Catlin Gabel Update 10:30 AM: Shopping and Cooking
January 25, 2018In one morning, can students learn about how food is cooked, the value of money, and how to take care of their own basic food needs? This is a start. This morning the 8th graders were given the ingredients and a recipe for how to make dough; the room is a bit of a mess…
Catlin Gabel Upate at 9:30 AM
January 25, 2018I have NO idea what is going to happen with a bunch of 6th graders start cold-calling business to solicit donations in support of a refugee family in a couple of hours. Look at the list they kids brainstormed. Will they even get through to a real person? Will that person believe the pitch that…
MIcro-blogging today from Catlin Gabel Middle School!
January 25, 2018For the next two days I am at Catlin Gabel School in Portland where the middle school is in a pilot week of “re-imagining” school. I set out their agenda for the week in my last blog, and people around the country are following on Twitter at #edlabcgs. Join! And remember; all of the themes…
Track Catlin Gabel School Pilots This Week
January 22, 2018If you or your school is re-thinking what learning can look like in the future, I URGE you to follow along as grades 6-8 at Catlin Gabel School pilot a week that they have been co-designing with their students all fall. Follow on Twitter at #Edlabcgs, and, later in the week on my blog as…
A Few Numbers That Prompt Us to “Ditch the Auto Pilot”
January 19, 2018Sometimes numbers speak for themselves, so I am not going to write much commentary. In the most recent issue of Net Assets, the National Business Officer Association shared these tidbits, artifacts of our time. I don’t have the original source citations, but I very much trust our colleagues at NBOA, as well as these authoritative…
The “iGen” Generation is VERY Different
January 17, 2018One powerful indication of just how fast the world is moving: students in K-12 today may be VERY different than those of just 10-15 years ago. In her book iGen, Jean Twenge (HT to Andrea Fanjoy who is going to do a deeper review of this book, which I will share when she publishes it)…
What is the “Uber” or “Airbnb” Future of Schools?
January 10, 2018A dozen years ago just a tiny fraction of schools had started to transform in response to the realities of a rapidly changing world. Five years ago, we started to see powerful conversations and intentional, significant change at a much wider range of schools. Today we may be approaching the tipping point, at least in…
Another Powerful Sandbox: Building Remarkable Learning Partnerships In Your Community
January 5, 2018Is your school leveraging the incredible power of “learning in and with your community”? Are your students connected with “clients” in the business community? Are they working with city planners, non-profits, major businesses on authentic, real-world projects? Take one hour, join our free, face-to-face Sandbox next week, and learn from some of the best in…
A Great Book at the Nexus of Big, Hairy Problems and Interdisciplinary Learning
January 5, 2018What kind of choices will our students make when faced with big, hairy problems in their own lives, and for the world we leave them? Will they have the tools to make these choices based on sound information and reasoning? Will they repeat mistakes of the past, or will they learn from them? Will they…
What Must Our Children Learn? Part Three of Series on Ben Sasse’s “The Vanishing American Adult”
January 3, 2018The American experiment, which now seems so natural to us, is a thoroughly artificial device designed to counterbalance the natural impulses of group suspicions and hatreds. . . . This vast, artificial, trans-tribal construct is what our Founders aimed to achieve. And they understood that it can be achieved effectively only by intelligent schooling. (From E. D.…
An Apology
December 19, 2017Dear Friends and Colleagues, Last week I posted a blog after the Alabama special election. I have received some feedback that it was overly harsh and condemning of people and a region, and that some educators were so upset that I will probably no longer be in their circle of respect. To those who have…
The Asymmetry of Headwinds and Tailwinds
December 18, 2017When you are riding a bike and the wind is in your face, you think of little else other than, “when will I turn a corner and have the wind at my back?” When the wind is at your back, you tend to fairly quickly forget the boost you are being given. This is the…
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