Disruptive Innovations

I am currently reading Clayton Christensen's Disrupting Class and loving it. Thus far, he has done a decent job describing the history of the public school system. He provides examples of our interdependencies and how our interlocking internal systems inhibit change--the temporal interdependencies of course prerequisites (i.e. you can't study this in the 11th grade if you didn't study this in the 9th), the lateral interdependencies of being unable to teach a more efficient method of note-taking in Social Studies because your English department colleagues are requiring notecards, the physical interdependencies of building/classroom layout which doesn't accommodate flexible small groups or project-based learning, the hierarchical interdependencies of well-intentioned mandates from on high that carve up and define the curriculum. Everything impacts everything else. If curriculum and practice change, what happens to standardized tests and college admissions standards? We know that students learn differently, but powerful systems and economic forces demand that we standardize both instruction and assessment. Customization is expensive.

Christensen goes on to apply his Disruption Theory to the public school system. This intrigues me. Years ago, I read his Innovator's Dilemma which explained disruptive innovations in the business world and took some comfort from his examples of disruptive innovations that we now consider commonplace (i.e. personal computers) which had a slow and painful start. Working at the time to create a high-functioning Learning Center for credit-deficient high school students, it seemed that I had found a sympathetic thinker. I had daily battles with administrators and teachers who feared that by customizing learning for students and finding ways for them to be successful I was undermining the work of the large school. I spent an awful lot of time teaching my students how to deal with difficult people, how to believe in themselves when others did not. It was difficult to keep moving forward, creating/troubleshooting/improving innovations which better met student needs, while at the same time appeasing and reassuring colleagues. Aaargh!

We moved forward slowly, and while good things were happening for kids--we were getting many more graduated--I felt like I was continually compromising the dream and feeding the monster of public education. My hands were tied with 55 minute class periods, impossibly tight curricular standards, attendance policies that didn't consider my students' complicated home lives, sharing students with teachers who viewed my kids as problems that could be fixed with just a little discipline. I felt like I was compromising real education, compromising any attempts to foster a passion for learning, and, instead, teaching my students how to successfully jump hoops to earn a diploma. Yuk. My students deserved so much more than becoming trained poodles. After two visits to the Learning Center, a district learning coach (provided with Gates grant dollars) and now good friend, John, made the comment that I had created a "universe of affirmation" for my students only to send them out into a "universe of exclusion" at the end of every hour. Ouch. After the third visit, he asked me how much of my time was spent solving problems that were created elsewhere. Much too much.

Christensen's theory is spot on when it comes to public education. Industry leaders become masters of sustaining innovations. They've already created a niche market, already convinced consumers that they need the product they're delivering. Innovations that strengthen that product and make it do more of the same, but faster/better/more efficiently, serve to strengthen their consumer base. Disruptive innovations address needs that people don't yet know they have. They aren't breakthrough improvements on existing products. They may even be initially inferior to what the big companies are already selling (if the desired outcomes remain the same). It takes time to develop a market. It takes time to get people to look at needs they didn't know they had. Think Apple IIe which was marketed as a children's toy when only enormous mainframe computers were being sold to large companies.

I look at where I am now with the new high school we've created. The Learning Center has gone on to other hands, and sadly, never did achieve the vision I once had for it. The existing system won. Our new school was built on a foundation of self-directed project-based learning. This is a far cry from what the traditional high schools are about. And we are feeling the pinch of disruptive innovation. We are beautifully small, but that means I don't have the resources to adequately provide instruction in foreign language or to offer a strong physical education program. We are beautifully small, but that means I don't get my fair share of district resources and my students must operate on considerably less square footage per pupil. We are frequently discounted as an alternative school and denigrated by colleagues in the other high schools. All the same, good things are happening here, and we are receiving some good external press.

