McDowell County West Virginia in the
eastern United States in 2006 was the
fifth poorest County in the United
States of America there are over 3,000
counties in the United States and I
thought I would begin given the advice
of the wonderful students who have
organized this conference with something
more personal I had been drifting away
from that direction until they reminded
me in the last few days and I’d like to
share with you something I wrote about
ten years ago I was then the Upper
School Director of Berwick Academy in
South Berwick Maine a k-12 school not
unlike the international school of
Panama and similar in size and Bill
Clapp who was the math department chair
lacrosse coach and a wilderness educator
and I went to McDowell County with nine
high school students some of you have
probably read the Rocket Boys we’re
seeing the movie October Sky Homer
Hickam
he’s from McDowell County and went on to
work at NASA it’s a really amazing place
let me share this with you it’s about
3:00 in the afternoon on the first day
of spring break Saturday March 11th 2006
bill clap and I are in the front seats
of a 12 passenger van on route 52 a
winding old two-lane road in the
southern part of West Virginia between
the towns of blue field and Welch after
driving three hours from the airport in
Raleigh North North Carolina we are now
in the foothills of the Appalachian
Mountains we’re now coming into the
heart of Appalachia through nine high
school students sitting in three rows of
seats behind us but you wouldn’t know it
without turning around to check we’ve
been listening to music and talking and
telling stories and laughing for 200
miles now the radio is off and no one
says a word it will be this way for
close to 30 uncomfortable minutes
absolute silence everyone is looking out
the windows of the van left side and
right side it’s as if we are watching an
IMAX documentary
poverty small houses mountains rising up
behind them dot both sides of the road
some of the some of the homes have
extensive fire damage some appear to
have been flooded out numerous times
others are simply falling down
dilapidated crumbling and unsafe yards
are filled with old appliances
automobile parts and trash and our
students sitting behind us are not only
coming to grips with how awful all of
this is but they’re also beginning to
realize that people are living in these
houses though some of the homes are
completely destroyed and deserted the
majority are occupied we see the little
kids the babies the teenagers the moms
the elderly on the porches in the yards
walking along the sides of the road no
one in the van has any idea what to say
I’ve been to Appalachia before this is
what I was expecting I am happy that we
are seeing all this in the light of day
I am proud of our students for the way
they are taking all this in quietly and
uncomfortably I love them for it and I
am certain that our five days in
Appalachia together will be good ones
after a week of service there we came
back to continue with what I wrote I
asked our nine students Rachael Charlie
Kati Hannah
Xander Megan Shelby Megan Christian to
write about the trip I asked for one to
two short paragraphs in response to five
key questions about a two page
assignment extra curricular ungraded not
required most of the students wrote four
to five pages one wrote 10 pages they
wrote from their hearts about despair
responsibility love and community and
from their heads about politics and
economics and power and justice they
wrote about how the trip changed them
and about wanting to go back and lastly
at the end of this article and this was
written for the community of Berwick
Academy much like we write here at isp
for our parents and families arguably
the two most pure most sacred authentic
beautiful human motivations our
curiosity and love imagine if
high-school students were driven to
learn solely by their innate sense of
curiosity and essentially nothing else
imagine if all of us in our day-to-day
endeavors family schoolwork were always
guided by love and essentially nothing
else surely it has to be in the pureness
and simplicity of these two motivations
that education is most transformative I
wrote that 10 years ago for the better
part of the last 20 plus years I have
worked in a high school as a teacher as
a principal and I considered a great
privilege and honor to be a principal of
this school as a college counselor as an
advisor as a coach I’ve talked to kids
I’ve talked to parents I’ve talked to
teachers I’ve observed what happens in
classrooms I’ve guided what happens in
classrooms I’ve read all the research
I’ve studied education and
organizational leadership and management
at University of Washington at the
University of New Hampshire and at
Harvard I’ve read everything I can all
the way back to Socrates and Plato John
Pinette John Dewey
Diane Ravitch Deb Meyer I’ve been paying
attention I have been focused on high
school and what it is for quite some
time I say that because I desperately
hope you will consider what I have to
say and as a disclaimer I am NOT selling
a book there is no website I’m sending
to you there is no software program I am
not running for an office of any sort
back in my home country of the United
States I am neither registered in the
democratic or republican party I’m
proudly unaffiliated I vote every chance
that I have so please consider what I
have to say what I believe is that depth
compassion and ideation are absolutely
core all three necessary and arguably
the three sufficient to transforming
secondary education as we know it and
although I’ve mostly studied the system
in the United States most of what we do
around the world and I’ve visited many
schools within the US and outside or
following a similar model these are the
keys to transforming it and it needs to
be transformed critically and I believe
slightly biased as a high school
educator that its core at a time when
young people go from being kids to young
adults that we have to get this right we
absolutely positively have to the
current model of secondary education the
one that we use at isp the one that we
almost all schools the United States use
in almost all schools throughout the
world use is over a hundred years old it
was designed in various places in
various times but in the United States
it was designed for efficiency and for
scale at a time when we knew almost
nothing about how the brain works or
about teaching and learning that is a
fact
what educators and politicians and
