Teach Like a Pirate, Role Reversal, Linchpin and the Future of Education

Mission statements?  Who cares about mission statements?

Mission statements are stupid because they don't mean anything. Most, if not all, schools have mission statements. A lot of time goes into deciding just the right wording of the all important statement.  The mission statement is on every school's website and anyone can see it so it needs to sound good. The funny thing is, after spending all that time on mission statements, the school personnel could just have looked at a mission statement generator  to create one which would probably be just as good. A study of mission statements by Steven E. Stemler, Damian Bebell and Lauren Ann Sonnabend shows most school mission statements use terms like "lifelong learner," " individualized," "global citizen," "contributing member of society," etc. Do those sound familiar? They all are good qualities to believe in. Besides, it is difficult to determine if schools even follow the beliefs their mission statements espouse.

Seth Godin has composed a different list of words which should be used to describe schools in his legendary book Linchpin.  He believes schools do not teach kids 21st Century skills like inquiry, initiative, problem solving and leadership which they claim they do in their mission statements. The mission statement which Godin says should be posted outside the typical Industrial Revolution style school reads:

"We train the factory workers of tomorrow. Our graduates are very good at following instructions. And we teach the power of consumption as an aid for social approval."

The statement could continue with: "We teach our students to," "At Our School students learn to." Following those sentence starters, could be:   fit in, follow instructions, don't ask questions, don't say anything that might embarrass you, do the minimum, once you learn a topic-- move on etc.

Where do we go from here? How can the outdated model of school be overcome?  

Dave Burgess @burgessdave has many answers to this question in his fantastic book, Teach Like a Pirate:  Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life as an Educator. Written in a conversational tone, Teach Like a Pirate, emphasizes passion for learning, creativity, contagious enthusiasm, building rapport and detailed preparation and presentation to create unforgettable lessons which will entertain and create an indelible mark on students. The Pirate nature of the book is to seek out and not fear new experiences and new territories. Burgess includes information on specific lessons he teaches and many, many ways to "hook" students.

Another book which could change education is Mark Barnes @markbarnes19 Role Reversal: Achieving Uncommonly Excellent Results in the Student-Centered Classroom.  Barnes is similar to Burgess in that he promotes engaging students in an alternative way to the standard lecture & worksheets. Barnes uses a style of teaching he calls, ROLE--Results Only Learning Environment.  In a ROLE, there is no homework, no grades, no tests and no rules. He believes in giving continuous feedback to students through blogs, chats, twitter, email and personal communication. Where Burgess and Barnes diverge is that Barnes believes

speaking less, using technology, giving students choice to drive the class much of the time while working on projects of different types. He has kids write blogs, create websites and do year long projects. Barnes also does frequent short workshops to teach specific skills. Barnes' book includes many examples of what he uses to evaluate students. He presents revolutionary ideas using more of a research emphasis.

Whether one chooses to be a Pirate or do a ROLE, or both, these books have a lot to say about the look and feel of the new world of education which is to make learning exciting and memorable through experiences. I guess the new mission statement is you will

 Everyone should read all of these books. And add Daniel Pink, Drive to the list.

Learners: Good or Evil?

When I look at and think about ways of doing things, maybe I am breaking things down too simply, but it seems there are two ways of looking at people. They are not the group that believes all people can be broken into two groups and the other group. I am talking about viewing people as inherently good or evil.
By "good" I mean people who are self motivated. By evil I mean lazy--so lazy that if left on their own, they would choose to do nothing. These are people who need someone to tell them what to do every step of the way.

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Once again this may be too simplified, but when it comes to school,  there appear to be teachers who believe that people are self motivated and will work diligently when their passions are engaged.  This is the group who naturally feels learning by doing or Project Based Learning is the way to go and teach using it in their classrooms.  Some methods of PBL are: 20 time, Genius Hour and teaching 21st Century Skills through content.