Here we are. Year two. Finally in our own facility outside of the traditional high school. Our position is tenuous, but we are here now. My students are amazing. We just finished week two and we're well on our way toward becoming a solid community of thinkers. I love it that yesterday I had a discussion with my advisory about Christensen's disruption theory. Ha! These teenagers, many of whom were unsuccessful in former schools, were batting around the theories of Harvard-educated professors and embracing the idea of disruptive innovation. This is great fun. Project proposals are pouring in--one student is getting involved with the socially responsible Jedediah clothing company and examining profit-margins and philanthropy, another is looking at his responsibility toward the world and saving the orangatans, another is examining nitrox fuel and it's impact on the environment, another is working to restore the interior of his chevy pick-up, another is working to develop a how-to book for children who want to get involved with horses, another is looking at the physical and emotional benefits of belly-dancing, another is researching the impact of sleep and nutrition on learning and wondering if school start times are in the best interests of the students, and on and on.

This is a disruption that is worth pursuing.

Concrete Experiences and Reflection

I am currently reading Linda Darling-Hammond's Powerful Learning. It's a terrific book, full of research concerning teaching for understanding and making thinking visible. LDH discusses the value of concrete experience, saying that it is often a prerequisite to "learning to use information in more abstract or general ways."

I was reminded of a June finalization meeting with one of our school's "car boys." Three of our male students made it their mission to repair two cars this year. C. was telling me about attaching the new exhaust pipe on J's Fiero. He said that it was very difficult to attach the spring. I asked him why the exhaust pipe needed a spring. His explanation impressed me.

At first C. said that he didn't know why it needed a spring--he'd never thought about it. He thought for a minute and said that he figures it needs a spring for the same reason the body of the car is "held up" by springs, that roads aren't smooth and you "need something with play in it" between the road and the body. "It takes some of the bounce. Makes less stress on the body." I asked him what he meant by "stress" and he used the exhaust pipe as an example. He said that it is made of hard metal and that if it kept getting "slammed" by bumps in the road, it would break, maybe snap apart.

He continued to think and then said, "It's like when you shoot a gun. If you have the stock pressed up to your shoulder, it "absorbs some of the kick." He said it hurts some, but it moves "with the gun." He said if you were to hold the gun out away from your shoulder and shoot it, it would slam into you and "cause some damage." C wasn't sure that was a "good analogy," but thought that it was probably the "same principle.".

C. is on his way to understanding physics--suspension, oscillation, transfer of energy, etc. His hands-on experiences and purposeful reflection are working together. He is teasing out some important abstract principles that he can generalize to many situations. This is learning.

In the fall, we'll take it a step further with C. He's ready to learn the terminology and begin to tie up the loose ends of his thinking. I have to believe that he will own this learning and take it with him to a much greater extent than if he had learned it by wading through a textbook.

Physiological Synchrony or Collective Joy

I'm back to pondering Goleman's book. Yesterday's thought was about physiological synchrony--when a mood sweeps through a crowd with lightning speed. We've all experienced that--at ball games, concerts, sermons, aha moments in study groups, recreating with family and friends. I've always called it collective joy. These moments are unplanned--a blessing when they happen. So it's interesting to look at them more objectively. If we could understand what causes these moments of biological alignment, could we more often intentionally create them?

One of my creative outlets is to sing with a band called Highland Drive. These moments occur for us in rehearsal from time to time. There are moments of extraordinary fusion when we're all in sync and the music that comes out of us gives us goose bumps and raises the hair on the back of our necks. Those moments are always celebrated with "woo-hoos" and grins and high-fives. When those moments occur for us in live performance, it's doubly exciting. It's one thing to connect with the guys you spend a lot of time with, take risks with--amazing, but to be expected. It's another thing entirely to experience that connection with complete strangers. What is it that can transform an audience into one being?

Goleman says that one thing that opens the doors for these connections is the "absence of a power hierarchy." With no power structure, the person with the most emotionally expressive face sets the mood for the rest of the group. This can be dangerous. When you play it out in a decision-making group, one person can have a lot of power to change the moods and thinking of the rest of the group.

