Lessons from Big Bald

About a month ago our Middle School PE teacher, Brian Rannie, asked me to go on a trail run with him.  I had been upping my mileage a little and figured that I could complete the 13-mile run, although I was worried about slowing him down a bit.  However, our colleague, Andy Lammers committed, and it is hard for me to resist opportunities to run with friends. I dragged along my neighbor who had just completed a half marathon the weekend before, and we set off some thirty miles north of Asheville to the Appalachian Trail, which serves as the border between North Carolina and Tennessee for a stretch.

It was the proverbial clear, cold morning -- well below freezing as we started climbing up into the mountains.  The leaves were already down, and the trail was covered with a fluffy mess that made footing tenuous.  Our goal was an out and back to Big Bald, a climb of around 2000 feet over six and a half miles.  We all worked hard on the way up and about a mile from the summit, I stopped everyone and said I thought I’d stop there and wait for them to come back down.  I knew I could easily make it to the top, but I was concerned about the return trip as I hadn’t run 13 miles in many years.  My friends offered me words of encouragement without degrading my manhood, so I followed them up.  The view was certainly worth it, and we took fifteen minutes or so to celebrate being on top of the world.  

The descent was much worse for me than the climb as it was fast and the footing was slippery and obscured.  The last two miles I had to walk the steepest downhills as my legs were shaky enough to make a fall almost certain. Truthfully, during the last half mile all I wanted to do was lie down on those fluffy leaves beside the trail.  When I got to the end, I felt bad enough to pass the car keys over to Andy as driving seemed like a real push.  An hour later, I soaked in the bathtub, feeling something between pride and relief that I had finished.

As I look back on that day, I think about how difficult it was, but I also think about how wonderful it was and is to do things that are a real challenge.  It is pretty easy to slide through a life filled with the routine of our days -- the same repetitive tasks that do little to stretch us and force us to grow.  I am reminded that I need to continue to seek challenges so that I will be equipped to handle what fate and others put in my path.  

I am also reminded that school should not just be about kids passing through a schedule of routine classes each day.  We must create challenges for them -- real challenges that force them to access strengths that are hidden behind fear or are simply untapped.  Young people have amazing resiliency, and we need not be afraid to ask them to walk out on a limb, even if the path forward may require a jump of some sort.  We want our students to have the confidence to attempt great things; however, the path to greatness is not for the meek.

The second part of this story is that I had others with me to encourage me along the way.  Sure, I was the one took every last one of those thousands of steps down that mountain, but I’m pretty sure I never would have gotten to the top without my friends there to support me.  This is the other thing that we must do for our students:  provide them a supportive environment, full of friends and teachers who encourage when attempts into the unknown are made.   The knowledge that others believe in our strengths, even when we don’t, is sometimes all we need to get to the top.

Understanding Boy World

Between raking a couple of million leaves, spatchcocking and roasting a turkey, and running until my plantar fasciitis has left me hobbling, I have been plowing through Rosalind Wiseman’s newest book, Masterminds and Wingmen, which focuses on helping adults to understand teenage boys.  Through her research and interviews with hundreds of boys, Wiseman gives us (you should read this book) a portrait of boys and a glimpse into their psyche, motivation, and daily struggles.  Although I’m only half way done with the book, I’m beginning to question how any of us guys have managed to reach adulthood.

I’ll give Wiseman credit; she wrote this book from a place of love for boys not because she wants to change or slam them.  As a man, it is pretty tough reading the book and thinking about all the stupid and dangerous things that I did as a boy, and, from reading the anecdotes of boys growing up now, that most boys do today.  Wiseman uncovers the reasons why boys sneak out at night, why they turn silent or lie when questioned, and why their anger can dominate them.  However, she doesn’t stop there.  She gives parenting advice on all these topics and more -- even the really tough ones involving social media, video games, sex, and porn.

Masterminds and Wingmen should really be used as a resource, not just for information.  When you question what you are doing in reaction to something your son has done, it would be great to go back and read a specific chapter in the book to get some perspective.  You may not follow Wiseman’s advice to the letter, but at least you will have considered an alternative, which is bound to help you make a better decision.  