others will argue about is whether or
not it’s still a good system I sadly
enough believe it’s a horrible system
and what I find incredibly inspiring is
the tremendous things that happen at
this high school and high schools over
the world
despite the structure because of
dedicated kids and supportive parents
and phenomenal teachers that are
accomplishing great things despite the
way we have this structured some of you
have heard this before that the model
needs to change that the model is old a
lot of speakers a lot of this written a
lot that has written glosses right over
what we mean by that I want to take just
a minute before we talk about depth
before we talk about compassion and
ideation to explain quickly what I mean
by this model is old and the structure
has changed very little in the last
hundred years quickly and this is an
hour or two in and of itself but I just
want you to thinking about this if you
aren’t already please curriculum is
currently organized by disciplines duh
it shouldn’t be that’s a convenient way
to organize knowledge it has nothing to
do with learning curriculum should be
organized around questions and problems
interdisciplinary like the real world
the second critical flaw with curriculum
is we are trying to do ridiculously too
much in high school some of you heard it
said before the Law School is not about
learning the law it’s about learning to
think like a lawyer because you can’t
learn all the law in three years
I would argue that in high school
probably by a factor of two we are
trying to do much too much in history in
world history and panamanian history and
biology and chemistry the books we read
we could cut it all in half to get a
depth secondly instruction the model
that most of us know in this world and
I’ll talk about this and then another
minute or two is a model about delivery
about a teacher delivering information
and skills to his or her students that
models okay but it’s not enough what we
need more of in the mix is basically
young people figuring things out for
themselves guided by teachers you could
call it constructivism I’m going to call
it ideation today but I’ll explain that
a little bit further assessment our
assessment systems are designed to rank
kids and slap labels on them and mostly
serves the college admissions process
and is not reliably and valuable validly
connected to learning what we need is a
system and we think about it a zero to
100 scale and sometimes we include a
decimal point sometimes too do you
realize with two decimal points attached
to a zero to 100 grading scale that
gives you 10,000 points that gives you
5000 that gives you 59 5999 ways to fail
or a thousand ways to get an A and it’s
neither valid and reliable and are
connected directly to learning we need
simpler assessment systems as a must not
surprisingly but unfortunately teacher
training prepares teachers to do all of
those things I just outlined that are
part of the current or the old system
and it’s hard for teachers it’s hard for
the experts in the field of teacher
training to talk about changing what we
do in terms of training teachers until
those schools exist and it’s hard for
those schools exist that we need until
we think about training teachers
differently we need to do both in
partnership how we use time in schools
today 90% of schools high schools around
the planet time is inflexible and it’s a
constant and if time is inflexible and a
constant for example four years to
graduate from high school the variable
becomes learning if we are serious that
a high school diploma means something
and that students can demonstrate a
certain set of skills that are core it
is ludicrous to think we have 340
students here at isp they’re all gonna
get there in exactly four years that it
takes a semester that it takes a school
year that earning what we need to do we
need a little we need to think much more
flexibly about time high school was
designed physically oftentimes on the
outskirts of town the way the schedule
operates to be somewhat of an isolated
you do what you do here in high school
and very little connection to the real
world we’ve been working really hard for
years at trying to better connect what
happens in schools with what happens in
the real world and bring the real world
into the school in many different ways
but we need a system in a structure that
supports and cultivate
rather than a system and a structure
that makes it difficult and lastly many
of you probably heard this said before
that in schools today we are preparing
young people for jobs that don’t yet
exist research on the brain these days
week to week phenomenal about how
teaching and learning works the study of
learning differences in learning
disabilities the economic needs what’s
happening with colleges if there was
ever an organization on this planet that
needed to be responsive and flexible and
entrepreneurial it’s a high school if
you go around and pull 500 people over
the next month or so and ask them to
name entrepreneurial flexible
responsible organizations high schools
not going to be on the list
bureaucratic slow unresponsive is how
it’s always been and that needs to
change desperately that’s a very quick
overview of kind of what we’re talking
about here but I would suggest what I
believe is that by tackling that these
next three ideas and if we focus on
depth and if we focus on compassion and
we focus on ideation we can change we
can drive we can force change we can
make change this all of this can look a
lot different ideation is the basic idea
it’s about having ideas pursuing them
developing them seeing them through to
actualization looking at a problem
looking at a need looking at a question
tackling it inventing something
composing something creating something
it might be private enterprise it might
be for an NGO or just a social issue
it’s about figuring things out it’s
always integrated in interdisciplinary
at least almost always integrated and
interdisciplinary critical shift that
needs to happen in schools that the
design and the structure is more
supportive of this and there is a lot of
energy around it but there’s been a lot
of energy around a lot of good things in
high school for years and not all of
them are happening this one is key
two critical pieces here to making this
happen one I alluded to a minute ago the
instructional shift instruction in high
school is about teachers teaching right
what else could it be it’s a delivery
