"If you don't know what you would do if you could do whatever you wanted, then how on Earth can you know what you would do under constraints?"

- Russell Ackoff

Focus 1:  Reimagine What's Possible

5 Big Ideas for creating a Learner-Focused Environment:

1. Students confidently work on learner-generated academic pursuits, creating content together.
2. School staff (teachers, paraeducators, school aides, leaders, social workers, counselors, etc.) participate as members of the learning community, knowing how to ask the right questions and give the right feedback to move learning forward.
3. Families participate in learning both as learners and leaders of learning.
4. Community supports the school with opportunities for learning, internships, and apprenticeships.
5. Studio-style learning spaces with tools and materials for following learner-driven inquiry in any content area.  Rooms are stocked for Creating and wired for Global Connections.

Highlights from the article,   "If We Didn't Have the Schools We Have Today, Would We Create the Schools We Have Today?" by Thomas G. Carroll

• If the answer to this question is, "No," then what are we doing about it?
• Teachers are the leader of the classroom.  To start change, we can start by improving teacher training programs.
  • ​At the school level, as change leaders, we should seek out opportunities to mentor new teachers and share our vision for improving learning and build capacity in those teachers to carry that message forward in their career.
• Create a Networked Learning Community
  • ​No longer treat as Students and Teachers - treat as Novice Learners and Expert Learners
• We need to move from one-size-fits-all curriculum to customized, personalized curriculum created and driven by Novice Learners.

Unlearning Old Realities
I read an excerpt from Birth of the Chaordic Age by Dee Hock, and it had me thinking a lot about how our brains respond when confronted with a a conflict between internal reality models and  changing external realities.  

I was reminded of the Resistance of the lizard brain described by Seth Godin in his book Linchpin.  Everyone has a lizard brain that causes reactions like fear and resistance when confronted with change.  Remember that people "deserve understanding, not condemnation."

• How do we get past the lizard brain response to change?  
• How can we push past the safety net of, "...but this is how it's always been done"?

Another old reality we must unlearn is our reliance on data from Standardized Testing.  Every aspect of this practice and system should be questioned when rethinking what school can and should be.  Bruce Dixon digs into all the reasons for questioning in his Modern Learners article, "The Testing Emperor Finally Has No Clothes"

Activity:  What if School Was Like A... 
Use with staff to come to a common understanding about what School and Learning are in the community and what School and Learning could be in the community

"But they are our future, and I believe that we must learn how to work with these extraordinary young people:  learn how to parent, teach, and mentor them - and learn from them as well."

 - Tony Wagner
Creating Innovators

Focus 2:  Identifying and Articulating Beliefs

How will I lead the effort to identify, articulate, and share what my school community believes about how kids learn most powerfully and deeply?

• Ground all beliefs in research about the power of Modern Learning and be ready to share.
• Find areas of strength and pivot points in the learning community to use as starting places for a conversation about what a school of Modern Learning looks like.
• Identify allies and build a tribe around a shared vision for a school of Modern Learning

Listen to Your Heart
I believe that we all can listen to our inner voice and hear what makes sense about learning and education.  Learning is not about memorizing a series of factoids about a topic.  Learning is not expressing all writing in 3-5 paragraphs, each with an introductory sentence, supporting evidence, and a summary sentence.  Learning is not rote computation.

Learning is looking at your community, seeing a problem that is meaningful to you, and creating a solution.  Learning is writing for an audience in a way that engages those readers to want to read more.  Learning is seeing patterns and making models about our world, and using those patterns and models to make predictions and test ideas.  Learning happens because you are interested in an idea and curious to know more.  Learning happens with all members of the school community, both by and among the community members - students, teachers, leaders, and families.

Instructional Vision for a Community of the Curious

• I have been writing and editing this vision for years
• The edits and iterations will continue until I am done learning

"One's perspective of, attitude toward, and ability to work with people from different cultures and nations have direct impacts on one's own success as well as the well-being of the world as a whole."

- Yong Zhao
Counting What Counts

Focus 3:  Modern Contexts

How will I lead the effort in my school community to identify and understand the modern contexts for learning that must now act as lenses for our work?

