Resenhas - Creative Schools

Roberto Padilha 27/12/2018

Há um grande consenso entre educadores, e na sociedade na forma geral, que o modelo que o sistema educacional funciona atualmente está atrasado, defasado, inadequado e insuficiente para o mundo que vivemos hoje e para o que nos espera pela frente.
Não é difícil chegar a esta contestação, e eu, como educador, acabo por conviver com ela diariamente.
Muito se fala no que será o futuro da educação. Entende-se que a adoção de tecnologias terá grande impacto em todos os níveis educacionais. Entende-se que a ubiquidade no acesso a ferramentas de ensino irá democratizar o seu acesso, com adoção de práticas como o ensino à distância, por exemplo.
Para o Sir Ken Robinson, um dos maiores especialistas em educação e reforma educacional no mundo, a discussão precede as ferramentas que serão utilizadas, os meios e materiais que serão aplicados. O que é preciso reinventar é a filosofia e os objetivos por trás da educação.
Traduzir um modelo industrializado de educação, focado apenas em resultadismos, em aprender para passar, e em aprendizagem focada apenas em "habilidades úteis", para ferramentas mais modernas não resolve o problema.
É preciso repensar o modelo e os objetivos da educação na sua essência. É preciso entender que educação não é um processo transitório, e que não forma apenas peças na grande engrenagem de produção de bens de consumo, mas sim, que a educação é um processo pra vida toda, que forma, transforma e melhora continuamente o ser humano.
Nesse livro, Sir Ken Robinson apresenta uma série de princípios, práticas e iniciativas que estão revolucionando e puxando vanguarda da educação no mundo, baseados principalmente na visão holística da educação e em uma abordagem orgânica, em contraponto à de linha de produção amplamente adotada no mundo todo.
Um livro que aborda desde o papel do aluno e do professor na relação de ensino-aprendizagem, até o papel dos gestores nas instituições e nas políticas públicas de educação para criar uma cultura de aprendizagem atual e capaz de criar condições de formar as pessoas que o mundo precisa pra o futuro, respeitando as características, interesses e os pontos fortes de todos os envolvidos no processo.
Discutindo desde os princípios filosóficos envolvidos no modelo de ensino que adotamos hoje, até os problemas causados pelos processos avaliativos inadequados (e o quanto de tempo se perde com eles), o livro é indispensável para todos aqueles que possuem um interesse direto na educação em qualquer nível.
Espetacular! Recomendadíssimo!

Moitta 23/10/2016



Civilization is a race between education and catastrophe. — H. G. Wells


The most fundamental question is, what is education for? People differ sharply on this question. Like “democracy” and “justice,” “education” is an example of what the philosopher Walter Bryce Gallie called an “essentially contested concept.” It means different things to different people according to their cultural values and how they view related issues like ethnicity, gender, poverty, and social class. That doesn’t mean we can’t discuss it or do anything about it. We just need to be clear on terms.


Learning is the process of acquiring new knowledge and skills.


Education means organized programs of learning. The assumption of formal education is that young people need to know, understand, and be able to do things that they wouldn’t if left to their own devices. What those things are and how education should be organized to help students learn them are core issues here. Training is a type of education that’s focused on learning specific skills. I remember earnest debates as a student about the difficulty of distinguishing between education and training. The difference was clear enough when we talked about sex education. Most parents would be happy to know their teenagers had sex education at school; they’d probably be less happy if they’d had sex training. By schools, I don’t mean only the conventional facilities that we are used to for children and teenagers. I mean any community of people that comes together to learn with each other. School, as I use the term here, includes homeschooling, un-schooling, and informal gatherings both in person and online from kindergarten to college and beyond.


If you design a system to do something specific, don’t be surprised if it does it. If you run an education system based on standardization and conformity that suppresses individuality, imagination, and creativity, don’t be surprised if that’s what it does.


The success of those who do well in the system comes at a high price for the many who do not.


As I see it, the aims of education are to enable students to understand the world around them and the talents within them so that they can become fulfilled individuals and active, compassionate citizens.


The inevitable price of a big picture is reduced detail in parts of it. For that reason, I refer you often to the work of others, which dwells more deeply than I can here on some of the issues I need to cover more quickly.


If you’re a teacher, for your students you are the system. If you’re a school principal, for your community you are the system. If you’re a policymaker, for the schools you control you are the system. If you’re involved in education in any way you have three options: you can make changes within the system, you can press for changes to the system, or you can take initiatives outside the system.


When we started taking that approach, when kids started seeing that we valued what they valued, they started giving back to us what we valued.


Formal education is made up of three main elements: curriculum, teaching, and assessment. The basic strategy is to standardize them as much as possible.


As the story goes, the smart kids go to college. The others may leave school early and look for a job or apply for a vocational course to learn a trade of some sort. Either way, they have taken a step down the status ladder in education. This academic/vocational caste system is one of the most corrosive problems in education.


In 1982, Wayne Gretzky was the top-scoring ice hockey player in the world. His secret, he said, was simple. Other players tend to race to where the puck is. Gretzky said that he went where the puck was going to be. It’s hard to resist the thought that in the mad rush to standardization, many countries are now dashing to where they think the puck is rather than where it’s really going to be.


