I was a latecomer to the formal theories of education and learning; in my formative years I never read Dewey, Piaget, or Bloom. I am still convinced that I coined the term “problem-finding” one afternoon in 1985 as I ran our two dogs on a sage-covered hillside; certainly I had never heard it used before [...]
One of my newfound PLN members from Hobsonville Point Secondary School in Auckland, New Zealand, Steve Mouldey, Tweeted a page from the introduction of my first book, The Falconer, the other day. It reminded me of a foundational assumption that I started constructing 30 years ago, and still believe in today: We are not teaching our [...]
Another set of truly generous endorsements from education thought leaders from K-12 and college, public and private, for #EdJourney: A Roadmap to the Future of Education. Thanks to all! Link here to announcement flyer; please share! "… on par with Horace’s Compromise, Theodore Sizer’s seminal 1984 descriptor of the failures of America’s high schools. [...]
Honored to announce that my new book will be available by the first of September! Link here to a two-page flyer with some very generous endorsements! I am in the process of sending out email announcements and starting to set up days/weeks to be in various parts of the country during the 2014-15 school year [...]
Do you want some outstanding, practical, “its already working for us at our school today” ideas for how to bust silos at your school? Read on! If we had gathered a roomful of educators three years ago and started talking about “silos”, the vast majority would have thought the topic was grain storage. In the [...]
Some of our true thought leaders and teaching colleagues are coming to Memphis in June to facilitate workshops at the Martin Institute Summer Conference, June 10-11. Last year's conference had 800 attendees from 21 states. Join these Martin Institute Fellows for affordable, accessible practices that you can immediately use to help transform your students' learning experience: [...]
I am honored and excited to have been asked to guest moderate the #isedchat Twitter chat this week as school leaders gather virtually on Thursday at 9 PM ET/6PM PT. Yes, the name implies this is an indy school chat, but we all know those artificial boundaries that separate public and private school educators are [...]
If I had to choose a single big lesson from my work of the last two years it is this: to transform our schools we need to do two things for our teachers: paint the picture of a truly student-centered learning experience, and then give them the resources to re-tool. Unlike most major professional learning [...]
Painting a picture of future success is always a critical step in creating an innovation pathway. In working with one of my client schools I suggested we outline some "signals of success" for August, 2015. In re-reading them, I find that they likely apply to almost any school that is developing a more nimble, connected, [...]
How long have I used the terms “vision” and “division” in schools and not seen both the linguistic and practical dissonance between the two? Schools craft vision statements that are often short, full of pithy words, and meant to coalesce a unique sense of the community’s priorities and direction. In my experience with many schools, [...]