Category: 21st Century Curriculum

Knowledge versus experience

7/18/2016

My dad is the smartest man I know. Not only does he know the answers to most Jeopardy questions, he can also build anything, fix anything, sell everything, read people, problem solve, question the status quo, inspire others, crack jokes, remember just about fact every he’s ever heard, debate with the best of them, and invent ingenious products, in theory, every day. When I think of “smart,” he’s my benchmark.

Therefore, when I saw a graphic this past week made up of two frames, the thought of him helped me make sense of what I was viewing. In this graphic, the frame on the left was titled “Knowledge”; it was a simple box with a black outline, filled with random black dots. The frame on the right was titled “Experience”; this second box was exactly like the first with a simple black outline, filled with random black dots, but in this box the dots were all connected by thin black lines.

A simple graphic on the surface. Profound in its meaning for education.

My dad is the epitome of the “Experience” box. Sure, he would do well on Jeopardy because of his great memory for miscellaneous factoids, but it’s because of his life experiences he is so smart. It has been his experiences that connect his dots; his experiences that allow his knowledge to shine. Without a lifetime of opportunities to put his knowledge of math, English, history, language and science to work, these subjects he learned back in the 1950’s would be meaningless. Because he had opportunities in his life to work with the earliest computers, travel the world in the Navy, and experiment with his career, he can seamlessly make connections between seemingly disconnected events. He can find solutions to insurmountable challenges. He can make sense of the senseless.

What does all this mean for education, though?

It means our kids need opportunities to put their knowledge to work, because it’s these opportunities that will become the experiences, creating a generation who can build, fix, sell, question, inspire and invent. Our kids needs these experiences during school – time to volunteer, work part time, build small businesses, invent new programs, solve real problems, grow gardens, take apart old electronics, swim, play, travel. With these experiences, and with us supporting them along the way, our kids will walk out of high school with more than just a box filled with historical dates, comma rules, and memorized facts.

Our teachers can help by providing assignments with real audiences. They can stop with the meaningless, rote homework. Stop with the quiz, after test, after assessment cycle. Stop with the mundane worksheet lessons recycled year-over-year.

As a community, we need to ask our schools to start helping our kids not only fill the box on the left, but also make connections between those dots in order to ensure their success in our interconnected world. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Thanks, Dad, for reminding me that facts are the foundation, but it’s in the experience wherein the wisdom lies.

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Use maxims to drive instruction

5/23/2016

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Nike lives by 11 guiding principles, their maxims: “It is our nature to innovate,” “The consumer decides,” “Evolve immediately,” and “Do the right thing” are just four of them. You can Google the rest; that’s how I found them all. Not only are they interesting, but they inspired me to take action.

I led a professional development meeting with my English department this week at school. The meeting was to refine our curriculum and embed more 21st century learning. We realized we couldn’t start this discussion until we’d decided on our English department’s maxims first.

So we set out to do just that. And we got to them by asking two guiding questions: “What are the fundamental principles that drive our instruction?” and “What type of English student do we want graduating from our department?” Honestly, how can a department of any discipline make decisions about end goals, assessments, mastery, homework, summer assignments, or even daily lessons without knowing what they stand for.

Philosophically who they are as teachers. And, most importantly, who they want the kids to become as learners and citizens of the world when the graduate.

As our brainstorming and planning day came to an end, I began to reflect on the experiences of my own children. I wonder if their teachers are clear on their purpose. If their teachers know the type of student they are trying to create. If their teachers talk about the driving principles of their discipline. Sometimes I wonder. When my kids come home with worksheets, packets, rote memorization tasks, and mindless regurgitation, I wonder if they feel as disengaged from the content as the work feels from real life.

I challenge you to ask, “What type of adult do your kids’s teachers’ activities intend to create?”

As a district, Los Alamitos is very clear about its brand. We ignite unlimited possibilities for students. We embrace the whole child. We build well-rounded students with a focus on activities, arts, athletics and academics. But how does this trickle down to each school and then, most importantly, into the classroom -- where the real work happens. It’s not enough to stand for the “what” without also building the “how.”

As a parent, I want us all to start asking the questions that get our district teachers to start asking questions of their practice. Why this assignment? Why this task? What’s the purpose? What type of adult is this activity building?
I also realized during my meeting this week that I want to more clearly identify the maxims for my family. What do we stand for? How do we make the tough decisions? How do we stay focused on what matters? As I type, I think about phrases I say over-and-over to my kids: “Anything worth doing is worth doing well,” “Effort unlocks your potential,” “Your level of success is completely up to you,” and “Find your own purpose.” I’m sure all of you have phrases that bounce off your walls on a regular basis, because as parents these are the principles we use to build our little adults. The same needs to apply in the classroom.

