that use challenges from community partners as the primary learning and teaching terrain. We invited two Macro teachers, Janae Peters and Justin Cook, to share how they've modified their course to meet the moment without losing the heart, ambition, or meaning of their students' learning experiences. Some helpful links:The Korda Institute for TeachingHawken's Entrepreneurship Program

Eric Hudson, Director of Learning and Design at Global Online Academy, has been at this distance learning thing for years, and he has wisdom to share. He joined the podcast to share important background and advice to help answer the central question of this moment: "What does it mean to be a teacher when you don't have a classroom?"A few key concepts that Eric mentions:Cognitive LoadUnderstanding by Design

A not so funny thing happened on the way to summer this year... The global pandemic has disrupted the world as we know it, which has led all of us to reimagine, reconfigure, and redesign our lives. For teachers and students in particular, the moment has resulted in a momentous and sudden shift in how, when, where, and why we do our work.At ReDesigning School, we're going to change the focus of the podcast for the next weeks to explore how schools are adjusting their programs in real-time -- the good, the bad, the we're-not-sure-yets. First up: Jodie Ricci, chair of the performing arts department at Hawken and educational coach in Harvard University's Project Zero online classroom. We also interviewed Zoe, a Hawken senior, to hear a student's perspective on the shift to remote learning. What's clear is that for all its real and immense challenges, this moment is also an opportunity to refine and revise our approaches.

A few days before schools closed and social distancing began, we spoke with Stacy Caldwell, CEO of the Mastery Transcript Consortium. She shared a lot of good news about how quickly and successfully colleges have accepted the Mastery Transcript. She also spoke about how the Mastery Transcript meets the moment when high schools are shifting approaches to focus on enduring skills, habits, and content knowledge.

Last month, we hosted the first cohort of accepted students at the Mastery School of Hawken for an evening of celebration and gratitude. It was quite a night and a key marker between the dream of a new school and its reality. To capture the energy of the evening, we set up the podcast and interviewed students and parents to hear their take on this enterprise. They had a lot to say! We also asked Rasa Drane, the director of admissions for the Mastery School of Hawken, to join the pod to share her experiences so far and update us on where we are with building the founding class.

The landscape of college admissions is always complicated, so what happens when you add in paradigm shifts like mastery learning and the Mastery Transcript? To answer that and other questions, we invited Renee Bischoff, Hawken's Director of College Counseling, to join the podcast so we could explore the intersection of the college admissions process and efforts to redesign school.The news, surprisingly perhaps, is good. A few resources that might come in handy:What about College? -- A whitepaper from your friends at ReDesigning SchoolA Fit Over Rankings -- A whitepaper from your friends at Challenge SuccessWhat ReDesigning School Looks Like: The Story of EngineeringLife in College Matters for Life After College -- Results from the Purdue Gallup Poll 2014

The data around mental and emotional health in schools and college campuses are sobering -- to say the least. As we redesign school, we should think about ways for it to challenge, stretch and inspire growth without grinding kids down. That's the life work of Dr. Denise Pope, founder of Challenge Success, a non-profit school reform organization affiliated with the Stanford University Graduate School of Education. Besides being one of the kindest, smartest souls around, Pope is also a senior Lecturer at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, where she specializes in student engagement, curriculum studies, qualitative research methods, and service learning. She is the author of “Doing School”: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students (Yale University Press, 2001), and co-author of Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids (Jossey-Bass, 2015)A few relevant resources:A Fit Over RankingsRewriting the Myth of Supergirl

"Education is undergoing a period of dramatic evolution," Grant Lichtman writes in his new book Thrive. "The number of options families have for their children’s education is expanding at a rate never seen in human history. Schools that understand and deliver what families want and need will survive and thrive in the future; those that do not risk losing the critical mass of students they need to stay alive. This may not be the hand educators want, but it is the hand we have been dealt."Grant joins the pod to share his insights on how schools are evolving. One key takeaway: The pace of change is rapid and driven by market pressure and a deeper understanding of what students need to thrive in the complex world they'll inherit. A few resources mentioned in the episode:Dr. Ashley Poklar's blog postDesign 39 CampusIn Search of Deeper LearningGrant's booksMarie Kondō's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

We know the story: high school can be an emotional rollercoaster for some (or most or many or all…) students. What if we designed school with emotional and psychological health in mind? That's one of the questions gnawing at Janae Peters, Hawken teacher and member of the team designing the Mastery School. Janae returns to the pod to talk about the whys and hows of embedding social-emotional learning into the very fabric of school life. For more, read her most recent post, "How to Make a School Human and Humane."A few other mentions on the episode for those paying close attention:Pedro Noguera's research on Social-Emotional LearningThe teaching methods of The Korda Institute for TeachingThe Harvard Business Review article about strengths-based learning