model it’s an efficient model I’ll give
you an example there’s a wonderful book
by Eleanor Duckworth called the halving
of wonderful ideas it’s written probably
about 40 years ago
the tides here in Panama City the tides
are pretty pretty significant because
the lack of slope coming into the
coastline
one way to teach young people how the
tides work which is the prevailing
normal way to do it is high-quality
direct instruction delivery I’ll
probably begin this lesson with an
explanation of how the tides work the
moon the Sun gravity force on the ocean
the rotate force on the water and the
rotation of the earth and then we’ll
work on it we’ll look at some videos
we’ll have some group discussion I’ll
have some manipulatives of the Earth’s
of the Moon of the Sun how they come
together we’ll talk will answer
questions of teachers students come up
and kind of present key concepts that’s
what a lot of us would think of as
exactly what a powerful lesson should be
and it’s an OK way to teach and
sometimes it’s an essential way to teach
and that’s overwhelmingly what we do in
high school and we strive to do well the
alternative and it happens in pockets is
I don’t begin the lesson with this is
how the tides work we begin the lesson
with how do the tides work and through
the manipulatives in the context we
begin to struggle with that and the
students begin to struggle with that
they might theorize it has something to
do with traffic on the corridor sir and
it seems to be out in the morning and
over the course of weeks they begin to
observe they begin to look at things
they begin to practice the skill of
figuring things out this is not easy for
teachers this is not stand back and hey
guys figure out the tides work I’ll be
back in a few weeks it is harder
it is harder than a well delivered
simple direct instruction lesson and
over the course of a much greater amount
of time the students figure out other
tides work they try they fail they
explore they pursue different ideas and
they eventually figure it out
guidance supported coached by a teacher
who at times will step in and do some
direct delivery instruction
let’s talk about gravity and why the
force of gravity of the moon and the
good that sons got more force than the
moon but the moon is closer and we’ll
figure those things out why is this so
important well it’s a better way to
learn and you learned it better when you
figure it out for yourselves it’s got an
advantage but it’s also more
time-consuming and arguably it wouldn’t
be worthwhile if it weren’t for the
second reason which is the first way
taught you how the tides worked and you
learned it the second way taught you how
the tides work but it taught you how to
figure things out how to solve problems
how to not give up and say we haven’t
been there yet we haven’t covered that
yet I don’t know what to do next
it got at the core of what we need in
this day and age it’s actually what we
needed a hundred years ago and five
hundred years ago in a thousand years
ago we’re gonna need it a thousand years
from now this is not novel this is not
21st century this is not something
special happened fifteen years ago and
we’re in a new century so we need this
is always what made the most sense it’s
just that our lousy model was tolerable
and more sufficient in a different time
it’s no longer it’s no longer tolerable
or sufficient the second critical piece
with ideation too is we need as alluded
to earlier as we basically need to
organize the curriculum around questions
and problems because all the fascinating
stuff is interdisciplinary it’s
interdisciplinary in the real world
center disciplinary and kindergarten
it’s their displayer in second grade
it’s interdisciplinary and doctoral
programs high school for the matter of
efficiency is where we get the most off
course and that needs to change one of
the other big results in a school that’s
focused on ideation and invention is it
changes the entire culture of the school
the whole feel of the place what the
average high school student on this
planet feels on occasion they will feel
regularly
absolutely regularly this is a huge
priority I think the most important
piece of what what is up here is to make
this shift kids figuring things out
inventing things making things is what
we need to work more at depth this one’s
a little bit simpler and a little bit
easier but it’s missing depth is about
doing things well doing things well
that’s easy enough right it’s about
quality what is quality and pursuing
quality it’s about mastery Daniel pink
no I mean folks read Daniel Pink’s book
came out in 2009 the surprising truth
about what motivates people autonomy
mastery and purpose rather eloquently it
all connects with high school but
mastery is what we’re focused on here
doing things well it’s the kind of thing
that a high school student for example
involved in the Beauty and the Beast a
lot of kids just felt this over the last
few days here at ISP but it needs to be
a regular part of what we do not getting
things done but doing them with quality
and mastery is the key today in high
schools students study seven or eight or
sometimes nine subjects at a time they
may be involved in two or three
extracurriculars at a time possibly
things outside of school as well
homework is typically 20 minutes of this
thirty minutes of that get it done get
it done get it done go to bed at 1:15 be
happy that it’s finished IB courses that
have wonderful assessment tools also
requires two teachers for example in
biology to cover a whole lot of content
just to make sure we get to that
assessment tool we’re doing a lot at a
high speed and we’re taking a lot of
courses at the same time we keep pushing
mathematics down further and further and
further quicker get it done sooner I’m
worried at the expense of kids
understanding the basic math and the
fractions and the computation skills in
the algebra that most of us need in life
many of us need and want to go further
but we shouldn’t be pushing everybody in
that direction at a pace that takes away
depth and quality and mastery what high
schools should be is studying three or
four or five things at a time
homework should be one or two things go
to bed by 11:00 and feel like wow I
actually have a better understanding of
the oncology of how a cancer spells for
my biology class I didn’t just get it
done
I learned something I worked on it
because I wanted to make sense out of it
and probably half the content and
although that sounds frightening well we
