If you want to fill up 12 sheets on yellow pad with detailed notes and your head with great ideas for how to elevate student engagement, spend three hours at Mt. Vernon Presbyterian in Atlanta. I was warned ahead of time that Head Dr. Brett Jacobsen would direct a fire hose at me, but I [...]
Two indicators that a school visit was overwhelming in terms of important lessons to share: 1) in going back over the camera roll I realized I was so busy I forgot to take but a couple of photos; I really apologize, since the Lovett School campus is gorgeous; 2) I almost got tired just reading [...]
We all know that turning an aircraft carrier is harder than turning a speedboat, but even large ships do turn, and they do so with someone calling the instructions, and a lot of critical pieces in the mechanics. With 2,700 students, Woodward Academy is one of the largest independent schools in the United States, the [...]
Many schools like to say that their best teachers are “rock stars”. Well, unless you are Christ Church Episcopal School in Greeneville, I think you need to reset the hyperbole meter. More on that at the end of the post. I saw important focus on student reflection, systems thinking, and student-led project work here, along [...]
History drips from Porter Gaud School like Spanish moss from the trees. Fort Sumter lies just across the salt marsh and a short stretch of the harbor. An old cannon from the Civil War era Federal armory sits on a pedestal. A visitor hears the story of how Dr. Porter, a Confederate, saved the life [...]
A week or so ago I posted on my visit with Pam Moran and the senior admin team of Albermarle County Public Schools. I mentioned a very clear figure they showed me that they use to articulate the "sweet spot" we are aiming for when we use the (dreaded) term 21C skills. With thanks, their [...]
Here is a sign of the times: in a meeting with about 14 senior administrators yesterday, the ink in my pen ran out. (I can still write faster on a yellow pad than I can type.) I asked for someone to lend me a pen. One person, Paul Ibsen, the business officer had one. No [...]
When I planned this journey I envisioned visiting schools with a range of attitudes and ideas about educational innovation. Not all schools believe that change is needed in order to enhance their value proposition, at least in the short term. That is not bad; markets, demographics, and local attitudes regarding both public and private education [...]
Ian Kelleher, Science Dept. Chair at St. Andrew's Episcopal in Potomac sent me this and I think it is very worth sharing, with Ian's approval. It is a template for a faculty poster conference, the second I have heard of on this trip (in addition to the big one next month with Albermarle County Public [...]
This post is about a school were the first teacher of the day states “We approach everything with the view of children as powerful knowledge creators”. It is about a school where, unprompted, a 5th grade boy tells me that Bloom’s Taxonomy is incorrect, that you don’t need to learn basic information in order to [...]