The standards movement is not achieving the objectives it has set for itself. Meanwhile, it is having catastrophic consequences on student engagement and teacher morale.


research and practical experience show time and again that the critical factors in raising student achievement on all fronts are the motivation and expectations of students themselves.


The purpose of industrial manufacturing is to produce identical versions of the same products. Items that don’t conform are thrown away or reprocessed. Systems of mass education were designed to mold students to certain requirements. Because of that, not everyone makes it through the system, and some are rejected by it.


Industrial processes commonly overlook the value of raw materials that are not relevant to what is being made. The same is true in education. The preoccupation with particular subjects and types of ability means that students’ other talents and interests are almost systematically marginalized. Inevitably, many people don’t discover what they’re really capable of at schools, and their lives may be impoverished as a result.


The students who feel alienated by current systems of standardization and testing may walk out the door, and it’s left to them and others to pay the price in unemployment benefits and other social programs. These problems are not accidental by-products of standardized education; they are a structural feature of these systems. They were designed to process people according to particular conceptions of talent and economic need and were bound to produce winners and losers in just those terms. And they do. Many of these “externalities” could be avoided if education genuinely gave all students the same opportunities to explore their real capabilities and create their best lives.


because they were role-play environments that were cool for all of our kids, not just the preschoolers. If you’re talking to preschool kids about looking after themselves, you build them a mocked-up doctor’s surgery and they play at being doctors and nurses.


“We created a town with TV and radio stations, because they were role-play environments that were cool for all of our kids, not just the preschoolers. If you’re talking to preschool kids about looking after themselves, you build them a mocked-up doctor’s surgery and they play at being doctors and nurses. We thought, ‘If we were going to get our kids to understand the power of literacy and language development, let’s build them a television station and a radio station so they could take those skills and play with them in a real context.’ Eleven-year-olds would find that as cool as five-year-olds playing in a doctor’s surgery. For us, everything then had to be about the richness of the experience and context.”


If we think of students as products or data points, we misunderstand how education should be. Products, from screws to airplanes, have no opinions or feelings about how they are produced or what happens to them. People do. They have motivations, feelings, circumstances, and talents. They are affected by what happens to them, and they affect life right back. They can resist or cooperate, tune in or tune out. Understanding this points to an even closer analogy between mass education and industrialism.


One of the primary aims of industrial farming systems is to produce higher yields of crops and animals. They have achieved these results through developing huge, often monocultural farms growing large tracts of single crops, bolstered with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. They have been spectacularly successful in terms of yield and have bestowed immense benefits on humanity. As with many industrial processes, these successes have come at a high price.


Education should enable students to understand and appreciate their own cultures and to respect the diversity of others.


Education should enable students to understand and appreciate their own cultures and to respect the diversity of others. When people live in regular contact, they deeply influence each other’s ways of thinking and behaving. Over time, every cohesive human community evolves common conventions and values. They develop a culture. I define culture as the values and forms of behavior that characterize different social groups. A shorter way of putting it is, “Culture is the way we do things around here.” A community’s culture has many interweaving strands: belief systems, legal practices, patterns of work, approved forms of relationships, food, dress, artistic practices, languages and dialects, and so on. A culture lives in the interaction of all these elements with each other. Cultures typically have many subcultures: individuals and groups who specialize in or stand apart from various aspects of the overall culture, like Hell’s Angels, who reject the trappings of bourgeois society but still buy Harleys and use the freeways.


There is a darker side to this diversity. Differences in values and beliefs can breed hatred and hostility. The history of human conflict has always been as much about culture as it has been about money, land, and power.


There are three cultural priorities for schools: to help students understand their own cultures, to understand other cultures, and to promote a sense of cultural tolerance and coexistence.


Education should enable young people to become active and compassionate citizens.


Education should enable young people to engage with the world within them as well as the world around them.


Many of the problems in current systems of education are rooted in the failure to understand this basic point. All students are unique individuals with their own hopes, talents, anxieties, fears, passions, and aspirations. Engaging them as individuals is the heart of raising achievement.


The conventional academic curriculum is focused almost entirely on the world around us and pays little attention to the inner world. We see the results of that every day in boredom, disengagement, stress, bullying, anxiety, depression, and dropping out. These are human issues and they call for human responses.


to transform any situation you need three forms of understanding: a critique of the way things are, a vision of how they should be, and theory of change for how to move from one to the other.


Whatever their best intentions, many of the reform initiatives in the United States have not worked even on their own terms. And they won’t, not for as long as they are rooted in the wrong story.


Why was one project more effective than the other? It had to do with how the programs were designed and how they worked in practice. In the latter, we treated schools as the complex, adaptive systems that they are. That meant addressing the various, interdependent components of the system.


The only thing you can’t lose is an actor in a space and an audience watching. It may be just one actor and one person watching, but these are the essential and irreducible elements of theater. The actor performs a drama that the audience experiences. “Theater” is the whole relationship between the audience and the drama.


