Educating for Innovation: the essential elements

The panel of experts we assembled in April from RPI, SUNY College of Engineering, Regeneron, Ohio State and Tech Valley High agreed on certain elements of education that promote innovation.  See what you think!   https://haikudeck.com/p/cQ6T0IwPud

Addicted to questioning

In a study of owls in K-1 the curiosity is palpable.  Is this owl alive?  How did it die? Why are the feathers so soft?  Why is it called a barred owl, or a horned owl?  How do the wings work?  Can I touch it?   The questions rule the day.  Observational drawings come next.  Students are developing the skill of noticing details. And asking even more questions.  And then the teacher brings out...the owl pellets...!

In this article in MindShift, How to Bring More Beautiful Questions Back to School, Katerina Schwartz  contends that after about age 5 or 6, questioning falls off.  Yet a questioning mind is a highly desired skill in any modern work place - it's the value added in the technology age.

For questioning minds to thrive, children need lots of time - not a curriculum that "covers" material. They need a culture that rewards intellectual risk-taking - not one that penalizes wrong answers.  

Schwatrz says, "Kids are lighting up their pleasure zones and getting dopamine hits every time they learn something that solves something they were curious about."  Sounds addictive!

Effective teachers set up a topic and trigger questioning - then find ways to follow where kids' curiosity takes them.  They allow for a deep dive into a juicy problem or topic.  What's the result? A classroom filled with knowledge addicts - confident kids who crave to question and to learn more.

Vera's drawing of the barred owl's wing

Dissecting owl pellets

What a K - 8 school does for a sixth grader

Here is a terrific article from NPR Ed, Sixth Grade is Tough; It Helps to be Top Dog, about the unique benefits of K - 8 schools. The article tells of a study of 90,000 students over time.  It examined how sixth graders did in  Grade 6 - 8 schools, vs  6 - 12 or K - 8 schools.  It turns out K - 8 schools were the difference makers and here is why.

Sixth graders are particularly vulnerable as social beings and being at the "bottom" of the pack as a 6th grader is really tough for them.  Bullying, social media meanness, and lagging academic performance is the rule when they are the "bottom dog".  But in a K - 8 environment, even if they are new in sixth grade, these students are right in the middle.  They feel connected and safer.  They can be leaders and role models for younger children and will take on intellectual challenges.

Our middle school kids (and alumni) tell it best: "I can be myself."  "I have confidence."  "I have a lot of say about what happens."  These are such important factors in the lives of our 12, 13 and 14 year-olds.  Coming out of middle school as a confident, passionate learner and a nice person seems like an impossible goal to reach if you look at the way many schools are organized today.  In a Pre K - 8 like Parker, it is not only possible, it's the norm.

Learning is a risky business

We all have a particular level of willingness to be pushed beyond our comfort zone.  I know that for me, after a lifetime of being pushed by others, I have developed a tolerance  - even relish - for diving into (some) unfamiliar things, despite knowing that I will feel uncomfortable.  The job of Head of School encompasses many of those every day!

We have just concluded two days together as a faculty, hiking in the woods and talking about the curriculum for the coming year and all the connections we will be making.  It is clear that students will be challenged every day to think in new ways and take intellectual, social and physical risks.  The idea is that when students try something they are perhaps uncertain about, they find they can do it, and they build increased confidence to try the next new thing.

One of our faculty activities was to answer two questions and share answers with several partners in quick succession: Why do you care enough to work at Parker?  and What moves you about Parker and its work?  The answers touched on common themes and we all felt inspired.

• We believe passionately in the school's mission.  
• We love the commitment to a fun, meaningful education that creates empathy and a close community.  
• The school values the child and the process of learning  - and that is marvelous and uncommon. 
• We embrace the natural world every day.  

What moves us?

• We have seen how the school changes kids' lives
• The school builds students' confidence and inspires them.
• Students like themselves and know that they are valued for who they are.
• Students and adults together have autonomy and are happy.
• By being intentional about it, the school builds children's belief and understanding that they can make a difference for others and the world.

Everyone at Parker tries the low ropes elements at some point.  This year, teachers tried negotiating the tires.  For me, it looked like fun, and I jumped right up.  For a few others, it looked scary, and they jumped in anyway.  A few decided to sit it out - maybe next time.  

I was reminded that each year, students have the same varied levels of tolerance that we did for trying out the tires.  The confidence that we witness as it develops in students, and that we see in every graduate, comes from the daily practice of trying new things in an atmosphere of support.  It is one of the ways that Parker moves all of us.

(I'm in the skirt...)

Promoting adventure

We have worked in the past with an amazing educator, Ron Berger, and his ideas permeate our school.  He was a teacher for many years in Massachusetts and is now chief education director at Expeditionary Learning (EL Education).  He taught us about the process of critique, of beautiful display of children's work, and of linking classroom learning to real problems and solutions outside of school - the purposeful action we talk about in our mission statement.

The roots of EL Education come from Outward Bound and one of the tenets is "Promoting Adventure" -  the kind that encompasses physical activities in the outdoors, and also the intellectual kind that can involve risk, challenge, and discovery.

EL promotes the kind of adventures that create opportunities for leadership and collaboration as groups of students and teachers face challenges together.  Together, students and adults discover they can do more that they thought was possible, and find aspects of themselves that they didn't know were there.       ~ EL Education Core Practice 30

I love the idea that Adventure is a school goal.  Here is a  Parker example: our STEM Week, where students must work as teams of engineers in a Space Tourism company, to research, design, and build rockets, while making promotional videos for their companies.  Students function like scientists and engineers do, and also entrepreneurs.  They have group goals and individual goals.  They tackle something that is relevant to their lives and is actually happening in the world outside of school.  They reflect on their work afterwards.

