Community

Halloween and time for some fun.

It’s one thing to talk about the importance of school community and quite another to devote time and resources to making that talk walk. The ASA – all school activities, a cross divisional group – planned this afternoon’s event. It brought together all ages from kindergarten to the twelfth grade. They worked in groups to design and carve their pumpkins and dress their senior for the runway costume parade. Even the pre-k were there for the show and they had almost as good a time as the senior class who took the lead. Watching the respectful way the older students treat the younger ones – letting them be at the center of the activity – is a powerful lesson for all of us in the business of education.

Building and maintaining community is not just about pumpkins of course but they can certainly be part of it.

Stop praising students

There’s a good article in the latest Educational Leadership: “The Perils and Promise of Praise”. It’s by Carol Dweck.
More anon.

College information evening

We had a well-attended college information evening for ninth and tenth grade families last week. Ninth and tenth grade is not time to focus on college but it is time to be assured that “It’s not time to worry yet”. The early years of high school are about focusing on getting involved with academics and all the other aspects of school life; about developing strengths and following passionate interests. When the time comes to shift the process into high gear the school is there to help make it as smooth as possible.

The college process begins in earnest in mid eleventh grade and it struck me that our students have some incomparable advantages. They include:

1. The academic program is rigorous and rich with requirements and options. The program manages to allow for well rounded students with well-developed angles. Well rounded because their are not forced into narrow choice lanes. Our artists are athletes and our athletes are community leaders and our leaders are scholars. Well-angled because they also have the opportunity to channel their focus and develop their passion into expertise.
2. The attentive support of a deep bench of college counselors.When the time comes to explore college options students, and their parents, have a college team on their side led by Don Fried. His decades of experience provides a depth of knowledge with a contemporary perspective. With so many excellent colleges and college programs out there finding the right match is important. That’s where experience comes in. One size does not fit all and our students are supported in their search for the options that are right for them. Our carefully designed process is there to support them on that journey of exploration and application.
3. Students graduate known for who they are as individuals on a unique journey. The college recommendation that goes with the application comes from a school that knows each and every one of its students well and can speak positively about unique strengths and aptitudes.
4. Colleges want our graduates. Our students know what it means to work hard at a very high level. Our students understand what it means to belong to a community. Responsibility, integrity and mutual respect are what we expect and take for granted. Colleges seek to admit strong students who are independent thinkers mature enough to involve themselves responsibly in college community life.

Motivation

“The incentives I took as an insult. I didn’t think motivation was needed. It was not the right thing for me, not the right thing for my players.”
- Joe Torre, turning down an offer to continue as manager of the NY Yankees.

I am not much of a fan of professionalsports* but I was struck by Joe Torre’s comment that was all over the news at the end of the week. His remark that money was not the incentive for winning a pennant or a World Series struck a chord. Surely all major league teams and their managers are motivated to gain such post-season glory. And how would a financial incentive upfront make one jot of difference?

It reminded me of Rick Lavoie’s comment in the classic learning video F.A.T. City where, in a workshop simulation, he offers a financial incentive to one of the participants. She is very motivated but still unable to complete the task. And of course, when you don’t “get it”in school – when you can’t perceive the answer, it’s not a lack of motivation but a need for good teaching.

I don’t know why Joe Torre was insulted but I do think it insults children when well-meaning but misguided adults offer incentives for learning.

*Although I enjoy watching the games of young people I actually know. I managed to see the best part of three soccer matches this week – middle school, girls’ varsity and boys’ varsity – great games all of them. Here are a few pictures from recent games.

Kids in school

Who’s zooming whom?

New kids on the block received a warm welcome last week. Daisy and Clover – five months old – were the center of attention. Even the middle school Japanese theater class could not resist a visit.

Disintermediation, Radiohead and Newtonian physics

Disintermediation – one of those wonderful baggy words that only yields up any meaning after being dismembered into constituent parts, if at all. Or perhaps a word like a string of railway carriages shuttling along clanking and rattling over the rail bed.