The only thing you can’t lose is an actor in a space and an audience watching. It may be just one actor and one person watching, but these are the essential and irreducible elements of theater. The actor performs a drama that the audience experiences. “Theater” is the whole relationship between the audience and the drama. For theater to have its most transformative effects, it’s essential to focus on that relationship and make it as powerful as possible. Nothing should be added, Brook says, unless it deepens it.


find the best early-years facilities they can in their region and spend time learning from what they do,” he told me. “Then ask, how can we take some of what they’re doing and translate it to a level that works for our students? That is the greatest celebration of natural learning that is practical and demonstrable.”


Because they conflict with these systems, too many students think that they are the problem, that they are not really intelligent, or must have difficulties in learning.


When we live closely with other people, we affect each other’s ways of thinking and feeling. We develop common ways of being together, shared values and behavior. As children grow, they absorb the ways of seeing and thinking that are embedded in the languages they speak and the values and lifestyles of their communities.


When we live closely with other people, we affect each other’s ways of thinking and feeling. We develop common ways of being together, shared values and behavior. As children grow, they absorb the ways of seeing and thinking that are embedded in the languages they speak and the values and lifestyles of their communities. Collectively, we have created sophisticated languages and organized systems of thought, abstract theories and practical technologies, complex art forms, and intricate cultural practices. In these ways, we literally create the worlds that we live in, and the worlds that different cultures inhabit are often strikingly opposed.


If we’re serious about meeting the four main purposes of education, we need to provide for the different ways in which our intelligence allows us to act in the world around us and to fathom the world within us. It’s essential that all students have proper opportunities to explore the range of their abilities and sensibilities in school, including but going well beyond their capacities for conventional academic work. This has fundamental implications for the structure and balance of the curriculum for everyone.


We all have a wide range of natural aptitudes, and we all have them differently. Personalization means teachers taking account of these differences in how they teach different students. It also means allowing for flexibility within the curriculum so that in addition to what all students need to learn in common, there are opportunities for them to pursue their individual interests and strengths as well.


Their “bad” memories in school may be a lack of engagement, not lack of capacity.


All learning depends in part on memorizing information and ideas.


One of the most exasperating features of the conveyor belt schedule is having to stop an activity before it’s completed.


“I was trying to provide space and time for the young people to find their own creative process. All of the projects I did were about trying to carve time out of the notoriously hectic school day.”


“At the heart of it is the quality of the engagement between the teacher and the learner being more important that simply judging students by ability and tests.”


The increasing standardization of education—and the sheer amount of education that’s going on—also runs against the grain of the most natural way in which people of all ages learn, and especially young children: through play.


All of the anthropologists surveyed pointed out that children in these cultures were allowed to play without adult guidance all day. The adults considered unsupervised play essential to learning skills that lead to becoming responsible grown-ups. “Some of these anthropologists told us that the children they observed in these cultures are among the brightest, happiest, most cooperative, most well-adjusted, most resilient children that they had ever observed anywhere,”


All of the anthropologists surveyed pointed out that children in these cultures were allowed to play without adult guidance all day. The adults considered unsupervised play essential to learning skills that lead to becoming responsible grown-ups. “Some of these anthropologists told us that the children they observed in these cultures are among the brightest, happiest, most cooperative, most well-adjusted, most resilient children that they had ever observed anywhere,” Dr. Gray said. “So from a biological evolutionary perspective, play is nature’s means of insuring that young mammals, including young human beings, acquire the skills that they need to acquire to develop successfully into adulthood.”


“Free play is the means by which children learn to make friends, overcome their fears, solve their own problems, and generally take control of their own lives. It is also the primary means by which children practice and acquire the physical and intellectual skills that are essential for success in the culture in which they are growing. Nothing that we do, no amount of toys we buy or ‘quality time’ or special training we give our children, can compensate for the freedom we take away. The things that children learn through their own initiatives, in free play, cannot be taught in other ways.”


If your shoes hurt, you don’t polish them or blame your feet; you take the shoes off and wear different ones. If the system doesn’t work, don’t blame the people in it. Work with them to change it so that it does work.


His class motto is “There Are No Shortcuts,” and his kids work ridiculously hard. But he’s right there with them. “If I want those children to work hard, then I better be the hardest worker they ever saw,”


More than class size, social class, the physical environment, and other factors, the heart of educational improvement is inspiring students to learn, which is what great teachers do.


John Hattie, professor of education at Auckland University in New Zealand, has compared studies from around the world of the factors that influence student achievement. He has a list of 140 of them.4 At the top are students’ expectations of themselves. One of the most important factors is teachers’ expectations of them.


I’ve said that education is a living process that can best be compared to agriculture. Gardeners know that they don’t make plants grow. They don’t attach the roots, glue the leaves, and paint the petals. Plants grow themselves. The job of the gardener is to create the best conditions for that to happen. Good gardeners create those conditions, and poor ones don’t. It’s the same with teaching. Good teachers create the conditions for learning, and poor ones don’t. Good teachers also know that they are not always in control of these conditions.


