Worth Reading....

1. Playground Poem (Stager)- 

it is worth noting that many of the nations “beating” the USA academically (as if learning were a zero-sum game of winners and losers), have more recess than the United States. K-12 schools in my second home of Australia have a 20-30 minute late “morning tea” and an hour for lunch and recess – through graduation.

2. Michael Wesch on Seymour Papert and Constructionism (Fryer)- “Nothing could be more absurd than an experiment in which computers are placed in a classroom in which nothing else has changed… Computers serve best when they allow everything to change.”

3. Jennie Magiera's Keynote from the July 2014 EdTech Teacher Summit (Fryer)- This podcast is a recording of Jennie Magiera’s opening keynote on the second day of EdTechTeacher’s Summit in Chicago on Navy Pier on July 29, 2014. Jennie is a teacher and educational leader in the Chicago Public Schools, and has taught in a 1:1 iPad classroom. Jennie and the other teachers in her team (primarily from Burley Elementary and the National Teacher’s Academy in CPS) are passionate about not only engaging students in the learning process, but also using social media to help students discover and share their own voices with those in their neighborhood, community, city, and nation.

4. This Is What A Student-Designed School Looks Like (Vangelova)- students are allowed to design their own school within a school at Monument High School in Great Barrington, MA

5. Unpacking the Science: How Playing Music Changes the Learning Brain (Hicks)- 

“How do we process sequences with complex hierarchical structure and make sense of them?” he asks. “How do we integrate sensation and action? How do we remember long and difficult sequences of information? These are fundamental neuroscience questions, and music can help us answer some of these questions, because it’s in some ways simpler than language, but it’s still of sufficient complexity that it can address these very deep and important aspects of human brain function.”

6. Welcome to Epic, A School Where Students Are Heroes On a Quest (Schwartz)- another example of rethinking how we structure school

Students in adolescence start telling the story of themselves; who am I, what do I do, and there’s this narrative out there that people tell them about who they are,” Hatcher said. In Oakland, often the expectation is that African American and Latino students won’t succeed. Epic educators are challenging that narrative by giving students the chance to become the superheroes of their community. Hatcher wants his students to feel they can control their lives despite the random violence happening in the neighborhoods where they live.

7. A Portal to Chaos and Adventure (Westervelt)- innovative and creative space for students to play 

Children need an environment with “the opportunity to engage in open, free play where they’re allowed to self-organize,” he adds. “It’s really a central part of being human and developing into competent adulthood.”

Brown says this kind of free-range fun is not just good; it’s essential. Wild play helps shape who we become, he says, and it should be embraced, not feared.

Worth Reading

Here is some weekend reading/viewing material....


1. The Story of a 3D Printed Whistle (Crosby)- elementary students working on developing a whistle- much harder than one might think to engineer a high quality whistle

I’ve seen many examples of figures printed out on a 3D printer … and they are impressive. Students have to figure out and problem solve coding the design to get it just right. But this is different in that students aren’t just printing out a figure that looks like a whistle, they are using the engineering design process to make a whistle that actually works 

2. Marymount’s ‘Come Alive’ Event Inspires Student Creativity, Ingenuity (Seguel)- coverage of Marymount of Santa Barbara "Creativity, Engineering and Coding Come Alive" event

Marymount Head of School Andrew Wooden explained Marymount’s new Design Thinking program in more depth: “Design Thinking is not just about kids building things, but about learning to approach challenges of all kinds, learning to use and trust trial and error, and finding creative solutions to problems.”

3. For Students the Importance of Doing Work That Matters (Richardson)- does the work we do with students matter in that matters in the real world and has a purpose outside of the classroom

Still, we can start small, can’t we? What if we took 10% of what we’re currently doing and handed it over to our students, asking them to meet the standard or the outcome we’ve set for them in a way that they care about and that had a purpose beyond the classroom? What if we created opportunities for them to educate, entertain, inspire, or connect with people from all over the globe who might be sincerely influenced by the work they’re doing? And what if we asked them to assess their own work in ways that matter to them, ways that inform them what worked, what didn’t work, and how they might do it differently down the road?

Schools and classrooms should support a deep culture of “doing work that matters,” where the adults in the building serve as models for the type of creating and learning we might expect from kids.

4. Beyond Laptops and The Power of Vulnerability (Cofino)- as teachers we all have something to share and something to learn

When we all appreciate that each of us has something to share and something to learn, we really do open ourselves up to the possibility of becoming better than we were when we started.

5. Design for Extreme Affordability- is a two quarter, multidisciplinary, project-based course open to Stanford University students. Students work in teams, using design thinking methods, to develop products and services that serve the needs of the world's poor 

Extreme will be a class that I talk about for the rest of my life, and will undoubtedly influence my future career choices, management style and approach to problem solving. 

6. Schooled (Russakoff)- inside look at leadership of a large urban school district

7. Stanford’s Dave Evans & Bill Burnett on Using Design Thinking to Address the “Wicked Problem” of Designing Your Life & Career- 

The research says that maybe only two or three out of ten people actually have a passion that they’ve identified, that they can work into. We believe that actually, passion turns out to be what you develop after you find the things that you enjoy doing.

8. Chris and Jon Boggiano on Radius of Play

What All Children Need

Thanks to @KaraAlyson22 for sharing What All Children Need.  Definitely worth reading the entire article.  In particular I enjoyed the concluding stance:

That is our job as we design children’s environments, to create a nest for children as they navigate the demands of growing up and to make them believe that they can fly in the world which they will inherit. We help provide them security and the freedom to adventure. At both a conscious and unconscious level, the child has to feel secure here and now, but at the same time learn that the world out there is not an insurmountable risk, but a place that she can and will learn to manage, learn from, be a part of, and love.

