I have been teaching for a long time and
in doing so have acquired a body of
knowledge about kids and learning that I
really wish more people would understand
about the potential of students in 1931
my grandmother bottom left for you guys
over here graduated from the eighth
grade she went to school to get the
information because that's where the
information lived it was in the books it
was inside the teacher's head and she
needed to go there to get the
information because that's how you
learned fast forwarded generation this
is the one-room schoolhouse Oak Grove my
father went to a one-room schoolhouse
and he again had to travel to the school
to get the information from the teacher
stored in the only portable memory he
has which is inside his own head and
take it with him because that is how
information was being transported from
teacher to student and then used in the
world when I was a kid we had a set of
encyclopedias at my house it was
purchased the year I was born and it was
extraordinary because I did not have to
wait to go to the library to get to the
information the information was inside
my house and it was awesome this was
different than either generation had
experienced before
and it changed the way I interacted with
information even at just a small level
but the information was closer to me I
could get access to it in the time that
passes between when I was a kid in high
school and when I started teaching we
really see the advent of the internet
right about the time that the internet
gets going as an educational tool I take
off from Wisconsin and move to Kansas
small town Kansas where I had an
opportunity to teach in a lovely small
town rural Kansas School District where
I was teaching my favorite subject
American government my first year super
gung-ho going to teach American
government love the political system
kids in the 12th grade not exactly all
that enthusiastic about the American
government system you're too learned a
few things had to change my tactic and I
put in front of them an authentic
experience that allowed them to learn
for themselves
I didn't tell them what to do or how to
do it I posed a problem in front of them
which
was to put on an election form for their
own community they produced fliers they
called offices they check schedules they
were meeting with secretaries they
produced an election form booklet for
the entire town to learn more about
their candidates they invited everyone
into the school for an evening of
conversation about government and
politics and you know whether or not the
streets were done well and really had
this robust experiential learning the
older teachers more experienced looked
at me and went oh there she is that's so
cute she's trying to get that done she
doesn't know what she's in for but I
knew that the kids would show up and I
and I believed it and I told them every
week um what I expected out of them and
that night all 90 kids dressed
appropriately doing their job owning it
I had to just sit and watch it was
theirs
it was experiential it was authentic it
meant something to them and they will
step up from Kansas I moved on to lovely
Arizona where I taught in Flagstaff for
a number of years this time with middle
school students luckily I didn't have to
teach them American government could
teach the more exciting topic of
geography and again thrilled to learn
but what was interesting about this
position I found myself in in Arizona
was I had this really extraordinarily
eclectic group of kids to work with in a
truly public school and we got to have
these moments where we would get these
opportunities and one opportunity was we
got to go and meet Paul Rusesabagina
which is the gentleman that the movie
Hotel Rwanda is based after and he was
going to speak at the high school next
door to us we could walk there we didn't
even have to pay for the buses there was
no expense cost perfect field trip the
problem then becomes how do you take
seventh and eighth graders to a talk
about genocide and deal with the subject
in a way that is responsible and
respectful and they know what to do with
it and so we chose to look at Paul
Rusesabagina as an example of a
gentleman who singularly used his life
to do something positive I then
challenged the kids to identify someone
in their own life or in their own story
or in their own world that they could
identify that had done a similar thing I
asked them to produce a little movie
about it first time we've done this
nobody really knew how to make these
little movies on the computer but they
were into it and I
to put their own voice over it it was
the most awesome moment of Revelation
that when you ask kids to use their own
voice and ask them to speak for
themselves what they're willing to share
the last question of the assignment is
how do you plan to use your life to
positively impact other people the
things that kids will say when you ask
them and take the time to listen is
extraordinary
fast-forward to Pennsylvania where I
find myself today I teach at the science
Leadership Academy which is a
partnership school between the Franklin
Institute and the School District of
Philadelphia we are a nine through
twelve public school but we do school
quite differently I moved there
primarily to be part of a learning
environment that validated the way that
I knew that kids learn and that really
wanted to investigate what was possible
when you were willing to kind of let go
of some of the paradigms of the past of
information scarcity when my grandmother
was in school and when my father was in
school and even when I was in school
into a moment where we have information
surplus and so what do you do when the
information is all around you why do you
have kids come to school if they no
longer have to come there to get the
information in Pennsylvania we have in
Philadelphia we have a one-to-one laptop
program so the kids are bringing in
laptops with them every day taking them
home getting access to information and
here's the thing that you need to get
comfortable with when you've given the
tool to acquire information to students
is that you have to be comfortable with
this idea of allowing kids to fail as
part of the learning process we deal
right now in the educational landscape
with an it just an infatuation with the
culture of one right answer that can be
properly bubbled on the average
multiple-choice test and I am here to
share with you it is not learning that
is the absolute wrong thing to ask to
tell kids to never be wrong to ask them
to always have the right answer doesn't
allow them to learn so we did this
project and this is one of the artifacts
of the project I almost never show them
off because of the issue of the idea of
failure my students produce these
infographics as a result of a unit that
we
decided to do at the end of the year
responding to the oil spill I asked them
to take the examples that we were seeing
of the infographics that existed you
know in a lot of mass media and take a
look at what were the interesting
components of it and produce one for
themselves of a different man-made
disaster from American history and they
had certain criteria to do it they were
a little uncomfortable with it because
we never done this before and they
didn't know exactly how to do it they
can talk they are very smooth and they
can write very very well but asking them
to communicate ideas in a different way
was a little uncomfortable for them but
I gave them the room to just do the
thing go create go figure it out let's
let's see what we can do and the student
that persistently turns out the best
visual product did not disappoint this
was done in like two or three days and
this is the work of the student that
consistently did it when I sat the
students down I said who's got the best
one and they immediately went there it
is
didn't read anything there it is
and I said well what makes it great in
there like oh the design is good and
he's using good color and they're
submitting it and they went through all
of we processed out loud and I said go
read it and they're like Oh Alan that
one wasn't so awesome and then we went
to another one he didn't have good
visuals but had great information and
spent an hour talking about the learning
process because it wasn't about whether
or not it was perfect or whether or not
it was what I could create it asked them
to create for themselves and it allowed
them to fail process learn from and when
we do another round of this in my class
this year they will do better this time
because learning has to include amount
and amount of failure because failure is
instructional in the process there are a
million pictures that I could click
through here and had to choose carefully
this is one of my favourites of students
learning of what learning can look like
in a landscape where we let go of the
idea that kids have to come to school to
get the information but instead ask them
what they can do with it ask some really
interesting questions they will not
disappoint ask them to go to places to
see things for themselves to actually
experience the learning to play to
inquire this is one of my favorite
photos because this was taken on Tuesday
when I asked the students to go to the
polls this is Robbie and this was his
first day of voting and he wanted to
share that with everybody and do that
but this is learning too because we
asked them to go out into real spaces
the main point is that if we continue to
look at education as if it's about
coming to school to get the information
and not about experiential learning
empowering student voice and embracing
failure we're missing the mark and
everything that everybody is talking
about today isn't possible if we keep
having an educational system that does
not value these qualities because we
won't get there with a standardized test
and we won't get there with a culture of
one right answer we know how to do this
better and it's time to do better