Teaching (or doing anything) while the world burns

Lately I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed by all of the problems in the world. I didn't really expect COVID-19 to surge again, and it looks like the speed of climate change is also exceeding expectations. I have been surprised by the degree to which racism is still endemic in our society, and our current state of political division is truly disheartening. It's as if the world is burning in more ways than one. How do you teach (or do anything) while the world burns? 

I think there are at least four ways, but a combo of the second two is the best (and BTW I think all of this burning craziness may be the beginning of growth).

Option 1: Give up

You can always just give up and either quit altogether or emotionally check out and just go through the motions.  Lots of folks are choosing this option, and I don't blame them. There is a time to quit, especially if you're close to retirement age, but for me, now's not the time. More on that below.

Option 2: Pretend it's not burning

Denial: It's not just a river in Egypt. A popular way of dealing with difficult situations is to pretend the difficult situation does not exist. I'm not sure if we do this because we think it will go away if we ignore it, or if we think "dwelling on it" will only make it worse. Likely it's a combination of the two. But either way, it doesn't work. Problems do not go away if you ignore them. They either get worse immediately, or they fester and come back to bite you. Only by facing them can you have any hope of solving them. This is true for relationship problems, and it's true when the world is going to hell in a hand-basket.

Option 3: Acceptance and inaction

You can accept that all of these things are happening around you, but just keep doing what you love--kind of a monastic approach, I suppose. Isolate yourself. Tend your garden. Walk your dog. Enjoy your family. Teach your classes. View the world's problems like bad weather that will pass. I guess it's what I've been doing with my art and brewing during the pandemic. It's an escape, and I can forget all about the chaos of the outside world for a while. 

There's some power to this approach. If everyone did this--living simply and accepting things as they are, we'd all be much better off, I think. But it's kind of hard to pull off, and the downside is that not everyone will do it, so the shit's going to keep hitting the fan, and at some point the flames will be outside our door. So I tend to lean more toward a balance with Option 4.

Option 4: Action

You can realize that teaching (or whatever it is you do) has a role to play in helping to solve the problems that surround us. In a war, not everyone is on the front lines, and the battle against climate change, racism, COVID-19, and political division needs supply lines as well. 

We live in the information age and yet a destructive ignorance abounds--ignorance about climate change, viruses, history and racism. And one thing I learned this past year is that somehow American schooling has failed to adequately educate the nation. But it's not about facts. We've failed to teach people to think critically, quantitatively, scientifically and humanely, and we need to do better. We have a huge role to play here as the world burns.

But ignorance and sloppy thinking are just the tip of the iceberg. There's also a tremendous lack of trust in our society right now. There's also a tremendous deficiency of empathy and compassion. And there's a tremendous loss of social support, despite all of our online connections. And if we are going to fight all of these "fires" that burn around us, we are going to need more empathy, compassion, trust, and social supports. We're going to need unity based on our common humanity. These skills of empathy, compassion and building trust, unity and social supports were not traditionally taught in school, but we need to teach them now. 

And most importantly, our students need teachers that care, safe places like schools and the support of their classmates, as they watch the world burn around them. But they'll also need help because they're not going to just watch. They'll need help because they are going to fight the flames--the climate change, the pandemics, the racism and division. Because they are going to make the world a better place.

The Bright Side

So there's lots to teach while the world burns. There's lots to do. But there's also lots to enjoy, because honestly it's always a joy working with young people--they are so full of life and openness and hope and potential. And the world, burning though it is, is still so full of wonderful things to explore with them. And the journey of learning, even though it can be challenging and frustrating and painful at times, is worth it all as we grow from it. 

In fact, sometimes the burning happens inside of us, also. Sometimes the old us gets burned up and something new grows. What's it like to teach while that happens? 

Fires are a natural part of ecosystems, triggering renewal and new growth. We're teaching, or doing whatever job it is we're doing, in a time of fire and renewal. And my hope is that it will bring the same kind of regeneration to all of us--everyone of you reading this, and everything.

Thoughts on 2020, education, and evolution as we head into the holiday break

Every morning while I'm shaving, I listen to a motivational playlist I made on Spotify. This morning, Tom Sawyer by Rush came on. Funny how music can do this, but it kind of snapped me out of a rut I had gotten into in my mind over the past few weeks. 

This year has been a survival-mode year for many of us, me included. But I tend to forget that things will change for the better--we will adapt. New and better systems will evolve.

It is events like this that drive evolution. The theory of punctuated equilibrium says that biological evolution happens in fits and starts, driven by major events. Our culture and our systems are evolving. And our educational systems will evolve. 

And while the cognitive load has us all down for the count right now, our eyes need to be on that prize of new and better ways of doing things--ways that will be more resilient to future disruptions like these. 

A few come to mind for education: more authentic assessments that can't be cheated on, rigor that goes beyond memorization and simple application of concepts that can be googled, a focus on social, emotional and other so-called non-cognitive skills, a renewed focus on technical and vocational skills, and a focus on those ideas that really light kids fires--ideas that can compete with (or join forces with?) video games.