In my experience, the apparently sharp divide between progressive and traditional approaches is more theoretical than real in many schools. In practice, teachers in all disciplines usually do—and should—use a wide repertory of approaches, sometimes teaching facts and information through direct instruction, sometimes facilitating exploratory group activities and projects.


In my experience, the apparently sharp divide between progressive and traditional approaches is more theoretical than real in many schools. In practice, teachers in all disciplines usually do—and should—use a wide repertory of approaches, sometimes teaching facts and information through direct instruction, sometimes facilitating exploratory group activities and projects. Getting that balance right is what the art of teaching is all about.


I have consistently argued throughout my professional life that creative work in any domain involves increasing control of the knowledge, concepts, and practices that have shaped that domain and a deepening understanding of the traditions and achievements in which it is based.


In the reports of the Arts in Schools project, we argued that there are two complementary ways of engaging students in the arts: “making”—the production of their own work; and “appraising”—understanding and appreciating the work of others. Both are vital to a dynamic and balanced education in the arts. Making involves the reciprocal development of the individual’s creative voice and of the technical skills through which to express it. Appraising involves a deepening contextual knowledge of other people’s work—of how, when, and why they were made—and growing powers of critical judgment—both artistic and aesthetic—in responding to them.


To achieve this balance, expert teachers fulfill four main roles: they engage, enable, expect, and empower.


You expect your doctor to know a lot about medicine in general as well as having some specific area of expertise. But you also expect her to apply what she knows to you in particular and to treat you as an individual with specific needs. Teaching is the same. Expert teachers constantly adapt their strategies to the needs and opportunities of the moment. Effective teaching is a constant process of adjustment, judgment, and responding to the energy and engagement of the students.


Wright understands that an essential part of the process of enabling his students and piquing their curiosity is understanding where they come from and what is going on in their lives during all of the hours when they aren’t in school.


The key to raising achievement is to recognize that teaching and learning is a relationship. Students need teachers who connect with them. And above all, they need teachers who believe in them.


Building Learning Power (BLP) is about “helping young people to become better learners, both in school and out. It is about creating a culture in classrooms—and in the school more widely—that systematically cultivates habits and attitudes that enable young people to face difficulty and uncertainty calmly, confidently and creatively.”


Building Learning Power is based on three fundamental beliefs, which resonate exactly with what I’m arguing for throughout this book: The core purpose of education is to prepare young people for life after school; helping them to build up the mental, emotional, social, and strategic resources to enjoy challenge and cope well with uncertainty and complexity. This purpose for education is valuable for all young people and involves helping them to discover the things that they would really love to be great at, and strengthening their will and skill to pursue them.
 This confidence, capability, and passion can be developed since real-world intelligence is something that people can be helped to build up.


How powerful would our world be, asks Dr. Pierson, “if we had kids who were not afraid to take risks, who were not afraid to think, and who had a champion? Every child deserves a champion, an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be.”


“Classrooms shouldn’t be built around passivity, and around listening to someone and taking notes. It should be around learning at your pace. Then, when you go into a room with human beings, you should interact with them.


What Mazur saw was that his students learned and understood how to apply what they were learning considerably more effectively when he served as the “guide on the side” as opposed to the “sage on the stage.”


He then has the students with the right answers convince students near them with the wrong answers.


“When I was in school, I saw how little learning happens when people are passively sitting in a lecture.


“The classroom should not be about direct instruction. None of us liked it, and none of us felt particularly engaged. The teachers don’t like it, either. They feel like they’re just shooting information into a vacuum. Human beings should not be passive. When they get together, they should be interacting with each other. They should be solving problems, or they should be making things.”


Imagination is the root of creativity. It is the ability to bring to mind things that aren’t present to our senses. Creativity is putting your imagination to work. It is applied imagination. Innovation is putting new ideas into practice.


Creativity is not the opposite of discipline and control. On the contrary, creativity in any field may involve deep factual knowledge and high levels of practical skill.


Initial training is essential, but once in the profession, effective practitioners need continuing opportunities for professional development to refresh their own creative practices and to keep pace with related development policy practice and research more generally.


Initial training is essential, but once in the profession, effective practitioners need continuing opportunities for professional development to refresh their own creative practices and to keep pace with related development policy practice and research more generally. Great teachers are the heart of great schools. In their various roles, they can fulfill three essential purposes for students: Inspiration: They inspire their students with their own passion for their disciplines and to achieve at their highest levels within them. Confidence: They help their students to acquire the skills and knowledge they need to become confident, independent learners who can continue to develop their understanding and expertise. Creativity: They enable their students to experiment, inquire, ask questions, and develop the skills and disposition of original thinking.


“Students work with teachers who are working in teams. You’re not going from subject to subject that much. You’re making and creating a lot of things. You’re expected to have public exhibitions of your work on a fairly regular basis. You’re standing up and presenting quite frequently. You have to have fun.”


When you’re working with these kids, you realize how bright they all are. You just have to reach all of them in different ways.” Reaching all students is exactly what is at stake in the transformation of education.