If every teacher worked to build little scientists or thinkers or innovators or independent learners -- whatever the courses’ maxims -- our kids would be engaged. They would be excited about their learning. They would be inspired to find their path.

It’s time for teaching and learning to be purposeful and meaningful every day with every assignment -- because the world can be changed one maxim at a time.

Just do it.

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The Future of Education

5/2/2016

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If I were to ask you to list the conditions for powerful learning, I’ll bet you would come away with a list very similar to mine, including: safe environment, personal investment, real world application, fun, relevance to students’ lives, social, interesting questions, positive environment, real audience, passion, autonomy, challenging, not time constrained.

I’ll also bet that in a room of 100 adults, not one of them would say that powerful learning comes with sitting in rows, one-sized curriculum, teacher controlled, standardized tests, emphasis on grades, no choice, lack of relevance, no real world application.

So why do we continue to run our schools the same way they’ve been run for over 100 years? Why do we continue to test, emphasize grades, restrict learning to the textbook, expect all kids to learn at the same rate and ability, and isolate content in 50-minute blocks?

I read an article this week published in the summer of 2014 by the Hawken Review written by the Head of Hawken School, D. Scott Looney. He spoke of the future of education -- the scary, daunting, exciting time in education where “we are now at a point where we must educate our children in what no one knew yesterday, and prepare our schools for what no one knows yet.”

We live in an extraordinary time in human history. We are witness to unprecedented economic, environmental, and political instability. At the same time, we are witness to incredible advances in technology, medicine, and communication. This paradox of fear and excitement poses a challenge to us all, young and old. And yet we continue to teach our children in an antiquated system of sameness, as if we need all our children learning ubiquitous content, at the same time, at the same rate, in isolation. Where is the power in this model?

I was thinking this week about the interviews we see on TV every year wherein some host stops random people on the street to ask them questions about some factoid we all “learned” in elementary, middle or high school. We laugh collectively as we watch the interviewee hem and haw before answering incorrectly. Do we laugh because we know, or do we laugh because we, ourselves, would answer incorrectly, as well?

These interviews simply reflect the truth that we forget most of what we “learn” in school. So why do we continue to teach and test content knowledge like this?

Powerful learning, the knowledge we remember, comes from moments in which we were completely immersed and engaged. True learning requires a personal interest in what’s being learned. The process of learning for the sake of a test just isn’t effective or purposeful. In fact, I argue that kids with access to the internet and technology are “learning” more outside of school than they are inside of school.

So what should schools be doing?

We need to be teaching kids how to USE content. Teaching kids how to think, collaborate, wonder. Teaching kids how to navigate ambiguity, complexity and interconnectedness.

Our kids need to find a passion that pushes them to “learn” what matters to them, so their learning can solve problems and impact the world -- or at least their own small corner of the world.

It’s time to rethink what we do on a school’s campus and why we do it.

The future of education? It’s going to require we ignite students’ curiosity and interests -- or we aren’t going to have much of a future at all.

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The Best 7 Hours

4/18/2016

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I attended a College and Career Readiness workshop this past week facilitated by EPIC School Partnerships, an organization representing a new approach for improving student outcomes, grounded in over a decade of research by David Conley, author of “Getting Ready for College, Careers, and the Common Core.”

As hard as it is for me, or any classroom teacher for that matter, to spend time away from the classroom and leave our charges in the hands of an albeit qualified and well-intentioned substitute, I took advantage of the opportunity to participate in this professional development day. And like most PD days, I walked away with something that will change my teaching for the better. I love to learn. I love to be exposed to new ideas. I love to sit in a room with other educators and discuss our practice. It’s transformative. This day was no different.

“The best 7 hours” -- this is the phrase from the conference that resonated with me.

In fact, I picked my son up from school after the workshop and asked him, “How was school?” This question sound familiar? We all ask it when our kids come home from school. From my daugher, the answer is always filled with highs, lows, laughter and stories. For my son, the answer is always, “What do you think? It was school.” His answer comes with snark, sarcasm, bitterness. Granted, he is a teenage boy, so he isn’t nearly as verbose as my daughter, but, nevertheless, it makes me sad he doesn’t enjoy his time there.