On November 17, 200 or so people gathered at The Mastery School of Hawken's Open House. We thought it was a great time to take the pod out of the studio and record an episode in front of a live audience. Our topic: a deep dive into Macros -- the core building blocks of the academic program at the Mastery School of Hawken. Julia Hodges, Roze Kerr ‘21, Luke Kim ‘20, and Katie McGregor of United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Cleveland join the pod to detail how the Engineering Macro works and makes a difference in the lives of everyone involved.For a glimpse into the Engineering Macro, take a look at this short video.

In our final installment of our Meet the Team episodes, meet Nick Cheadle, Spanish teacher and intrepid traveler. Nick joined Hawken this fall and serves as a key member of the design team for the Mastery School of Hawken. Hear about his background and his vision for how students can learn about language, culture, and themselves.

No one knows for sure what the world of jobs will look like in ten, twenty, thirty years. We do know, though, the world of work is shifting profoundly. The question for schools is what educators should do about it.In a sobering but ultimately invigorating post, Rennie Greenfield writes, "Much of 21st century schooling is languishing in an outdated paradigm in desperate need of a revolution, and, if it does not evolve, the system will be guilty of dooming these students to the impending jobocalypse." In this episode, Rennie joined the pod to talk about his research and what it means for schools.We mention a few articles and videos that you might want to review:The Future of WorkSociety Is Changing What the Future of Work Will Be Like. Are You Prepared?What ReDesigning School Looks Like: The Story of Engineering

We're in the middle of a very heavy and very exciting lift. Not only are we opening a new school next fall, but we're also designing one that will use very different teaching methods and designs than most high schools. As we do this work, we think it's important that you to get to know the actual human beings at the heart of The Mastery School of Hawken.Next up: Janae Peters, Entrepreneurial Studies teacher and a key member of the design team for the Mastery School. Even as a kid, Janae wanted to be a teacher in part because she liked being a student. She seeks experiences that challenge her where, in her words, "it's hard, let's do it, let's learn, and then let's go." With a focus on equity, urgency, and empowerment, Janae Peters is a force for good. We're so glad she chose to join Hawken this fall.

It's a bit of a challenge to write an episode title for a conversation with Daniel Gray-Kontar, Executive Artistic Director of Twelve Literary Arts. This arts organization in historic Glenville on Cleveland's east side has a mission to bring "performance poetry to public spaces, while supporting poets and writers of all ages with youth programming, adult professional development, and brave spaces to dream, write, and teach into reality a world of social justice and equity." First, Daniel is brilliant, so the conversation ran wide and dug deep. Second, the stakes he outlines were so potent that no clever phrasing -- at least none we could think of -- could rightly capture the import of his work.In this episode, Julia and Terry were joined by Ambrose Faturoti, Hawken's Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Justice for Student Life and a member of the design team for The Mastery School of Hawken. They spoke with Daniel about the intersection of arts and social justice and so much more. To see Daniel and Twelve Literary Arts in action, check out these videos. Get ready to be inspired.

What's it like to design a school from the ground floor? Particularly a school that's built on massive paradigm shifts around teaching methods, assessment models, and more? Julia Griffin and Doris Korda of the Korda Institute for Teaching share their thoughts on where we are with the design of The Mastery School of Hawken, which opens in ten short months. We're exactly where we're supposed to be, they say. And that's a complicated and invigorating place.

We're in the middle of a very heavy and very exciting lift. Not only are we opening a new school next fall, but we're also designing one that will use very different teaching methods and designs than most high schools. As we do this work, we think it's important that you to get to know the actual human beings at the heart of The Mastery School of Hawken. Next up: Julia Hodges, Mathematics and Engineering teacher at Hawken and a key member of the Design Team for the Mastery School. Julia's years in the aerospace industry gives her perspective about how to design educational experiences that allow high school students to understand how mathematics and engineering work in the real world. If you want to see Julia's approach at work, check out this video about her Engineering class.

We're in the middle of a very heavy and very exciting lift. Not only are we opening a new school next fall, but we're also designing one that will use very different teaching methods and designs than most high schools. As we do this work, we think it's important that you to get to know the actual human beings at the heart of The Mastery School of Hawken. Next up: Ambrose Faturoti, Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Justice for Student Life. He's also a key member of the design team for the Mastery School whose work focuses on developing community partnerships with our Glenville and University Circle neighbors. Ambrose has a passion for connecting people and communities. "We have a really important opportunity with young people who, when they leave us are going to be leaders in whatever sectors they find themselves," he says. "I want to help students understand how to practice empathy." He also has a flaw, however, which he reveals towards the end of the episode...