I think the same idea holds true outside of education. The past year has shown us all some major weaknesses in how we do things. Will we evolve? I think the answer is a definite yes. The only question is in what direction.

Change, after all, is the only constant in this world.

A few important numbers to remember this Fall

This Fall, as we return to school, here are some numbers I want to try to remember. Maybe you'll find some of them helpful, too:

0: Zero. This is the number of things that I can actually control. These days it seems like we're all balancing on the edge of a precipice. But it's worse than that--we're falling. But really that's how it always is. There's always this illusion that we're in control of things, but we never really are. And this feeling of needing to be in control creates all this anxiety. There's this cool saying attributed to Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche: "The bad news is, you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is, there’s no ground."  So my goal is to relax into that feeling of falling. In this case, it means remembering that my job is just to do the best I can for the kids. It means focusing on their needs, challenging them while supporting them, and just enjoying my time with them this year. 

1/2: One half. With the hybrid schedule, new safety protocols, new online learning platforms, and just rampant stress that we and our students are dealing with, I figure if we can cover 50% of what we normally do, we are doing really well. And that's OK, because there are more important things to focus on this year, like how our kids are doing emotionally and socially. And we can never require more of them than we can fully support. I put this into practice last week. I started creating a plan for the first week on our new learning management system. Then I realized it was based on a normal year, so I went through it and cut at least half of the stuff out of it and pushed it to the next week. 

1: One thing. What's the one thing I want to accomplish this year if nothing else? This principle is based on the classic book by Gary Keller.  For me, it's that I will not give up.  I will not give up trying to reach and support every single student I have.

2: Two months. I read once that you really can't expect to sustain a high level of intensity and motivation for more than a couple of months at a time. Motivation goes in cycles. We all need periods of rest and deloading. Normally, that roughly fits with the quarters of the school year. But this year, many of us will be starting at the end of a cycle, having been working hard and stressing all summer trying to plan for an unpredictable fall. But that's OK. It just means we may need to start in a deload phase. Our students probably need that, too. And we will all need periods of deloading throughout the year.

3: Three things at a time. As I've gotten older, I've realized I can only maintain focus on about three big things at a time before I start getting stressed out.  This means I need no more than about three big goals to accomplish on any particular day. For example, the first day of school these might be: 1) get to know my students and their needs, 2) support my staff as they start their school year, and 3) troubleshoot and adjust my hybrid instructional approach as needed. There's no doubt there will be other big, worthy goals that want to get done that day, and I may get to them, but they will have to wait in line.

4: Four days. I think exercising four days per week is a realistic goal starting out this fall. I'd like to do more, but we'll see how everything shakes out. These could be gym sessions or hikes with Teddy, and they include the weekends. Exercise is a huge stress relief valve for me, but it's a flexible goal and can be something to toss overboard when higher priorities need attention. It's not something I should stress about. 

5: Five-minute journal. There's this cool little app called the Five Minute Journal. It reminds you in the morning to write down three things you're grateful for, three ways you'll make today great, and one affirmation. In the evening, it reminds you to write down what went well today and what would have made today better. I'm not very good at doing it consistently, but it helps when I do.

7: Seven hours. I always shoot for at least 7 hours of sleep per night, and I do whatever I can to make that happen. It's a priority. But if it I have a bad night, I need to try not to worry about it. It means I cut myself more slack the next day.  Here are some tips if you have trouble sleeping.

10: Ten minutes a day. For the last several years, I've been trying to spend at least ten minutes a day doing mindfulness meditation. I started with this book on mindfulness by Williams and Penman. Some days are better than others, and in general I am not very good at it. They often turn into 10-minute stewing and problem-solving sessions. But that's OK. It's been good for me. And I'm sticking with it this fall for sure.

How are you preparing yourself mentally and emotionally for this fall? I'd love to hear!

Flex, tech, and checks: Preparing the next generation for the A.I. future

I have this one very thoughtful student. The other day, he asked me, "What's the point of any of this when A.I. is going to take all of our jobs?"

Great question, because it is a very real threat. Folks who argue that computers will never make humans obsolete fall prey to the "yeah, but" fallacy.

"Yeah, robots can build cars and stuff, but they'll never beat humans at chess."

"OK, so they're good at chess, but they'll never beat us at Go."

"Yeah, but they can't even tell a cat from a dog."

Except that now they can, and more.

I'll never forget reading about the historic game of Go in which Google's A.I.  beat the human champ. After a particularly surprising move by the computer, one commentator said, 'It's not a human move. I've never seen a human play this move. So beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful.'"

In the past, new technologies initially eliminated jobs, then ended up creating more jobs in new areas, but in a world where computers can create beauty, will there be any niches left for humans?

