The Latest Brain Research: How People Learn

Another myth that we aim to bust at our Myth Busters Seminar on April 19th and 20th in St. Louis is this one:

Teachers deliver curriculum and students receive it.  If this sounds like handing off information, filling empty vessels, and the industrial model of school as a factory, it is.

I’ve been reading Howard Gardner’s essay in The Wonder of Learning catalogue from Reggio Emilia.  He writes, the idea that knowledge is transmitted from older, bigger, smarter people is a default assumption all over the world; it’s a naïve, folk theory of the world.  He adds that this theory makes schools more easily controlled, even if ineffective.

Gardner writes that the constructivist theory of learning, even now, as it is confirmed by brain research, is still radical.  If this is true, we suspect that most of you who are attending our conference or reading this blog, are radicals!

Among the many resources and researchers on this subject, I found Sugata Mitra's talk on Child Driven Education on TED thought provoking.   He sees the learning process as a self organizing system with emergent properties.  He uses the language of systems thinking, the sciences and social sciences to describe how we learn.   Also, if you have not yet watched Sir Ted Robinson's talk, Bring on the Learning Revolution, please do.  Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we're educating our children.  He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence.

Gardner predicts that this naive folk theory of learning is on its way out and will soon become old fashioned and anachronistic.  If you want to join in the learning with schools where this old view is long gone, come visit us.

If you come to The College School or Maplewood Richmond Heights School District, you will see teachers and students working together to share their learning, explore new territory and new ideas and become fervent learners along the way.  If you come to the conference in April, you will join in this kind of learning with us and it will be fun!  Registration is still open.  For information and to register, email ashley@cadwellcollaborative.com.

Authentic Youth Engagement: Students Are Citizens Now

  Last week’s blog explored the educational myth that students don’t do real work in school.  I recounted the story of Annalise and The College School’s wind turbine, a powerful example of authentic youth engagement.

The myth, of course, is that students are not capable of making meaningful contributions to society.  The sad truth is that many schools are organized in ways that are purposefully meant to limit students’ innate capacity for action and involvement in real issues.  Schools that unleash the true potential of students to be active citizens equip and experience students as leaders.

In a speech to a group of 200 gathered at Shelburne Farms, Vermont on July 17th of 2008, Peter Senge put it this way:

School is the  most influential institution in modern society.  There are many ways to design an organization that promotes learning and the present industrial model of schooling is not one of them.  There are some exciting counter examples, but they have not spread.  The community, cultural institutions and business have to be involved.  We need a broader base of change.  In the eyes of a child, the future is alive.  Maybe children need to step forward as leaders.

Students are fully capable of exploring the questions essential to citizenship. Developmentally, in an empowering way, students' innocence and lack of cynicism lead them to inquire and act with their hearts as well as their minds.  They are not only citizens...they can be model citizens.

Terry Tempest Williams speaks eloquently on this in her book, The Open Space of Democracy.  She writes:

The human heart is the first home of democracy.  It is where we embrace our questions. Can we be equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds and offer out attention rather than our opinions?  And do we have enough resolve in our hearts to act courageously, relentlessly, without ever giving up--ever--trusting our fellow citizens to join with us in our determined pursuit of a living democracy?

To see and listen to students in action as citizens making vital contributions, we invite you to St. Louis on April 19 & 20, for our Myth Busters Seminar.

For more information on the seminar email Ashley <ashley@cadwellcollaborative.com>

A Myth to Bust: Students Don't Do Real Work in School

 

A common myth about education is that students can't or shouldn't do real work in school.  Let me tell you a short story and then quote a real student as she reflects on her experience.

In 2008, Matt Diller, a third grade teacher at The College School, became interested in renewable energy.  He shared some of his research with a group of sixth graders.  The students became more than interested.  They were determined to act.  Over the next several months, they researched wind turbines, sourced a plausible turbine for installation at the school, advocated for its construction before the school board and then the municipal authorities, assisted in raising the funds for the project, and, finally, realized the construction of a vertical axis, Windspire turbine at their school.

A year later, one of the then seventh graders, (now a sophomore in high school), reflected on the students' experience and presented her thoughts to a group of over 200 adults representing both public and independent schools and programs gathered in St. Louis for a conference on Sustainability Education.  The title of the conference: The Necessary Revolution from the book by the same title, by Peter Senge, who was the keynote speaker.

Here is the end of Annalise’s 5 minute speech:

Let me ask you a question: How many of you have stood before a roomful of people around my age and said something like this to them: You are our country’s future...You are the future of this world.

Well, I have heard this phrase countless times.  Here, today, at this conference, I come before you to say that I disagree with statements like this.  I am not the future of this country.  We are not the future of this world.  The time for my generation to step forward and lead is not in the future....because I don’t believe that this world can wait for me or my generation to grow up.  With problems like global warming facing us, I am convinced that my time to dream, that my time to act, that my time to create a new, sustainable world is not in the future...it’s right now.

In order for us to even have a future we have to be willing to listen to our experiences, to dream together, and to support one another’s visions; whether that dream or vision comes from a business owner, the founder of a school, a third grade teacher, or from a group of hard working seventh grade students who can see that the future is now.

I understand that global warming is a dire issue.  It is projects like these that help us take steps toward a more sustainable world.

On behalf of those seventh graders, on behalf of my generation, thank you for creating a space for us to join in this urgent conversation.

Every time I listen to Annalise’s speech I get a catch in my throat.  To so many of us the issues of sustainability are incomprehensible, overwhelming, and/or hopeless.  It is compelling to hear a 13 year articulate her vision and action so clearly and with such conviction.

Since the wind turbine, many more projects have been initiated and developed by the students at both The College School and just down the street at Maplewood Richmond Heights School District.  At our Myth Busters Seminar, on April 19th and 20th, participants will witness engaged, high achieving students in action, learning and working toward a healthy, hopeful future.  Please join us in this vital conversation.

For more information and to register, email Ashley Cadwell.