Island School

The Island School, a public school in New York City, embodies passion-based learning.

By Kimberly Vincent

We hear a lot about “passion-based” learning, and although in theory it sounds ideal, there are many factors to consider in building an education system around something as intangible as passion. A recent Future of Education talk addressed the topic, with experts in the field weighing in. The group included Angela Maiers, Amy Sandvold, Lisa Nielsen, and George Couros, and the talk was mediated by Steve Hargadon. These are some of the key points that address the issues around passion-based learning that came from the talk, along with some additional thoughts from John Seely Brown, co-author of A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change, and educator Jackie Gerstein.

1. REACH OUT TO THE DISENFRANCHISED. We say that we want creative, passion-driven students, yet we reward the opposite. Standards-based education stifles engagement and passion in students. While drop-outs are considered to be lazy and unmotivated, many are simply not interested because they don’t understand the relevance of what they’re being taught. We’re rewarding students who are best at obedience, memorization, regurgitation, and compliance. And those who do succeed in school often don’t know what to do when they get out. We need to prepare kids to be successful in the real world, not just while in school.
2. SHOW RELEVANCE TO LIFE OUTSIDE SCHOOL. Passion is the narrative of mattering. It’s that simple and that difficult.  Everyone has a deep rooted drive to know that they matter to others and that what they’re doing matters. When you’re doing work that matters, with people who matter, you’re willing to suffer and study more. Passion-based learning is not about matching students with topics that interest them, it’s about presenting subjects to students in a way that’s relevant. People gain empowerment when they’re doing work that matters and is respected.  Angela Maiers suggests that a class essay rubric may seem irrelevant for some, and that having students surf the web to identify writing standards that are “worthy of the world” may engage them to take ownership of their writing.
3. INDOCTRINATE PASSION INTO THE SYSTEM. We must switch from a control narrative in the classroom to a passion narrative. While our education system allows continuity between grade levels, provides a streamlined performance metric, and “teacher-proofs” schools, assessment-based education can quell the creative process in teachers.  Lisa Nielsen writes in her Innovative Educator blog: “Are we going to lose another excellent, passion-driven teacher to a compulsory system of education that as Seth Godin so aptly expresses, ‘only values compliance not initiative, because, of course, that’s what’s easiest to measure.’” School mandates paralyze educators from taking a close look at their passion for learning.  School administrators should support teachers and empower them to be creative. Teachers and leadership, as exemplified by those from Aurora High School in Ohio, can read books like Passion-Driven Classrooms (written by panelists Angela Maiers and Amy Sandvold) to discover ways to use more passion in their classrooms.The Island School is an example of a public-financed school in New York City that’s implemented a schoolwide enrichment model focusing on talent development and nurturing multiple intelligences.
4. TRY USING THE SCHOOLWIDE ENRICHMENT MODEL. Passion-based learning is about finding a “hero,” learning what makes him/her successful, and acquiring the practices and the norms of established practitioners in that field.  The Schoolwide Enrichment Model identifies student strengths, nurtures skills, and creates authentic opportunities for students to utilize these skills not just as students, but as practicing professionals providing experiences and opportunities to work and learn with others in the fields in which they are interested. If a student takes interest in the culinary arts, watching the 60 Minutes interview of Jose Andres, following up on studies of molecular gastronomy, volunteering at a local soup kitchen and exchanging recipes with a network of cooks is far more enriching than simply taking a cooking class. Jackie Gerstein said: “I realized that it becomes much more than learning about the culinary arts.  It becomes a way of being in the world, the dispositions that contributes to success as a culinary artist.”
5. DIGITAL MEDIA IS KEY. Students can read and view media about their heroes and possibly even connect directly with them. John Seely Brown, a notable passion-based proponent and keynote at the New Media Consortium this past summer, says that passion involves an extreme performance with a deep questioning disposition. Without digital media, this quest is not possible in formal education.
6. TAP INTO THE WISDOM OF YOUR TRUSTED PEERS. Social media and Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) are necessary. Teachers need to publish their innovative work and share it with their personal learning networks. It’s also important for teachers to help students get connected to PLNs via social media.
7. BECOME A DIGITAL CITIZENS. If for no other reason, then to be able to guide students. Students need to be shown what’s appropriate and instructive with social media in and out of the classroom. Schools’ banning of social media sites impedes this process. Having teachers and students learn side-by-side can provide great opportunities for building respect and openness.
8. PASSION IS INFECTIOUS. Being around passionate people is the best way to become passionate. A passion-driven teacher is a model for her students. Teachers must be able to lead in the areas that they’re passionate about (whether this be in the classroom or after school). They must demonstrate that they have lives outside of school and that they are well-balanced people. Being transparent with students and building relationships with them beyond the classroom can help drive learning – students work harder with people who matter to them. The Science Leadership Academy, for example, uses Facebook as a means of connecting students and teachers to each others’ interests. Students and teachers even do things together outside of the classroom.
9. CONNECT WITH PARENTS. Building relationships between parents and schools is crucial. George Couros says that having a pre-conference at the beginning of the school year with parents allows teachers and administrators to listen to parents talk about their kids and gives parents a chance to tell the school what their competencies are and where their expertise lies. Teachers can then create “resident expert” walls. By identifying strengths and talents of parents, parents gain a sense of recognition and human value – they feel engaged. This leads to opportunities for parents to teach topics that they love within the school.