One academic thinks that humans will basically become full-time gamers. Others believe A.I. could lead to a world in which none of us have to work at all. Others, like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking think the A.I. may just get rid of us altogether. This last gloomy option might happen, but as I discussed in my 2013 article, Will humans become obsolete?, I think there are two more good possibilities: 1) A war against the machines, which would probably not go well for us, and 2) A merger between machines and humans. Many would say the merger is already underway. Just look at how much a part of our lives our smart phones are already, and brain-computer interfaces may not be science fiction for long. As they say, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. The best way to stay competitive with A.I. is to incorporate it into our own brains.

The likelihood of the merger option leads me to a few conclusions about what we should be teaching the kids:

First, it means we really can't predict what's going to happen with any half-decent degree of certainty. Second, it means our focus should be on getting ready for the merger. What kinds of people will be ready for the merger? It seems to me they will have three characteristics:

1) They will be flexible. One common response to the AI threat is that we should focus humans on the imagined gaps in AI capabilities, things that "only humans can do" and higher order skills, like problem solving or social skills. But assuming computers won't out-perform us in these areas is just the Yeah-but fallacy, and filling these gaps will be a game of Whack-a-Mole, with fewer and fewer moles all the time. Who knows what we'll need to be good at? Instead, be ready for anything, and be ready to shape-shift like crazy.

2) They will really understand math, science, computers and technology. They will be tech-savvy. The Luddite who refuses to get on Facebook is unlikely to be able to get in on these technologies, but the computer programmer will have a distinct advantage. I'm not just talking about  hiring more computer science teachers, though that's a great idea. Kids need to be ready to assimilate diverse technologies into their lives and even their bodies.

3) They will be wealthy enough to afford the augmentations as they arrive on the market. It would be great if this were an egalitarian revolution, but I wouldn't count on it. Kids need to be employable right away and able to get good paying, practical jobs.

So here's our curriculum: Flex, tech, and checks. We need to teach kids to be flexible, take advantage of opportunities and learn new things all the time. For this, they need a strong sense of self-efficacy and a growth mindset. We need to teach them to master new technologies and to understand computers--teach them how to "go borg" starting right now. This means a strong STEM focus. And finally, we need to teach them how to work in a lucrative field so they can make money (STEM works for this, too). It's that simple.

I'm not saying this is all we teach. Flex, tech, and checks is just about practicality. We need equal emphasis on the humanities. We are, for now, still human, and while we wait for what's next, we still need to live fulfilling lives in this humble organic substrate. In my mind, that means art, music, philosophy, writing, and history (sounds a lot like STEAM, now that I think about it). Nor am I saying this will guarantee that our species will not go extinct before the next turn of the century, but it may give us a fighting chance of having a say in what's next.

Education on the cheap

What I like about Betsy DeVos' recent comments about a former East Hartford High student is that they point out the importance of high expectations. What I don't like is that they offer the same tired old fallacy we've been buying for decades: that we can have quality education on the cheap.

You can't characterize East Hartford High on the basis of one student's story, but the sort of thing Besty is talking about does happen in many schools, and she's right, high expectations are one of the keys to student success. But you can't raise the bar without increasing the support, and that costs money.


Several years ago, during my libertarian phase, I would have been a big fan of Trump's proposal to cut public school budgets and increase school choice. But my experience experimenting with different school models changed my mind. It's not the model that's the problem. It's a lack of support.


Most teachers and administrators in struggling schools are doing the best they can and working their butts off for these kids, but they are fighting a battle the rest of us can't even imagine. They are fighting the combined effects of generational poverty, systemic racism, and years of insufficient support in which kids fell further and further behind. Those kids needed longer school days and extended years. They needed one-on-one instruction. They needed reading support, psychological services and social services, but didn't get them, because they were too expensive.

School reformers and new charter and magnet schools are a dime a dozen, and every one of them offers their own flavor of instructional models, but most have one thing in common: they are cheap.

They are all out there hawking their their magic elixirs and cure-alls, and they're all "on sale."

It's hard for reality to compete with the illusion of education on the cheap.

But why does everyone think they can get something for nothing? Why should we be surprised that raising and educating something as marvellous and complex as a human being requires a tremendous investment?


It's worth the investment, even from a utilitarian standpoint. As Geoffrey Canada of Harlem Children Zone once pointed out, for some of these kids, it's a choice between five thousand dollars extra per year while they are in school or sixty thousand per year while they are in prison.


Of course, money isn't magic. It has to be mixed with research-based practices. But the best practices in the world still need people to implement them. They still need time. And more people and more time mean more money.

I know the politicians aren't listening.

I know people vote with their pocketbooks.


But maybe one day that will change and we'll start taking the education of all kids seriously. If we do, I believe the return on our investment will be amazing.

"The only way out of poverty," said an inner city activist I met the other day, "is education."

The procrastination equation: Putting research into practice at the Depot

They were discussing different forms of government, and the conversation had degenerated into a frustrating chorus of "There is no right answer. It's all just a matter of opinion."

