Posts by admin
Unitarian Universalist Community Schools Campaign
Posted on May 13, 2012 - 10:51 PM by admin
Puerto Rico Alliance for Alternative Education
Posted on May 13, 2012 - 10:32 PM by admin
Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center
Posted on May 11, 2012 - 11:03 PM by admin
Warring learning theories: Choose yours
As previously mentioned, the students were asked to draw a scaled diagram of the commons area they had chosen to investigate. This, of course, was a ratio and proportions exercise most likely introduced to students in elementary school. But our math-challenged students approached this assignment as if they had been asked to prove the Pythagorean Theorem. A freshman girl (let’s call her Kayla) with a neurotic aversion to all things mathematic, watched quietly while the other three (somewhat mathematically challenged) members of her group struggled to work through the steps for converting their measurements to the scaled drawing. After looking at their measurements and the size of the graph paper they were required to use, they decided that 8 feet of measured distance should be 1 inch on the drawing. There were dozens of measurements—2’9€’‘, 47’3’‘, 9’4’‘, etc. The teachers were no help. The students were on their own to figure this out.
Normally, Kayla tuned out when presented with an assignment from a math book, engaging in all manner of avoidance (and class distracting) behaviors. But this was different…a problem, for sure, but not just a math problem. So, Kayla listened differently and she watched as different strategies were tried, and then—she got it! “We gotta make everything inches, and then we have to divide by 96!” She showed her group mates. It was a special moment and nearly impossible to describe. Normally a bit histrionic in her actions, Kayla seemed more centered, more authentic, in her excitement and enthusiasm at discovering this hidden skill. She was clearly enjoying feelings of competence that she rarely experienced in the school setting, let alone while doing math. She liked how it felt. She insisted on doing all the conversions herself, working without a break through part of her lunch period to finish…”
Posted on Oct 06, 2011 - 05:06 PM by admin
The Schools We Need
What concerned me as much as my students’ disdain for their teachers, though, was the quality of their writing. Potential ideas lay dormant and undeveloped on the page; basic rules of grammar and punctuation went unheeded; logic was all but absent. After reading that first round of essays, I began annoying my friends with dire, unprovoked brooding on the dismal state of high school education in this country. More than one friend warned me against committing what I have come to call the Breakfast Club fallacy. In that flawed, but seminal, 80s high school film, the assistant principal is complaining to Janitor Carl that the kids have changed, gone bad, turned on him. “Bullshit,” replies Carl. “The kids haven’t changed. You have. That’s the Breakfast Club fallacy: the kids aren’t getting worse; I’m just getting older and more cantankerous.
Maybe so. My own high school was hardly a proving ground for intellectual inquiry. Still, I’m concerned, and for the same reasons that led George Orwell to write the essay “Politics and the English Language”: bad writing leads to bad thinking, and vice versa; uncritical acceptance of others’ prejudices can lead to people marching around with signs displaying Hitler mustaches on an African-American president. In fact, the entire faith we put in democracy as a form of governance rests on the fragile assumption that, in the realm of free and open debate, conscientious thought will more often than not carry the day. And that assumption, as Thomas Jefferson saw more clearly than the other founding fathers, rests in turn on a viable system of public education.
Posted on Oct 06, 2011 - 04:58 PM by admin
Many Faces in Education Presents: Kirsten Olson
DaretheSchool: I am so excited to interview you. You have such an amazing scope of experiences. Considering your views on education and learning, I must say I was surprised to see you graduated from Harvard. How were your experiences at this institution?
Kirsten: Well that’s a long conversation! I had fantastic mentors there. I worked with Sara Lawrence Lightfoot and Pedro Noguera and they are very important people to me. Harvard is an institution that is about power and privilege. During the time I was there, many people at the school were supporting No Child Left Behind, and helping to create our current accountability environment that has proven to be disastrous for kids and schools. I feel grateful that I was able to go to Harvard, but also very aware of some of the problems that students who go there emerge with in terms of power and privilege. So it is a real dilemma. At the end of the day, I knew I could be a more powerful warrior for the things that I believe in spite of being in an institution that reinforces power and privilege. That was the calculation that I made. Having that particular degree ultimately does allow you to be in a variety of different worlds. However, you also have to be really careful because institutions have institutionalizing effects in terms of thinking.
DaretheSchool: Why do you educate?