got to teach chapter 17 in physics if
you’re going to do 31 chapters of a
physics textbooks nobody’s learning it
anyways they’re going to pass the test
and a year later most of it’s forgotten
so get down to what’s core and focus on
that compassion
this is a work in progress for me maybe
a year from now it’ll be love instead of
compassion I’ve understood this for a
while and I’m still struggling with
articulating how it plays out in a
school but what I know from my heart and
if that’s okay I’ll speak to you from my
heart this is core we have to get over
the hump the compassion and love are
some things that happen and little doses
in schools maybe more in church and
family and other places young people
spend a lot of time in high school we
talk about a lot of hard things we
tackle a lot of hard things we should be
tackling more hard things we need to
understand the compassion and love and
caring for one another and caring for
caring for the world are absolutely
critical I believe that our ability to
feel pain and sadness and the depth of
that is probably directly proportional
to our ability to feel happiness I
believe it is essential to tackle the
difficult things and if we are then we
have to make sure young people are being
prepared with the skills and the
knowledge and the understanding and the
ideation and the ability to figure
things out so they can feel it but then
also have hope because they’re getting a
phenomenal education that is preparing
them to identify things and they can
make a difference in this world it
raises the stakes it’s easier to stay
away from this stuff and not feel
obligated to then give the skills that
give the kids the hope to do things
differently as we move forward
structurally it’s just about leaders and
teachers being good role models and
tackling what is difficult and having an
openness to being talking about what is
difficult but more to the point I
believe because I have tremendous faith
in human nature that it’s really a
matter of reducing distances and
creating time I believe that if we
better connect young people to what is
hard in this world not just through
literature but through distance learning
and other technologies and by spending
more time outside
school and apprenticeships and
internships by having more people in the
school by spending more than seven
minutes at a flag assembly two days
after the terrorist attacks in Paris and
three days after the terrorist attacks
in Beirut and a week before the
terrorist attacks in Africa the young
people will better connect and better
understand and although I’ve really come
to appreciate the power of social media
you can’t put red white and blue French
colors over your Facebook page photo
tweet a few things share a few things
and be done with it it’s a good start
but if we can bridge these distances and
make a more deliberate effort of
connecting young people with what is
difficult and support them and coach
them and facilitate them and give them a
really powerful education they do really
powerful stuff I have tremendous faith
in what is possible last slide
I am worried that if we don’t get at
this issue of a model of secondary
education that is beyond outdated bill
gates several years ago called it
obsolete he was wrong because that
implies that it went that was one time
made sense it never made sense it was
all about it it’s all it’s been always
about efficiency and about scale and
these systems were created before we
knew what teaching and learning was and
before we lived in the world that we
live in today all these shifting
paradigms that we’re talking about today
this is the one education and secondary
education in particular that hasn’t
shifted much at all if we can
wholeheartedly commit to bringing depth
to high school bringing compassion high
school and bringing ideation to high
school kids figuring things out
exploring and inventing I believe we
will change the system and I believe we
would have to change the system because
it’s no longer enough for some kids to
pull out of this system what they can
all kids need more and we will have high
school graduates that quite simply are
smart and by smart I mean they can
figure things out they can persist the
resilience they have grit they solve
problems they identify problems they
frame interesting questions and second
early you add to that that they know
what it means to do something well don’t
do 27 things and check them off do three
and pursue quality pursue mastery that’s
what it has to be about and if you had
both of those things and nothing more
what you’re missing is caring and yes
that’s bigger than high school but high
school is a great place to cultivate and
breed and support young people that have
compassion care about the planet go
beyond their media family and their
neighborhoods to kind of feel a better
connection and to explore I am very
hopeful for the future given the young
people that are participating in this
conference today some of them have had a
chance to talk to and hear speak already
the high school students that organize
this conference
because I work in a high school I am
tremendously hopeful but I have to tell
you movement in making this these
changes happen has been slow it’s
political it’s complicated and if you
aren’t already engaged in this whether
you’re one day going to be a high school
student or you are a high school student
or you’re a parent of a high school
student or your parent grandparent of a
high school student or you simply get
that getting this right matters this
usually this planet I beg of you I beg
of you to engage and participate and
help I’m going to finish with a quote
from the little prince and I know
everybody loves that it is only with the
heart that one can see rightly what is
essential is invisible to the eye
but there’s so much more in this book
and it’s the second to last paragraph
that is the beauty of it the absolute
beauty of it and if you know the story I
hope you appreciate this if you don’t
know the story you need to read this
book within the next 24 hours because a
lot of what I just said is in this book
a lot of it is also in Robert Pierce
eggs in and the art of motorcycle
maintenance which is 500 pages of
figuring out what quality is and I
forgot to share that quote with you
second to last paragraph look up at the
sky no I can’t read it ask yourself is
it yes or no has the sheep eaten the
flower and you will see how everything
changes thank you for listening
[Applause]