"That's not true," I said, trying to keep the frustration out of my voice. "There are benchmarks. Some forms of government work better than others."

I'm not sure they got my point, but that kind of relativism is one of my pet peeves. Unfortunately, it infects many parts of society, including education. People in education often think that there are no real answers--no reference points by which to judge between the myriad of models and practices that promise to improve student success. But that's not true. Research has shown what works. The same science that brought us modern medicine and discovered global warming can help us educate our kids, and if we're not using it, we're fighting this battle blindfolded. Here's the story of how we're putting research into practice at the Depot, and how it's impacting our kids.

Last year was my first year at this little non-traditional school, and it soon became obvious that motivation was a serious problem. Motivation was low, engagement was low, attendance was low, task completion was low, and procrastination was high. Then I came across this article on procrastination from psychologist, Piers Steel. It was a thorough review of research related to motivation, and his "procrastination equation" became my guide. I took the liberty here to make it a bit more user friendly:

Utility is "how desirable a task or choice is for an individual." Expectancy is whether we think we will be able to complete the task, value is how much we value the outcome, the more impulsive among us will have a greater tendency to procrastinate, and the further away the deadline (the greater the delay), the more we'll put off the work.

Using the equation is simple. If utility is low, we procrastinate. To decrease procrastination, we need to increase expectancy and value and decrease impulsivity and delay. At the Depot this year, we're attacking all four factors of the equation.

Expectancy: According to Stanford psychologist Albert Bandura, "efficacy expectancy is somewhat susceptible to verbal persuasion and emotional arousal but is especially influenced by modelling and actual performance accomplishments." With this in mind, we are increasing our use of explicit instruction at the Depot, and our new Project Block is designed to provide students with a string of small successes to build upon. As of last week, about 60% of our students had completed 8 science projects, including hands-on projects, lab reports and a research paper, and had begun their first independent project.

Focused work during Project Block

The ALEKS online math system, which we also started using this year, is another way we're building self-efficacy. It offers a mastery-based approach the kids love, and our students' average progress on their courses is 54%.

And finally, we've really ramped up the 1:1 support this year. With a combination of interns and an instructional assistant, we are able to assign struggling students one-on-one help during ALEKS, Project Block, and any other time they need it.

Value: Dr. Steel points to classical conditioning as one way to increase the value factor. During our summer program, we were having trouble getting kids to do their online math work, so I was tossing around the idea of a token-based incentive system with Ellen. I had planned to make the tokens worth credits. "But what if they don't care about credits?," she asked. 

She was right. Many of our students don't seem to be motivated by threats of credit loss or offers of credit. So what did we do? We still offered credit, but we also tied the tokens to a field trip reward, and it worked. They really valued that reward!

We carried that same approach over into this year: Students earn poker chips for on-task behavior, and if they earn enough, they qualify for special field trips. Many students use our new progress tracking system to keep track of their chips and they value them so much that their anxiety about the chips has actually become a bit of a problem. My hope is that this system will build the habits of work that we adults call intrinsic motivation. According to Steel, this is exactly what happens--students associate reward with the work, and the work becomes intrinsically rewarding.

(Of course, they don't always succeed. The other day, I told a student he would not have enough chips to qualify for the field trip the next day. He pushed his few chips away on the table as if to disavow them and said, "I don't want any more chips!" His protest reminded me of my son when he was young. He wouldn't eat his Thanksgiving dinner, and the consequence was not getting any pie. "I don't like pie!," he repeated, as he marched around the table. The fact that chips can tap into their emotion is testimony that we've tapped into the value factor.)

Impulsivity:  Impulsivity is considered a personality trait, and Steel questions whether we can influence it much, but he does suggest two possibilities: stimulus control and automaticity. "Stimulus control," says Steel, "helps to direct behavior by indicating what is appropriate (i.e., rewarding) under any given circumstance," and I think the chips serve this purpose also. If students stay off their phones and on-task for 10, 15, or 20 minutes (we gradually increase the blocks of time), they receive reward chips. Most students earn the full amount of chips available during ALEKS Block and Project Block, and it's surprising to see how easily most of them can focus for 20 solid minutes under these conditions.

To increase automaticity, Steel recommends schedules and routines. This year we've implemented a new blocked schedule at the Depot, but there's more we could do with routines within the blocks themselves. Interestingly, Steel also mentions reducing choice as a means of helping those with high impulsivity. I think the blocked schedule has also helped here, especially the replacement of "self-directed learning time" with Project Block, but I'm still chewing on this one.

We've also added another research-based strategy to the mix to try to address the impulsivity factor--one that Steel didn't mention. Stephen, one of our teachers, has been teaching mindfulness during morning pick-me-up since the beginning of the year. They've gone over several techniques, from focusing on the breath to mindful eating, and they had a great time identifying thoughts and feeling invoked by popular songs the other day. Several students have said they have started to practice meditation on their own. Our hope is that this will help them not only manage stress but also increase focus.

