Extreme Project Makeover: The Big Reveal

As the bus pulls away and the beleaguered family sees their new home for the first time, invariably the tears start streaming down the faces of all involved. From the tirelessly working mom who never thought she would catch a break to the volunteer who finally felt he had done something worthy with his time, the feeling of fulfillment is a human need not to be denied and is often greeted with a rush of emotion. The Global Action Project Symposium on May 15th, 2012 was no different. At 8:45pm on a day that included a full day of class, coaching a playoff lacrosse game and now two hours of presentations, I was as surprised as anyone else when my eyes welled up with tears listening to a student talk about her hero Malalai Joya, an Afghani political activist, and how her social enterprise was created to be a refuge for women in that embattled nation to seek safety and eventually become independent. She eloquently described how her organization, appropriately called Newstart, was not concerned with immediate scalability, but their strength was through “The women we reach, the women they reach, the children they teach.” She and her partner had truly learned the lessons we worked on throughout the year about the success rates of grassroots organizations, about the plight of women detailed in Nicholas Kristof’s Half the Sky as well as the concepts of sustainability. As I listened to her work and her infectious enthusiasm, I allowed myself to think that she may launch something like this someday.

And so the makeover of The Sudan Project was complete. Instead of just focusing on the plight of the Sudanese, we expanded our worldview with an emphasis on the plight of women, examined our own personal causes (even writing a mission statement), learned about social enterprise with Jacqueline Novogratz and strengthened our work with documentary filmmaking. The students bought in 100%. Whether it was the variety, the personal element, or the empowering feeling, their enthusiasm rarely waned throughout the year. The constant interjections of what others were doing around the world gave them hope where the inundation of the Sudan information for an entire year truly weighed down the students in past years. The problem in Sudan is just so big and so profound that it was hard to be optimistic.

While project-based learning remains a minor form of torture for a Type-A teacher, there was no doubt of the student investment the afternoon before the final symposium. As one group was practicing in the presentation room, there were groups scattered throughout the halls practicing, talking, coaching, negotiating. Making sure that their ideas were clearly communicated to the audience mattered to them. Our Assistant Head of School made an interesting comment to me later; he said he knew the work was authentic because while there were good presentations, there were others that needed revision and polish. He said this was clearly a sign that even though I tried to guide the groups, the final decisions were truly their own. Four years in to the Sudan Project, the Cuba Project and now the Global Action Project, I still get nervous when the students present to a wider audience, but each time, it reaffirms my belief that this experience is so much more valuable to them than most others we provide in a traditional school setting.

Moving forward, I am fortunate enough to teach this class again next year and we need to be better. I want to be more mindful in my implementation of design thinking skills from the beginning of our work together. Students do not like process and they certainly don’t want to be patient enough to work through stages such as inspiration, ideation, iteration and implementation. I don’t blame them; in a world where they have a million assignments to keep track of, sports practice, play rehearsal and tutoring sessions, there is no time to give to thinking in any form, more less something as divergent as design thinking. Students commented that when we did use this process, it felt like a waste of time; I noticed that with few exceptions, students kept one of the first ideas they had and then worked around any weaknesses rather than reinvent or even revise. Additionally, I hope to use the community better. Our business plans were weak because their teacher knows very little about business, but there are plenty of people in the community that can help. Additionally, I hope to get our feet on the ground and see some of the work people in the St. Louis area are doing. The more people I can put in front of the students the better for everyone.

So as Ty Pennington and his crew pull out of town each week, they leave many happy people in their wake and know they are off to have the same experience with a new group in a new place. School years are the same in many of ways: there are new groups in your room and new personalities to learn, but the work continues to be meaningful for all participants. That seems to happen when you know you are building something together.




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For the Love of TED

Like many people, I have become enamored with TED Talks and try to share that passion with my students when possible. I had the great fortune of attending a TEDx event last year and that has only fueled my desire to visit the mother ship…a “real” TED Conference. Naively, I thought I could use some professional development funds and head on my way to total intellectual indulgence. My discovery of the price of tickets was a blast back to reality: this was definitely not in the budget. But all was not lost when I discovered that TED was looking to tailor some of their talks to the education world and wanted ten educators to pioneer the way. Now, I am certainly not claiming to have anything brilliant to say, but I just had to try as this would by my only way to TED. Despite the outcome, the process alone has been enriching. The first challenge is to determine what you have to say to such a crowd: a TED audience that can afford such high ticket prices as well as a teachers and students. (Your talk is to focus on something that can be used in the classroom by teachers as a help to a lesson they are presenting to their class.) Talk about a lesson on audience! Secondly there is the internal fight in your brain that battles between how cool it would be to be selected and the doubt that creeps in about why would anyone want to hear you talk unless a grade is attached and attendance is enforced. But despite these hesitations, I pushed forth and made a video. This, too, guaranteed humility. I videoed my class without their knowledge and those students who I thought were so attentive were up to some serious high-jinx when I wasn’t looking. Additionally, there is the usual cringing that comes along when watching yourself on tape and the ubiquitous words such as “so” or “right?” when checking for understanding. Please note, it did not take long for me to discover that I never waited for an answer when I said, “right?” I simply nodded to myself and proceeded with my lesson. Finally, there was the introduction of the video where I desperately tried to communicate my passion and focus directly to the camera lens and I realized that without audience, I am nothing. Probably the biggest thought I take away from this experience is that the teachers I like to work with think like me and realize that we are not the definitive experts on anything. We are good listeners and observers who weave together information, thoughts and ideas we have gathered over the years in order to create an experience for our students that we hope is meaningful: our audience.