For the most part, the classical curriculum continued to dominate education in Europe until the mid-nineteenth century.4 Then, three seismic social changes reshaped the school curriculum. The growing impact of science and technology was changing the intellectual climate. The spread of industrialism was changing the economic landscape. And the new science of psychology was proposing new theories about intelligence and learning. Each of these developments radically challenged accepted ideas about benefits of a strictly classical education.


By content I mean the material that has to be learned. Because of the preoccupation with academic learning, the emphasis is usually on theory and analysis rather than on practical or vocational skills.


You’ll see that all eight competencies begin with the letter C, which has no intrinsic significance other than being a good way for me, and hopefully you, to remember them. They are: CURIOSITY—THE ABILITY TO ASK QUESTIONS AND EXPLORE HOW THE WORLD WORKS


CREATIVITY—THE ABILITY TO GENERATE NEW IDEAS AND TO APPLY THEM IN PRACTICE


CRITICISM—THE ABILITY TO ANALYZE INFORMATION AND IDEAS AND TO FORM REASONED ARGUMENTS AND JUDGMENTS The ability to think clearly, to consider arguments logically, and to weigh evidence dispassionately is one of the hallmarks of human intelligence. Of all the lessons history has to teach us, this one is evidently one of the hardest to practice.


CRITICISM—THE ABILITY TO ANALYZE INFORMATION AND IDEAS AND TO FORM REASONED ARGUMENTS AND JUDGMENTS The ability to think clearly, to consider arguments logically, and to weigh evidence dispassionately is one of the hallmarks of human intelligence. Of all the lessons history has to teach us, this one is evidently one of the hardest to practice. Critical thinking involves more than formal logic. It involves interpreting what’s intended, understanding the context, fathoming hidden values and feelings, discerning motives, detecting bias, and presenting concise conclusions in the most appropriate forms. All of that takes practice and coaching.


COMMUNICATION—THE ABILITY TO EXPRESS THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS CLEARLY AND CONFIDENTLY IN A RANGE OF MEDIA AND FORMS


Verbal communication is not only about literal meanings; it’s also about appreciating metaphor, analogy, allusion, and other poetic and literary forms of language. Communication is not only about words and numbers. Some thoughts can’t be properly expressed in these ways at all. We also think in sounds and images, in movement and gesture, which gives rise to our capacities for music, visual arts, dance, and theater in all their variations. The ability to form and communicate our thoughts and feelings in all these ways is fundamental to personal well-being and to collective achievement. COLLABORATION—THE ABILITY TO WORK CONSTRUCTIVELY WITH OTHERS We are social beings. We live and learn in the company of others.


Yet, in many schools, young people largely work on their own; they learn in groups but not as groups.


COMPASSION—THE ABILITY TO EMPATHIZE WITH OTHERS AND TO ACT ACCORDINGLY


Compassion is more than empathy; it is the living expression of the Golden Rule, to treat others as you would have them treat you. Compassion is the practice of empathy.


Compassion is more than empathy; it is the living expression of the Golden Rule, to treat others as you would have them treat you. Compassion is the practice of empathy. Many of the problems that young people face are rooted in lack of compassion. Bullying, violence, emotional abuse, social exclusion, and prejudices based on ethnicity, culture, or sexuality are all fueled by failures of empathy. In the wider adult world, cultural conflicts and toxic social divisions are ignited and inflamed by these failures too.


Compassion is more than empathy; it is the living expression of the Golden Rule, to treat others as you would have them treat you. Compassion is the practice of empathy. Many of the problems that young people face are rooted in lack of compassion. Bullying, violence, emotional abuse, social exclusion, and prejudices based on ethnicity, culture, or sexuality are all fueled by failures of empathy. In the wider adult world, cultural conflicts and toxic social divisions are ignited and inflamed by these failures too. As the world becomes more interdependent, cultivating compassion is a moral and a practical imperative. It is also a spiritual one. Practicing compassion is the truest expression of our common humanity and a deep source of happiness in ourselves and others. In schools, as elsewhere, compassion has to be practiced, not preached. COMPOSURE—THE ABILITY TO CONNECT WITH THE INNER LIFE OF FEELING AND DEVELOP A SENSE OF PERSONAL HARMONY AND BALANCE


Many young people now suffer from stress, anxiety, and depression in school. For some, these feelings are caused by school itself and, for some, by their lives outside. In all cases, these feelings can lead to boredom, disengagement, anger, and worse. Schools can mitigate the effects by changing their cultures in all the ways we have discussed. They can also give students the time and techniques to explore their inner worlds through the daily practice of meditation.


CITIZENSHIP—THE ABILITY TO ENGAGE CONSTRUCTIVELY WITH SOCIETY AND TO PARTICIPATE IN THE PROCESSES THAT SUSTAIN IT Democratic societies depend on informed citizens being actively involved in how they are run and led. For that to happen, it’s essential that young people leave school knowing how society works and in particular how the legal, economic, and political systems operate and affect them.


“Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.” For that to happen, it’s essential that schools do not just talk about citizenship. As with each of these competencies, schools need to exemplify it in how they actually work.


As I argued in chapter 4, human intelligence includes but takes in much more than academic ability. For all of the reasons I gave there, I find the conventional idea of academic subjects too limiting as a basis for planning the school curriculum. “Subjects” also suggests discrete areas of knowledge, edged by clear, permanent boundaries.