eastern United States in 2006 was the
fifth poorest County in the United
States of America there are over 3,000
counties in the United States and I
thought I would begin given the advice
of the wonderful students who have
organized this conference with something
more personal I had been drifting away
from that direction until they reminded
me in the last few days and I’d like to
share with you something I wrote about
ten years ago I was then the Upper
School Director of Berwick Academy in
South Berwick Maine a k-12 school not
unlike the international school of
Panama and similar in size and Bill
Clapp who was the math department chair
lacrosse coach and a wilderness educator
and I went to McDowell County with nine
high school students some of you have
probably read the Rocket Boys we’re
seeing the movie October Sky Homer
Hickam
he’s from McDowell County and went on to
work at NASA it’s a really amazing place
let me share this with you it’s about
3:00 in the afternoon on the first day
of spring break Saturday March 11th 2006
bill clap and I are in the front seats
of a 12 passenger van on route 52 a
winding old two-lane road in the
southern part of West Virginia between
the towns of blue field and Welch after
driving three hours from the airport in
Raleigh North North Carolina we are now
in the foothills of the Appalachian
Mountains we’re now coming into the
heart of Appalachia through nine high
school students sitting in three rows of
seats behind us but you wouldn’t know it
without turning around to check we’ve
been listening to music and talking and
telling stories and laughing for 200
miles now the radio is off and no one
says a word it will be this way for
close to 30 uncomfortable minutes
absolute silence everyone is looking out
the windows of the van left side and
right side it’s as if we are watching an
IMAX documentary
poverty small houses mountains rising up
behind them dot both sides of the road
some of the some of the homes have
extensive fire damage some appear to
have been flooded out numerous times
others are simply falling down
dilapidated crumbling and unsafe yards
are filled with old appliances
automobile parts and trash and our
students sitting behind us are not only
coming to grips with how awful all of
this is but they’re also beginning to
realize that people are living in these
houses though some of the homes are
completely destroyed and deserted the
majority are occupied we see the little
kids the babies the teenagers the moms
the elderly on the porches in the yards
walking along the sides of the road no
one in the van has any idea what to say
I’ve been to Appalachia before this is
what I was expecting I am happy that we
are seeing all this in the light of day
I am proud of our students for the way
they are taking all this in quietly and
uncomfortably I love them for it and I
am certain that our five days in
Appalachia together will be good ones
after a week of service there we came
back to continue with what I wrote I
asked our nine students Rachael Charlie
Kati Hannah
Xander Megan Shelby Megan Christian to
write about the trip I asked for one to
two short paragraphs in response to five
key questions about a two page
assignment extra curricular ungraded not
required most of the students wrote four
to five pages one wrote 10 pages they
wrote from their hearts about despair
responsibility love and community and
from their heads about politics and
economics and power and justice they
wrote about how the trip changed them
and about wanting to go back and lastly
at the end of this article and this was
written for the community of Berwick
Academy much like we write here at isp
for our parents and families arguably
the two most pure most sacred authentic
beautiful human motivations our
curiosity and love imagine if
high-school students were driven to
learn solely by their innate sense of
curiosity and essentially nothing else
imagine if all of us in our day-to-day
endeavors family schoolwork were always
guided by love and essentially nothing
else surely it has to be in the pureness
and simplicity of these two motivations
that education is most transformative I
wrote that 10 years ago for the better
part of the last 20 plus years I have
worked in a high school as a teacher as
a principal and I considered a great
privilege and honor to be a principal of
this school as a college counselor as an
advisor as a coach I’ve talked to kids
I’ve talked to parents I’ve talked to
teachers I’ve observed what happens in
classrooms I’ve guided what happens in
classrooms I’ve read all the research
I’ve studied education and
organizational leadership and management
at University of Washington at the
University of New Hampshire and at
Harvard I’ve read everything I can all
the way back to Socrates and Plato John
Pinette John Dewey
Diane Ravitch Deb Meyer I’ve been paying
attention I have been focused on high
school and what it is for quite some
time I say that because I desperately
hope you will consider what I have to
say and as a disclaimer I am NOT selling
a book there is no website I’m sending
to you there is no software program I am
not running for an office of any sort
back in my home country of the United
States I am neither registered in the
democratic or republican party I’m
proudly unaffiliated I vote every chance
that I have so please consider what I
have to say what I believe is that depth
compassion and ideation are absolutely
core all three necessary and arguably
the three sufficient to transforming
secondary education as we know it and
although I’ve mostly studied the system
in the United States most of what we do
around the world and I’ve visited many
schools within the US and outside or
following a similar model these are the
keys to transforming it and it needs to
be transformed critically and I believe
slightly biased as a high school
educator that its core at a time when
young people go from being kids to young
adults that we have to get this right we
absolutely positively have to the
current model of secondary education the
one that we use at isp the one that we
almost all schools the United States use
in almost all schools throughout the
world use is over a hundred years old it
was designed in various places in
various times but in the United States
it was designed for efficiency and for
scale at a time when we knew almost
nothing about how the brain works or
about teaching and learning that is a
fact
what educators and politicians and
others will argue about is whether or
