Diving into more authentic learning topics, I’ll share some insights from Jay McTighe’s book “Teaching for Deeper Learning” which has some great ideas for making learning more meaningful.
One of the first concepts McTighe discusses is framing learning around big ideas. Curriculum experts advise prioritizing a smaller number of conceptually larger, transferable ideas because there is too much information to cover everything (which is why essential standards are important), and trying to do so results in superficial learning. Focusing on larger ideas enhances knowledge retention and application, which is crucial in our rapidly changing world.
One way to reimagine how we plan units is to think of them as “A Study In…” some concept or big idea. McTighe gives these examples:
Argument Writing: A Study in Craftsmanship
Impressionism: A Study in Revolution
The Four Seasons: A Study in Change
The Pentagon Papers: A Study in Deception
Four Films by Hitchcock: A Study in Obsession
Weight Training: A Study in Proper Technique
Whole Numbers: A Study in Rules and Relationships
This is a very different way of thinking about unit planning, and it would be a great conversation for teachers, coaches, and principals as we begin another school year.
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I’m certain that the only way we can change our schools is to focus on creating authentic student learning experiences. The more I read and watch in the education world only solidifies that belief.
If we’re not focused on authentic learning, we betray the sacred trust given to us by families when they give us their very best every day. They want more for their kids.
They want more than scripted learning stuck in an industrial design that stifles creativity and individuality.
They want their kids to be their authentic selves. And that must be our commitment, our moral and ethical duty as educators.
If it’s not, we’re wasting our time.
Quote of the Day
“Habit is a mighty ally, my young friend. The habit of fear and anger, or the habit of self-composure and courage.” (Steven Pressfield, Gates of Fire)
Musical Interlude
Foxes and Fossils, one of my favorite YouTube cover bands, published a cover of Paul Simon’s “America,” and it is everything.
Have I mentioned that Paul Simon is one of my favorite musicians? No?
Long Read of the Day
I’m going to guess that most of us aren’t too worried about having clean clothes to wear when we leave the house (we’re not going to talk about summertime teacher lounging around the house wear…). However, clean clothes are a luxury for some students, and not having them can keep them away from school.
For most students, having clean clothes to wear to school is not a problem.
But for many families at 112th St. S.T.E.A.M. Academy in Watts, a pair of clean pants and a shirt is such a struggle that it has become one of the main contributors to chronic absenteeism, which is when students miss 15 or more days or classes…
In this webinar, experts discussed what whole child design looks like and what it means for broader systems change. Local education leaders provided lessons learned from their whole child design efforts and discussed how state policy can accelerate or impede these efforts.
Final Thoughts
I talk about authentic learning experiences all the time—maybe too much, but it’s kind of my thing. We don’t have enough authentic learning experiences in our schools, but what is more concerning is that we don’t let our students be their authentic selves very much.
We put them in boxes of grade levels, achievement, lunch groups, pathways, etc., and fully expect them to thrive. There’s nothing authentic or personal about much of what we deem important in education.
Before we can see better outcomes for our students, we have to let them be authentic to what is inside them. I’m stuck on Steven Pressfield’s idea that the artistic journey is the “passage by which we re-invent ourselves as ourselves.”
We need to give our students a passage to reinvent themselves by discovering who they really are. It wouldn’t hurt to give our teachers the same experience, either.
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I love learning—I really do. But my dreadful experience with “school” still influences much of my work in education.
I hated “school.” It was pointless for me, as it is for so many other students.
From John Warner:
One of the distinctions I often draw in thinking about engagement and education is that there is a difference between “learning” and “doing school.”
Learning is, you know, learning. Doing school is engaging in the behaviors that result in satisfying the demands of a system built around proficiencies as determined by assessing the end products of a process. You can successfully do school without learning much of anything. At least that was my experience through many periods of my own schooling.
My belief is that organizing schooling around doing school is part, a big part, of the current problem of student disengagement. When classwork is purely an instrument for getting a grade and moving on to the next check box, learning becomes incidental. It may happen, but it doesn’t have to happen.
JW: One of my personal obsessions is thinking about the difference between “learning” and “doing school” where doing school is essentially just a series of behaviors designed to achieve the desired grade with the minimal necessary effort. This seems counterproductive on its face, but you say it’s even deeper than that.
SB: Given how much time, energy, and money nearly everyone in our world spends in school, this “doing school,” as Denise Pope called it, is tragic. Students have learned to imitate learning; to provide a performance, a facsimile of whatever each teacher demands as evidence of learning. So much of what we do in schools doesn’t work, whether by “work” we mean learn or thrive or prepare for a competent, meaningful life beyond school. The central organizing concept for me was a contrast between alienation, brought about by numerous sorts of disconnections, such as doing things only because of coercion, and authenticity, which is connection, meaning, genuineness, and even use.
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I’m in a weird place as I write this today during the last week of school. The students are in a mad dash to finish everything, with the campus abuzz with field trips, award ceremonies, and the ever-present dread of some disruptive fire alarm going off just to upset the last few days or hours. I mentioned a fire drill since that’s how the last day of my first year of teaching ended. A freshman pulled the fire alarm right as the final bell rang, which made dismissal quite interesting; the high school parking lot was filled with fire trucks, and you had to wonder what the kid was trying to achieve. Everyone was already leaving; the timing was totally off.