Goleman also references research that demonstrates the existence of a "gravity-like pull toward thinking and feeling alike" when we are involved in close relationships. I know this is true. In our school, my students meet twice a day in twenty minute advisories. They sit in a circle and check-in around what's going on in their lives and grapple with big ideas that we throw into the middle for discussion. There is no power structure in these circles and I am continually amazed by their openness and their growth. They are learning to respect and consider alternate points of view. They are learning that it's OK to ask questions, getting over their fears of looking foolish. And occasionally, we have those "goose bump moments" when we simultaneously discover new thought. It's beautiful.

I am reminded of the time near the end of the year when we were discussing Tupac Shakur's piece "The Rose That Grew From Concrete" and students came to all kinds of personal and group aha's. The conversation began on the surface--the "to be expected" comments about reaching for your dreams in spite of roadblocks. It turned when D. made the comment that not only is the rose reaching up toward the sun, but it's stretching downward and gathering nutrients from the soil. Goose Bumps! There was a full minute of silence and immediate group fusion as we all "got it" together. Then C. proposed that we answer that question--What is your soil and what is your concrete? Wow! Suddenly students were getting very real about the things that keep them strong--their foundations--and also opening up (some owning for the first time) about the things that hold them back.

The more of those moments that occur, the stronger a group becomes. So how have we created that in our advisories? I'm going to continue to think about that.

Resigning from Adulthood

A dear friend sent this to me today. Definitely something to think about on those days when responsibilities are overwhelming.

To Whom it May Concern : I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult. I have decided I would like to accept the responsibilities of an 8 year old again.

• I want to go to McDonald's and think that it's a four star restaurant.
• I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and make ripples with rocks.
• I want to think M&Ms are better than money because you can eat them.
• I want to lie under a big oak tree and run a lemonade stand with my friends on a hot summer's day.
• I want to return to a time when life was simple. When all you knew were colors, multiplication tables, and nursery rhymes, but that didn't bother you, because you didn't know what you didn't know and you didn't care. All you knew was to be happy because you were blissfully unaware of all the things that should make you worried or upset.
• I want to think the world is fair. That everyone is honest and good. I want to believe that anything is possible.
• I want to be oblivious to the complexities of life and be overly excited by the little things again.
• I want to live simple again. I don't want my day to consist of computer crashes, mountains of paperwork, depressing news, how to survive more days in the month than there is money in the bank, doctor bills, gossip, illness, and loss of loved ones.
• I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, dreams, the imagination, mankind, and making angels in the snow.

So...here's my checkbook and my car-keys, my credit card bills and my 401K statements. I am officially resigning from adulthood.

And if you want to discuss this further, you'll have to catch me first, cause, "Tag You're it!"

Memes

Still reading the Goleman book on Social Intelligence. It's chock full of pertinent ideas--for education and for life. This morning's read was about memes. Memes are ideas that get passed from mind to mind. They gather power when they are associated with strong emotion. Strong memes like "democracy" or "cleanliness" cause us to behave in certain ways. Memes create a sort of unconscious scripting that guide our actions. Our brains attune to certain cue words that prompt us to act accordingly.

All of this set me wondering about current memes in our school. Our kids get community. It permeates our culture. I hear community cue words in their speech--relationships, connected, others, respect, support, need, care, team, partner, family. I see community in action as they respect each others' ideas, ask for and offer help, show concern for others' struggles, make decisions together, solve problems together, play together.

Our kids get ownership. I hear them say "We don't do that here." They use phrases like "my project," "my learning," "our school." They talk about the importance of choice. They welcome visitors into "our space." It was relatively easy to make that happen this year as it was our first year. These students were building a school from scratch and most of them came from places in which they were unsuccessful. They had a vested interest in creating something good and there was always an underlying fear that it could be taken away. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in year two.