not it’s still a good system I sadly
enough believe it’s a horrible system
and what I find incredibly inspiring is
the tremendous things that happen at
this high school and high schools over
the world
despite the structure because of
dedicated kids and supportive parents
and phenomenal teachers that are
accomplishing great things despite the
way we have this structured some of you
have heard this before that the model
needs to change that the model is old a
lot of speakers a lot of this written a
lot that has written glosses right over
what we mean by that I want to take just
a minute before we talk about depth
before we talk about compassion and
ideation to explain quickly what I mean
by this model is old and the structure
has changed very little in the last
hundred years quickly and this is an
hour or two in and of itself but I just
want you to thinking about this if you
aren’t already please curriculum is
currently organized by disciplines duh
it shouldn’t be that’s a convenient way
to organize knowledge it has nothing to
do with learning curriculum should be
organized around questions and problems
interdisciplinary like the real world
the second critical flaw with curriculum
is we are trying to do ridiculously too
much in high school some of you heard it
said before the Law School is not about
learning the law it’s about learning to
think like a lawyer because you can’t
learn all the law in three years
I would argue that in high school
probably by a factor of two we are
trying to do much too much in history in
world history and panamanian history and
biology and chemistry the books we read
we could cut it all in half to get a
depth secondly instruction the model
that most of us know in this world and
I’ll talk about this and then another
minute or two is a model about delivery
about a teacher delivering information
and skills to his or her students that
models okay but it’s not enough what we
need more of in the mix is basically
young people figuring things out for
themselves guided by teachers you could
call it constructivism I’m going to call
it ideation today but I’ll explain that
a little bit further assessment our
assessment systems are designed to rank
kids and slap labels on them and mostly
serves the college admissions process
and is not reliably and valuable validly
connected to learning what we need is a
system and we think about it a zero to
100 scale and sometimes we include a
decimal point sometimes too do you
realize with two decimal points attached
to a zero to 100 grading scale that
gives you 10,000 points that gives you
5000 that gives you 59 5999 ways to fail
or a thousand ways to get an A and it’s
neither valid and reliable and are
connected directly to learning we need
simpler assessment systems as a must not
surprisingly but unfortunately teacher
training prepares teachers to do all of
those things I just outlined that are
part of the current or the old system
and it’s hard for teachers it’s hard for
the experts in the field of teacher
training to talk about changing what we
do in terms of training teachers until
those schools exist and it’s hard for
those schools exist that we need until
we think about training teachers
differently we need to do both in
partnership how we use time in schools
today 90% of schools high schools around
the planet time is inflexible and it’s a
constant and if time is inflexible and a
constant for example four years to
graduate from high school the variable
becomes learning if we are serious that
a high school diploma means something
and that students can demonstrate a
certain set of skills that are core it
is ludicrous to think we have 340
students here at isp they’re all gonna
get there in exactly four years that it
takes a semester that it takes a school
year that earning what we need to do we
need a little we need to think much more
flexibly about time high school was
designed physically oftentimes on the
outskirts of town the way the schedule
operates to be somewhat of an isolated
you do what you do here in high school
and very little connection to the real
world we’ve been working really hard for
years at trying to better connect what
happens in schools with what happens in
the real world and bring the real world
into the school in many different ways
but we need a system in a structure that
supports and cultivate
rather than a system and a structure
that makes it difficult and lastly many
of you probably heard this said before
that in schools today we are preparing
young people for jobs that don’t yet
exist research on the brain these days
week to week phenomenal about how
teaching and learning works the study of
learning differences in learning
disabilities the economic needs what’s
happening with colleges if there was
ever an organization on this planet that
needed to be responsive and flexible and
entrepreneurial it’s a high school if
you go around and pull 500 people over
the next month or so and ask them to
name entrepreneurial flexible
responsible organizations high schools
not going to be on the list
bureaucratic slow unresponsive is how
it’s always been and that needs to
change desperately that’s a very quick
overview of kind of what we’re talking
about here but I would suggest what I
believe is that by tackling that these
next three ideas and if we focus on
depth and if we focus on compassion and
we focus on ideation we can change we
can drive we can force change we can
make change this all of this can look a
lot different ideation is the basic idea
it’s about having ideas pursuing them
developing them seeing them through to
actualization looking at a problem
looking at a need looking at a question
tackling it inventing something
composing something creating something
it might be private enterprise it might
be for an NGO or just a social issue
it’s about figuring things out it’s
always integrated in interdisciplinary
at least almost always integrated and
interdisciplinary critical shift that
needs to happen in schools that the
design and the structure is more
supportive of this and there is a lot of
energy around it but there’s been a lot
of energy around a lot of good things in
high school for years and not all of
them are happening this one is key
two critical pieces here to making this
happen one I alluded to a minute ago the
instructional shift instruction in high
school is about teachers teaching right
what else could it be it’s a delivery
model it’s an efficient model I’ll give