This day, I pushed for a little more information. I asked, “Is school ever the best 7 hours of your day?” He looked at me and rolled his eyes. I continued. I shared with him that this question came from my day’s experience at a workshop, and the presenter reminding us -- the teachers -- that we should strive for this for our students. He responded, “Why would they do that?” More snark. He’s a tough audience.

Our kids today are part of a new generation. I know, we hear this all the time. But this workshop forced me to think about what this means? And it dawned on me that this “new generation” is one that can’t even compare to my own. Whereas we have lived through the birth of technology innovation and have learned, and potentially even embraced, it as an add-on to our lives, our kids are tech-innate. Technology IS their lives. They know nothing else. They don’t have any idea what it’s like to have to go to the library to get an answer to something. When my kids don’t know something, they “Google it.” Their world is information rich; it always has been. Since day 1. The learning of knowledge for them isn’t the end product, because knowledge is everywhere.

Our world is no longer about what we know -- it’s about what we DO with what we know.

Our kids today want to DO. They want to use this abundance of knowledge. The want to create, to invent, to act. We all know they still need to “learn” in order to “do,” but the learning no longer has to be straight facts; rather, it can be patterns, creativity, collaboration, higher-level thinking processes, strategies, skills -- imagine, even, the power of their learning how to be curious.

If these were the traits of our local schools for EVERY PERIOD, EVERY DAY, then I can guarantee my son would love school. He would be doing. He would be active in his learning. He would see the connection of the content to his life; he would see relevancy and purpose. He would begin to think about his future and actually start designing it.

This isn’t a teacher issue -- it’s a system issue. And a system is hard to change, but it’s going to have to if we are going to inspire our kids for life beyond high school -- college, career, community -- and to inspire them to dream for a better world.

My hope is that our schools begin thinking about the seven hours they have and begin dreaming big. Remember the old KFWB mantra -- “Give us 24 minutes, and we’ll give you the world”?

Imagine the power of having seven hours -- the world would only be the beginning.

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What is purposeful learning?

2/1/2016

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I was sitting in a staff meeting one morning this week at 7:30am, and we were all asked to share our dream job -- the ideal dream job we’d each like to have if we weren’t teachers. Without fail, we were all able to put our fingers on one job that would give our lives additional purpose and fulfillment. I found it fascinating that our answers were so easily pinpointed, identified, and readily shared with others. I find it interesting, because not many of our own kids, or students for that matter, can do the same. They are still floundering for a passion.

I get that as adults we’ve lived full lives when compared to the lives of children. We’ve traveled, been educated, held various jobs, met interesting people and had time to dabble in hobbies that bring us happiness. Kids haven’t yet had these experiences.

However, shouldn’t we provide as many of these experiences as possible in order to help our kids find their passion and a purpose in learning?

I’m currently reading David Conley’s “Getting Ready for College, Careers, and the Common Core.” He writes in his book about the importance of ownership of learning. His research and argument support my point exactly -- we need to do a better job as educators of connecting learning to the real world so that students can take ownership of their learning. This in turn will inspire all kids to see where they are going beyond high school, ultimately giving purpose to each and every day.

Conley states “Many young people [...] receive a diploma that in the end may not have much meaning, significance, or value to them.” He continues to argue, “It is not that they lack ambition or interests; they simply don’t make connections between what they are learning and where they are going beyond high school.”

How great would it be if, as parents, we no longer had to hear the “Why do I have to study Algebra?” question from our kids.

Because of this question, it is clear to me our schools are not sufficiently connecting learning to purpose.

When I think about the future, I realize I have been charged in the classroom with training children for jobs that don’t currently exist. So does the Algebra itself actually matter, or is Algebra, rather, providing the chance to problem solve, question, evaluate and apply craft to real-world examples, triggering a love of learning and an opportunity for each child to find his purpose and meaning in his life?

I want not only my own kids, but also my students, to realize that learning is meant to help them find their passion in the world. That the content is simply a means to lifelong fulfillment. That Algebra isn’t just done for the sake of completing an Algebraic equation -- it, along with all other subjects, is simply a way to have lots of experiences.

I want my kids and my students to find their passion. I want them to find a purpose for learning. I want them to have dozens of adults in their lives who inspire purposeful learning.

Is this an easy task for teachers? No.

Is it imperative? Absolutely.