The drive to protect our children is profound and easily can extend to scotchguarding their lives. Reality is difficult. It is messy and loud and profane. There are people with warts and frowns, and decidedly mixed virtues. But childhood is a time when we help children begin to live in the world and love the world; and we can’t do that fenced off from it in a world of two dimensional glowing screens and plastic balls and slides. Scrubbing and polishing every raw experience in the name of health and safety, or protecting innocence scrapes away the natural luster of childhood. Some of the wonders and joys of childhood that fuel the best in our adult selves is unavoidably birthed in bumps and bruises and tears.

From an education perspective we are reminded to value play and simple experimentation.  Providing time for students to tinker is important but for some reason(s) seems to dissipate as learners progress through a K-12 system.  The habit of experimenting /tinkering is critical in a world where rapid change is a defining characteristic.  Experimentation and tinkering leads to asking more questions and seeking continuous improvement. "Some of the wonders and joys of childhood that fuel the best in our adult selves," is possible if schools value play across the K-12 spectrum.   Additionally, the article  is a reminder about the importance of failure.  As opposed to failure carrying with it some irreversible negative connotation, iteration is to be embraced and an expected part of the learning process.  I think the statement, "At both a conscious and unconscious level, the child has to feel secure here and now, but at the same time learn that the world out there is not an insurmountable risk, but a place that she can and will learn to manage, learn from, be a part of, and love." hits at this point.  We want students to take risk, seek adventure and strive for unique intellectual experiences.  Schools should provide a safe environment for students to explore new academic/intellectual possibilities without the penalty of  harsh consequences.

Free to Learn

Sharing a few highlights from Peter Gray's Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life. 

Lack of free play may not kill the physical body, as would lack of food, air, or water, but it kills the spirit and stunts mental growth

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

Not only has the school day grown longer and less playful, but school has intruded ever more into home and family life. Assigned homework has increased, eating into time that would otherwise be available for play

Looked at in another way, five to eight times as many young people today have scores above the cutoff for likely diagnosis of a clinically significant anxiety disorder or major depression than fifty or more years ago. These increases are at least as great, if not greater, for elementary and high school students as for college students

In free play, children learn to make their own decisions, solve their own problems, create and abide by rules, and get along with others as equals rather than as obedient or rebellious subordinates

The intense drive that children have to play with other children, therefore, is a powerful force for them to learn how to attend to others’ wishes and negotiate differences

But regardless of the lectures that students might hear in school about the value of helping others, school works against such behavior. By design, it teaches selfishness. The forced competitiveness, the constant grading and ranking of students, contain the implicit lesson that each student’s job is to look out for himself or herself and to do better than others

Under normal conditions, children develop their abilities to cooperate and help one another in free, self-directed, social play, where they learn to resolve their differences and take into account one another’s needs in order to keep the game going

Self-education also requires space—space to roam, to get away, to explore. That space should, ideally, encompass the range of terrains relevant to the culture in which one is developing

 

Importance of Play

Dr. Stuart Brown, in his book, Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul, tells the story about how the Jet Propulsion Laboratory realized that, although they were hiring the best and brightest college graduates, it was hiring the wrong kind of people. Something had changed in the kind of people that came to work at JPL.

“The JPL managers went back to look at their own retiring engineers and ... found that in their youth, their older, problem-solving employees had taken apart clocks to see how they worked, or made soapbox derby racers, or built hi-fi stereos, or fixed appliances. The young engineering school graduates who had also done these things, who had played with their hands, were adept at the kinds of problem solving that management sought.

Those who hadnʻt, generally were not. From that point on, JPL made questions about applicantsʻ youthful projects and play a standard part of job interviews. Through research the JPL managers discovered that there is a kind of magic in play.”

We must try to bring this kind of magic into schools, hard as it may be. Formal education has become such a serious business, defined as success at abstract thinking and high-stakes testing, that thereʼs no time and no context for play. If play is what you do outside school, then that is where the real learning will take place and thatʼs where innovation and creativity will be found.

The rigid academic system is short-changing all students, even though an elite few seem to do well by academic standards. However, there is increasing skepticism that even those who succeed academically are not the kind of creative, innovative thinkers and doers that we need. -Makerspace Playbook

Important to remember what can be learned from play.

Importance of Play

Dr. Stuart Brown, in his book, Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul, tells the story about how the Jet Propulsion Laboratory realized that, although they were hiring the best and brightest college graduates, it was hiring the wrong kind of people. Something had changed in the kind of people that came to work at JPL.

“The JPL managers went back to look at their own retiring engineers and ... found that in their youth, their older, problem-solving employees had taken apart clocks to see how they worked, or made soapbox derby racers, or built hi-fi stereos, or fixed appliances. The young engineering school graduates who had also done these things, who had played with their hands, were adept at the kinds of problem solving that management sought.

Those who hadnʻt, generally were not. From that point on, JPL made questions about applicantsʻ youthful projects and play a standard part of job interviews. Through research the JPL managers discovered that there is a kind of magic in play.”

We must try to bring this kind of magic into schools, hard as it may be. Formal education has become such a serious business, defined as success at abstract thinking and high-stakes testing, that thereʼs no time and no context for play. If play is what you do outside school, then that is where the real learning will take place and thatʼs where innovation and creativity will be found.

The rigid academic system is short-changing all students, even though an elite few seem to do well by academic standards. However, there is increasing skepticism that even those who succeed academically are not the kind of creative, innovative thinkers and doers that we need. -Makerspace Playbook

Important to remember what can be learned from play.