Worth Reading...

Sharing a few posts from the past couple of weeks.

1. Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good Through College Admissions- Report making the case that the college admission process can promote that ethical and intellectual engagement are both highly important

How might we construct an admissions process that sends compelling messages that both academic achievement and commitment to others and the common good are highly important? How might we construct a process that motivates young people to contribute to others and their communities in ways that are more authentic and meaningful and that promote in them greater appreciation of and commitment to others, especially those different from them in background and character? How might we increase young people’s understanding of and commitment to the public good? Just as important, how might the admissions process assess young people’s contributions to others and their communities in ways that are more valid and meaningful, especially students varying widely by race, culture and class?

2. Using Snapchat to Develop Empathy in a Technology Driven World (Holland)- using snapchat to tell stories as a way to develop empathy as part of the problem-solving process

Imagine asking students  to watch the Snapchat story featuring the city of the day and respond to the visible thinking routine, "I used to think.... But now I think..." Consider the discussions that could take place as we come to a self-realization about the depth of people around the world and what it means to be a global citizen. That moment of self-assessment, where you realize what you used to think and what you now have learned, truly leaves you feeling more cautious about the biases you develop towards people and places with which you are not familiar.

3. Why Coding is the Vanguard for Modern Learning (Olsen)- learning to code isn’t acquiring skills but rather how coding enables development that is not possible without coding

Code enables us to experiment. To imagine solutions or creations, and then see if we can in fact make them. Code enables us to solve problems that would otherwise be beyond our capacity because they would take far too long, or be difficult not to introduce mistakes. The computer language provides precision and consistency to a level beyond what we can usually do by hand.

4. Welcome to the Postnormal Paradox (Boyd)- thoughts on the changing economy and how what people are investing in is evolving

Through the 20th century, as we shifted from a horse-and-sun-powered agrarian economy to an electricity-and-motor-powered industrial economy to a silicon-based information economy, it was clear that every company had to invest in the new thing that was coming. These were big, expensive investments in buildings and machinery and computer technology. Today, though, value is created far more through new ideas and new ways of interaction. Ideas appear and spread much more quickly, and their worth is much harder to estimate.

5. The Math Class Paradox (Boaler)- how the growth mindset can save math class

Educators know that the most productive math-learning environments are those in which students receive positive messages about their unlimited potential and work on interesting and complex problems; in which they feel free to try ideas, fail, and revise their thinking. Students with a “growth” mindset are those who believe that their ability is not “fixed” and that failure is a natural part of learning. These are the students who perform at higher levels in math and in life. But students don’t get the opportunity to see math as a growth subject if they mainly work on short, closed questions accompanied by frequent tests that communicate to them that math is all about performance and there is no room for failure. When students inevitably struggle, most decide they are not a “math person.” The last decade has seen a nation of children emerge from our schools terrified of failing in math and believing that only some students can be good at it—those who can effortlessly achieve on narrow tests.

6. How Frustration Can Make Us More Creative

7. Team 19: Rapid Innovation in Public Schools

Team 19: Rapid Innovation in Public School from Ian Midgley on Vimeo.

Worth Reading....

Passing along a few interesting reads.

1. The Confidence Gap (Kay and Shipman)- Evidence shows that women are less self-assured than men—and that to succeed, confidence matters as much as competence. The article states why and what to do about it.

A growing body of evidence shows just how devastating this lack of confidence can be. Success, it turns out, correlates just as closely with confidence as it does with competence. No wonder that women, despite all our progress, are still woefully underrepresented at the highest levels. All of that is the bad news. The good news is that with work, confidence can be acquired. Which means that the confidence gap, in turn, can be closed.

2. How Failure In the Classroom Is More Instructive Than Success (Sobel)- giving students permission to fail while maintaining a high standard in the classroom

There is a popular meme called "Famous Failures," featuring quotations on overcoming rejection, failure, and loss from Michael Jordan, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, the Beatles, Oprah, and Albert Einstein. The message is familiar: Abundant success lies on the other end of failure. Could guiding our students through their own failures inspire the next groundbreaking physicist, talk-show star, or iPhone inventor? Possible … but not likely. Even if the results end up being a little less grandiose, I think they are just as important. Learning to fail could help our students become more resilient, self-aware, innovative, and compassionate. Not bad for a bunch of "failures."