I'll Take a Risk

I suppose this is an exercise in mimetic teaching: my act of teaching this class actually mimics the process, stress, uncertainty and risk I am asking my students to take later this year. In addition, I have to convince them to stay patient and come along for the ride while the vision of our class develops. Needless to say, this is highly uncomfortable for my inner-German.

My new class is called the Global Action Project and it is a year-long endeavor to teach students how to be social entrepreneurs. We weave the elements of social awareness, leadership, business principles, documentary filmmaking, public speaking, and leadership throughout three trimesters culminating in students designing and publicly sharing their enterprises to a board of adults from our community: terrifying.

This is my first true attempt at PBL and I went all-in. I am trying to give the students choices early on with various assessments to allow them to get used to so much academic freedom. Our school, like many, simply does not have the processes in place to allow students to make choices, though I am thrilled to report we are moving more and more in the right direction on this, recognizing the power of differentiation. My colleagues have truly come to realize that the old model of “you have to do it this way because all students before you have done it this way” is on the way out and in this digital age, students will be able to find a place for themselves where they can use their strengths.

So where are we the first week of September? For the most part, I think students were hooked with the summer reading (a choice between Sold, A Long Way Gone, The Bookseller of Kabul or The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind). They were asked to research an issue raised in the book and determine if the author fairly represented that issue. We have started our work with documentaries and examined our preconceived notion that documentaries are always “true” and unbiased. The students are working on their first film, a 5x5 project inspired by Dean Shareski. At the same time, we are four chapters into The Blue Sweater, studying Jacqueline Novogratz’s personal experience and looking at themes of leadership as well as the challenges presented by working in the Developing World. And today, we start Me to We in an effort for students to start searching for their own passion.

While is seems like we are making progress, the discomfort and uneasiness remains. It all fits together in my head, but that doesn’t mean the dots connect in theirs. As with many classes, I have some eager folks and some reticent ones. Some of my colleagues who I have shared my doubts with remind me that the first year of any course can be difficult and it will always get better the second year. This is too important to me to take that risk. I have 19 students in here that have the chance to make this a better world. So I try to calm my nerves by reading the poem over my desk. It was written by a third grader (years ago) from the Laurel School.

Help Out!
Be the one.
Be in charge.
Take a risk.
Be a peacemaker.
Help out.
Be nice to the poor.
Because I believe in you.
You can do it.
But what about me?
Me Rebecca Allen?
Well.
I’ll be the one.
I’ll be in charge.
I’ll take a risk.
I’ll be a peacemaker.
I’ll help out.
I’ll be nice to the poor.
Because I can do it.
I believe in myself.
I’m a super helper.
And I will save the world with my super goodness.
Global actionproject

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W, the Blog Post

Not sure I ever anticipated writing a blog post inspired by an AARP article and even more alarming, an interview with George W. Bush. Having spent quite a few days at my parents’ house over the holidays, reading material can be limited: Missouri Conservationist, AOPA (for pilots) and the AARP magazine are a few of the titles available. So the interview with George W. Bush beckoned as I was reading it on the heels of reading George Packer’s review of Decision Points. There was one theme that was consistent throughout the interview and the review that struck me, when asked about reinvention in the AARP interview, the former president responded: “It's a word that doesn't fit into my vocabulary. Reinvention means you're kind of re-creating somebody. Well, I'm the same person, in terms of values. My priorities — my faith, my family, my friends, the values of personal responsibility and universality of freedom, and ‘to whom much is given, much is required’ — haven't changed.” The phrase “haven’t changed” is alarming to me. Shouldn’t we all change, evolve, learn and grow?