you an example there’s a wonderful book
by Eleanor Duckworth called the halving
of wonderful ideas it’s written probably
about 40 years ago
the tides here in Panama City the tides
are pretty pretty significant because
the lack of slope coming into the
coastline
one way to teach young people how the
tides work which is the prevailing
normal way to do it is high-quality
direct instruction delivery I’ll
probably begin this lesson with an
explanation of how the tides work the
moon the Sun gravity force on the ocean
the rotate force on the water and the
rotation of the earth and then we’ll
work on it we’ll look at some videos
we’ll have some group discussion I’ll
have some manipulatives of the Earth’s
of the Moon of the Sun how they come
together we’ll talk will answer
questions of teachers students come up
and kind of present key concepts that’s
what a lot of us would think of as
exactly what a powerful lesson should be
and it’s an OK way to teach and
sometimes it’s an essential way to teach
and that’s overwhelmingly what we do in
high school and we strive to do well the
alternative and it happens in pockets is
I don’t begin the lesson with this is
how the tides work we begin the lesson
with how do the tides work and through
the manipulatives in the context we
begin to struggle with that and the
students begin to struggle with that
they might theorize it has something to
do with traffic on the corridor sir and
it seems to be out in the morning and
over the course of weeks they begin to
observe they begin to look at things
they begin to practice the skill of
figuring things out this is not easy for
teachers this is not stand back and hey
guys figure out the tides work I’ll be
back in a few weeks it is harder
it is harder than a well delivered
simple direct instruction lesson and
over the course of a much greater amount
of time the students figure out other
tides work they try they fail they
explore they pursue different ideas and
they eventually figure it out
guidance supported coached by a teacher
who at times will step in and do some
direct delivery instruction
let’s talk about gravity and why the
force of gravity of the moon and the
good that sons got more force than the
moon but the moon is closer and we’ll
figure those things out why is this so
important well it’s a better way to
learn and you learned it better when you
figure it out for yourselves it’s got an
advantage but it’s also more
time-consuming and arguably it wouldn’t
be worthwhile if it weren’t for the
second reason which is the first way
taught you how the tides worked and you
learned it the second way taught you how
the tides work but it taught you how to
figure things out how to solve problems
how to not give up and say we haven’t
been there yet we haven’t covered that
yet I don’t know what to do next
it got at the core of what we need in
this day and age it’s actually what we
needed a hundred years ago and five
hundred years ago in a thousand years
ago we’re gonna need it a thousand years
from now this is not novel this is not
21st century this is not something
special happened fifteen years ago and
we’re in a new century so we need this
is always what made the most sense it’s
just that our lousy model was tolerable
and more sufficient in a different time
it’s no longer it’s no longer tolerable
or sufficient the second critical piece
with ideation too is we need as alluded
to earlier as we basically need to
organize the curriculum around questions
and problems because all the fascinating
stuff is interdisciplinary it’s
interdisciplinary in the real world
center disciplinary and kindergarten
it’s their displayer in second grade
it’s interdisciplinary and doctoral
programs high school for the matter of
efficiency is where we get the most off
course and that needs to change one of
the other big results in a school that’s
focused on ideation and invention is it
changes the entire culture of the school
the whole feel of the place what the
average high school student on this
planet feels on occasion they will feel
regularly
absolutely regularly this is a huge
priority I think the most important
piece of what what is up here is to make
this shift kids figuring things out
inventing things making things is what
we need to work more at depth this one’s
a little bit simpler and a little bit
easier but it’s missing depth is about
doing things well doing things well
that’s easy enough right it’s about
quality what is quality and pursuing
quality it’s about mastery Daniel pink
no I mean folks read Daniel Pink’s book
came out in 2009 the surprising truth
about what motivates people autonomy
mastery and purpose rather eloquently it
all connects with high school but
mastery is what we’re focused on here
doing things well it’s the kind of thing
that a high school student for example
involved in the Beauty and the Beast a
lot of kids just felt this over the last
few days here at ISP but it needs to be
a regular part of what we do not getting
things done but doing them with quality
and mastery is the key today in high
schools students study seven or eight or
sometimes nine subjects at a time they
may be involved in two or three
extracurriculars at a time possibly
things outside of school as well
homework is typically 20 minutes of this
thirty minutes of that get it done get
it done get it done go to bed at 1:15 be
happy that it’s finished IB courses that
have wonderful assessment tools also
requires two teachers for example in
biology to cover a whole lot of content
just to make sure we get to that
assessment tool we’re doing a lot at a
high speed and we’re taking a lot of
courses at the same time we keep pushing
mathematics down further and further and
further quicker get it done sooner I’m
worried at the expense of kids
understanding the basic math and the
fractions and the computation skills in
the algebra that most of us need in life
many of us need and want to go further
but we shouldn’t be pushing everybody in
that direction at a pace that takes away
depth and quality and mastery what high
schools should be is studying three or
four or five things at a time
homework should be one or two things go
to bed by 11:00 and feel like wow I
actually have a better understanding of
the oncology of how a cancer spells for
my biology class I didn’t just get it
done
I learned something I worked on it
because I wanted to make sense out of it
and probably half the content and
although that sounds frightening well we
got to teach chapter 17 in physics if
