by andrew@learnedleadership.org | Jul 7, 2012 | Blog, Video
What are you doing this summer with your coworkers or students to innovate for the next school year? Um…sorry did I same something about summer? Who would be so bold as to ask teachers to work over the summer holiday? Certainly we’d never ask that of our students, would we? Sorry, please excuse my sarcasm, but now that it’s mid-July I’m starting to get a little restless. Now before you write a comment about how you worked tirelessly this year and deserve a break, or that you are working on and off throughout out the summer, think about whether your coworkers are as dedicated as you are, because that’s who I’m talking about. I’ve been in education long enough to know that we all need a break; and not just a small rest, but a nice juicy period of nothingness. But hopefully that’s happened, and you’re starting to think about how next year could be better. For me, once I reach this time of the summer I find myself doing a lot of self-reflection. However, once I come up with a few ideas, I have only a couple of days before the first day of school to share them with my colleagues for refinement. Unfortunately, everyone is quickly busy again, including myself, that many of my “great” ideas take a back seat to more pressing matters. I wonder how much we’re missing out in our schools because once we’ve all finally gotten a chance to clear our heads, we’re not around each other to innovate. What would it take to change this practice of shutting down for the summer,...
by andrew@learnedleadership.org | May 18, 2012 | Blog, Video
A few weeks back I wrote a blog about my frustration as a 12th grade IB teacher. Like many of my fellow 12th grade teachers can attest to, student effectiveness drops of a cliff in second semester. So when my students suddenly came to class excited and inspired by the Kony 2012 campaign (a global movement to arrest the Ugandan warlord and war criminal Joseph Kony), we were all disappointed when after a quick discussion we had to return to the IB curriculum. Now, by no means am suggesting that the IB curriculum is inadequate or too restrictive, but I think as educators we should challenge ourselves to continually look for ways to harness our students’ enthusiasm to increase learning. The other day a colleague of mine, who I had discussed this idea with, passed along this Tedx talk by Zoe Weil. In it she discusses the idea of teaching our students in a way that gets them to not only learn about and identify problems, but create solutions. She goes on to introduce the idea of Solutionary Teams, groups of students who compete with each other to create solutions to identified problems. Take a look: Now whether you agree or disagree with her views on Humane Education, I think the idea of empowering students to choose their own focus/curriculum in a class is very powerful. Obviously it’s easier said then done, but definitely worth pondering and worth an experiment. As a social studies teacher I see many practical applications and horizontal collaboration opportunities, but see some big school wide opportunities too. For example, many school organizations (NHS, CAS, StuCo) vie...
by andrew@learnedleadership.org | Mar 11, 2012 | Blog, Teacher's Corner, Video
I’m beginning to see that we are living at the edge of a very unusual time in education. My students helped me discover this today by introducing me to a documentary on Joseph Kony the Ugandan warlord. By now you may have heard of the Kony 2012 campaign designed by the US based non-profit Invisible Children (If not I’ll post the documentary at the bottom). Since the videos initial release, just earlier this week, over 60 million people have viewed it. Suddenly students who were never interested in Central African war atrocities want to discuss and learn more about the topic. No doubt this is partly due to the nature of the story but it’s also a testimony to the effectiveness of clever branding and brilliant marketing. Over the last few years there has been a steady increase of viral marketing and attempts to raise awareness through social media, but none have seemed as layered and effective as the Kony 2012 campaign. So how does this relate to education? As I watched the inspiration rise in my students as we discussed this topic I see an opportunity to capitalize on their motivation. In fact it seems more and more normal for my students to be keen marketing commentators. I’d like to follow their motivation and see where we end up, but there’s one big problem, this is IB history and May exams are right around the corner. So instead of harnessing my student’s ambition and seeing where it takes us I have to get my students ready to be assessed. Anyone who teaches 12th graders in the spring knows...
by andrew@learnedleadership.org | Mar 3, 2012 | Leadership News, Video
A great TED Talk about society’s view of introverts and our obsession with extroverted leadership. How can we as teachers, administrators, parents, etc rethink the way we view introverts and extroverts? Are you an introvert? How about your school’s leaders? Is your school a good place to be an...
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