As I plan for next year and prepare for my own doctoral work over the summer (yes, I see you, summer classes, and prospectus revision), I’m also thinking about the nuts and bolts of classroom instruction. How can we make small changes in our daily work to transform school from a place students have to be to a place they want to be?
I’ve been immersed in several pieces on music production recently. Had I stayed in the music world, I might have moved into producing.
Remind me to tell you about my musical journeys someday; there are some very good memories and some very, very bad ones.
When you’re recording, everything can affect your mix, including seemingly trivial things like the material of the walls and the amount of air in the space. Trust me, these details matter — just as the lighting and smell of your classroom matter. I’m on this train of thought because Steve Albini, one of the great punk rock producers, passed away recently. I’m thinking about Steve because, like me, he was an extraordinary dork and a feisty curmudgeon.
As much as he loved making music, he hated and questioned much about the music industry. “Surfer Rosa” is arguably one of the greatest rock albums ever, and he hated it, claiming the Pixies were, at best, a mildly entertaining college rock band. And don’t ask him about Steely Dan — just don’t.
Steve wanted to record the music and artists simply and honestly, including the mistakes. “I like to leave room for accidents or chaos,” he wrote to Nirvana when they attempted to hire him to produce the follow-up to “Nevermind.” This mindset is very much like the concerns of a teacher planning engaging learning experiences. Like a teacher, Steve wasn’t in it for the money. He told Nirvana he wanted to be paid like a plumber — doing a good job and getting paid for it — and had no interest in ongoing royalties. (Note: he still made way more than teachers, but hey, it’s the thought that counts.)
I will blame this random train of thought connecting music and school on my end-of-the-year reflection and nostalgia. What I work for every day is implementing simple shifts in our classrooms to make learning more meaningful for kids. It’s one of the reasons I like tools like the 4 Shifts Protocol; it helps facilitate those changes.
You can do all the professional development and coaching cycles in the world with teachers, give them access to every digital platform and tool, and send them to the most prestigious schools and conferences. But until you actually change the focus and intent of what you do in the classroom — from achieving some arbitrary learning goal to ensuring kids know how to choose a life path that works for them and developing those skills — we are always wasting our time, money, and effort.
As Steve said, nobody on Earth could make the Smashing Pumpkins sound like the Beatles. You’re never going to change schools until you change schools. The rest is just bonus points.
You were right if you thought you’d get a Pixies performance today. Here’s “Where is My Mind?” from Glastonbury 2014.
Long Read of the Day
Producers and engineers who use meaningless words to make their clients think they know what’s going on. Words like “Punchy,” “Warm,” “Groove,” “Vibe,” “Feel.” Especially “Punchy” and “Warm.” Every time I hear those words, I want to throttle somebody.
I figured I’d just include a link to Steve Albini’s “The Problem with Music” from 1993 here. It’s a great read and you’ll likely draw some parallels to education.
Video of the Day
While we’re at it, why don’t we take a tour of Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio studio in Chicago? I mean… why not? At about 6:35, you get to see the vent they cut in the floor to combine the air mass of the studio with the room below…
Final Thoughts
School ends on Friday. I wonder how nutty the rest of this week’s newsletters will be…
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“It would be nice if all of the data which sociologists require could be enumerated because then we could run them through IBM machines and draw charts as the economists do. However, not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
William Bruce Cameron
If there was a better quote for how many schools assign grades to student work, I don’t know what it might be.
Yes, the US’s most popular form of grading still uses letter grades. I know I know, those letters have numbers assigned to them to make it easy for teachers to score.
But who decided what the numbers meant, and why is the range for failure so huge compared to everything else?
Normally, on a 100-point grading scale, more than half of the “numbers” give you a failing grade.
Really? Can we finally admit that, much like Whose Line is it Anyway, the points don’t matter?
Authentic work, the goal so many of us in education are working toward, isn’t easy to “count,” no matter how you frame it.
But the skills students learn when they are presented with real problems and shared with a real audience absolutely count.
Count what counts, leave the rest to the number-crunchers.
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Some schools have partnered with companies to implement the use of pouches that students are required to put their phones into at the beginning of the day and that don’t unlock until the final bell rings, while others are threatening punishments including suspension if a student is caught with their phone, even at lunch time.
Yes, because even during lunch, we must ensure students have no control over their personal time. Good grief.
Renesha Parks, chief wellness officer at Richmond Public Schools in Virginia, told The Hill of a pilot policy being implemented in six schools at the beginning of 2024 to stop cellphone usage, partnering with Yondr, which creates magnetic pouches for cellphones. The measure will impact around 4,200 students and cost approximately $75,000. (emphasis mine)
Here’s an idea: shift the educational focus from boring content without connection to the real world to moreauthenticlearning experiences. I bet cell phones only come out when they are needed to accomplish a task.
Also, educators, how many of you put your phone away during a training session? A staff meeting?
Just sayin’…
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