Ultimately, I want all our kiddos to be able to identify their dream job in an instant.

After all, isn’t that what education is all about?

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The Forgotten "R"

1/18/2016

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Writing -- my passion, my life’s work, my hobby, the core of my educational philosophy, and right now, the largest source of my frustration with education. With No Child Left Behind, writing instruction and opportunities were lost, forgotten, pushed aside. But this forgotten "R" must be brought back into the forefront immediately.

I’m going to spend this week elaborating on the five key benefits of a writing centered classroom as identified by The National Commission on Writing:

Writing is able to [1] generate deeper thinking, because it’s hard to know what we actually think until it’s committed to paper. Until then, the thoughts are fleeting and unsubstantiated and twirling around in our heads amid thousands of other random thoughts. Ideas flit from point A to point Z in the blink of an eye. Stopping to write those thoughts allows us all to go deeper with each one. I remind my students in the classroom every day, “Writing is discovery, so write to discover all that you have to say.” Writing to generate deeper thinking can serve as a foundational skill for producing what we know, but it also generates new thinking. The key is to give students opportunities to write for both big and small tasks, for both high-stakes and low-stakes assignments, in both timed and un-timed situations, for close readings and summaries, for formal essays and freewrites. It's the combination of them all that gets kids thinking.

Jobs are competitive today. Any one job can generate hundreds of applicants. The trend in industry today is to require applicants to produce a writing sample. Basically, to get the career you want, you have to know how to write. This includes job applications for mechanics, firemen, OC sheriff’s, computer programming, engineering, etc. The list goes on and on. So in terms of [2] career readiness, our students need to be writing more. Writing isn’t becoming a “thing of the past.” In fact, writing is becoming more important. And the writing that’s expected needs to be done quickly, efficiently and effectively. Memos need to be written now. Emails need to be answered yesterday. I argue writing is becoming even more critical; our world lives in technology today, and in order to share via technology, information needs to be written.

Writing [3] prepares you for college. Students are asked to write personal statements, complete writing placement exams, and communicate effectively in order to show proficiency and pass their classes. In The Nation’s Report Card: Writing 2011, NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) published the results of eighth and twelfth grade students’ assessments. Only one-quarter of students in the study, including both grade levels, performed at the proficient level in writing, leaving 75% of students performing basic or below basic. This is abysmal. This shouldn’t be acceptable; students, parents, schools, districts, communities and society at large should be furious with the underachievement in this fundamental skill. We need to better prepare our students for college or career success.

The [4] Common Core values writing. Writing doesn’t just belong in the English classroom anymore. Writing is literacy, and our students are being asked to produce independent thinking and coherent, relevant analysis in math, science, history. Writing, as outlined in the Common Core, also asks students to begin to blend genres. The narrative is not just “Tell Me What You Did Over Summer” anymore. Narratives are expected to be used to tell stories about history, make arguments in science, capture the attention of the audience in exposition. Blending genres requires craft, fluency, sophistication -- and practice.

Writing is hard; it is, without a doubt, cognitively challenging. But writing is worth the brain exercise. It helps us sort things out, adds depth to our thoughts, allows us to express our ideas, enables us to persuade, and, ultimately, makes us smarter. A struggle with writing is a metaphor for life. Let’s allow our students to struggle, to persevere, and, ultimately, to overcome. Let's help our kids find their self worth through accomplishment -- teach them that life isn't always easy. I want our kids to grapple with writing a grant that inspires the world to do better. I want them to write Yelp reviews that help me avoid the worst restaurants in town. I want them to write police reports that can stand up in court. I want them to write speeches that drive citizens to action. Writing isn’t just a book report or a fill-in-the-blank worksheet; [5] writing is life.

I guess this leaves me wondering where our district stands on writing. I have personal anecdotes and experiences from my own kids’ times in the elementary and middle schools in Los Al. I also bring knowledge from my work with students of all ages through Write Away U. These experiences make me want to scream from the rooftops: we need more writing in all classrooms across all curricular areas.

Writing is too important to let it depend on the teacher you get in school by luck of the draw -- it needs to be intentional, and it needs to be our next big push in education.

This "R" is not an option -- it’s a necessity.

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We Don't Need More STEM Majors

12/28/2015

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The field and science of education can be considered a study in the art of the pendulum. If anyone works in education long enough, the same approaches, beliefs, techniques, and ideas will come back around -- albeit, recycled with a few new elements, a new name and updated packaging.