Kirsten: Education is at the heart of human transformation. Some of the most powerful emotional and spiritual experiences of my life have been around learning. I believe education is at the center of what it means to be a human being in terms of people connecting and finding ways to collaborate to make the world better. Making the education system better feels like a place I can make the most impact. It feels like really meaningful work because the system is profoundly broken, dysfunctional and toxic. It is important to discover how we learn and help others learn, along with the implications of this for our community and the world at large.
Posted on Oct 06, 2011 - 04:36 PM by admin
I Learned to Believe in Me
This article is featured in the September 2011 issue of the Phi Delta Kappan.What are the attributes and habits of “great” learners? What do their learning lives look like, and what beliefs do they hold about themselves that they might share with the rest of us? How can learners build personal, individual resilience when they're in academic programs that sometimes seem intent on focusing on their failures, highlighting what they're not good at, or making judgments based on previous unsuccessful performances? What if no interventions are available to them, or the available interventions are ineffective or off the mark?
For 10 years, I've been listening to people tell their learning...
Posted on Aug 31, 2011 - 11:23 AM by admin
Paradoxes of Our Work
The ability to hold two conflicting truths simultaneously isn't easy. And that's exactly what our work in education calls us to do at this moment.I am just returning from the AERO and Holistic Education conferences, where I saw COOPsters David Loitz, Casey Caronna, Paul Freedman and Jen Groves. (Oh yeah!) One evening at AERO, a group gathered to talk about what IDEA has been learning over the past year. This prompted a reflection on my work as an educational activist and teacher over the past 15 years, and the paradoxes I hold in my work, as both a radical school critic, and a persistent hope monger in education.
As most of us here at the COOP already feel, we are at a moment of...
Posted on Aug 10, 2011 - 03:57 PM by admin
Teacher Appreciation Week: Reflections from my childhood
Teachers have deeply impacted my life. Ok, not a revolutionary statement, but nevertheless true.During the school day, my third grade class and our teacher Dave took a trip to our local park just half a block down from the Governor's mansion in Albany, New York. While throwing a baseball back and forth with Dave, I experienced something I had never previously experienced in my life: a teacher talking to me as a person. We were discussing whether the Cardinals had a real shot at the pennant and it hit me, he actually wanted to know what I thought. He considered my opinions valid and wanted to have a real conversation with me. Did it matter that I was nine and he was twenty-seven?...
Posted on May 02, 2011 - 11:51 AM by admin
Tour of Our Lives
Last week 37 educators from 10 states and 4 countries gathered at the headquarters of Project Reach and Fertile Grounds in Manhattan to begin the Institute for Democratic Education in America's (IDEA's) first ever Innovation School tour.After receiving our Metrocards (this was an all subway all the time tour), and a quick chance to get to know each other, we were off to do what we came to do: see four innovative, breakthrough schools, each with different histories, instructional models and student populations. (Monday: NYC iSchool, The Green School; Tuesday: Urban Academy, Calhoun School). We were especially interested in the culture and climate of each school"each one was considered...
Posted on Apr 11, 2011 - 09:11 PM by admin
Bringing Democracy to Education
This article has been published in various forms by The Huffington Post, YES! magazine, and Education Revolution.Introduction
As a leader within the alternative and democratic education community, I am frequently asked the question, “What is democratic education?” When I was a teenager, and at that time a recent graduate of a democratic school, I used to give a fairly dogmatic and uninviting response which included a bullet point list of requirements to be “democratic.” Surprisingly, this was not an effective method to talk about what I was most passionate about. This style of communication disappeared as I grew up and my experience as an organizer and educator evolved. I learned to...
Posted on Mar 09, 2011 - 09:16 AM by admin
Going Green
For me, education results from in and out of the classroom. Education is about learning and building awareness. For this entry, I hope to write in a less conventional form to discuss a topic worthy of recognition and awareness.April is Water Conservation Month. In commemoration of the upcoming month, I have written a poem. This poem is in recognition of our environmental crisis, and in celebration of its potential turnaround. Please feel free to share stories of schools going green, environmental education in the classroom, and green efforts in your daily lives.
Mother Nature's Cry
It took me a long while
To better the way you live.
Since you have turned hostile,
I've got no more to...