If math is a language, most of us learn it as if it's a dead one, calcified and inscrutable. Some teachers, though, use methods and approaches that make math sing. Hawken teachers Dr. Chris Harrow and Zack Kordeleski join the podcast to discuss how they design opportunities for students of all abilities to discover and fall in love with the magic and beauty of mathematics. They also describe what excites them about how The Mastery School of Hawken might take these ideas to scale.

"Everything about the way we structure school communicates that failure is the opposite of success," writes Julia Hodges in The 'F' Word. "You either pass a class or you fail a class; and that pass/fail determination is made on a rigid timeline and leaves a permanent mark.... According the rules of school, failure is to be avoided at all costs."In the real world, though, failure is the genesis of success and a natural part of creativity and problem-solving. " Outside of school," Julia notes, "failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of the process."What better way to start Season Two of the ReDesigning School podcast than an eyes-wide open examination of this failure to understand failure? Julia is a Hawken teacher and member of the design team shaping The Mastery School of Hawken. She also teaches a Macro course in Engineering that seeks, in part, to reframe failure so that students come to see it as an essential and even welcomed aspect of making something that matters. Take a look at the short video about the Rocket Science class Julia mentions. It's worth the minute, we swear!Thanks as always to Nick Fletcher for editing this episode.

In our summer series of episodes, we want you to meet the actual human beings at the heart of The Mastery School of Hawken. Third up: Zack Kordeleski, lover of all kinds of games, physics and mathematics teacher at Hawken, and a key member of the Mastery School's design team. Zack has been thinking about ways to redesign school since he was a kid when school left him uninspired and bored. Now, as a teacher, he's inspired and engaged with re-imagining school based on a series of basic principles: purpose, curiosity, and intellectual intersections such as the one between physics and philosophy that fascinates him. If you want to see Zack and the other Mastery School teachers in action, watch here!

In our summer series of episodes, we want you to meet the actual human beings at the heart of The Mastery School of Hawken. Second up: Katie Zielinski, architecture teacher at Hawken and a key member of the Mastery School's design team. Katie brings years of professional experience as an architect and a vision for how to use design principles to invigorate educational experiences for students at The Mastery School and beyond.

In our summer series of episodes, we want you to meet the actual human beings at the heart of The Mastery School of Hawken. First up: Dan O'Connor, Humanities teacher at Hawken and a key member of the Mastery School's design team. Dan has written some of our most popular blogs, including Teachers are Furniture and Lessons from a Dinosaur-Shaped Taco Holder. He has a lot to say about education -- his own and the one he envisions for students at The Mastery School of Hawken.

We're not alone! Not by a long shot. Educators around the world are immersed in rethinking what, how and why we teach and students learn. One school that's starting from scratch is The Revolution School in Philadelphia, a new high school with a mission "to inspire a diverse group of learners, thinkers, and doers to be active and reflective problem-solvers, who are bold and empathetic with academic and emotional resilience."Co-hosts Terry Dubow and Julia Griffin spoke with Noelle Kellich, Head of Teaching and Learning, and Tom McManus, Head of Mission, about the Revolution School's origin, mission, hopes, and worries. As they note on the website, "It’s not every day that a school gets the chance to build its curriculum from the ground up. With Revolution School, we are fortunate to be able to take a principled approach based on current research in education from around the globe."Also, if you're interested in reading the story about the legendary Polish Boy sandwich that Terry mentions, take a look!

When you need a soon-to-be doctor of Computer Science and Cognitive Science to confirm what experience has taught you, it’s nice to know one as kind and astute as Vasanth Sarathy. A doctoral candidate at Tufts University, Sarathy has conducted several research studies on the value of real-world problem solving. One of them caught the eye of Julia Griffin and Terry Dubow, who invited him to share his research and insights. It turns out that neuroscience can tell us a lot about the value of using unscripted and authentic problems to propel student learning. If you want to learn more about Sarathy’s research, watch his TED talk and read the article in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience that started this conversation.

Google started as a search engine in 1998 and now is an Alphabet valued at three-quarters of a trillion dollars. In between those two moments in time, it transitioned from a mere idea to one of the most profound and disruptive technologies in the history of the human race. What could schools learn from this kind of evolution? A lot, it turns out. In this episode of the pod, Terry Dubow and Julia Griffin interview John Schirm, Compensation Manager at Google, to learn more about how Google created a culture that values growth, psychological safety, and collaboration. We also hear a bit of a defense of liberal arts colleges and just how amazing lunchtime is on the Google campus.Thanks as always to Nick Fletcher and Rennie Greenfield for their technical support.