Let’s take the vocational classes of the 1960’s as an example. My parents had options of graduating high school having taken classes that trained them for a job. My mom took classes that prepared her to be a secretary. My dad didn’t take any, but could have learned to be a car mechanic or electrician. Their generation spent high school learning a trade, giving them the experience to get work right after graduation.

These classes became the ROP I knew in the 1980’s. I could get out of school early to work or attend a trade school. Instead, I opted to take advantage of the “get out of school early” option and left school at noon every day of my senior year to work at the local movie theater in the evenings. Not sure this was the ideal use of my ROP opportunity.
Then ten years ago, I was involved in CTE (Career Technical Education). The local schools and community colleges were receiving money to align core curriculum with predetermined career technical pathways, intended to give kids real world experience in the classroom. I wrote curriculum for English classes that embedded cross-curricular career units. Because of this program, students were exposed not only to the content, but to its application, allowing them to make more informed college and career choices. This was presented as a novel idea, given that we were mired in No Child Left Behind at the time and schools were focused on tests, test taking and rote memorization. But we all knew we were simply participating in the movement of the pendulum once again.

Today, with the advent of Common Core, the push now is to prepare students for life after high school. Apparently we haven’t done this before. Today we are calling these courses Pathways. Again, not a bad idea -- in fact, it’s been a great idea since 1776 and the founding of the United States when we began training future leaders through apprenticeships and females for the teaching profession. And it’s been a great idea ever since.

This time, however, the pendulum has swung a little too far for my taste. The concept of Pathways allows students to take a sequence of coursework during high school to connect a student’s interest to a post-graduation career or college degree. Again, not a bad idea. But, unfortunately, the Pathways favor science, technology, engineering and mathematics, with some business courses thrown in for good measure. The newly minted label is STEM. My argument lies in what’s glaringly absent from these courses -- where are the liberal arts options? The art? Music? Language? Law? Writing? Philosophy? History? Anthropology?

Where are the courses that create well-rounded citizens of the world?

When I think about the companies that are currently changing the world, I see companies that embrace not just technology, but also design, sociology and storytelling. Apple is Apple because of Steve Jobs’s obsession with design, touch, feel -- the beauty of the art and aesthetic of his products. Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook is what it is today because he understands humanity and its need to be social -- a social media empire as much psychology and sociology as it is technology. And let’s face it, Starbucks does make great coffee, but this coffee company isn’t what it is today because of a specially-engineered coffee maker. It is what it is because of the culture, the people, and the story created around the brand.

Just like great movies take more than just a camera engineer and video editor to become classics. They take well-integrated music, camera angles, scripts, nuance, and storytelling.

Do we really want to be a country that writes bad software code because our programmers don’t understand fluency and cohesion? Do we really want to be a country that simply manufactures great microchips, but offers nothing value added? Or do we want to be a country that drives innovation because of our creativity, ability to solve the world’s problems and critical thinking prowess?

I will argue every day that STEM is only half the equation -- that a solid, well-rounded liberal arts education in conjunction with STEM will give us a leading edge advantage as a country and our kids the leading edge advantage as world leaders and innovators.

The world of the 21st century is going to need more than just STEM -- it is going to need another pendulum swing.
I just hope it isn’t too late.

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Is technology substituting or redefining?

12/14/2015

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I and a small group of teachers from my school had an opportunity this past week to spend one day visiting a high school in San Diego County. As a teacher, being given an opportunity to visit another campus is a learning experience that forces me to rethink my practice, potentially transforming the learning and teaching in my classroom. What came out of this last visit for me was a question about my use of technology -- does it simply substitute what can be done with paper and pencil or does it redefine my classroom, allowing for teaching and learning inconceivable in a traditional model?

I’m guessing this question will percolate with me over the course of the next semester and find its way into the design of my upcoming lessons, but what does this mean for us as parents? How do we know our kids are getting the most from the technology in their classrooms? I don’t know about you, but with every school year, my own kids talk about all their new classroom gadgets, including Chromebooks and iPads and tablets. It sounds great, but what are the kids actually doing with all these tools?

I thought I’d introduce you to the SAMR model, developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura, which provides a way for us to talk intelligently about technology implementation. The SAMR model outlines the increasing degrees of adoption, allowing for more meaningful uses of technology in teaching in order to move away from simply using technology for technology’s sake.

I hope this inspires us all to ask better questions of our educators, in turn, inspiring educators to want to experiment with technology and ask more of our kids.