When I think of modern contexts that surround my learning, I am struck by the number of contexts that come to mind:

• Community and Human Service
• Ecological Perspectives
• Local to Global Action
• Communication and Media/Social Media Literacy
• Sustainability and Green Technologies
• Changing Use of and Growing Power of Technology
• World Culture and Global Perspectives
• Entrepreneurship
• And the list could go on...

Each person, group, and community brings different contexts to a conversation about learning.  I think it cold be important to align around one or a few of these contexts as a way to focus the learning.  Again, there are multiple layers to this analysis, also - from individual student to classroom to district.

A Look Inside a Modern Work Environment

The Valve Employee Handbook is a really interesting read.  Inspired many ideas as I perused and wondered about life in this modern work environment.  

• Are we preparing students to be successful in modern work environments like the one created by Valve?
• What aspects of their modern work environment translate to a modern learning environment?
  • ​Share your thoughts after reading the Valve Handbook by using Contact Me or use the links below:

What is the future of work?  What skill set is needed by students to be part of the future work environment?

• ​Future includes the Gig Economy and Freelancing - sharing your passion and art in a field that moves you as a person
• Employment pursuits will be personally meaningful
• Passions can, and probably should, change over time which will lead to changing employment
• School communities can consider all modern contexts that are relevant to their community
• School communities can consider personally meaningful contexts of the learners

"I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back."

 - Maya Angelou

Focus 4:  Mission and Vision

How will I structure a conversation around Mission and Vision in my school community?

My Instructional Vision has a Mission Statement that talks about students and staff seeing themselves as Problem Seekers and this will be realized through student-driven learning.  But does that mean the same thing to everyone?

I still have questions...

• Should essential literacies be part of the Vision?
• How do we help students that have been taught deeply to be compliant?  How do we help them past their fear to embrace their own curiosity and open ended questions?
• How does the employer community help support this vision?
• How do we balance Teacher-Driven Content with Student-Driven? (students don’t always know what they don’t know, and they deserve some exposure to ideas they might not have thought about on their own)

When students are asked, “What are you doing in school?”, what will their answer say about our Mission and Vision?

More Questions for Students and Families:

• ​​Students, if attendance was optional, would you go to school/class?  If yes, what makes school a special​ place that fosters learning and engagement?  If no, and you could wave a magic wand, what is the one thing you would change about school so that you would want to show up every day?
• Parents, do you think a Modern Learning environment will really give your child a shot at a good future?  Are there more traditional aspects of school you don't want to see end?  

Share your thoughts after reading the Valve Handbook by using Contact Me or use the links below:

"If curiosity is an inherent human trait, then by helping students embrace their curiosity, we are uncovering their humanity."

- Randy Ziegenfuss

Community of the Curious Ideal Schedule

Please share any feedback you might have about the schedule using the Comments feature within the document.

"The only way to do it is to DO IT - Nothing is a mistake.  There's no win and no fail.  There's only MAKE."

 - Stanford d.school

Focus 5:  From Vision to Reality - Starting Points for Change

How will I lead the effort to identify and begin to implement strategies and practices that reflect a new vision for learning?

• Strategy
  • What are the entry points?
  • Are there pilots that can be started?
  • How will you look at the rate and scale of change?
  • What is the expected impact of this work?
• People
  • How will you build capacity in the effort to create change?
  • Who will be part of the pilots?
  • What attributes make someone the right choice for this work?
• Support and Resources
  • Think beyond physical space, supplies, and technology - these can become barriers to change
• Communication Strategy
  • What story are you going to tell about changing learning?

This work can only be done when the community I lead and learn with takes an active role in refining and adapting the Vision for a Community of the Curious.

Some initial entry points will be identifying allies among staff, among families, and within the larger community and district team.

Protocol:  Personalized Professional Learning
This protocol was created to give teachers an opportunity to learn in the same way that students are expected to learn - through learner-driven content, self/peer-assessment, and alignment with the needs of the organization.  I'd love to hear your thoughts. Contact Me or use the links below to send me a message.

"An important leverage point for transforming our educational system is changing the mindset that gave rise to the system in the first place."