The method which takes all of the above into account is Compassion Based Learning.  Compassion Based Learning can be found where students spend some amount of time each week, (20% of the time, a "Genius Hour" or another measure of time) learning about something they love and then use what they have learned to help the world in some way. The "grading" for Compassion Based Learning does not necessarily come from a letter grade. What information does one letter tell about anyone?  How about a whole bunch of letters put together into a narrative, by both the student and the teacher, to describe the life skills used and the quality of their application in completion of the project?  How about topping it off with an exit interview? I am pretty sure people will agree that taking something learned and using it to help others is "good." The reflection on learning is something the world wouldn't really see, but takes the whole project to another level of "goodness."

Then, must the "evil" view of people, where they won't do anything unless directed, lead to worksheets--which will at least get the students doing something; bubbled in tests--to make sure students actually did their worksheets and didn't cheat (I mean collaborate) and letter grades --which are the way to communicate how much someone has learned?   Does the inherent laziness spill over into the lives of those teachers and adults? Are they able to clean out the refrigerator without someone telling them to? How about mow the lawn, shower or workout?  Are the cleaning challenged, worksheet assigning, bubble filling people that horrible?

Is it probable they have just not heard of Compassion Based Learning, 20 Time, Genius Hour or 21st Century (life) skills? Maybe they have heard of them but don't have enough information to know how to implement them or how they will work in education. People who know and have used these methods, help the dirty worksheet people.  

End Teacher Inservice and start Genius Hour for Teachers

In the school district in which I teach, we have 5 days of inservice before the school year starts and about one Wednesday each month where students get out of school about 50 minutes early so teachers can go to professional development sessions.

There is an ongoing feeling among teachers which has filtered into the community, that time spent on inservice days and professional development would just be better spent with students. There is such a strong feeling in the community because many people go to meetings for their job and nothing ever happens at meetings. 

While I am no expert at marketing,  new terminology must be used when referring to these teacher meetings. They should be called "Genius Hour."  Genius Hour has been enthusiastically implemented at businesses all over the world and has exploded into education for students. Why not for teachers as well?

The use of "Genius Hour" for teacher inservice has advantages on multiple fronts--community (including parents), students along with the principals and teachers. The new moniker will be effective because of the huge contribution which hundreds of professionals can use the expertise gained to benefit parents, students and the community.  

Genius Hour is not just another name for the same old way of doing things. It is a time for people to connect their partially or fully formed education related ideas with others with a group they choose.  The idea is to do something awesome with a topic about which group members are passionate. It is a Google-type Innovation Time. Individuals’ ideas can be connected to make the whole better than the sum of the parts. These connections may come from people in the same school or from elsewhere in the district.  The goal is to combine ideas to create an innovative education version of revolutionary designs like the engineers at Google do. and make the world better. Through the ability to follow their passions and truly work collaboratively to celebrate their expertise and reveal their creativity during Genius Hour, people will be driven to make themselves into the greatest administrators, teachers, counselors, deans, or paraprofessionals they can be. All while being staunchly supported by the public. Some outcomes of a Genius Hour collaboration are:  stronger relationships between students, adults, the community and the world. The greatest part of it may be that teachers will create time for students to do their own Genius Hour. Through Genius Hour, students and teachers will become more inspired learners and leaders. Both teachers and students will become more community minded and become more skilled at asking questions and researching their answers and using their work to benefit the world, which is the definition of Compassion Based Learning.

It is really “Genius Hour” meets "Compassion Based Learning ."

Many people continually hear about "failing" or "declining" schools on TV and in other news outlets. When people hear the term "genius," the first person they think of is Albert Einstein.  Associating principals and teachers with Einstein would be a way to change negative perception of schools, principals and teachers in the community, especially among people who don't currently have children in school.  It will also elevate the stature of education professionals in the eyes of children and their parents when they see the positive changes teachers and school personnel have in the community. 

One of the most powerful means which create people’s beliefs is reading. As far back as the 1670’s, philosopher Benedict Baruch Spinoza  opined that people believe whatever they encounter. More recently, in 1993, Daniel Gilbert and his colleagues tested Spinoza’s idea in a series of experiments and found that people believe concepts seconds after reading them. In a world where positive public relations cannot be taken for granted, reading "Genius Hour"  on the signs in front of schools will resonate with people and is an idea born out by Gilbert's data, so when they think of the teachers in our district, they will think of genius.