Posted on Mar 07, 2011 - 08:49 PM by admin
Soothing Hymn of My Eagle Mother
Like Amy Chua, my mother is Chinese and wants her daughter to succeed. She genuinely cares about my education and invests in my future. She wants me to maximize my time around productive activities and minimize my time dawdling. Like Amy Chua, my mother believes in my potential for growth and excellence.However, I was allowed to have sleepovers. My B's were tolerated. I did not have to be a star musician or come in first in every math and science competition. I was permitted to pursue my interests and excel through passion. Because of my mother's love, I was able to graduate from Stanford University this past June.
My mother is an eagle mother.
Like an eagle, she is able to have a...
Posted on Jan 31, 2011 - 12:08 AM by admin
2010’s ‘Best of Democratic Education’ List
I recently read through Education Week's "Revisiting the Most Popular Stories of 2010" list and was generally disenchanted. This is not to say it's a bad list, rather it didn't represent my work and passions in democratic and alternative education. After a few days of jogging my memory, looking through a few 'cheat sheets,' and asking around I now present to you my 'Best of Democratic Education' list for 2010. I've organized the links into a few categories with no ranking system (I wouldn't want Alfie Kohn to get mad).Best of...
News, Commentary, & Blogs
The kind of mayoral engagement we can celebrate
Science Shows Making Lessons Relevant Really Matters
50 Ways to Make Your School...
Posted on Jan 02, 2011 - 04:47 PM by admin
Remedies for “Stupid in America?”
The news is not new nor is it little known. American students are lagging behind in academics. For example, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) report shows that the United States is 113 points behind the number 1 spot-holder Shanghai-China in math literacy, the equivalent of more than two school years of schooling. These findings indicate a grim future for America's economic competitiveness but also reflect a bleaker reality of America's failure to commit to an equal, high quality education for every child.The PISA report argues that the best-performing countries are able to set high expectations for all students. They invest in learning materials and teachers to help...
Posted on Dec 18, 2010 - 09:52 PM by admin
50 Ways to Make Your School More Democratic
Editor's Note: Kirsten Olson is the co-chair of the IDEA Board of Directors and a guest blogger for IDEA. She also writes at the group blog Cooperative Catalyst.It was an amazing meeting. Ten committed activists, educators, school founders, and school re-starters gathered for an IDEA Board Retreat in San Francisco last month. Fired up by Pedro Noguera's keynote speech to the Coalition of Essential Schools the day before, we framed up IDEA's commitments and strategy: how we move this baby out so we're actually doing something, making sure we're talking about what matters, and ensuring we're providing tools for change. Because we aim to be the organization in this country connecting people...
Posted on Dec 11, 2010 - 07:12 PM by admin
Thoughts On Cheating
When people ask me whether academic cheating is right or wrong, my gut instinct is to say that it is wrong. I mean, come on, that is why we have the honor code! However, upon a second thought, I realize that nearly everyone cheats in school. The more serious forms of cheating-- blatantly copying answers, plagiarizing huge chunks of text, turning in someone else's work as one's own-- are still avoided by many students for fear of dire consequences. However, nearly every peer of mine has in the past cheated in some marginal way, for example, by reading Sparknotes in lieu of the actual texts, sharing homework answers, and consulting outside sources for take-home exams. Surprisingly, the...Posted on Dec 01, 2010 - 10:45 AM by admin
What Is A High-Performing School?
My alma mater, Boston Latin School (BLS), is frequently referred to as a “high-performing school.” What does it mean for a school to be high-performing? To me, a high-performing school must offer a transformative experience for its students. It must foster a learning environment actively seeking outcomes of, and not means for success. For these reasons, I would argue that Boston Latin is a high-caliber, and not a high-performing school.A high-performing school should nurture growth and development for the students, and show evidence of such academic improvement over time. Let's take a look at Boston Latin School. The school consistently ranks among the top 20 best high schools in the...
Posted on Nov 20, 2010 - 01:59 PM by admin
I “Demand Education That Matters.”
On November 11th, I attended the Coalition of Essential Schools' Annual Fall Forum. With a theme of "Demanding Education That Matters," the forum drew teachers, administrators, students, and others who are passionate about improving education and providing personalized, equitable, academically challenging schools that prepare all students for successful lives. The last workshop I attended at the conference was a panel of LGBQTI youth and adults who had an unscripted discussion on the question “What Does Demanding Education That Matters” mean to them. The panel was powerful and I have a wealth of memories and notes to reflect on. One comment that really stuck with me during that session...