Delay: Our new progress tracking system is designed to give students continuous, rapid feedback about their progress, and the timed chip blocks have provided small chunked goals for the students, but I think we can help students a lot more with handling delays. My goal for the second semester is to explicitly teach the students two methods of time/project management, and then reward them for each box checked off their to-do lists. (Hat tip to Elizabeth Brott Beese, a Ph.D. student from Purdue who spent some time studying our program, for pointing me in this direction.)

That is how we're using science to help our students. That's our goal, anyway, and so far it seems to be working. Engagement is up, attendance is up, and even task completion seems to be up. I was so excited to find Steel's article last year. It has provided a framework--a science-based guide for improving our program. So often in education, we bounce from one model to another, often without much confidence that any of it will work. But there's no need for that. There is a research base in psychology and education that we can use and build on. We're not blind, we don't stumble in the dark, and we don't have to reinvent the wheel. We can't afford to. Time is precious for every one of our students.

Why study when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?

When we have to resort to external motivators, that means there's something wrong. Often, it means something we're doing is not fitting with human nature. That's why we have to force it.


And I have to wonder how much of our modern system of education and even civilization really is not a good fit for humanity at all.


Christopher Ryan tells the story of three natives of Tierra del Fuego, who were brought to England by Captain Fitzroy of the HMS Beagle to learn the ways civilization, in hopes they would serve as missionaries to their own people.

But when they were returned to their homeland, they just reverted to their old way of life--a primitive, hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

The good Captain offered to bring one of them back to England, but the man declined, saying he hadn't "the least wish to return to England," because he was "happy and contented" with "plenty fruits," "plenty fish," and "plenty birdies."

His response was similar to that of the Kalahari bushman who was asked why his tribe hadn't switched from their hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture. He replied, "Why should we, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?"

This may apply to school in at least two ways.

First, who can blame young people who are enjoying their social lives, sports, hobbies, and freedom from responsibility, and whose parents are taking care of all their needs, if they choose not to work their butts off in school? Why bust their tails when there are so many mongongo nuts around and they haven't yet learned the "skill" of worrying about the future like we adults have?

Or maybe they feel a need to improve their lives, but their experience has told them that the educational system doesn't work for them. I imagine it doesn't take many suspensions or Fs on your report card to get that message loud and clear. No wonder these students "revert" to lifestyles they feel work better for them.




And I wonder how many young people, when presented with the modern education-career-retirement pipeline are simply not interested. And I wonder if that's a bad thing. After all, what's the point of all that education and career if it doesn't bring fulfilment, if it doesn't make us "happy and contented"?

Darwin and Captain Fitzroy didn't take the hint.  They were saddened by the inability of these "savages" to see the wisdom of the "civilized" way of life. But what if they were missing the point? What if they were the ones not seeing?

I wonder if we too easily assume that our modern systems are best without looking for how well they actually fit humans.

What's your one job?

What's your one job?

What's the one thing you want to make sure happens in your life--in your work?

What's the one thing you can focus on, as everything else is uncertain and changing around you?

Mine, at work, is to make education work for more kids.

Whatever else happens with my career, that will remain: I'll be working towards closing gaps and helping every single student succeed and push the boundaries of their abilities.

A "theory of action"

A theory of action is basically a summary of your philosophy of how to do something. In my case, how to run a school, because that's what I hope to do some day, though I never expect to actually run a school by myself. In fact, the heart of my current theory of action is collaborative leadership and an approach called empowerment evaluation.

I believe that there are four things that really motivate humans (adding one to Pink's list of three): Autonomy, mastery, purpose, and relationships. This last one, relationships, comes from my own experience and recent readings, like this article about the work of psychologist Barbara Fredrickson (I was introduced to Fredrickson's work by Pink's book, To Sell Is Human).

And this theory of action is built on this foundation. It's also built on the work of Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Childern's Zone ("Whatever It Takes") and all the stuff I've gleaned from readings and discussions over the past two years as part of UCONN's Administrator Preparation Program (UCAPP).

But most importantly, I'd like to think it's founded on a sound scientific understanding of learning and human nature, and so it really will be effective in getting every student engaged and helping every student succeed.

Top ten reasons to be a school principal

Thought I'd follow up on the ten things I like most about being high school chem teacher with the top ten reasons I'd like to be a school principal:

10) The heart of the school is the classroom, and change has to start there, but a principal can facilitate it by finding, encouraging, supporting, and empowering innovative and growth-minded teachers.

9) Revolutionizing education is going to require radical changes in school structures. This is going to require school leaders who are bold and willing to be first adopters.

8) The key to school improvement is in a truly collaborative model of school governance. Only school leaders can make this a reality.

7) As a teacher with a passion for innovation, experimentation and improvement, the approval, encouragement, and support of my own Principal has been a key component of my success.

