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 How can the outdated model of school be overcome?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.

http://paradigm-shift-21st-century.nl/plaatjes/good-and-evil.gif

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.