3. My First Shot At Perplexity- crafting truly meaningful math activities for primary elementary students

I found myself on Google Earth, using the measuring tool to see how far away my house is from my school in a straight line (I was bored…). It dawned on me that I could measure anything from the perimeter of Fenway Park, to the radius of Madison Square Garden. What if the students were shown a picture of something they knew with lines and no numbers. Could they ask the right questions for us to figure out the area of their school’s gym? How about the handball courts in the back of the school? Why would we need to do this?

4. Inside Google X: The New Bell Labs (WNYC)- look at the conditions Google is creating to spur invention

• How Google X Employees Deal With Failure

5. Empathy In Education (Gray)- occasioning empathy in our classrooms

It was a very grim day, when I began to notice the profound lack of empathy in education, particularly in public education. That story can be found here: Educational trauma is a term I coined to capture the lack of empathy I was noticing. It is the inadvertent perpetration and perpetuation of victimization by educational systems against consumers and producers of the system.

6. Made In The Future- explanation of how things will be made

Made in the Future is an effort to capture our musings about what a not-so-distant tomorrow might look like. Our tools—faster, cheaper, and more out of control than ever—have triggered seismic shifts in how we design, manufacture, and distribute. And that has us asking lots of questions: What new tools or technologies will we create? How will they change the way we behave and learn? How will they shape our world?

7. How To Do One thing Really Well (Renwick)- a principal pushes the envelope in his school

While the two of us were becoming more learners than teachers, we also wanted to move our students to become teachers for each other. Our learning environment needed more balance. We kicked off our new week by showing students how to create tutorials using Screencast-o-matic, a free web-based tool.

Empathy and The Need to Observe

Next installment of my not so weekly podcast series.  Sharing thoughts about creating widespread empathy in schools and also the need to privilege the practice of observation in the classroom. The post was inspired by recent discussions about design thinking and my reading of Wired to Care by Dev Patnaik. 

Enjoy!!!

   

   
   
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Highlights: Wired to Care

Sharing highlights from Dev Patnaik's Wired to Care.

 People discover unseen opportunities when they have a personal and empathic connection with the world around them.

 For individuals, that means developing the ability to walk in other people’s shoes. For companies and other large institutions, that means finding a way to bring the rest of the world inside their walls When people in an organization develop a shared and intuitive vibe for what’s going on in the world, they’re able to see new opportunities faster than their competitors

 Over time, that implicit connection to the outside world helps blur the line between producers and consumers. Between inside the building and out. Between us and them. Harley likes to call the folks who buy its motorcycles riders, not customers, if only because so many Harley employees are riders themselves

 Having an intuitive understanding of other people can help overcome these challenges. Empathy for the people you serve can make the abstract more grounded and immediate because that information is now connected to a real person you know. It can provide context for the data we receive by incorporating factors left off the map

 What these practices have in common is that they go to great lengths to make commerce more immediate, in contrast to the rest of the business world. They step outside themselves to directly gain experience of their customers’ lives. To them, people are much more than a collection of facts. Companies benefit when they find ways to make the invisible facts of life more concrete, by getting outside and meeting the people that they might otherwise only read about in the newspaper or in a market research report

 You see, on some level, a great product has to function like a great gift. It’s a physical manifestation of a relationship. It’s both an embodiment of who the giver is and what they think of the receiver 

 While having empathy for other people is a good thing for us to do as individuals, it’s far more powerful when you can create widespread empathy throughout a large organization

 But the first steps toward an Open Empathy Organization are simple: Take the way that you already work today and add in easy, everyday, and experiential activities that put you in the shoes of the people you serve

Wired to Care

I just started reading Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Capture Widespread Empathy by Dev Patnaik.  In building a case for empathy, Patnaik shares how several business such as Harley-Davidson and the Zildjian Cymbal Company have prospered from building close and personal relationships with customers.  Patnaik also shares the story of Nina Planck and the London Farmers' Markets as further evidence that businesses need to understand, on a personal level, the thoughts and feelings of valued customers.

Nina Planck was living in London at the end of the 1990s working as a speechwriter for the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom.  One day Planck left her apartment searching for carrots.  Planck ventured to the local market and a grabbed a bag of carrots.  However, before checking-out, Planck realized that the carrots were from France.  This lead Planck to review the packaging of vegetables in the produce section and the realization that nearly all of the produce was imported.

Planck had just discovered a little-known secret of Britain's food supply: More than half of its vegetables are imported, and more than 95 percent of its fruit comes from overseas.- Patnaik

Planck was shocked by this observation and set out to establish a small urban farmers' market in London.  She began contacting farmers and inviting them to sell goods at her new market.  