6) I have a passion for hacking education--for making a system that is more human, a better fit with our DNA. As a teacher I can do it at the classroom level. As a school leader I can do it at the whole school level.


5) In the classroom, I believe the most important thing is to design and foster a structure and culture in which autonomy, mastery, and purpose are the motivators instead of grades, rewards and punishments. The same is true at the school level.

4) The other day, I saw a student who succeeded in my differentiated, mastery-based geology class last year. He couldn't make it in his other classes. So even though I was able to help him, he still failed to succeed in the school in general. As a Principal, I'd look for ways to make his success universal.

3) As a Principal, I would have the chance to have a profound impact at key moments in the lives of struggling and at-risk students.


2) As teacher, my influence is limited to 40-60 students per year.

1) As a principal, I could help a thousand... per year.

Letter to a new teacher

Working with a student teacher this winter has reminded me how hard it is to be a beginning teacher, and how our trial-by-fire approach leaves much to be desired.

Being a beginning teacher is tremendously challenging. One can't really understand that without experiencing it. Starting out, we may envision something like a TED talk, with our own dynamic personality and the fascinating subject matter automatically enthralling and inspiring our students.

And then there's reality. A room full or real young people, with the struggles, energy, variety, exhaustion, and diversity of youth, craving independence, wondering what life is all about, identities tied up with their social lives in a way we can't imagine, worried about the present and future, and jaded by 10+ years of an educational system that cares not for such things. A system that's more of a filter than a fire-starter.

But this is exciting. What makes it difficult is the huge learning curve.
There's really a tremendous amount to keep track of when teaching a
class. It's not just about the content you have to communicate clearly and accurately (though for a new teacher, that's enough, especially at the high school level). You need to carefully watch how the students respond, constantly monitor understanding, paty attention to your own words, actions, and demeanor, and all of this on the fly, real-time. I've never surfed, but I imagine it's harder. And for the new teacher who is unsure of all of these things, it's quite a ride.

So if you're a new teacher, hear this: Don't expect perfection, and remember that this is really all about the kids. We don't fail unless we fail to see that.

The rest comes with time.

Will the mastery-model require too much time?

I've been having lots of success with the mastery model, and the best part has been that it makes my teaching time (and my students' days) less stressful and (I believe) more productive and effective.

But I've been struggling with whether it really does just take too much time. if you allow studentsto revise and resubmit everything, that multiplies the time requireed for grading. And if you need ot redesign assignments to fit the mastery model, that multiplies planning time.

And while there may be some teachers who go home every day at 2:30 and don't work weekends, I don't know them. In other words, they don't have a lot of extra time during the school year to spare. And as I've mentioned before, U.S. teachers already work half-again as many hours as the OECD average.

But here's what I'm thinking:

1) I don't do mastery because it is convenient, but because I believe it works for more students.

2) I'm not convinced it will mean extra time in the long run. After the initial redesign phase, the extra planning time will be a non-issue. And I think the extra grading time can be partially balanced by, a) automation and, b) replacing some formal scoring with informal teacher feedback and/or peer- and self-assessment.

I believe that quantitative, objective-as-possible scoring (i.e. data) is essential to real instructional improvement, but not every activity needs to be scored in this way, and some could be automated (as I currently do with short content quizzes).

This is exactly what I've been working towards lately with my new system: employing more informal feedback before the students submit an assignment, and using student self-assessment as a supplement to my own assessment of their work.

Though a switch to the mastery model will take more time up front, I think it might not require more than the traditional model after it's fully implemented.

The trick is, how do you create this massive paradigm shift and support this large initial spike in input to get the change to take place?

Malcolm X and the achievment gap

 “Hence I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

I'm about half-way through Malcolm X's autobiography, and it's solidifying some developments in my thinking about public education and social justice.

Last year, I read The Children in Rm. E4, and was blown away by damage that has been done (and continues to be done) here in my home state of Connecticut by subtly racist laws, rules, policies, and social norms. It was an impetus in my increasing awareness that often, struggling students are not to blame, at all, for their struggles at school. Even their parents are not primarily to blame.

We are. Our systems are. Our society is.

When we penalize them for their poor performance, we are committing an injustice, crushing them, as Malcolm said, and then punishing them for not standing under the weight.


The complexity and enormity of the interacting factors described in Children were hardly addressed by the outcome of Sheff v. O'Neill, in which the court basically told the state to "just do something about it." It's going to take something more in line with The Harlem Children's Zone combined with a radical regulatory reforms. It's going to take money, but it will be money well spent.

But let's take it one step further, because this principle extends to all of our students. Let's stop blaming them (or their parents) for their poor performance, behavior, and struggles, and start asking questions, identifying causes, finding solutions, providing real, comprehensive help.

The future of schooling

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men.  -Nietzsche's "Madman,"

Richard Elmore has been a staple of my administrator preparation program. His work on improving the instructional core was foundational. But in this 2012 video (HT to Gary Houchens and Steven Delpome), he's doing something else:

He's announcing the doom of institutional public school, and he does it with all of the gravity it deserves. And like Nietzsche's "madman," I'm afraid it fell largely on deaf ears. He came too soon.