Just like "No Child Left Behind," who could complain about occasionally taking some time from the school day to enable "geniuses" to work together to develop something ingenious which will directly benefit their children? 

For principals and teachers, it would boost morale to know they are viewed as geniuses. With the change to more organic staff development, "genius" also emboldens principals and the teachers at their school to organize, plan and act on something awesome for their community. 

   

Why Genius Hour?  It is about encouraging people to follow their passions 

Daniel Pink, an authority on motivation and creativity, comments on the use of Genius Hour in business and education in his blog. 

"Genius Hour" reminds people of Einstein.  "Compassion Based Education" will remind people of Mother Teresa.

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Students too Passionate to Listen in Class

Since I was growing up, I have always admired the kids who sit in class and are totally engrossed in whatever they are reading to the exclusion of anything that the rest of the class is doing. They may or may not get good grades.  They may be "gifted"--or not.  They may not even learn the material that is being fed to them, little by little, but their eyes and minds are glued to the thing they love to learn about. They may be reading a Hot Rod magazine, a video game cheat book, science fiction or any one of a million topics. The point is not that they aren't paying attention to the teacher.  The teacher has a student who clearly wants to learn some subject so badly they do it without any regard for the consequences.

As we have been taught to believe, grades are the most important thing and good grades are the key to the future:  high test scores, honor roll, scholarships, the perfect college.  Everything leads to the dream job.

Students with the type focus and passion which leads them to just read their book often hear,  "If I catch you reading one more time...that book is mine."  Teachers seem to say that because they think, "What I have to tell you is so much more important than what you are doing." Or they may be thinking, "If I let that kid get away with it, everyone else may do it too."

I have seen students who read in the back of class because it is the only time in the day they have to pursue what they really want to do because, outside of school, they are in charge of their little brothers and sisters. How can I deny a student the one thing he or she really loves to do when I know they will spend the next six or seven hours trying to wrangle four siblings from school to home, feed them, try to get them to do their homework while doing his or her own homework and finally put them to bed?  At that point, I look at the time that kid spends reading at their desk as the only chance they have to be who they want to be and learn what they want to learn for the whole day.

What if students were allowed to follow their passion instead of having to sneak a minute of reading about their favorite topic here and there? Isn't there something to be gained by looking at that kid as the beacon for the rest of the class? There is a statement which goes something like, for every person who says something there are 10 or 100 or 1000 who are thinking it but don't say it. In this situation, every kid in class loves to do something. There are probably 10 or 20 or 100 (depending on class size) students who want to disregard what is really being taught and learn about what they love.  Most kids don't have the guts to do it. I know I didn't.

What if the class did a 180 and everyone worked on something they loved?  I know there would be a way to teach students how to read a map, create a control and experimental group, write a persuasive essay or to do any other skill that is taught in a regular classroom. The only difference is that kids would be asking to learn those skills and would use them in an authentic way.  Most people learn better by doing.  Following your passion leads to having greater depth of knowledge and ability to use the skills again and again.

Everyone loves to do something, but once you have studied it and learned it, that's great.  How does one person knowing about airplanes, carburetors or horses help other people?  The next step is what @schink10 calls "Compassion Based Learning." In Compassion Based Learning, students take what they have spent hours learning about and then do something to benefit others. They can teach others, volunteer, create awareness or many other things, but the main thing is that the learning doesn't stop with them.

With passion and Compassion Based Learning, wouldn't school be more valuable to everyone?

Basketball Now and Feeding the Hungry Later?

Last year, we had an 8th grade student at my middle school who made comments such as, "I don't need to graduate from high school, my uncle is doing just fine without graduating."  He spent as little time as possible on school work, or for that matter, in class. Everyone loves to do something and this same student who was not motivated in his classes spent most of the spring, starting in February,  working on his Genius Hour project, although he didn't know it by that name.  He knew it as something else--organizing a basketball game. This was not just playing basketball with his friends, but against the teachers at school. The remarkable thing about his effort is this was a game which hadn't been played for many years, so there was no expectation by anyone at school that the game was a guaranteed event.