The sciences are thought to be about hard facts, truth, and objectivity; the arts are about feelings, creativity, and subjectivity. While there’s some truth in both of these caricatures, they are still caricatures.


Many students learn best when they are actively doing things and not only studying ideas in the abstract: when their curiosity is aroused, when they are asking questions, discovering new ideas, and feeling for themselves the excitement of these disciplines.


Effective learning in any field is often a process of trial and error, of breakthroughs punctuated by failed attempts to find a solution. This dynamic is at the heart of the curriculum and a key to the success of High Tech High. “Failure is an important part of the process. We celebrate the failure: ‘Great, now you know something that doesn’t work. You can cross it off the list and go somewhere else.’ This critical part of the learning experience—the learning that comes from failure—is far too often programmed out of the academic curriculum.”


What they’re starting to see now is that the results are a by-product and not the focus of the entire education experience.


Diversity: It should be broadly based to cover the sorts of understanding that we want for all students and to provide proper opportunities for them as individuals to discover their personal strengths and interests. Depth: It should provide appropriate choices so that as they develop, students can pursue their own interests in proper depth. Dynamism: The curriculum should be designed to allow for collaboration and interaction between students of different ages and teachers with different specialties. It should build bridges with the wider community, and it should evolve and develop in the process.


Assessment is the process of making judgments about students’ progress and attainment. As I argue in Out of Our Minds, an assessment has two components: a description and an assessment. If you say that someone can run a mile in four minutes or can speak French, these are neutral descriptions of what someone can do. If you say that she is the best athlete in the district or speaks French like a native, these are assessments. The difference is that assessments compare individual performances with others and rate them against particular criteria.


Assessment has several roles. The first is diagnostic, to help teachers understand students’ aptitude and levels of development. The second is formative, to gather information on students’ work and activities and to support their progress. The third is summative, which is about making judgments on overall performance at the end of a program of work.


“Not everything important is measurable and not everything measurable is important.”

One way to enhance the value of assessment is to separate these elements of description and comparison. Student assessments can draw on many forms of evidence, including class participation, portfolios of work, written essays, and assignments in other media. Portfolios allow for detailed descriptions of the work that students have done, with examples and reflective comments from themselves and others. In peer group assessment, students contribute to the judgments of each other’s work and to the criteria by which it is assessed. These approaches can be especially valuable in assessing creative work.


Grades were originally tools used by teachers, but today teachers are tools used by grades.”


The students’ suggestions usually aligned with his, and there were far more cases where students would have recommended a lower grade than a higher one. The result of doing away with grading was that he eased the pressure on his students and allowed them to focus on the content of their assignments and their classwork rather than on the rubric to score them.


“When we try to reduce something that is as magnificently messy as real learning, we always conceal far more than we ever reveal. Ultimately, grading gets assessment wrong because assessment is not a spreadsheet—it is a conversation.


“If we’re serious about curiosity and wonder, then we have to think, ‘What are the sub-habits that lead to that?’ ” This school recognizes that the path to curiosity and wonder is through openness to new ideas, comfort with complexity, ability to ask questions. For each of those sub-habits, there are different descriptions, so this is what a person looks like when they’re a novice, when they’re a beginner, when they reach expert stage. This is not something that only teachers look at. Those rubrics are used by students and parents all the time. That’s what I mean by assessment as learning. Young people at that school are constantly reflecting on where they’re at on the continuum. As a result, I’ve never met young people who are better able to articulate their strengths and weaknesses and what they want to do with their lives and why.


before embarking on any course of assessment, a school community first needs to identify the characteristics of an ideal graduate: What should those graduates know? How should they be able to use what they know? What will this knowledge do for them? Once the school has identified this, they can then decide how to assess for this, both in terms of student performance and how effectively the school community (teachers, administrators, and parents) is creating an environment that allows students to flourish.


“Portfolios, projects, and extended tasks are the way to go. That doesn’t mean you can’t use short answers and multiple-choice tests as components of that. We want kids to be able to think, reason, write, speak, and show that they can apply their knowledge in complex ways. We know that well-conceived projects and tasks can do that. … To improve learning and provide meaningful accountability, schools and districts cannot rely solely on standardized tests. Because of their inherent limits, the instruments generate information that is inadequate in both breadth and depth. States, districts, and schools must find ways to strengthen classroom assessments and to use the information that comes from these richer measures to inform the public.”


At the center of any great learning experience are two essential figures—a learner and an educator. For a school to excel, a third figure is critical: an inspired school leader who brings vision, skill, and a keen understanding of the kinds of environments where learners can and want to learn.


If they get to spend two to three hours a day on the thing that lets them show their strengths, it’s a lot easier to work with them one-on-one on the thing that makes them feel most disempowered. A parent said to me recently, ‘This is the only school that started with what my daughter could do, not what she couldn’t do.’ The school is about showcasing the student’s gifts and strengths. It changes the conversation.”


The Boston Arts Academy model substantiates what I’ve seen in all my work with schools around the world: building the curriculum around students’ interests leads to them performing at higher levels in all areas.