Our kids get passion. Their speech is sprinkled with the cue words interest, care, need to know, motivated, real. They know that their work is strongest when they are genuinely interested. They encourage each other to choose projects that they care about. They recognize the difference between learning that grabs them and learning that is hoop jumping.

So what are the memes that we want to intentionally create this year? Biggest on my list is empathy. It would be easy to assume that since they get community, they are naturally empathetic, but that's just not the case for all of them. I have several kids who have bought in to the concept of community because they know it's what we're built on and they want to be here. Intellectually, they understand a need for community, and externally, they fall in line, but internally, their needs still come first. These students of concern rarely put themselves in someone else's shoes--the only relevant concerns are their own. They are pretty up front about "looking out for number one." Knowing their backgrounds, this is understandable, but needs to change. They came a long way this year. Goleman gives me hope that sustained emotionally nourishing relationships have the power to reconfigure patterns in the brain.

I just talked about all of this with my partner teacher and she is in agreement. She would also add something about work ethic and challenge. We're going to give that some more thought.

Healing Relationships

I am reading Daniel Goleman's Social Intelligence. Great book. Nice companion to his earlier Emotional Intelligence which focused on intrapersonal management skills. This one focuses on relationships, or interpersonal management skills. He describes much new research that demonstrates that we are indeed "wired to connect," and that to a great extent, we "create one another."

Goleman discusses the social corrosion of the last two decades. People have lost social capital as they hole up with video games, e-mail, and ipods. He calls it "technocreep" and worries about the social and emotional fallout. Deadening ourselves to those around us cheats us of much positive and necessary brain growth. Our brains are actually shaped by repeated emotional experiences. Being chronically hurt or angered shapes the brain so that those pathways become well-worn and habitual. Relationships which are emotionally nourishing shape our brains differently. Intriguing to me is this idea of "neuroplasticity" and reparative possibilities of nurturing relationships.

This information makes me more determined than ever to protect key pieces of our school culture. Many of my students are emotionally damaged when they come to us. My frustration in the old traditional school was always that I had the critters for only 55 minutes at a time. It was difficult to affect real change in that short time period. It alway seemed so futile to try to counterbalance 12 hours of isolation and dysfunction with one hour of connected support. It would seem to me that because we have the same students all day, there is opportunity to grow some new dendrites, shape new positive emotional pathways.

Beginning and ending with advisory each day is critical. Creating safe space and making sure that students feel listened to, understood, validated is key. Probing their thinking in project conferences, encouraging sound emotional intelligence through restorative justice rather than retribution--also key. But it's more than that. It's creating a culture of caring and respect. I want them to hear this research and recognize that their attitudes are contagious.

Goleman says that when we are attuned to another individual we experience physiological mimicry. Smiles beget smiles, frowns beget frowns, high blood pressure begets high blood pressure, and so on. Toxicity is contagious. Coming in angry and spewing that on those you come in contact with has huge negative impact. Tension and worry communicate themselves subconsciously and impact the climate.

Paying attention to ones' emotional health isn't frivolous. It's in the best interest of the community.

Learning to Learn

I had a terrific project finalization meeting with a freshman student yesterday. I was a little nervous going in because her mother was going to sit in. That doesn't normally bother me, but this was just a beginning exploration for H. She knew she was interested in astronomy and plans to do a full blown project in the fall. As preparation for that, she was dabbling to discover where her interests lie. She thought she'd start with constellations, learn a bit about stars, get a little background information, and use a visit to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory as a capstone for this exploration. All of this would help her determine where to head. The purpose of the meeting yesterday was to determine credit earned for her beginning research and the communication of what she learned, and to fine tune where she would be headed in the fall.

Often times parents expect to hear a litany of factoids--The sun is a star. It is 91 million miles from the earth. The nine planets in our solar system revolve around the sun. No worries, valuers of factoids, many of those important facts came out in our conversation, but that's not where we started. I was excited to see her using those facts to begin to discover and answer her own questions.