MikvaChallenge.org

By Sara Bernard

Last summer, 15 students from Chicago’s public school system were charged with answering this question: “How can 21st century technology enhance rigor, relevance, and relationships in high school?”

To answer the question, they interviewed teachers and community members, researched best practices, held panel discussions, and conducted a survey of 380 of their peers. They developed a 53-page document of 18 recommendations for Chicago Public Schools — titled “Bringing Chicago Public High Schools into the 21st Century” — as well as an entertaining video about the process.

It was a new twist on an annual project led by Mikva Challenge, a Chicago-based nonprofit that enables youth leadership and civic involvement through activism, electoral participation, and policy-making. The Education Council, as these 15 students are called, advises the CEO of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) on a variety of issues every year.

The 2010 Education Council had plenty to say — and they’re certain they’ll be heard. Among their suggestions:

1) Allow access to restricted Web sites like YouTube for educational purposes.

2) Hold technology integration training workshops for teachers.

3) Use cell phones as a “teacher-defined learning tool.”

4) Partner with media-savvy youth organizations like YouMedia so that students who participate in technology-rich projects outside of school can receive elective credits.

I asked participant Laurise Johnson, a junior at Roger Sullivan High School, her thoughts on the project. “When it comes to school issues, I think adults should listen to us. We’re the ones who go here,” she said.

Here’s more from our conversation:

Q: What do you think are the most important recommendations included in your report?

A: I think one of the most important recommendations is for CPS to offer workshops for teachers on using technology in the classroom. We have some technology at school, but teachers don’t know how to use it. If you look at the big picture, technology adheres to a lot of people’s different needs. You can hear it. You can see it. It can be hands-on. I think that if teachers really learn how to use technology, then they will have better engagement with their students. Kids will learn more and be excited to learn.

Another recommendation that captured me was the idea that teachers should have a personal password for unblocking restricted websites for educational purposes. During our research process, we used YouTube a lot. To make our video, we used clips from YouTube. A lot of teachers from our teacher panels said that they’d had the experience where there was a video that they wanted to share with their class, but they had to download it onto their own computer and take their personal laptop to school [because YouTube is blocked on campus]. If students are already using YouTube, and teachers can see where they can use YouTube in class, then why not let it happen?

Q: Do you think these recommendations are going to be implemented at CPS?

A: Yes. We already have momentum from the teachers and we have support from so many people. These recommendations aren’t far-fetched. They are basic things that I think CPS needs to go back to so that they can catch up.

When I was at the CPS Tech Talk held recently, I was talking to one of the ladies from Apple about our report and she’s interested in holding a workshop for us to help teachers better understand technology and learn how to integrate it into their classrooms.

And Todd Yarch, principal of VOISE Academy [a face-to-face high school with an all-digital curriculum, recently launched in Chicago] is already starting to implement some of these recommendations. He wants to talk to us about setting up a workshop on technology integration for principals, too.

Q: What advice would you give to other students and schools interested in replicating a project like this?

A: Keep striving for what you see best fits the students there. Don’t necessarily let decision-makers try to turn the tables on what they like and what they see as best fitting their school district. Reach out to any and everyone. Reach out to principals, students, and teachers. Make it a bottom-up movement instead of a top-down one. Start implementing some of your recommendations inside your own school so when you do go to head officials, you already have a portfolio of evidence that you can bring to them.

Also, research other schools outside of your district and state. Some of the research we found was implemented at universities in different states (Arizona, for example). We could see that it has been done. It is possible. People have already succeeded.

Flickr: NMCSecondLife

Why do our kids’ classrooms look exactly the same as our grandparents’?  Slate’s Linda Perlstein asks this question and solicits ideas from the public on how to modernize American classrooms. The site will pick a winner from all the responses, and the design, they say, may be built as a model classroom in a new charter school.

Some cool ideas have emerged:

- 3 walls (optional light controlled glass on the 4th, or no 4th wall)

- Reconfigurable round/bean shaped table and chairs on casters

- Outdoor classroom with a rain barrel to capture water, perennial flower beds, earth science station, and shade structure.

- Infrastructure for on-demand learning via video presentations and online group lessons.

- Standing desks with stools or high seating

- Individual desks combined with group working areas

- Classrooms with 15 to 20 cubicles similar to Hollywood Squares crammed with technology that communicates with the teacher.

- Couches in the classrooms to allow for more informal discussions.

- Desks with connections to restricted set of online resources.

- Use headgear to enter 4D virtual reality, for example when studying astronomy or geography.

But what’s resonated more with me are some of the responses about how the learning process would change. One commenter says:

“By combining access to digital resources with a ‘coach,’ the student can access ‘facts’ that were formerly taught by teachers.  In this space, teachers stop being “the provider” and start being a guide – a curator of relevant digital resources. Class wikis, blogs and online calendars make this easy for the teacher and convenient for the student.”