 She only had two conditions:  Their crops had to be grown within a hundred miles of London, and they could sell only what they grew themselves.  This was a marked rebuttal to the complex supply chain needed to provide organic tomatoes from Israel to a shop on a London street corner... she called her idea the Wheatland Farmers' Market in honor of her home town.- Patnaik

Planck opened her market on June 6, 1999.  Planck's markets have been well-received by Londoners.  Planck now operates 14 markets throughout London.  She has opened another dozen in the United States and now there are more than 400 farmers' markets in Britain.  

Patnaik shares the following thought about Planck and her story.  

Her farmers' markets did more than offer good veggies to upwardly mobile urbanites.  They were a forum for bringing producers and consumers back together.  That intimacy has acted as a sort of market accelerator to make sure that her shoppers get the best possible food and her farmers get the best  possible prices.

 I like the way Patnaik assessed the growth of Plank's farmers' markets.  The intimacy between farmers and shoppers has been a significant factor in increasing the popularity of these urban markets.  In creating a scenario where producer and consumer meet each other, a strong bond has been developed or as Patnaik puts it an empathic connection forged.

I wonder what schools could learn from Planck and the London Farmers' Markets.  Intimacy is not a term often associated with education and schools.  However, how well do contributing groups of stakeholders now each other?  Is there a level of intimacy that reveals valuable data to help an institution grow and address critical needs?

In promoting empathetic connections Patnaik says:

Producers move to better methods of production, because they know their consumers care about the environment and the health of their families. They cut fewer corners and make choices that are ethically right, because they know that the consumers who could be affected by their decisions are real people with feelings and needs of their own.  At the same time, consumers act differently toward producers when they see them not as companies, but as real people.  That empathetic connection then enables a better transaction... People want to make connections with folks they do business with.

 I see the above excerpt as a guide.  Greater empathetic connections need to be fostered in schools.   A greater level of intimacy needs to exist to ensure that ethical and effective decision-making is possible.  The connections we make that extends beyond academic content, grades and state testing lie at the heart of improving our educational institutions. 

The Need for Empahty

I wanted to pass along the following from Edna Sackson.  I came across this excerpt via George Couros and his blog The Principal of Change.  Sackson had the following to say regarding empathy:

I’ve spent many hours in a hospital this past week (not as a patient)  and have become acutely aware of the effects of every personal (and not so personal) interaction. It’s irrelevant whether the person concerned (or not so concerned)  is a doctor,  a nurse, an orderly or a cleaner. Only some display empathy. Not all are communicators. These are the things that matter. These are the things we should teach our children…

I recall sitting in on a presentation delivered by Alan November to educators in New Jersey.  Mr. November was talking about skills valued by companies and during the course of his presentation, Mr. November referenced a survey that was completed by CEOs.  I believe, if my memory is correct, that the CEOs of 100 multinational corporations were questioned about skills they value when considering candidates for executive positions. The survey showed that empathy was valued above any other quality.


I thought about Mr. November's remarks earlier this week.  I sat in on several interviews for a supervisory position.  While I think candidates were challenged to disseminate an instructional vision, I wonder if a set of questions or follow-up discussions could have focused on empathy and the potential ability of a candidate to demonstrate this quality. 

I just look at school and in my case a high school.  We are interacting with kids, as young as 14, who are learning to deal with a wide range of emotions and situations.  Consider that in some cases we are asking kids to be full-time students while at the same time care for family members or require students to stay current with work while dealing with depression.  I feel at times we are asking students to manage a situation that even adults would struggle to handle. As a supervisor over several departments and chairing services such as 504 and I&RS, you try to develop meaningful intervention strategies.  However, this is a challenge when considering the academic expectations and traditional education system that governs most schools.  We talk about placing above all else the well-being of a student, but do we have a structure that actually allows for that to transpire?

I think it is valuable to keep Edna Sackson's excerpt in mind when dealing with students.  Educators have to be compassionate and empathetic.  There needs to be a recognition of what students are feeling and or experiencing and adjust accordingly.  Herein lies a powerful learning experience.  Endeavors can be crafted where students are moved to consider the the life of an individual that greatly contrasts their own.  Important and enduring thoughts can  be generated from these guided moments in the classroom.  However, I think if we want to imbue a greater sense of empathy within students, we have to model this behavior.  In doing so, students are moved to consider our actions and reflect upon how something such as a simple hello or words of encouragement can make a difference.