Your School Can Too

You can watch the video below from Iolani School in Hawaii, and in the first 30 seconds your response might be:

• We are not a wealthy private school.
• We don’t get to hand pick our students.
• We don’t have millions of dollars for this kind of facility.
• We don’t have alumni like Apple guru Guy Kawasaki.
• Where are the humanities in all of this “making”?

Or, you can watch this video and look beyond all of that. You can think about the rapidly rising tide of public, private, and charter schools like Vista Innovation Design Academy, Bayside STEAM Elementary, Design Lab Early College High School, Science Leadership Academy, Holy Family, Design 39 Campus and hundreds more that have NONE of those advantages, that have managed to capture the essence of the video, not the trappings, using critical resources  like creativity, courageous leadership, duct tape and cardboard, flexible mindsets, feet to walk beyond the classroom, and trust.

You might gather your teachers and students at the start the year to watch this video, and prompt them to observe, record, share, and discuss:

• What do we see, hear, and feel in this video?
• What elements of this ethos and pedagogy might we adopt at our school and in our classrooms?
• What lies at the heart of this kind of learning?
• How might we replicate this experience with the resources in OUR community?

I promise you that this tidal wave of deeper learning is real and is taking place in schools and communities just like yours, all over the country and around the world. I get to share a few of these stories with you in my new book, Moving the Rock.  And the big lesson is: stop finding reasons your school can’t, and just do it!