The word is most usually applied in the field of marketing and economics where it refers to the cutting out of intermediaries in a supply chain: “cutting out the middleman”. Going on-line to buy books, for example, rather than going to a bookstore and discussing possible purchases with a bookseller.

The British band Radiohead provide another example. They are now offering their latest album on-line directly to fans, severing ties with its music label and allowing those fans to set the price. Another band Nine Inch Nails has declared itself a free agent. Trent Reznor of NIN puts it this way: “I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate.” Other music artists are said to be following suit.

Those are contemporary examples but this is not a new process. Before the bible was translated into vernacular languages the priest, or those who read Latin, were the intermediators. The translators and then the printing presses were engaged in the process of disintermediation.

So – with so much easy access to information, with distance learning and with universities such as M.I.T. * and others putting their coursework and lectures on line what is the role of the teacher and the school. Have teachers lost their essential role as intermediaries? And if so – what is their role now?
*Professor Walter Lewin’s legendary physics lectures are now hits on UTunes. This is Professor Lewin at work demonstrating Newtonian physics: the period of a pendulum swing is independent of the mass hanging from the pendulum. This demonstration can be viewed on the video of Lecture 10.

So much to do

“You must do the things you think you cannot do”

Stone Cottage

One of the great things about Poughkeepsie is that you are always in striking distance of so many places to visit and things to do.

One of them is Val-Kill, Eleanor Roosevelt’s home in Hyde Park – the only place she referred to as home. The grander Roosevelt home is right on Route 9 but the trip to the more modest house bought as her personal retreat is also worth the visit. On both occasions I have been there the guides – one a park ranger and the other a docent – have been so knowledgeable about Mrs Roosevelt – her life in public and private and about the famous and the not so famous who came to Vall-Kill to be with her.

Don’t miss the short film. It sets the historical context of the Roosevelt era and provides the personal story. The interior of the house is lovingly preserved and you can see the study where the indefatigable Mrs Roosevelt wrote and worked, and the modest dining and sitting room where she met with world leaders, royalty and people from the neighborhood.

The house tour

And indefatigable she was. Her “My Day” column was nationally syndicated and reached an audience of millions. For twenty seven years between 1935 and 1962 she wrote six days a week. When Franklin Roosevelt died she missed four days – the only interruption in all those 27 years. She was a blogger before her time and in her column she was able to reach millions of readers with her commentary on the important issues of the time. Column weave seamlessly from domestic issues to her demanding daily schedule and commentary of the major events of her time.

Mrs Roosevelt was a world figure and hers was a distinctive voice at once intimate and confiding yet authoritative and confident. It’s interesting to search the database from George Washington University to see the range of her interests and how many columns flow from the personal detail to matters of great public concern. Mrs Roosevelt was interested in all of it. It’s fun, too, to search for the items of local interest – items about Hyde Park, Poughkeepsie and the surrounding area.

The rain stayed with us most of yesterday. It was my last day in Hyde Park for over a month so a busy one. In the morning I went down to our excellent department store, Luckey-Platt, in Poughkeepsie, and arranged for some furniture to be re-upholstered while I am away. I bought a few things for the stone cottage which my guests should find convenient. - June 5th 1950

Some remarkable things are being done in the International Business Machines research center south of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., but one scientist in particular is delighted because he has taught a machine to play checkers. And the machine is winning, improving its score with each game. July 24th 1959

As this is the 50th anniversary of the launch I searched Sputnik to see how Mrs Roosevelt had responded and made sense of this trauma to the American psyche and the impact on education. I found it a fascinating glimpse back in time.

But if you are interested you will have to do the search yourself!

The grounds. And a heron hunting frogs.

Colleges that change lives

Colleges that Change Lives is the title of Loren Pope’s very useful book for those planning for college. It’s also a website. If you are off to college soon, or know someone who is, then take a look. It is particularly useful in dispelling some of the myths of excellence. As with many things, it is important to dig a little deeper as well as clarify what you really want from the college experience. “The best” may not always be the best when it come down to how you experience it, the actual outcomes, and the impact on your life. Be sure to check out the Common Misperceptions page

If college rankings matter to you then you will be interested in The Way Forward On College Rankings, remarks delivered to the Annapolis Group last June by Douglas C. Bennett, President of Earlham College. The story behind those rankings that can appear so authoritative is murky indeed.