If they get to spend two to three hours a day on the thing that lets them show their strengths, it’s a lot easier to work with them one-on-one on the thing that makes them feel most disempowered. A parent said to me recently, ‘This is the only school that started with what my daughter could do, not what she couldn’t do.’ The school is about showcasing the student’s gifts and strengths. It changes the conversation.” The Boston Arts Academy model substantiates what I’ve seen in all my work with schools around the world: building the curriculum around students’ interests leads to them performing at higher levels in all areas. There’s something else too. Because it is an arts-based program, and because artists are accustomed to receiving criticism and responding to that criticism quickly, the school is also creating students far better prepared for what will be asked of them once they leave school.


There’s a difference between leadership and management. Leadership is about vision; management is about implementation. Both are essential. Great leaders may be great managers, and vice versa.


There is no single style of leadership, because there is no one type of personality that makes a leader. Some leaders are collaborative; others are commanding. Some aim for consensus before they act, and some act on conviction. What unites them is an ability to inspire those they lead with the sense that they are doing the right thing, and that they are capable of doing it too.


In schools, great principals know that their job is not primarily to improve test results; it is to build community among the students, teachers, parents, and staff, who need to share a common set of purposes.


Richard knew he had to introduce this idea slowly or risk losing the support of those resistant to sweeping change. “First we had the Grangeton project, which was the idea of replicating the town.” He introduced Grangeton initially as an after-school activity, separate from the standard timetable and curriculum. “We did that because it felt more gentle; it allowed time for it to evolve and develop. If I’d walked in on day one and presented this structure to the parents, I think there would have been open rebellion. I don’t think the teachers were ready to go at it on day one, either. But most important, I don’t think the students were ready, particularly the older ones. I wanted everyone to immerse themselves in a way that didn’t feel high-stakes or totally alien.


“We shape our buildings, and afterward our buildings shape us.”


Culture is about permission. It has to do with what’s acceptable and what is not, and who says so.


The experience and research of A+ Schools has shown that what makes or breaks achievement and effectiveness in schools is not the type of school or its location. It is the presence of three main drivers, which can transform any school setting: They are principal leadership, a faculty willing to engage in the change, and quality professional development.


Traditionally, colleges think in terms of freshman year, sophomore year, and so on. Clark decided instead to establish three developmental phases around which to organize the curriculum at the university: transition (establishing yourself as part of the academic university community), growth and exploration (“breaking frame” and discovering your deepest passions and interests), and synthesis and demonstration (pulling together what you’ve learned in your major and nonmajor courses and putting that to work in a practical way). Students are encouraged to go through these phases on their own timeline.


In chapter 2, I described the four general principles of organic farming—health, ecology, fairness, and care—and recast them for education. In organic farming, the focus is not only on output, it is on the vitality of the soil and the quality of the environment on which natural, sustainable growth depends. In education, natural, sustainable learning depends on the culture of the school and the quality of the learning environment. Sustaining a vibrant culture of learning is the essential role of the principal.


Schools are like companies in some ways, but not in others. Schools that flourish have their own particular dynamics. In general, they all promote these essential features of an empowering culture of learning: Community: Its members all feel part of a compassionate community that supports each other’s needs and aspirations. There is a strong sense of shared identity and purpose that extends beyond the gates to embrace the aspirations of all the families it serves and all the organizations with which it collaborates. Individuality: Its members feel respected as individuals, each with his or her own talents, interests, and needs. They are encouraged as individuals to develop a deeper understanding of themselves, of their own values and aspirations, and of their fears and anxieties. They all feel part of the larger community but know they will not be lost in the crowd. Possibility: The school provides hope and opportunity for all who are part of it. It recognizes the great range of talents in its members and provides multiple pathways to fulfill their aspirations. It provides opportunities for what everyone needs to know in common, as well as for everyone to excel on their own terms. The culture of the school is expressed through the curriculum, teaching, and assessment practices.


Organizations thrive by adapting to their environments. This process depends on the flow of fresh ideas and the willingness to try new approaches. The role of a creative leader is not to have all the ideas; it is to encourage a culture where everyone has them. From this perspective, the main role of a school’s principal is not command and control, it is climate control.


Our children are always sending signals about who they are becoming. It is critical for us as parents and teachers to be vigilant and to pay attention.


This didn’t surprise Lou. This group of students had chosen to be in his cluster, so they were likely to be engaged. However, because they were all extremely interested in writing, they responded to his background more than they might if the same session had been run by a teacher. This is the value in bringing the community into the classroom and why it is important for parents to offer themselves up to their children’s schools. There is no substitute for a great, trained, dedicated teacher. If a parent or another member of the community can supplement what the school is offering, everyone wins.


“The lessons students learn from such over-parenting is lifelong dependency: ‘I’m not capable of fighting my own battles or accepting the consequences for my bad behavior, so thank God my parents will rescue me.’