Another writes about using the community as classroom, including museums and workplaces.

“All students would have a home base, preferably around a discussion table, with non-florescent lighting, and lots of computers, board games, art supplies and tons of books in every room.”

On Joanne Jacobs’ blog, EB mentions how technology can help with differentiated learning.

“We are starting to realize that children learn better and faster if they are learning in their zones of proximal development, which can only be done in a classroom of 25 K-3 children if their practice is automated at some level.”

Perlstein’s article also addresses this:

“In places where schools have moved away from the idea of teachers as sole practitioners, away from the science-then-reading-then-math-then-social-studies way of breaking up the day, and away from treating students as a mass toward treating them as individuals, some innovative classrooms have emerged. Architects have begun to toss out the usual set of spaces–classroom, cafeteria, auditorium, gym, hallway–for more flexible layouts.”

I’ll be following the progression and report back.

Flickr: FoundphotoSLJ

Veteran teacher, blogger, and educational technology expert Will Richardson was recently interviewed by Edweek. There are so many, but here are some of my favorite quotes:

“I look at my kids’ tests all the time—it’s just factual stuff. You know, “What was the third ship that Columbus sailed?” I can’t stand it, because it doesn’t have any relevance or any bearing on anything that they’re going to do in their lives. But they have to spend a lot of time on it, because if they don’t get that test answer right, then the school looks bad on the state assessment. It’s just so screwed up. I get how it made sense 50 years ago. Maybe 30 years ago. But I don’t get it now, when my daughter could pull out her phone to find the answer in two seconds. It’s just silly… We have to be willing to put kids—and assess kids—in situations and contexts where they’re really solving problems and we’re looking not so much at the answer but the process by which they try to solve those problems.”

I think we’re at a point where we really need to think about not just reforming education but transforming it. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t have teachers and classrooms and schools, but the interactions that happen just need to be really, really different—because the world is just such a different place right now, with everything we have access to. You know, when I think about my own kids, I have no doubt that the best teachers they’re going to have in their lives are the ones that they find, not the ones their schools give to them. And that to me is a huge shift in the way we think about the role of educators in kids’ lives. And I think that kind of captures a piece of how differently we have to think about this.

“…This is a real period of transition, and it’s natural for us to do some hand-wringing when we go through periods of transition, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that 50 years from now we’re going to be stupid because of the Internet. In many ways, I think the Internet has made us immensely smarter. But there’s no doubt that the ways we process and gather information is going through a big change. That can be scary, but we can’t just put the genie back in the bottle.”

A teacher responds:

Sad to say, many of us hard working teachers are quite lazy when it comes to our own learning: the learning that will make us relevant and capable leaders for students who must enter a digital society where the challenge is not the facts they know, but what they can do with newly-acquired knowledge. Which means our students will be expected to master the very skills teachers refuse to learn.

Read the rest of the interview. It’s good stuff!

Flickr: EdenPictures

Pushing for fundamental changes in education, panelists at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation regional meeting yesterday talked about what classrooms of the future should look like.

The panelists: Anne Campbell, San Mateo County Schools Superintendent; Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix; Salman Khan, founder of the Khan Academy; and Glenn Singleton, Executive Director of Pacific Educational Group.

Here are some highlights from the discussion.

• Anne Campbell on the future of schools and what needs to change to get there:

“My guess is that schools will be different than they are now, a class within four walls with a teacher at the front of the class holding forth, will change. Schools will change. We’ll still need teachers. Teachers have to have commitment to the idea that every child has the potential to learn and be successful. And each teacher has to have skills to embody that belief.

The school year needs to be longer than 180 days and teachers need to work during those longer school years. Right now, they only have about 45 minutes a day to prepare for the class, and that’s not enough. Our focus should be on figuring out what do we need to do to make teachers most effective?”

• Reed Hastings on new school models that work:

“It’s heartening to see schools actually reversing the achievement gap. Rocketship in San Jose, the KIPP schools in San Jose, and American Indian Charter in Oakland have cracked the formula. We need them to run 50 or 60 schools, to bring some passion to other schools.”

• Salman Khan on leveraging technology as a way to close the achievement gap.

“The school of the future will be like a one-room schoolhouse. There will be kids of all ages, and part of the day will be spent using technology to learn at their own pace. We avoid the problem of superficially learning subjects. There will be no ‘pretend learning.’ A teacher gets a dashboard, and figures out who are the kids that are stuck, and will focus on those who need the most help. Or better yet, have the kids are doing better help the ones who are struggling. Teachers will become a mentor or a coach. Everyone will learns at their own pace.”

• Glenn Singleton on the urgency of the need to rethink race and class in education:

“We have to think about alternatives to what we’ve been doing until now. What do we do to change the educational outcome of black and brown students? What are the models that we want to replicate? There are generations of black families that have been miseducated. School systems have never done what we’ve asked them to do. The success of a child is dependent on the quality of a teacher. The most needy kids need the most qualified teachers in the most supportive schools.”