If you ask your institutional research person to tell you candidly
whether the rankings have any professional integrity about them,
they will tell you no.
I doubt you can find even one institutional researcher
across all of our colleges and universities who believes,
as a professional judgment, that the rankings satisfy
a minimum threshold of acceptable research practice.

See also College Disorder and the pernicious effects of ACD.

The truth is that there are so many amazing college programs out there. And they are looking for good high school students to fill them. Just ask Don Fried and Sara Morrone – our college counseling team – who just returned from the annual NACAC (National Association for College Counselling) conference in Austin, Texas.

Gnome update

Gnome update: See Gnome Eruptions or scroll for the original story and commentary
There were no further eruptions reported yesterday at PDS.
However, I received today the following photographic evidence of garden variety gnome eruptions in London:

Beyond the comfort zone: Outdoor education and the ZPD

Imagine a cleared space in the forest and a circle drawn with a rope; “This is your comfort zone – the space where you are confident and at ease. This you can already do. We all have our comfort zone. It takes many shapes and it is different for all of us.”

Then another rope makes a circle around the first. The ring between the inner and outer circle is the “stretch zone’ – the area of discovery, growth and risk – the space into which we must all step if we are to try something unfamiliar and expand our comfort zone. Beyond the stretch zone lies the panic zone – a place where no-one wants to be. With these simple concentric circles the outdoor education leader has established the common ground that connects all of us as unique learners.

Outdoor education can take many forms and include many activities – high ropes, low ropes, raft-building, orienteering, night walks, star-gazing – but it is always challenge by choice. There is no place for coercion or public shaming. The cry “enough “ or “I prefer not to’ is perfectly OK but there is a commitment to contribute… there are challenges for everyone, and everyone is part of the team. The activity relies on that participation. Outdoor education is not a test of physical fitness or endurance. It is about choosing to take a step out of your personal comfort zone and into the unknown, and about what it means to trust and be trusted.

There is a theory in the world of education that I have always found helpful in understanding this process. Lev Vygotsky, a young Soviet psychologist working in a race with the tuberculosis that would kill him in 1934, developed ideas that have proved illuminating and influential. Ironically, two years after the publication of his work it was repressed by Stalin and remained unknown for 20 years. It did not find its way into English translation until eight years later in 1962. This is not a place for an extensive discussion of Vygotsky’s many contributions to cognitive psychology but his central theories are worth introducing. His concepts of the zone of proximal development; of the role of the teacher in learning; and of the essentially shared and social nature of the learning process have much to tell us.

Vygotsky investigated problem solving, and how the mind goes about acquiring and mastering new skills and knowledge. According to Vygotsky the learner has two areas of development. The current area of development encompasses all that the learner can do independently – those skills and that knowledge that are within our grasp and compass. The “comfort zone” – if you will. Beyond that area lies what he termed the zone of proximal development, or zpd – those skills, knowledge and abilities that are within our reach but not yet grasped.

Learning he claimed is an essentially social activity. The role of the teacher is not that of simplifying new knowledge and doling it out in measurable doses, but of providing new content, and the context within which the learner may safely step from the current level of understanding to a higher level. In this model the learner and the social situation are interdependent and the teacher is the skilled mediator. The teacher’s role is to act – in Vygotsky’s phrase – as the “loaned consciousness’, as one who is able to help students on an as-needed basis and to introduce the content and create the context. It is very easy to observe this process in outdoor education. The learner, confronted with a challenge- say rappelling, works out how to accomplish the task. The support of peers and the guidance and security of the loaned consciousness of the teacher enable the learner to take the risk of stepping out and trying something new.

Collaboration, trust, risk-taking and team work are as important in the classroom as they are on adventure trips. Outdoor education helps to build the trust and relationships on which so much learning and growth depends. Going beyond the comfort zone is what artists and entrepreneurs and independent thinkers do all the time.

It can also be a lot of fun.