S. Substitution. At its most basic level of implementation, technology is being used in the classroom as a direct tool substitute with no functional change in content, knowledge or instruction. In this level of adoption, if you walked into a classroom, you might see kids crafting an essay in a word processing program or students taking a multiple choice test by clicking a radio button in a testing program that displays the same test as the one being given in the classroom next door on a traditional bubble Scantron. Both of these tasks can be done the old-fashioned way -- the technology doesn’t add anything. It’s just a substitute.

A. Augmentation. The next level of technology sophistication acts as a direct tool substitute, but it also offers some functional improvement. Let’s take a look at those same two tasks: the essay and the test. With technology being used to augment, the student writing the essay could use the Internet to research MLA style, uncover evidence from current events, or even find textual support from online novels not available in hardcopy at the school. And for the exam, the students may take the multiple choice exam online, but be allowed two or three opportunities to get the right answer, providing immediate feedback, and a learning opportunity, for the students.

M. Modification. Now things start getting interesting. With modification, kids are learning from teachers who have significantly redesigned the tasks. When walking into this classroom, you will see the essay being written, designed and revised through online collaboration, blogs, discussion boards and video conferencing. And the exams will be more project based -- demonstrations and applications of learned content. Rather than selecting A, B or C as a right answer, the technology will be used to build a virtual model of DNA, a chemical reaction, a computer program, or a 3D sculpture.

R. Redefinition. This is the classroom I want my kids to experience -- the one that allows for the creation of new tasks previously inconceivable in the traditional classroom. Herein lies the power of technology. The students in this classroom potentially work collaboratively with students from other parts of the world to research global challenges, get creative to present findings of their research via video that they’ve filmed and edited, and think critically about the impact of this issue on the local community, building partnerships, designing new clubs, developing their strengths, and networking for internships. This classroom no longer looks like “the essay and the test” as we’ve seen in the others. The learning, rather, is applicable to real world, designed to connect content from all their classes, and built to be relevant beyond the classroom.

A classroom redesigned by technology is the one that exposes our kids to the interconnectedness of knowledge. This is technology in the real world.

This is education redefined.

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Lead to Serve

10/10/2014

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I teach in the Anaheim Union High School District. This past year our district hired a new superintendent, Mike Matsuda. He has been a teacher, teacher leader and student advocate for many years in our district, and, as our new superintendent, he is changing the face of public education in California through innovation.

Today, our district leaders and local dignitaries arrived in full force at Oxford Academy to recognize this innovation, and I was able to see first-hand the impact of his leadership. While I sat in the bleachers of the gym listening to Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva, Congressman Alan Lowenthal, and Tom Torlakson, CA State Superintendent of Schools, celebrate the district’s impact on its community and students, I was reminded that education exists to not only prepare our kids for college and careers, but also to teach our kids that our job as educators is help children find their passion.

What good is an education without purpose?

The question as I see it:

Is education serving our students or are our students serving education?

For the first time in many elections, our own LAUSD community has the opportunity for new perspective and fresh blood. We have the opportunity to elect someone from the outside to replace members of our entrenched good-old-boys club. When an opportunity arises to do so, it’s important to bring in the best:

I offer experience from having taught for the past eight years at the #10 top high school in America,
the #1 high school in CA, and
the “most innovative district in CA” as just pointed out by the State Superintendent of Schools.

I was talking to my dad just a couple nights ago, and he described me as the “rich uncle from out of state”: still part of the family – in fact, the best the family has to offer – yet outside the gates of inbreeding.

This significance isn’t in-significant. A fresh, new, exciting perspective is just what our district needs to help our kids be the best they can be, rather than helping our district be the best it can be. I oftentimes find myself wondering if the tail is wagging the dog here in LAUSD. We seem to chase the accolades, rather than allowing the accolades to be a reflection of real learning and student success. In fact, I will argue the legacy of the current board is both the successes for what has been accomplished and the responsibility for what hasn’t.

Which leads me to today’s blog topic: “Lead to Serve.”

AUHSD began a new Student Service Foundation this school year where students obtain funding to make student-proposed service projects a reality. The Foundation awards grants to empower students in the district to make a difference in their communities. This offers the students real opportunities to give back, engage with their learning and focus on problem solving. This Foundation is Common Core at its core – creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and communication with a few other C’s thrown in for good measure: compassion, character, community and caring. This Foundation creates learning with purpose. This Foundation creates meaningful engagement with education. This Foundation has awarded its first grants to students who are creating community gardens, teaching literacy, and using STEM to study water conservation.