But he backed it up with a theoretical explanation: in today's world, hierarchy is out, networks are in. Institutional schools are hierarchical, and cannot survive in the future.

I'm not sure I completely grasp his idea of networks, but I'm pretty sure I get the gist of it. In my dissertation research, I was fascinated by how the complex behavior of the fire ants I studied emerged from the countless interactions between individual ants. They’re a picture of the power of networks. Lewis Thomas sums it up better than I can in Lives of a Cell:

"A solitary ant, afield, cannot be considered to have much of anything on his mind... It is only when you watch the dense mass of thousands of ants, crowded together around the Hill, blackening the ground, that you begin to see the whole beast, and now you observe it thinking, planning, calculating. It is an intelligence, a kind of live computer, with crawling bits for wits."

I see the same thing working with my honeybees. This sort of organization is eminently more powerful for than hierarchy. That's why nature is arranged as a network instead of a top down system of authority.

That's why I shoot for a cooperative, egalitarian, open, and voluntary approach to my classroom and leadership.

But as to Elmore's pronouncement: I have to say it's a bit discomfiting to someone whose just finishing a gruelling two-year program for school administrators, but I have three things to say.

1) Good riddance to hierarchies. They are the antithesis of natural order, cooperation, compassion, free thought, creativity, and the kind of autonomy that motivates us all.

2) I can envision a more network-based, less hierarchical school, and that's what I'm going for. Elmore implies the inevitable demise of institutional public schooling will not  be good for everyone. But I am more optimistic than that (and perhaps more ignorant). I think we can avoid the fallout and inequities he refers to. I think the public system can evolve into something that will not only survive, but thrive.

3) I'm most concerned about what's best for kids, and if that's something different than what I'm preparing for, then so be it. Good riddance to whatever is hindering us as a species.

Granted: Elmore's solemn prophesy in 2012 has obviously not come true yet, and may not. But he's no madman. It's hard to ignore the trend in business and society as a whole. Just because public schooling is a bit slow on the draw doesn't mean it won't soon succumb. He was a bit too soon with his pronouncement, but it will come. And I'll be ready. In fact, I'll be one of the folks saying, "What are you waiting for?" Because I don't see the future as doom and gloom, no matter what the particulars are. I see it as bright--bright as a thousand suns.

System-gaming vs. learning

A student told me today she sometimes thinks high school is all about teaching you how to cheat.

Maybe hyperbole. But maybe not. But I've been chewing on that this afternoon and evening.


I've often wondered similarly about CT's new teacher evaluation system. If improperly done, and it's all about points and ratings and scores and judgements on your worth and future, what's a teacher to do? You figure out how to make it work. You figure out how to survive. You learn to play the game.

I'll never forget a struggling students advice to another struggling student a few years ago in my general science classroom: "Just play the game. You have to learn to play the game."

That's what happens when we use accountability as a driver. All it does is produce system-gaming (and poor morale). It certainly doesn't produce the kind of motivation we want. That takes autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

So if it's true that high school is becoming a training ground for cheating, to whatever extent, what are we to do?

We could clamp down on the cheating, put up more and better dividers, more confusing test versions, use cell-phone jammers, make harder tests, drive harder, be tougher, and let the beatings continue until morale improves.

Or we could find ask what's wrong with the system and ask what we can do to make school about learning.

On the status quo and the need for change

I'm always puzzled by those who defend the status quo.

Maybe it's just that I'm a change addict and junkie for improvement (glutton for punishment?).

I understand the numbing and disillusioning effect of the constant torrent of new initiatives, and I don't believe in change for change's sake, but it seems to me that as long as there are things not working, then something needs to change.

Take the achievement gap, for example, or the place of the US in the PISA results. But I don't even need all of that evidence. I have it in my own school, my own classes, where I still have students who are not reaching their potential.

Maybe the problem is simply that we haven't been implementing the old, traditional methods with fidelity--that I'm not.

Maybe. But to me that's kind of like saying the reason we haven't cured cancer is just that doctors aren't doing a good enough job with surgery, chemo and radiation.

Maybe that's a bad analogy. But maybe not.

To me, if your method isn't working, whether it can't be consistently implemented with fidelity, or it just doesn't work well, then something's wrong with your method (which is exactly the complaint often raised against differentiated instruction, interestingly enough).

To me, what we need is an system of education that isn't forced, one that will be implemented with fidelity because it fits human nature like glove, one one that essentially runs itself.

Maybe that's beyond us, but I don't think so.

What collaboration is all about

Today I got to give a little presentation about our voluntary PLC that's been meeting once a month to work on differentiation and mastery-based instruction.

As I prepared for it, I was mainly thinking about how I might motivate other teachers to get on board.

Though I did originally have a slide about the meaning of a collaborative culture, my main intent was not to send that message.