Their learning is an adventure.  It elicits students' enthusiasm, excitement, and motivation.  All the goals we have for learning: cooperation, research, critical thinking, creative thinking, and so many others are embodied in activities like this.

Adventure is what keeps kids craving more and is probably why Parker children love to come to school.  Here is a photo of some kind of summer adventure - a kind that can be categorized simply as "fun"!

What are kids learning?

What are kids learning in school?  Do we really know?  In his recent article, Most Parents Have No Idea What Their Kids Are Learning In School, Will Richardson, technology and education writer and thinker contemplates what a grade tells him (or not) about what his own children are learning in high school.  He wonders what is sticking with them from their school day that they will use in their lives to become more successful or fulfilled?

I asked this question today in our faculty meeting: How is the culture of the middle school right now? The math teacher piped up immediately, "We had a middle school meeting yesterday - and they are all good!  There are no social issues!"  We all laughed (because middle school life centers around social issues.)  The Health teacher chimed in, "I am talking with the kids about stress in their lives and they said the same thing.  Their friends are not stressors - their parents are! You know - bugging them to see their phones and getting too involved in their lives." Another chuckle from the faculty.

We tend to measure the subject-content of kids' learning - can they add detail to an essay or can they describe the water cycle?  At Parker, we actually do try to measure some of the traits of a successful learner - like the ability to take intellectual risks or work independently, or cooperatively.

But I'm not sure we let parents know the most crucial things, like does their child have a passion to achieve or are they purposeful?  Are they becoming better at negotiating social conflict?  Do they stand up for their beliefs?  Do we let parents know if their kids are measuring up to the school's motto?

Or  - are all of these the wrong things to report to parents because, really, as the kids say, parents are getting just too involved in their lives anyway!

The sound of gravitational waves

I am so excited!!!!  The report today in the New York Times of scientists hearing the sound of two black holes colliding a billion light-years away, that proves Einstein's theory of gravitational waves, is just phenomenal!

It took one hundred years, including 40 years of scientific exploration and $1.1 billion investment by the National Science Foundation, to test and prove what Einstein predicted in 1915.

Using two 2.5 mile long "antennas" ending with mirrors hung with glass threads, the LIGO team of physicists detected changes smaller than one ten-thousandth of the diameter of a proton.  And they recorded it.  So you can hear it.  That. is. amazing.

The questioning, striving and passion to continue this work over time; the dedication to an idea and the curiosity and determination to follow through; the serendipity, cooperation, invention and creativity of a team of physicists working together - it is the perfect example of what we are teaching our students to do and be.  Our school's mission  - our equation for education - is to inspire curiosity and a passion to achieve and to cultivate purposeful action. This equation has lead to exciting and wonderful achievements by so many of our graduates.

I love this phenomenal example of the quest to answer questions about the nature of the universe.  I hope you will be as inspired by it as I am!

Teen hearts and minds

Insights into the adolescent brain are always welcome.  It is both wonderful and challenging to be an adolescent and to teach and parent one, too.

This interview with Frances Jenson Why Teens Are Impulsive, Addiction-prone, and Should Protect Their Brains, gives great insight about what is actually going on inside the developing mind of an adolescent.  Her book, The Teenage Brain looks like a great read.  

What most interested me in the interview was the advice about using media.  Teens (and preteens) don't yet have the ability to stop doing an alluring activity when they need to.  For example, they want to keep their phones under their pillow at night - texting and responding to "pings" and not sleeping.

Fortunately our teens have us - their parents and teachers - to help them when their brains are not quite ready to.  It's up to us to take the phone away, to set the limits, to help them remember that they can cope with setbacks, and to give them opportunities to practice good decision making.

A few things I have noticed about middle school children is that they are passionate about ideas, embrace causes with all their hearts, and thrive when given real responsibilities.  They deeply desire to be part of a close community and to be known - and accepted - for themselves, and forgiven for the mistakes they inevitably make.

The photo above shows preschoolers helping our middle schoolers take out the recycling.  Being in the role of a nurturer is something that most teens absolutely love.  Within the embrace of a caring community, teens can take intellectual and emotional risks.  When they feel confident that adults around them will provide the stops that their own brains can't, they are free to test limits within the bounds of safety.

School is a lot like summer camp

When children are interested in learning for learning's sake, you know something is going right in their schooling.  Rewarding students for taking intellectual risks helps them develop a mastery mindset, where motivation and engagement are high, and performance anxiety is low.  Kind of like summer camp.

This article in Mind Shift, What Schools Can Learn from Summer Camps hits the mark on something I like to think about: how at Parker we try to make school a lot like camp.  Camp is fun and spirited.  Kids pick things they are interested in: rockets, outdoor survival, LEGO robotics, cool chemistry, or cartooning to name just a few.  They sing together and play in the woods.  They bond with friends and counselors.  They love camp!

At its best, school is like that, too.  Exciting and interesting - a place where you can take on something you're not sure you can do.  Friendships are forged in the throes of shared experiences, working out conflicts, and when teams figure out how to work together.  Students find out that taking a risk has huge rewards, whether they are successful or not.

At Parker, we are so fortunate that the natural elements are in place: the creeks and woods, the pond and meadows.  We have developed a program that turns those features into benefits: capitalizing on the natural world to help children develop their tolerance for risk-taking, life-long curiosity and the courage and confidence to explore.