I asked H. what she had learned and she shared that she was surprised to learn that stars have life cycles. I asked her why that was important. It was shocking to her to think that the sun won't last forever. "Did you know that it is halfway through its cyle? It's been around for around 5 billion years and only has about 5 billion years left. Sure, that's a long time, but what will people do?" She acknowledged that two sites she visited had posted different ages for the sun and that this was going to take some more research, but the seed was planted. She wants to know more about this.

Another thing that she was interested in was shooting stars. She discovered that they are actually meteors entering the earth's atmosphere. I asked her why they light up when they break through. She wasn't sure but she thought that it was something to do with friction. "Remember Apollo 13. They were worried about their ship burning up when they entered the earth's atmosphere." She went on from there to wonder if maybe it has something to do with the life cyle. She asked me if I had ever seen a light bulb "die." She said that she has seen a brilliant flash right before they burn out. She wonders if a star is dimmer when it is "born" and becomes brighter as it gets ready to "die." These are good questions.

We went on to talk about constellations. I asked her why anyone ever decided to name the shapes created by stars. She was intrigued by the mythology that surrounds them. She said that it is natural for people to want to "make sense of their world" and that creating stories about something as powerful and "eternal" as stars helped them to do that. She wondered if religion maybe does the same thing for people. She was surprised to learn that some constellations are only visible from certain parts of the world. She recognized practical uses for constellations for explorers and sailors to find their way.

H. also talked about what she learned about creating PowerPoint presentations. Her last ppt was jam-packed with text. This time she spent time sifting through and finding key pieces of information. "It was a lot harder to do, but you have to think about your audience. People don't want to read all of that. It's better to give them a great picture and a few details you want them to remember. You can talk about the rest."

Her works cited slide was much improved as well, and I was delighted to hear her explain why that was important. "People need to know where I got my information. They will see from this that I need to check out some of my information from more credible sources. I don't think I should have Wikipedia on here. I'll use it to help me search next time, but I know some of my other sites are more important--you want the ones done by scientists."

She is at the beginning stages of real scientific inquiry. She has a keen desire to learn more and is confident that she knows how to do so. She is paying attention to the steps of her process and using what she knows to think about new information. H. is Learning to Learn.

Like-Mindedness

Variety is the spice of life. True. And I enjoy diversity. But every now and again, there is great comfort in spending time with like-minded folks. Time near the water and a glorious view of Mt. Rainier were just icing on the cake.

I spent the last three days at a CES Northwest Symposium in Seattle. I feel replenished. In the process of developing a brand new high school, I frequently fear that my well of ideas will one day run dry. Ideas breed ideas, for sure, and if you're taking out many more than you're putting in. . . At any rate, this was a time to listen, a time to soak up great ideas and begin to see how they could potentially play out in my situation.

Different than standard district-sponsored inservice trainings that focus on curriculum and instruction as isolated animals, CES workshops have kids at the heart. It's not about helping kids adapt to the structure that is comfortable for us. It is about us structuring learning opportunities with kids and for kids so that the learning is real and everybody grows from the experience.

Also different than traditional inservice, presenters did not come with all of the answers. Modeling real learning behaviors, presenters came with many questions. It was lot of "This is what I'm trying. What do you think?"

Kathleen Cushman's address was inspirational. She wondered about the steps of quality practice that move one from novice to expert in any field. Are there commonalities? Rather than wait on the researchers, she began her own bit of active inquiry--she asked the kids. And to help them more clearly understand their own process, she got them out there asking the experts. Interesting to watch the key commonalities emerge--desire, challenge, patient practice, feedback, seeking the new "hard," etc. But even more interesting to watch the student response to that. To see them analyzing their own learning, their own processes, and to see the "ahas." This is a great project! This will be a valuable experience for my students as they become more self-directed in project design and management.