More concerning is this continued lack of regret. Politics aside, all self-reflective people have regrets. They don’t need to keep you up at night, but it is simply part of the process of looking back on something and wanting to do it differently or better. Packer points out, “Bush once told an elementary-school class in Crawford, Texas, ‘Is it hard to make decisions as president? Not really. If you know what you believe, decisions come pretty easy. If you’re one of these types of people that are always trying to figure out which way the wind is blowing, decision making can be difficult. But I find that I know who I am. I know what I believe in.’” So the former president simply made decisions as defined by who he was? That leads to the question of how much time did he spend reflecting on his own beliefs: according to many, not much. All of this is a complicated and way too long justification for self-reflection (a perfect theme as the New Year approaches) on the part of teachers and students. But even more a challenge to us as educators to helps students learn the process of reflection. I fear we are producing a generation, like our former president, of students who move forward at a break-neck speed with little pause for reflection.

As we start our blogging project for the second year, I find myself constantly asking students to write with more of their own voice. I tell them I can find magazines and websites that will tell me about their topics, the value of their blog is that I can hear their thoughts on these sundry topics. I realize that most of them will not turn into Tavi Gevinson, the 14 year-old fashion blogger who is now being invited to sit in the front row of many a runway, but I hope for my students the same self-awareness that Tavi is developing: expressing her thoughts and developing her own views. In her article “Tavi Says,” Lizzie Widdicombe describes how the young blogger “has turned down offers to appear on ‘Oprah,’ the ‘Tonight Show,’ and morning news shows. ‘It’s so cheesy,’ she said. ‘The Good Morning America’ audience—I guess that’s just not a crowd whose eyes I want on me.’” This is the self-awareness I hope for others and a focus on what she views as important. When I say these things to my students, many look at me shocked: who would want to hear their voice? And thus begins the process of reflection and even regret. I want them to think about what is valuable in their voice and I want them to realize that once something is put down, it can be revised, improved, completely overhauled. This is the value of our work in the classroom and our imperative as educators. Our future president needs us.image by macropoulos

TEDxYSE Made My Head Hurt: In a Good Way

As we sat in the darkened auditorium at Sidwell Friends School, a young woman looking younger than her 17 years approached us and simply said, “Hi, my name is Heather. I will be speaking today and I wanted to give you a copy of my work.” With that she returned to her seat and we were left to wonder who Heather was and what she would speak about. We had no idea that her speech would be so compelling and her story so heart wrenching and hopeful all at the same time. This was clearly the power of TED.

While I had seen TED Talks online, attending an actual event is an entirely different story: you can see the care the organizers take to make sure that all of the pieces fit together, the emcee is compelling and the speakers hold together to create a day-long narrative. But more specifically, I was fascinated by the TED Talk format. It seems to be such a useful exercise for all of us, especially students, to have to conceptualize what we want to say, communicate it, oftentimes with fairly abstract images, and weave a compelling tale in such a short period of time. As most of the presenters were under the age of 25 years old, I was truly impressed with the polish of their talks and it made me think of Christian Long's project with his 10th graders last year.

But I was even more struck by their courage to share their passion so publicly. Heather was an abused child who survived the foster care system and was adopted. She now spends her time writing stories for other children in her same situation in an effort to offer them hope in addition to providing gifts for them during the holidays and even more inspirational, creating scrapbooks with foster children to help them start building new memories. I had lunch with Rebecca Kantar and her family. Rebecca is a founding member of Minga, a group of teenagers working to fight sexual exploitation. This is just the beginning of her ideas; at lunch, the descriptions of the projects she is working on, while being a freshman at Harvard, are staggering.

So in addition to being in awe of Heather, Rebecca and the many others who spoke on Saturday, I can’t help but think that much of their ability to take action does have to do with technology and our relatively new ability to be interconnected globally. These social entrepreneurs have let nothing stand in the way of their passion to help others and they have all brilliantly harnessed the power of technology to further their work.

So I left with my head spinning, knowing that I needed to keep looking for ways to make what we do in the classroom real for my students; giving them real problems to solve and real responsibilities in their own learning process. I left with the metaphor that Rebecca began her talk with: “Leadership is like eating a cupcake: it gets messy but has so much to offer.” Not only do I need to be willing to take the risks of leadership, I need to help my students to do so as well.

Building a Growth Mindset

The presentation started with a slide of a baby sporting a Harley headrag and smoking pot. The speaker says, “Baby’s aren’t born non-learners; they aren’t born with a fixed mindset.” A powerful image to support Carol Dweck’s 45-minute argument that we have the power to help all students move or maintain a growth mindset and it is incumbent upon us as educators to make sure that our classrooms are places carefully constructed to nurture that thinking. Enter, The Architecture of Learning by Kevin D. Washburn. While Dweck clearly outlines why and what we should encourage in young people, Washburn gives a detailed blueprint on how to create that in the classroom.