But maybe that's what happened. For one thing, as I talked, that's how I felt. As I described what we do:

It’s not about showing off.

It’s about troubleshooting, sharing, experimenting and improving.

It’s about collaborating.

That's what I was feeling. And as I described what some teachers a have already shared at our meetings, and one teacher in particular who had run into serious challenges as he tried to implement the mastery model, I felt the need to reiterate:

That's what this is about. It's not about starting with the assumption our strategies will work. It's about facing the facts, whatever they are, and improving.

I needed to hear that.

And looking out at the crowd, I thought I sensed everything from resistance and fear to agreement and encouragement. And I guess all of those feelings are in me as well. The tendency toward isolation and every-man-for-himself educational survivalism in which we all have to pretend we all have it all together gets to me.

Afterwords, a colleague said, "Thanks for the pep talk."

I hadn't thought about it as a pep talk, though it turned out to be one for me. 

Time I got more serious about being vulnerable and open, facing brutal facts, and being fully committed to improvement, whatever the implications to me.

A call for a more scientific approach to education

Sometimes my head swims and my heart sinks when I see so many different perspectives on education. Everyone seems to have their own agenda, some promoting grit, and other opposing it, some promoting increased use of data and assessment, and others want less of it, some excited about differentiation and deleveling, and others attacking it, some excited about standards, others hating them, some voices calling for change, others asking what's wrong with the status quo. It makes you wonder sometimes if agreement is even possible, if the complexity can ever be overcome, or if real answers even exist.

But then I remember... of course there are answers. The world is complex, and humans, especially, but every time people say that humanity can't solve a problem, humanity proves them wrong. Every time people say science can't possibly figure it out, it does.

Patience. That's what's needed, and one clear goal upon which we should all be able to agree: improvement of our situation, and a meticulous, dogged, scientific, unrelenting pursuit of that goal. That's what it will take to clear away the confusion of the conflicting voices. As Neil deGrasse Tyson said:

"Any time scientists disagree, it's because we have insufficient data. Then we can agree on what kind of data to get; we get the data; and the data solves the problem. Either I'm right, or you're right, or we're both wrong. And we move on. That kind of conflict resolution does not exist in politics or religion."

Or in education... yet.

A framework for a mastery-based classroom

I've been working on building a mastery-based and student-centered high school science classroom system based on Pink's ideas on motivation. Here's what I've identified as 7 key elements:

1. Start with meaningful standards. Can't overemphasize this--this is how to tap into two of the three keys to motivation: mastery and purpose. We're all more likely to want to master clear, clearly meaningful/practical goals, especially when they tie into a purpose bigger than ourselves.
2. Class discussions regarding the objectives. Unpacking them together. 
3. Students set their own goals (#autonomy) regarding the objectives and plan their learning process. I'm interested in teaching deconstruction as a learning technique (a la Tim Ferriss).
4. Students choose among options for learning activities/products to better suit their interest and readiness. Autonomy, again.
5. Students get immediate feedback as they work (from me and peers and self-assessment).
6. Students get multiple attempts to master the material/skills. No zeros. No late penalties. Incentive to keep working is intrinsic, plus the realization that falling too far behind is a very real danger.
7. Students share their work with each other and the world. @Twitter is key here, but @YouTube, etc. are also great.

Already running #4, and #6, and we've done some work with #3 and #7. Bottle necks are at #1, #5, and, surprisingly, #7. Building a truly meaningful curriculum would be a lot of work, but it would be worth it. Quick, quality feedback is always a challenge, but working on enlisting students to do it themselves and also on using more informal feedback rather than always using the formal rubric. Many students aren't up to speed with sharing things online, or are not ready to show their friends that they are scholars, but we're working on it.

I feel like if I can build the right structure, one that is in line with human nature, and then build relationships on top of it, it will run itself.

Getting the right teachers on the bus

If you have to ask the question, “Why should we try to make it great? Isn’t success enough?” then you’re probably engaged in the wrong line of work.”

-Jim Collins, Good to Great 

When I first read Collins' strategy of "getting the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus," I questioned whether it would work for schools, since we can't just unload people mid-year, and we can't hold out for the right person when a school year is looming.

I also questioned whether it fit with a growth-mindset model of leadership. If teachers are struggling, if they are rated as "Developing" in the new teacher evaluation system, isn't our job to support them and help them to improve, rather than just get them off the bus? That's should definitely be our approach with kids. Our job is not to filter them out of the system, but support them until every single one of them succeeds.

But then I came to the above passage in Good to Great, and I realized who the right people are--they're the one's who want to improve themselves and student performance. They're the one's who see the need for continuous improvement. They're the ones we need to support, because they have the most essential component for success. They're the ones we need on the bus.

The teacher evaluation system is designed to support teacher who see the need for constant improvement. The rest? Well, maybe we can change their minds, but if not, I'm afraid they're probably in the wrong line of work.