Week Three Reflections

I made it to the Atlantic.

Top Ten Pieces of Advice for Anyone Else Thinking of Leaving Home for 12 Weeks to Drive All Over and Stay in Cheap Hotels and Eat Bad Restaurant Food:

1. Don’t; you must be crazy
2. Sometimes crazy is what needs to be done
3. Don’t really need more

Things I Find Myself Repeating

1. What if all or most walls and vertical surfaces in classrooms were writable white-board paint?  Incredible change to the learning dynamic.  Rather than students sitting with their hands up waiting to be called on one at a time and maybe putting their thought out there once or twice a period, everyone is answering, sharing, and looking at others’ thoughts all the time!  Cheap, easy.  Why not pilot a couple of classes like this right now?
2. If your team does not have enough time to collaborate, what if your schedule had just three daily blocks: Humanities, STEM, and Arts.  Teacher/subject ownership of small blocks of time kills flexibility and no pedagogical rationale for it.
3. 21C innovation is John Dewey.  Have not heard anyone argue otherwise. Have never heard anyone argue that Dewey was wrong. If A=B and B=C, then A=C. Will that realization help you overcome some inertia at your school.

Public school educators are pulled between their assessed job, which is to improve test scores, and their desire to teach higher-order skills.  Innovators like Bob Dillon, Eric Juli, Lyn Hilt, and Chris Lehman find ways to do both.  How is that for an A-Team? I nominate them to write the rules of American public education. J