It’s hard to think of a field that demands more content acquisition than medicine, so what to make of medical schools that train doctors using problems not tests? Dr. Neil Mehta, Associate Dean for Curricular Affairs of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, joined Terry Dubow and Julia Griffin on the pod to discuss the paradigm shift that has altered the way that he and his colleagues prepare our future doctors. They started with a simple and profound question: “What are the competencies that make a good physician?” The answers surprised them and changed everything.

Every one of our graduates eventually becomes someone else's employee. As we redesign school, how much should we take into account the world of work our students will enter? You could make the argument that the model of today's school was designed to create and sort labor pools for industries -- many of which have changed profoundly or even disappeared. (Truth in advertising: we make that precise argument at The Mastery School of Hawken...). Should we now design school around the needs of Google or the local wind turbine manufacturer? In this episode Terry Dubow and Julia Griffin chew on this topic with the help of Sarah Pearson, Product Support Manager at Google and Hawken alum, who sheds some light on the world of work. She also shares her ideas about what schools should and shouldn't do to prepare students.If you're interested in seeing the video that Julia references, click here. You might also be interested in this piece about how some employers are opting out of asking where or whether applicants went to college...

If you haven't heard, we're designing a new school. The Mastery School of Hawken is a new high school in Cleveland’s University Circle designed with students and the future in mind. We’ll welcome our founding class in August 2020. In this episode, Julia Griffin changed hats and sat down for an interview in her new role of the Director of the Mastery School of Hawken. Scott Looney, Head of Hawken School, joined Terry Dubow to dig into the why and the what and the how of this new venture. If you're at all interested in what the future of school might look like, you'll want to download this one...

When students hear there's a project coming their way, they don't always jump for joy. And yet we know that projects are some of the best tools we have for helping students achieve enduring and deep learning. In this episode of Redesigning School, Terry Dubow and Julia Griffin work on their own project: How to Make Project-Based Learning Work.They're joined by Doris Korda, former Associate Head of School at Hawken, who was the principal architect of Hawken Entrepreneurship program and the signature MACRO courses, as well as a critical coach/designer with the Hawken faculty of many of the Intensive courses. Doris' curriculum is the foundation of the educational and instructional framework of the Mastery School. She is working with the leadership and faculty at Hawken to design the school's curriculum, and is training and coaching teachers in how to bring this transformational teaching method to the Mastery School's classrooms.Thanks to Rennie Greenfield and Nick Fletcher for their production help!

Does your school feel like it should rebrand itself as Suffering Academy? When kids are young, play is an essential part of learning, but then something happens that converts play and its black sheep cousin fun with something antithetical to the real work of a rigorous and challenging education. Why though?In this episode of Redesigning School, teachers and co-hosts Terry Dubow and Julia Griffin invite three of their colleagues at Hawken School to discuss the benefits of making school joyful again.Special thanks to Becca Marks, Lauren Coil-Sherck and Steve Weiskopf for joining the pod. And as always, thanks to Rennie Greenfield and Nick Fletcher for their production help!If you're interested to read some of the pieces mentioned in this episode, click away!Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed-Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students -- Denise Pope Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World -- Steven JohnsonThe Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human -- Jonathan GottschallFlow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience -- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Teachers and co-hosts Terry Dubow and Julia Griffin kick off the inaugural episode of the Redesigning School podcast with a conversation about the role grades play in a student's education and a teacher's vocation. Let's just say that it's a complicated relationship.A few references that we mention (or should have!) :"Letter Grades Deserve an F" -- Jessica Lahey The AtlanticMindset -- Carol DweckDrive -- Daniel Pink“Do School Better” podcast at Wildfire Education -- Doris KordaThe Secret of Effective Feedback -- Dylan Wiliam"Delaying the Grade: How to Get Students to Read Feedback" -- Kristy LoudenSpecial thanks to Rennie Greenfield and Nick Fletcher for their production help!

If you could start all over, how would you design high school? Hawken School asked a group of seniors precisely that. Actually, Julia Griffin and Head of School Scott Looney taught a three-week Intensive course in which students got a blank sheet of paper, a thorough download of current research, and a trip to the Bay Area so they could draw up a school designed with them and the future in mind. On this episode of Redesigning School, teachers and co-hosts Terry Dubow and Julia Griffin interview Scott and discuss the trip to California, the class, and what inspired it all. Special thanks to Rennie Greenfield and Nick Fletcher for their production help!