Edutopia, a nonprofit launched by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, offers ten tips for educators to make their schools more inviting, which parents can use to guide their interactions with their children’s schools:15 Go Where Your Parents Are—Use social networking sites, like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, to keep parents in the loop and encourage interaction. Welcome Everyone—Acknowledge that many families in your community are nonnative English speakers, and use technology to help communicate with them. Being There, Virtually—Use Web-based tools to offer “virtual windows into the classroom.” Edutopia calls out classroom social networking site Edmodo and assignment management tool Blackboard Learn, among others. Smart Phones, Smart Schools—Edutopia advocates using these devices to engage families, suggesting the use of group texts and a number of apps that can facilitate this. Seize the Media Moment—Use current media (the release of a new education-related book or film, for example) as a platform for creating an open forum for discussing school activities and education reform. Make Reading a Family Affair—Use programs like Read Across America, First Book, and Experience Corps to promote reading as a family activity. Bring the Conversation Home—Flip the parent-teacher conference upside down by having teachers visit student homes. Student-Led Parent Conferences—Allow students to direct the parent-teacher meeting, presenting some of their work and exhibiting their strengths, challenges, and goals. Get Families Moving—Create school events that encourage exercise and play as a family activity. Build Parent Partnerships—Use a range of tools, such as starting a parent-based book club or creating assignments that include family interviews, to actively involve parents in schoolwork.


“What was less understood was what the role was of the school to promote that. Parent engagement was seen as solely the responsibility of the parent. A parent comes asking for resources. But that parent speaks another language. The staff looks at that person and says, ‘Look, you should be learning English. Go learn English first, and then we can help you.’ That’s an obstacle a parent is facing. A parent-engagement strategy for us would be professional development training for staff to make sure that every single parent that comes into that school feels welcome and feels valued.


“We’ve always known that parents matter. The question is what are the conditions that need to change within schools to make them more welcoming and more supportive of parents, especially in predominantly low-income communities?”


the real notion of what a democratic organization is—where there’s a flow of information for people to make decisions, there are partnerships, there is common understanding, there is common respect—this hasn’t yet been achieved. For parents to be partners, they have to be well informed, and that’s the responsibility of the school.”


I was also concerned that her homework load would increase with each passing year, leaving her less free time to follow a sudden curiosity, delve deeper into a random subject, absorb herself with a pointless activity or create something for no better reason than the muse struck her. I was greedy. I wanted her to stretch her mind and her self-confidence, but I also wanted her to play with friends, read books, listen to music and glaze over with the pleasant boredom of a long afternoon with no place to be and nothing to do.


Who are the policymakers? They are whoever sets the terms and the practical conditions under which schools are required to work. They include school board members, superintendents, politicians, and union leaders. This is a complex web of different, often conflicting, interests.


It became clear through these outreach sessions and meetings with school superintendents that there was a real desire in many parts of the state to focus more on the kinds of practical, collaborative programs we’ve discussed in this book. These South Carolina schools are prioritizing technology, shifting to project-based learning models, developing undervalued skills like problem solving and communication, and giving teachers significantly more freedom, while still holding them accountable for outcomes.


I made a distinction at the beginning between learning and education. The role of teachers is to facilitate learning, and that is an expert professional task. This is why all high-performing school systems put such a premium on the recruitment, retention, and continuous professional development of high-quality teachers. There is no system of education in the world that is reliably better than its teachers.


High-performing systems of education are well resourced. The resources are not only financial. The quality of education is not inevitably related to the amount of money spent on it—we have seen some excellent examples in this book of schools delivering very high-quality education in spite of limited funding. Overall, however, the United States spends more money per capita on education than any other country in the world, but it would not claim to have the best system. Everything depends on where the resources are focused. High-performing systems invest especially in professional training, in appropriate technology, and in common support services that would be beyond the reach of individual schools.


STRATEGIC INNOVATION Moving from the status quo to a new paradigm takes imagination and vision; it also needs care and judgment. “Care” is about safeguarding what is known to work while being prepared to explore new approaches in a responsible way. One of the most powerful strategies for systemic change is to test the benefits of doing things differently. Innovation is strategic when it has significance beyond its immediate context—when it inspires others to innovate in similar ways in their own situations.


School development is really a process of professional development. Continuing professional development of teachers is not a luxury. It is an essential investment in the success of students, their schools, and their communities.


In general, any education system that highlights achievement and goals above process and attitude is, in my opinion, bad for students.”


The conversation needs to be long term and continuous. You need to develop structures through which people’s voices can be heard. A culture of listening and storytelling is crucial. People will respond in different ways to this, so you need to provide multiple opportunities for input. Once people feel a genuine sense of belonging, then the learning culture ignites.


People need a vision of the future they are being asked to move toward. They need to feel that they are capable of change and have the skills that are needed for it. They need to believe that there are good reasons for changing and that the place they aim to be will be better than where they are now, and that it will be worth the effort of making the transition. They need to have the personal and material resources to make the transition. And they need a convincing plan of action to get them there; or at the very least, one that will get them on their way, even if it changes as they go.

the essential elements: vision, skills, incentives, resources, and an action plan:

Effective education is always a balance between rigor and freedom, tradition and innovation, the individual and the group, theory and practice, the inner world and the outer world.
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