Ken Robinson: Time for a Revolution

I just listened to this recent TED talk from Ken Robinson. The ideas he presents about education reform (in this as well as his other talks) are great. When he presents his ideas, and all the people in his audiences are cheering and clapping, I think, "Look--people agree with these ideas!" These seemingly plain, intuitive ideas are applauded--and not just when Ken Robinson presents them; you see it in a lot of other places in the internet conversation on education. So why isn't America's education system revolutionized already?

Why I Love the Creative Commons

A photo I recently used for Hope4Utah - photo by miamism on Flickr

Happy May, my friends. It is the two-month anniversary of my last blog post, and when I looked at my blog today and saw that, I thought to myself, "Wow! I had better celebrate." So here's a blog post to commemorate the occasion.

I have been working week in and week out to complete several different projects for the Hope4Utah organization. The first project was a suicide prevention manual, which I have mentioned here before. My other projects for Hope4Utah have included advertisement designs and an online course for suicide prevention. And in the past few months working on all of these projects, I have really come to rely on using Creative Commons licensed photos. Why? I will tell you.

Why I love using Creative Commons licensed photos:

Why I Admire Jennifer Lawrence

Moment of truth here. Ever since Jennifer Lawrence took her spill at the Academy Awards on her way up to give her speech, I have been watching interviews with her. I watched an interview or two to find out more about her, mostly because I first wanted to hear about her fall (silly, I know). After finding out how funny and down-to-earth she is, I have been watching interviews here and there. I love how quick she is to admit that she is nervous or weak in some area. Because she is very confident, but also not afraid to break face and prove that she is human.

I also love how passionate she is about the work (in a not too-obsessed way), and the way that she talks about the work of making a film as something she loves and wants to be involved in for the sake of making great work. In other interviews I've watched, where she talks about working with director David O. Russell, she talks about him not giving up in his purpose for the work (Silver Linings Playbook is meant to raise awareness of mental illness), and you can tell that she is also purpose-driven, not just there for the money or the recognition. I haven't seen Silver Linings Playbook, but I have been really eating up these interviews. Weird, I know.

Learning from Montessori: Using This "Timeless" Method in Traditional Teaching

See The Absorbent Mind on Goodreads

Two Saturdays ago I stopped by Barnes & Noble to browse through the Education section. After flipping through a couple of books, I sat down with Maria Montessori's The Absorbent Mind, since I have been wanting to learn more about her method for a while. After an hour of reading and a call from my husband telling me to take my time, I decided "What the heck?" and just read the entire book.

I've had trouble finding the time to write this post, but since two Saturdays ago, I've read one other book and several important articles on education, and the stuff to blog about just keeps stacking up! I certainly can't leave Montessori lying forever in the dust heap of my half-written blog posts, so I need to talk about what I feel is so important about her philosophy.

Now, I'm not a Montessori teacher, and although after reading The Absorbent Mind I would certainly consider becoming one, my goal in reading Montessori's book was mainly to find out what her theory was about and to see what other schools and teachers might have to learn from it. I was really impressed by what I found, to say the least. I'll dedicate this post to just a few essential points from the book (and the method) that I found could be particularly helpful. If you're interested in catching a better glimpse of the book for yourself, you can also look through this document of quotes that I pulled out as I was reading.

Make Changes, Not Enemies

A big thanks to Justin Schwamm, who on Google+ referred me to this TED talk by Charles Leadbeater. I really appreciate the way Leadbeater presents the need for different types of educational change, and the fact that there is value in all of these areas of change.

As I listened to the portion of his talk in which he uses his 4-quadrant image, I was reminded of a brief conversation I had with a professor in the education department at BYU once. I mentioned to him that I was interested in starting a charter school. He was positive and supportive, and he went on to mention something about many people in the education field being "either-or" when it comes to involvement with charter or regular public schools. He said I would probably get some push-back from some of these folks in going the charter route. I told him I had already experienced some of the push-back. Which is true. I have mentioned my desire to start a school to people before and have received a variety of doubts about charter schools in response--one person I spoke with a while back, I remember, became particularly defensive of traditional public schools in our conversation.

But I realized, listening to Leadbeater's talk, that in this one particular conversation, I had taken the position that charter schools, with all their possibilities, were the solution to the "problematic" traditional schools, which were broken or inferior. With the attitude I've had that I must champion either traditional schools or charter schools--the belief that I had, in fact, to take sides--I have often taken sides against traditional schools. With this attitude, it is no wonder this individual became defensive in conversation with me. It is actually surprising that I have not had the same reaction from many others.

In short, what I have learned this evening watching this TED talk is refreshing to me. I now realize that there is important work to be done in all of these areas, and what is more--pooling my efforts into one particular quadrant does not mean I must be in opposition to those whose efforts are placed in other areas. The lines separating the different areas of Leadbeater's matrix, in other words, do not have to be battle lines.

Doing School Differently

Adding to my to-read list

I've been doing more education research this week. The book on the left is one I was reminded of yesterday in some of my browsing, and which I first heard about through Lisa Nielsen's feed on Twitter during the election last Fall. It was written by 17-year-old high school student, Nikhil Goyal (see his website here), and I have yet to read it, but from what else I've read about his ideas, I like what he has to say.

I can't tell you how little I feel I know about education. Even browsing through Steve Hargadon's interview series alone, reading interview descriptions and guest bios, and I feel so small compared to the vast amount of resources out there for education reform. I have Rousseau and Dewey closest to the top on my To-Read list for the history of education reform, since I know I need that historical background. But then I have come to realize that in order to really achieve my long term goals of starting a school or helping to change schools, I need to harvest this field of resources from two different angles at once.

1. Study the history of education reform, to understand why things are the way they are now

2. Research innovative ideas in education, to see what has worked and what might work

As I'm slowly chipping away at the first point here by gathering key philosophers' works on my ed philosophy site and reading them one at a time, I have also been taking some time to research into some innovative ideas others are trying. Listening to a few of Steve Hargadon's (as mentioned above) past interviews yesterday led me to the discovery of #StuVoice (stuvoice.org), and some of the students involved with that. Then scrolling through the #StuVoice Twitter hashtag led me to this video, which I just watched.

I am intrigued by what these students are allowed to do, in pursuing projects they're passionate about and asking questions about subjects that interest them. And how the teachers act as mentors and coaches on the sidelines, rather than being the focus of attention in the classroom. It reminds me a lot of my experience with homeschooling during my 7th-9th grade years, following the ideas behind "Thomas Jefferson education." It also reminds me a little bit of Maeser Prep's Winterim program, which allows students, in a much less extensive version of this idea, to choose their own course of study for three weeks out of the year. So what do you think? Could something like the program showcased here work for other students? What aspects of this would you take or leave in building the ideal school?

Educators Who Make a Difference

Photo courtesy of flickingerbrad on flickr

As I've been working with Greg Hudnall and Cathy Bledsoe at Provo School District these past few weeks on various projects, I've had a lot of thoughts running through my mind about education. So I'm here to get some of it out and hopefully process it better.

To give a brief background, I work for Provo City School District in the Student Services office, and I act as "writer" for the staff (if you're extremely curious, you can see my job description on LinkedIn). In this capacity, I've been working a lot with Greg, the Associate Superintendent, and Cathy, one of the staff members. Greg and Cathy have for years traveled across Utah and given presentations to educators, administrators, and community members on a topic they are very passionate about: suicide prevention. If you want to hear how their projects and training efforts all began, I would recommend you read Greg's experience as he wrote it for his manual and now website on suicide prevention.