Posted on Nov 14, 2010 - 07:29 PM by admin
I was ‘Free to Learn’ (Reflections | VIDEO)
The most profound experience I had growing up was attending The Free School. The Free School is a democratic school in Albany, NY--the only democratic school for elementary-aged students in New York's capital. Founded in 1969, the school is the longest running inner-city democratic school in the country.It's important to acknowledge that, while The Free School was the most profound experience, my parents played the most important role in my life. Their guidance led me to discover, develop, and nurture my own sense of morality and justice, what it means to be self-directed, and what it means to live in community with others. They taught me that the most important thing in your life is...
Posted on Nov 08, 2010 - 02:25 PM by admin
What Is An Education? What Is A Career?
The commencement speaker had just concluded her speech. While applause rang in my ears, I was reminded of the potential of my college degree and a reality I could not yet grasp but would need to acknowledge eventually. Welcome to the real world.As I flung my cap into the air, I acknowledged the present reality. I had to choose a job and ultimately, define my career. Fortunately, college had helped me to realize that whatever career I choose, it should reflect what I have worked up to.
My life growing up in a rural village in China, living in inner-city Boston, and learning in suburban Stanford University is complex and ever-changing. College was a time to tie learning with personal...
Posted on Oct 28, 2010 - 02:07 PM by admin
Discussion: Bestselling education writer Herbert Kohl delivers a stirring keynote address (VIDEO)
In early June of this year, I had the pleasure of filming bestselling education writer and educator Herbert (Herb) Kohl at his home in Point Arena, CA where he addressed the 7th annual AERO conference. Kohl delivered a riveting keynote challenging alternative and democratic educators, while presenting a stirring call to fight for public education as a foundational element of democracy. I found his talk thoroughly engaging, blending humor, wonderful anecdotes, while presenting tough and important questions for those involved in education--specifically, democratic and private learning alternatives. I invite you to watch his talk and join me in a meaningful discussion around so many of the...
Posted on Oct 15, 2010 - 02:10 AM by admin
Nuestra Escuela: A School with a Mission of Love
Click on any photo to see its caption.
Love. It’s not a word you hear very often in professional settings. In discussions of education, “accountability” and “achievement” are far more common. It’s as if people are afraid to lose credibility by saying the word “love,” even if it’s what they know, deep down, that children need.
Justo Mendez and Ana Yris Guzman, the founders of Nuestra Escuela (“Our School”) in Puerto Rico, don’t pay this social convention any mind. They will tell you within the first five minutes of meeting you that Nuestra Escuela, the “Center of Sustainable Support for Young People and Their Families,” is based on love. They know that no matter how many resources they...
Posted on Jun 15, 2010 - 01:10 AM by admin
How to Teach Kids What They Really Need to Know
Imagine, for instance, a third-grade classroom that was free of the laundry list of goals currently harnessing our teachers and students, and that was devoted instead to just a few narrowly defined and deeply focused goals.
In this classroom, children would spend two hours each day hearing stories read aloud, reading aloud themselves, telling stories to one another and reading on their own. After all, the first step to literacy is simply being immersed, through conversation and storytelling, in a reading environment; the second is to read a lot and often. A school day where every child is given ample opportunities to read and discuss books would give teachers more time to help those students who need more instruction in order to become good readers.
Children would also spend an hour a day writing things that have actual meaning to them ” stories, newspaper articles, captions for cartoons, letters to one another. People write best when they use writing to think and to communicate, rather than to get a good grade.
In our theoretical classroom, children would also spend a short period of time each day practicing computation •€” adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. Once children are proficient in those basics they would be free to turn to other activities that are equally essential for math and science: devising original experiments, observing the natural world and counting things, whether they be words, events or people. These are all activities children naturally love, if given a chance to do them in a genuine way.
What they shouldn(tm)t do is spend tedious hours learning isolated mathematical formulas or memorizing sheets of science facts that are unlikely to matter much in the long run. Scientists know that children learn best by putting experiences together in new ways. They construct knowledge; they don•€(tm)t swallow it.
Along the way, teachers should spend time each day having sustained conversations with small groups of children. Such conversations give children a chance to support their views with evidence, change their minds and use questions as a way to learn more.