When he started working on his plan to get the teachers to play the 8th graders in basketball he was told we couldn't play because girls' basketball was using the gym. He tried again after girls' season was over.  Next he was told the game couldn't happen because of wrestling. As the spring progressed he was told no again and again because of  track, teacher meetings, injuries (mostly of teachers) and still he persisted.

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He never wavered in his desire to play the game. On a daily basis, he gave persuasive speeches about why the game should happen to any teacher he thought would play. He created brochures, talked with teachers who coached at our school but taught at other schools, reserved the gym and finally as the school year was about to end, the game was set. He found 10 players to play on each team. He had referees (in official refereeing shirts) and even advertised to get as many people as possible to come and be a part of the game by watching and cheering after school. He did everything short of having media coverage.

The most interesting thing about the whole game wasn't the game itself, it was that if it hadn't been for his grit and an unwavering desire to play the game, he would not have given speeches, written brochures, contacted teachers throughout the district, contacted the office, arranged for someone to bring in referees' uniforms, nor advertised.  I am certain if any teacher asked him to do any of those tasks for class he would have worked hard to find a reason not to. I was as impressed with him as I had been of any student in a long time. He set himself apart from every other student at school who has proposed an idea and was told no by someone.

I realize his willingness to put the school on his back and carry them to the end did not feed or clothe people in Africa, Asia or the Middle East. It didn't even get an NBA player to come to our gym. What it did do was allow him to capitalize on his passion while also developing and practicing skills which most students, including himself, for other reasons, would dread even doing once. How many people would continue when weeks of no's turned into months of being told no by so many people so many times?  And he continued until the event actually happened. One day he may do something that will benefit people throughout the globe because of the skills he learned in organizing this game--all because he didn't say, like so many people with less grit than himself, "Wouldn't that have been great if we had..."

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DMV, Individualization and Education

I was at the DMV recently and I saw the large number of license plates which are available to put on a car and I thought back to the 1980's when the only Wisconsin license plate available in  had black letters and numbers on a yellow background. At that time, when my family would travel the country we tried to find licence plates from every state.  The more we traveled, the easier they were to spot.  There was the classic blue California plate.  Arizona was maroonish , the New York plate was yellowish orange and so on. We could identify them from a quarter mile away.  Now there are 50 Wisconsin plates to choose from. Individualized and thematic license plates allow everyone to drive around and show what they are passionate about, if they aren't into that bumper sticker thing. I know it is the same throughout the country.

I got to thinking about all the other products and services which have undergone individualization just as license plates have done.  Think back even a few years ago and consider the explosion of choice available in: Choice:  Happiness and Spaghetti Sauce, @gladwell), beer, coffee, whiskey, vodka and on and on. Then there is the internet which is the ultimate individualization factor.  There is a website, blog or group for almost every endeavor no matter how large or small of a group participates in it.

communication and entertainment--telephone companies, cell phones, radio and TV  including service providers and channels; food and drink--probably every food type but the ones which come to my mind first are Doritos cereal, yogurt, spaghetti sauce and soda (thanks for the TED Talk "

Education inevitably must catch up with society and allow people to select their own way of doing things, and follow their own passions.  Do you like your Pepsi regular flavored with cherry, lime, vanilla, dragonfruit or something else?  It must necessarily follow at some point we will ask the question, do you like your English class flavored with physical science, geography, history, business or something else? Do you want to research and produce a project which will impact the lives of children, animals, shut-ins, veterans or somebody else? 

Twenty percent time is the start of such a revolution in education.  There may not be adults getting rich by encouraging individualization in education like there are in the business world, but there are millions of students who stand to love learning because of having Genius Hour or 20% time in their weekly schedule. 

The days of the Industrial Revolution where everyone is in the same boat and going in the same direction 

are gone.  

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Today the world looks a little bit more like this:

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except with a million other options to get where you want to go.  

It is time schools catch up to the rest of society.