you’re going to do 31 chapters of a
physics textbooks nobody’s learning it
anyways they’re going to pass the test
and a year later most of it’s forgotten
so get down to what’s core and focus on
that compassion
this is a work in progress for me maybe
a year from now it’ll be love instead of
compassion I’ve understood this for a
while and I’m still struggling with
articulating how it plays out in a
school but what I know from my heart and
if that’s okay I’ll speak to you from my
heart this is core we have to get over
the hump the compassion and love are
some things that happen and little doses
in schools maybe more in church and
family and other places young people
spend a lot of time in high school we
talk about a lot of hard things we
tackle a lot of hard things we should be
tackling more hard things we need to
understand the compassion and love and
caring for one another and caring for
caring for the world are absolutely
critical I believe that our ability to
feel pain and sadness and the depth of
that is probably directly proportional
to our ability to feel happiness I
believe it is essential to tackle the
difficult things and if we are then we
have to make sure young people are being
prepared with the skills and the
knowledge and the understanding and the
ideation and the ability to figure
things out so they can feel it but then
also have hope because they’re getting a
phenomenal education that is preparing
them to identify things and they can
make a difference in this world it
raises the stakes it’s easier to stay
away from this stuff and not feel
obligated to then give the skills that
give the kids the hope to do things
differently as we move forward
structurally it’s just about leaders and
teachers being good role models and
tackling what is difficult and having an
openness to being talking about what is
difficult but more to the point I
believe because I have tremendous faith
in human nature that it’s really a
matter of reducing distances and
creating time I believe that if we
better connect young people to what is
hard in this world not just through
literature but through distance learning
and other technologies and by spending
more time outside
school and apprenticeships and
internships by having more people in the
school by spending more than seven
minutes at a flag assembly two days
after the terrorist attacks in Paris and
three days after the terrorist attacks
in Beirut and a week before the
terrorist attacks in Africa the young
people will better connect and better
understand and although I’ve really come
to appreciate the power of social media
you can’t put red white and blue French
colors over your Facebook page photo
tweet a few things share a few things
and be done with it it’s a good start
but if we can bridge these distances and
make a more deliberate effort of
connecting young people with what is
difficult and support them and coach
them and facilitate them and give them a
really powerful education they do really
powerful stuff I have tremendous faith
in what is possible last slide
I am worried that if we don’t get at
this issue of a model of secondary
education that is beyond outdated bill
gates several years ago called it
obsolete he was wrong because that
implies that it went that was one time
made sense it never made sense it was
all about it it’s all it’s been always
about efficiency and about scale and
these systems were created before we
knew what teaching and learning was and
before we lived in the world that we
live in today all these shifting
paradigms that we’re talking about today
this is the one education and secondary
education in particular that hasn’t
shifted much at all if we can
wholeheartedly commit to bringing depth
to high school bringing compassion high
school and bringing ideation to high
school kids figuring things out
exploring and inventing I believe we
will change the system and I believe we
would have to change the system because
it’s no longer enough for some kids to
pull out of this system what they can
all kids need more and we will have high
school graduates that quite simply are
smart and by smart I mean they can
figure things out they can persist the
resilience they have grit they solve
problems they identify problems they
frame interesting questions and second
early you add to that that they know
what it means to do something well don’t
do 27 things and check them off do three
and pursue quality pursue mastery that’s
what it has to be about and if you had
both of those things and nothing more
what you’re missing is caring and yes
that’s bigger than high school but high
school is a great place to cultivate and
breed and support young people that have
compassion care about the planet go
beyond their media family and their
neighborhoods to kind of feel a better
connection and to explore I am very
hopeful for the future given the young
people that are participating in this
conference today some of them have had a
chance to talk to and hear speak already
the high school students that organize
this conference
because I work in a high school I am
tremendously hopeful but I have to tell
you movement in making this these
changes happen has been slow it’s
political it’s complicated and if you
aren’t already engaged in this whether
you’re one day going to be a high school
student or you are a high school student
or you’re a parent of a high school
student or your parent grandparent of a
high school student or you simply get
that getting this right matters this
usually this planet I beg of you I beg
of you to engage and participate and
help I’m going to finish with a quote
from the little prince and I know
everybody loves that it is only with the
heart that one can see rightly what is
essential is invisible to the eye
but there’s so much more in this book
and it’s the second to last paragraph
that is the beauty of it the absolute
beauty of it and if you know the story I
hope you appreciate this if you don’t
know the story you need to read this
book within the next 24 hours because a
lot of what I just said is in this book
a lot of it is also in Robert Pierce
eggs in and the art of motorcycle
maintenance which is 500 pages of
figuring out what quality is and I
forgot to share that quote with you
second to last paragraph look up at the
sky no I can’t read it ask yourself is
it yes or no has the sheep eaten the
flower and you will see how everything
changes thank you for listening
[Applause]
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