It’s time we stop to take a hard look at what we really celebrate in LAUSD. This can be a painful, tough process, but it is only with authentic, honest evaluation from “your rich uncle,” that we will walk away with empowerment.

Are our kids becoming responsible, civic-minded leaders who serve for the good of humanity?
Are our kids receiving an education that serves them, allowing them to develop passions that in turn nurture innovation to make life better for us all?
Are our kids learning how to become global leaders and change makers?

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is … what are you doing for others?” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

So I ask: What are our kids doing for others?

Where in their LAUSD education are they learning that life doesn’t revolve around them, fundraising isn’t about what’s in it for them, and education isn’t just about knowing “stuff,” but about application and problem solving and creative thinking?

Let’s move beyond the status quo, stop “feeding the monster,” evaluate our School Board candidates on their own individual merits, and turn this district into one that graduates civic-minded young adults who live beyond themselves for the betterment of mankind.

It’s time for innovation. It’s time for education to start serving our kids. It’s time for a new "uncle" in town to lead.

The time is now.

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To Common Core, or Not To Common Core

9/20/2014

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That is the question.

Common Core. What is it? What does it mean for our kids? What does it mean for our schools? Our teachers? The future of our society? Do we really want more federal control of local education?

The questions are endless, and the answers are convoluted. What’s to believe, and what’s to dismiss?

I visited with a chapter of Republic Women’s Federated this afternoon, and Common Core was a hot topic. The members of the group asked very pointed questions about our feeling with regard to the implementation of Common Core.

Some of the concerns in the room:

loss of local control
“fuzzy” math
untested pedagogy
children being used as guinea pigs
outdated and biased textbooks

I get it. I’m a school teacher and have been faced with the looming “Common Core” for the past several years. I’ve been on district Common Core Committees, studied the Common Core State Standards, been asked to implement Common Core strategies in the classroom, and been part of numerous discussions about what Common Core means to the future of America’s children.

You know what I’ve come away with? As simple as it sounds, I have honestly come to understand the Common Core as an opportunity to ensure America’s children are college and career ready. Can they read, write, speak and listen? Common Core means literacy across the curriculum. I truly believe it’s that simple. Get kids reading, writing, speaking and listening in all class, and we will have a generation of kids ready for the 21st century world.

That’s what colleges and Fortune 100 companies (P21) have told us … we need students who are globally aware, critical thinkers, collaborators, creative, and able to communicate effectively. Clearly, what we’ve been doing with No Child Left Behind (NCLB) hasn’t worked and has, ironically, left our children behind. Colleges tell us every new school year with incoming freshman that the children they are being sent aren’t ready for the rigor of college. Companies tell us with every new high school graduating class that the graduates can’t communicate or problem solve. So what are we fighting against exactly? Do we really want what we’ve had the past twelve years? Do we really want another generation of students who are only taught how to pass a standardized test?

Common Core simply offers opportunities for our students to demonstrate mastery through well-structured project-based learning, giving them opportunities to synthesize information to solve problems, create, innovate, explore, and build.

I work at Oxford Academy, a nationally-recognized high school in Cypress. You would be hard-pressed to find a classroom still being instructed using the traditional-rows-of-desks configuration, a teacher still using the same old worksheets of fill-in-the-blanks that have been used for the past ten years, students unable to synthesize primary source documents to construct well-organized arguments in history, politics, literature, science and world languages.

Common Core at Oxford Academy means rigorous curriculums, engaged students responsible for their own learning, well-trained teachers to facilitate learning, an expectation that all students can learn and excel, and an openness to believe that our educational system can only get better.

Do challenges exist with the Common Core? Absolutely. No program, regardless the industry, is flawless, but Common Core is a step in the right direction, and I teach at a campus that allows me to say just that. I’ve seen it in action, and our kids excel.

In a nutshell, a Common Core classroom simply expects students will be able to:

read and comprehend more complex texts
write arguments supported by text-based evidence
synthesize a variety of information to solve complex problems
engage in a global community and be able to communicate effectively

Can a student more active in their own education and learning be a bad thing? Isn’t this just the type of person who ends up curing cancer, traveling unchartered missions into space, discovering the Autism link, solving the world’s natural resources challenges?

I believe it really is as simple … and complex as this.

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