- Todd Rose, The End of Average

Focus 6:  Telling the Change Story

How will I lead the effort to create a comprehensive and coherent plan to tell a new story of learning?

Telling the story is integral to change becoming part of the culture of the learning organization.  I might see the interconnectedness of all the change components, but others may not.  It is on me and my tribe to share the story in way that connects to the commuity we will be serving.

Essential First Steps:

• ​Create a brand (exemplar of amazing branding from CCSD 59 in Illinois)
• Identify audiences
  
• Have a consistent and clear message

The Story Audit - Three questions under consideration:

1.  Who are the various audiences in the community that are important stakeholders in the learning community?

• Families, including students, are the primary audience.  What is their perspective?
• Who are the staff?  Is the school building shared with other organizations?
  
• What other community voices need to be included - houses of worship, employers, cultural institutions?
  

2.  For each of the audiences, how do we learn about the story of the school they carry in their conversations?

• All groups deserve to have their story heard.  As the school leader, I must listen to their stories and help them carry the message of change with them.

3.  How might I craft the story of change differently for each of these audiences?  Or will it be a one-size-fits-all story of change?

• Each perspective may require a different modality for story-telling and sharing.  
• Allow for personalization, as long as the message is clear and consistent.
  

Everyone needs to believe in the Mission and Vision of the school.  I believe in learners driving the content, and there are many steps in getting to that place.  Parents can be included in learning experiences with the students, or in separate after-school courses.  Create a community MakerSpace for adult and youth learners to use that is part of the school on nights and weekends.  Bring community members into the school to help lead learning.

This creates a community of learners, with the focal point of the learning experience being at the school.  Everyone involved can tell the story from their own perspective, through their own experience as a learner in the school space.  But the message will be loud and clear:
​
We are all capable of being agents of our own learning path, and we can help others to do the same.  We embrace our inherent curiosity and our connection to others to move our learning forward.

"A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.  Sail out to sea and do new things."

 - Grace Hopper

Focus 7:  Change as Culture

How will I create conditions within my school for continual learning and reflection on the beliefs, contexts, and practices that we operate under?

Beyond modeling as the Lead Learner of the community, the Lead Risk-Taker, a leader that drives his own content, I think you must also be intentional about the conditions for trying new ideas and innovations.  

• A Community of the Curious embraces feedback as part of the learning process - open your doors and and share the learning environment with the world.  
• A Community of the Curious has no formal evaluations during risk-taking practices and new teaching methods (i.e. "Risk-Taking in Progress" signage).
• A Community of the Curious embraces students as learners and as teachers.

Another way to create the conditions for continual learning is to do action research.  Staff can engage in research that improves the learning environment.  I was struck by the story of the American School of Bombay that has all staff doing long-term research about learning.  The research is shared through a publication and by staff presenting their findings every 2 years at a symposium.  

• Will the publication of the research be an incentive for greater participation in research for staff?
• Students see that Teachers are involved in learning through inquiry and analysis, modeling the learning through inquiry processes

School as a Learning Organization

After reading about School as a Learning Organization in the OECD publication, "What Makes a School a Learning Organization?", I used the criteria from the 7 components as the basis for a simple self-assessment of a school to see where you are in the process of transforming into a Learning Organization.  

Future Teachers Club was developed after thinking about Teacher lab sites that already exist in the district where I work.  I wondered how I might extend this to include students as part of the learning team.  I hope you will review my ideas and offer comments and feedback to make it even better.

"Character is the ability to carry on once the initial inspiration has passed."

- Will Richardson, Change.School

"First, encourage students to believe in what they are doing.  Then, doubt it; then manipulate it with passion and intelligence."

- Saeed Arida,
​NuVu Innovation Studio

Focus 8:  Leaders as Learners

What is my personal plan for perpetual learning and capacity building around the work of change in schools?

• Lead by modeling learning.
• Create conditions in which innovation and experimentation thrive.
• Education should be open source.
• Share the capacity building and work of change with students.
• Read.
• Blog.
• Learn an instrument.
• Learn another language.
• Balance personal and professional lives.