During the school day, there should be extended time for play. Research has shown unequivocally that children learn best when they are interested in the material or activity they are learning. Play ” from building contraptions to enacting stories to inventing games •€” can allow children to satisfy their curiosity about the things that interest them in their own way. It can also help them acquire higher-order thinking skills, like generating testable hypotheses, imagining situations from someone else(tm)s perspective and thinking of alternate solutions.
Posted on Feb 02, 2010 - 01:19 PM by admin
R-E-S-P-E-C-T: What Children Get in Democratic Schools
The root ideas of a democratic education are as simple as they are radical: children should be accorded the same human rights and freedoms as adults; they should be granted responsibility for the conduct of their affairs; and they should be full participants in the life of their community. Democratic schools provide an environment where children can live their formative years in exactly the same manner as they will live out their mature years—as free citizens of a society devoted to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The world these children will inhabit as adults will be a familiar one, a world that has been part and parcel of their childhood.
Like the old colonial towns that nurtured our country’s political traditions, democratic schools are self-governing. Children of all ages are entitled to participate in all decisions affecting the school, without exception. They have a full and equal vote in deciding expenditures, in hiring and firing all employees (including teachers), and in making and enforcing the rules of the community. In democratic schools, there is no residual authority vested in adults, no veto power lurking in the background.
In practice, democratic schools look more like a cross-section of real life, more like a vibrant town or village, than like traditional schools. There are no assigned groups or rooms, no specified activities or time periods, no preferred curriculum or dress code, no agenda for pressuring children into endless compromise and compliance. Here children decide for themselves how to spend their time, what to do, and when and with whom to do it.
Play is a big part of daily life, and it is the prime factor in learning. Nothing compares to play as an instrument of learning, least of all courses given by a teacher. Most of the students, especially the younger ones, are too busy playing all the time to rest or even to eat. By late afternoon, they’re ready for a huge meal and a good night’s sleep. They’ve worked long and hard.
Lessons learned here become tools for a lifetime. What is mastered is the ability to concentrate and focus attention unsparingly on the task at hand, without regard for limitations—no tiredness, no rushing, no need to abandon a hot idea in the middle to go on to something else. This “lesson” is retained for life.
Posted on Jan 25, 2010 - 02:04 PM by admin
How to Train the Aging Brain
Brains in middle age, which, with increased life spans, now stretches from the 40s to late 60s, also get more easily distracted. Start boiling water for pasta, go answer the doorbell and—whoosh—all thoughts of boiling water disappear. Indeed, aging brains, even in the middle years, fall into what(tm)s called the default mode, during which the mind wanders off and begin daydreaming.
Given all this, the question arises, can an old brain learn, and then remember what it learns? Put another way, is this a brain that should be in school?
As it happens, yes. While it•€(tm)s tempting to focus on the flaws in older brains, that inducement overlooks how capable they(tm)ve become. Over the past several years, scientists have looked deeper into how brains age and confirmed that they continue to develop through and beyond middle age.
Many longheld views, including the one that 40 percent of brain cells are lost, have been overturned. What is stuffed into your head may not have vanished but has simply been squirreled away in the folds of your neurons.
Posted on Jan 04, 2010 - 03:29 PM by admin
Taking school choice to a whole new level
To most people, this school probably looks like chaos.
But at The Village Free School, chaos is part of the equation.
In this “free democratic” school, kids call the shots on most things. They decide what they want to learn, when they want to learn and how they want that learning to look.
The school’s philosophy? The most substantive learning takes place when students initiate the learning process themselves.
“Kids are learning all the time,” Executive Director Scott Nine says. “It’s not just in certain classes or during certain periods of the day.”
Posted on Oct 19, 2009 - 06:38 PM by admin
IDEA Bloggers
- admin
- Dana Bennis
- Shawn Strader
- Darren Schwindaman
- Melia Dicker
- Scott Nine
- Jonah Canner
- Tanya Reza
- Ammerah Saidi
- Alison Bagg Brink
- Khalif Williams
- Tim Curley
- Claire Russell
- Kristan Morrison
- Adam Fletcher
- Sara Schmidt
- Laura Stine
- Luis Moreno
- Zuleka Irvin
- Cian Sawyer
- Jason Lacoste
- Esther Ohito
- Laura Chytka
- Manauvaskar Kublall
- Adam Burk
- IDEC 2012
- Kelly Dillon