One of the elements of Washburn’s work that I find most compelling is his insistence that we are more intentional in anchoring students’ learning in what they already know. He states, “As stimuli enter the brain, neural networks search for patterns. When patterns are recognized, the brain recalls relevant prior experiences and merges new stimuli with known concepts to construct meaning and understanding” (91). While I think Elementary level teachers base their practice on this strategy, something happens on the way to high school where we just assume that students will either do this for themselves or it is no longer necessary for these connections to exist in order for them to comprehend the material. We would be fools to think that students would naturally make connections in their mind between something they already know and Shakespeare. I think this is also how our students fall into fixed mindsets. Without the understanding that they can build new pathways in their brains by connecting to things they already know, many students see things in a fixed manner: something is already determined.

Dweck explained a study she and her colleagues completed which monitored brain function in students as they took a test, got the results and were shown the correct answers. Her research showed that fixed mindset students stopped paying attention once the grade was displayed; growth mindset students stayed focused through the grade to find out the correct answers. Often as she is talking to students about nurturing a growth mindset she tells them, “you are growing neurons.” Washburn cites James E. Zull on the same topic; “We cannot understand anything unless we create internal neuronal networks that reflect some set of physical relationships that accurately map the relationships in the concept” (37). We need to help students build those networks and students need to understand the process of their learning. The Architecture of Learning outlines these steps: “Experience provides the new data that will be used to construct new knowledge. Comprehension provides the content and structure of the developing knowledge. Elaboration emphasizes the organization of component of comprehension by relating similar previous experiences. Application engages the brain in recall of the labeled and sorted data” (33).

Supporting a growth mindset is about praising effort and process. Washburn provides the perfect framework for educators to build experiences for students where they can struggle, deal with confusion, work towards a goal and be passionate about their work: “Authentic learning requires a motivated learner” (45). Authentic learning is a growth mindset.

Challenging Preconceived Notions: Differentiation and Assessment

I am the product of Duepner and Mittler and if you were to apply all stereotypes and generalities about the descendants of such strong German lines, you wouldn’t be too far off base judging me. My colleagues have asked me to apply or restrain my “Inner German” in various circumstances and, with all things, it hinders or aides from time to time. My recent week of examining assessment with Dean Shareski, Andrew Churches and completing the book by Rick Wormeli, Fair Isn’t Always Equal, has challenged my “Inner German” more than the competition in the World Cup’s Group D.

Andrew Churches and Dean Shareski both mentioned in their sessions that grading is one of the most polarizing conversations you could have with a group of teachers. It seems that we all have a preconceived idea of what grading should be (Churches suggests that is almost solely based in how we were graded) and we rarely move too far away from our model. Well, my immersion in this topic may be just enough to get me to move away from some of my previously strongly held beliefs.

The first issue will seem completely obvious to folks and I boldly am professing my ignorance as an educator. It is the premise that grading and assessment need to reflect mastery. It seems that discussions of this sort always lend themselves to sports analogies, but while my teams are judged by their win and loss record, the final destination is the State tournament and we will be remembered for our performance there. If we lose a few games along the way, it is very clearly wiped cleaned by our exhibition of mastery in the final contest and a resulting championship. Wormeli says “ In differentiated classrooms we grade on a trend, emphasizing patterns of progress over time. We don’t hold a student’s past performances against him or her” (159). This is a challenge to my thinking because it removes the absolute of what the numbers declare. Wormeli suggests that the solution is trusting ourselves as educators and professionals to assess the progress of our students. My fear with this thinking is that it will take the rigor out of the classroom. But Wormeli and others argue that it will allow you to push your students further in the pursuit of mastery and that the use of well-constructed rubrics are a huge help as well. So now I examine grades not as a reflection of your behavior as a citizen of our classroom and your ability to produce certain results on a certain day, but as a reflection of each students trend toward mastery.

Here are a few other topics that came up:
· Don’t penalize for late work
· Don’t ever put in a zero
· Don’t offer extra credit
· Don’t penalize grades for absences or behavior issues
· Don’t grade homework
· Do tier assessments
· Do engage students’ creativity and problem solving skills: climb higher on Bloom’s Taxonomy
· Do allow students the freedom of choice
· Do create better assessment tools
· Do give lots of formative assessment opportunities followed by “Knowledge of Correct Results with Specific Actions to Reduce the Gap” (Churches)
· Do have students spend time reflecting on their own progress as learners

Each of these has a much longer explanation with plenty of research to support it and are not all as alarming as they may seem. But the bottom line for me is that it has forced me to be a “Reflective Practitioner,” as Dean Shareski mentioned, and truly ask myself why I grade, what I grade, how I grade and what is truly the best for judging mastery and helping students understand themselves as learners.