Hitting the restart button at the start of the school year

There are so many things weighing us all down these days. Our brains are overloaded with negativity. For me, I need to refocus as I head into the new school year... and focus on the kids. That's what this is all about, and that's what gets me back on track and back into a positive mindset. And one of the cool things about the summer vacation is that it's like we get to hit the restart button every year for us and our students.

But that doesn't mean it will always be the best start it could be. In a recent issue of the Marshall Memo, Kim Marshall writes:

"In this article in AMLE Magazine, teacher/consultant/author Rick Wormeli bemoans the fact that students’ eager and receptive frame of mind at the beginning of each school year is often deflated by the endless succession of going-over-the-rules, filling out forms, and stale getting-to-know-you activities. “Students grow increasingly disillusioned,” says Wormeli. “We’ve missed a golden opportunity for them to dive into the subject material with neurons firing on all thrusters. It’s probably the most significant time of the year to hardwire students’ minds to embrace our subjects, and we don’t want to miss it.”

He recommends mixing mandatory stuff with lively activities, so students learn something new about your subject every day."

I love his idea of making sure we grab their interest at the start of school, but I would add a couple of other goals to my list of the three things I want my students to take away from the first few days of school:

1. Piqued interest - As Wormeli recommends, I want to hit the ground running the first day with high-interest, challenging and content-rich activities. Earlier this summer, as I was planning this year's Science Project Block I asked myself, "What are the most interesting topics in biology that can be tackled with a simple hands-on approach?" I want to make sure the first day they are diving right into that.
2. Success - When I ask myself what these kids need most, the answer is confidence. The students I work with are all in dire need of a feeling of competence and success. This is true for all of us. When we feel successful at something, we will not only be interested in it, we will tend to become more successful at it. And the opposite is also true, which is why school failure is a downward spiral.
3. An expectation of hard work - At the same time, I want them to be in the zone of proximal development--not overwhelmed, but challenged. Expectations are key, so I also want them to expect to work hard every day.

So what does this mean for the first day/first few days? It means I need to provide learning activities that are:

1. Inherently interesting.
2. Easy enough to ensure success.
3. Challenging enough to require help.

In the case of Project Block, this year we'll be trying to raise trees from seed and cuttings in order to help fight climate change. The first day, after introducing the idea of climate change and the "Trillion Tree Solution," we'll go right out into the woods to look for tree seeds that we can bring back inside for the next steps. We humans have a natural interest in living things, and while I am sure they will all be able to find seeds, I also think it will be challenging.

If I can infuse success into these kids, then I've succeeded. Success here could restart their whole lives, and that's what this job is about. It's not about all this other stuff that's going on in the world or in education these days. It's about these kids and their futures. It's about what we can do to help them.

Resistance training: Big changes at the Depot

"I do not like Project Block. Nobody likes it. Everybody hates it."

That was what one student said as he came in and plopped down in his seat for "Project Block" this week.

It's just one of the big changes we've made this year at E. O. Smith's Depot Campus. For an hour and half, three times a week, we get all the students together in the Big Room, with Ellen and our new UCONN interns, Rose and Nick, and we work on projects together. It's meant to be a scaffold--to help them learn how to plan and carry out their own projects.

As I explained to my disgruntled student, even though our school was built on an independent learning model, there was too little of that going on--our students simply lacked the skills.

And they have to work hard during this block. We put a big timer on the screen, and for ten minutes they have to be 100% focussed on their work--no phones, Youtube, or talking. We take a short break, then repeat. The goal is to break the process down into short-term goals and build their ability to focus. A successful ten minute run means a poker chip, and poker chips add up to credits and rewards.

Last Wednesday, they worked through five 10-minute cycles like that, and they cranked through their biomes powerpoints, which are the first project in our climate change theme.

Each project will focus on a part of the project process, and we'll gradually release responsibility to them until they are able to work independently for an hour and a half, three days a week, on their own projects.

It's just one of the big changes we've made as we continue to work to build the Depot into a place known for hard work and innovation--a place where students can stand out through real world experience and really cool independent projects.


Of course, I expect a little resistance along the way, but that's OK. It's not supposed to be easy. It's supposed to make us stronger.

That goes for me and them.

What if school was like a sport?

What if school was like an athletic team practice?

I was in a Twitter chat yesterday morning on the topic of school culture, and one teacher said a positive school culture "feels like home, looks like an athletic team practice."

What a beautiful and powerful image! What if kids came in all fired up (and maybe nervous), asking what the workout was going to be? What if school was like CrossFit for the mind? What would that look like?

To begin with, it would be highly structured. As I've written before, I've gone through a paradigm shift since I've been at the Depot. I used to think the less structure, the better. I imagined an organic, self-organizing, project-based learning environment in which students would be naturally motivated to learn. I found out the independent learning process needs to be scaffolded. At the Depot, we give the students tremendous freedom and hope they'll engage in complex projects on their own, but they often don't, and I think it's because they lack skills and confidence. They need more structure at the beginning. Then you remove the scaffolding as they progress until they are ready for full-blown independent learning. (Click here for a rough sketch of what that might look like.)

That structure would include plenty of explicit instruction, drill, and practice in basic skills with tons of feedback. Students need to master basic skills--math, reading, communication, planning, time management, self-control, motivation, and a sense of self-confidence before they will be able to design and tackle complex projects on their own.

Complex tasks are, after all, made of of simple parts put together. You may be able to teach them in context, but there's a reason basketball practice is not all made up of scrimmages.


As a thought experiment, I tried to imagine applying a project-based learning approach to a skill like Olympic lifting: "OK guys, in order to get stronger and be able to lift more weight, I'm just going to have you guys build a barn!" Nope. Won't work. Olympic lifting is a set of very complex movements and skills. Check out this video of just one movement--the snatch. It's even harder than it looks, and barn raising won't teach you that. On the other hand, how about training in all of the Olympic lifting movements and then going to the barn raising. Now we're talking. You may need to be told what to lift, but I'll bet you won't have any trouble lifting it. In other words, extract the skills, drill, and then reinsert them into the context, and do it all deliberately and intentionally.

Students working on their planking challenge.

Finally, in a world where school is a sport, there would be lots of goal setting and tracking, and tons of motivation, engagement, energy and celebration of small wins, big achievements and effort. Some of our students have been working on fitness goals that they set a couple of months ago. One group is working towards a 3:30 plank. They meet every day to increase by 10 seconds. Imagine if students approached all of their learning the same way?

I used to imagine that just by doing relevant and interesting projects the kids would learn. Now I see that is wishful thinking. Instead, let's turn the equation around--give them a strong set of essential skills first--and then they'll be ready for the heavy lifting of complex and creative tasks. They'll have the skills and they'll be ready for the game... and life.