The Big Problem - Real Life Requires Real Math

Solving real problems is messy.  Sometimes, we don’t even know what problem we are trying to solve, and it doesn’t become obvious until some investigation and discovery takes place.  We must decide what information is needed and attempt to get it, although it isn’t always available.  Sometimes there are so many variables that they distract or even confuse us from defining a course to follow.  And, frequently there may not be one absolute solution.  The solution that we reach may have corollaries or disclaimers, or it may simply be a best guess given all of our efforts.  I hope this is starting to sound like real life because it doesn’t make a lot of sense to devote a huge chunk of time in school to learning math that is not useful in real life.  And, if our students don’t get opportunities to use math in real life situations, then they will continue to see it as a boring, inert process that must be slogged through just to get to the next math course; or, even worse, as the way to a better score on the SAT.  Math is so much more than a way to get into college -- it is a way to view the world, and it gives us the ability to understand, seek, and find solutions to the world around us.

This week, we started working on one of what we call our Big Problems --  a real problem.  I told the students that I had been thinking about replacing the long, rectangular tables in our lunch room with circular tables.  Because our students are primed from years of practice as problem solvers, it took them all of ten minutes to come up with the following questions and comments in some small group discussions.  Although as a school administrator, I have thought of changing out the tables for a long time, I hadn’t considered several of their ideas as variables:

• Are round tables more ergonomical?  Forearms naturally form triangles when on the table.
• How big can a round table be to hold a conversation with someone across the table in our lunchroom?
• Does looking at someone when talking to them help conversation and relationships?
• Would there be more space to move between the tables?  
• What happens to aisle space?  Will it open the flow or restrict it?
• How would moving to round tables affect cleaning? How big can it be and still be easily cleaned?
• Storage? (We move our tables every day to clean the floor.)
• Will round tables hurt or help inclusivity?
• Will they fit in the lunchroom?
• What will be the cost?
• Will the cost be worth the benefit (if any)?
• Unintended consequences?
• Other stakeholders (the LS students who use the lunchroom also).

What kind of math tools will we need to pursue this problem?  Some things are obvious like measuring, performing simple arithmetic calculations, working with geometric shapes, and spatial reasoning.  However, we may look at hearing as a function of distance from speaker (this is an algebra class after all).  Or the number of seats available as a function of the circumference of a table.  We are going to have to figure out some way to apply a dollar amount to something that is not easily counted (building relationships) and this will definitely involve some statistical analysis.  We are going to have to do some data collection, analysis, and interpretation.  More statistics. Finally, we are going to have to reach beyond our collective knowledge base to get information and possibly even help.  

So, how does this assignment hold up to the teaching of skills that have become a fundamental element of our middle school:  collaboration, problem solving, communication  creativity, perseverance, grit.  We can check all of these off.

I told the students that if we decide that replacing the tables would be a good idea that we would present our findings to our Chief Financial Officer and other stakeholders.  We are not sure if the school will take our advice; this is the real world after all, and there are all sorts of other claims on school dollars than lunch room tables.  But, regardless of the outcome, the process of working through this problem will give the students and teachers some practice with the utility and function of math.   

Seeing Math in the World

People are sometimes described as having a poetic heart or the eye of an artist.  These folks have a different perspective than others when they view the world; they look at events, images, relationships, and the daily happenings of life through a particular filter or lens.  These lenses may allow people to feel more deeply or experience life more fully than others.  

I frequently talk to parents and students about developing a math lens.  To be able to see the world and know that it can be represented in mathematical ways gives our students another perspective, similar in ways to the artist’s eye, that adds meaning and perspective to life.  Anyone who develops a math lens is likely to envision solutions that are not obvious to others and may understand the workings and complexities of the world in greater depth.

I ran across the following video the other day, and it startled me that it could describe my thoughts so much more clearly than my words.  Please take a a couple of minutes to watch it.

BEAUTY OF MATHEMATICS from PARACHUTES.TV on Vimeo.

While some of us are born with a greater ability and propensity to view the world through a mathematical lens, this lens can be developed and honed by everyone with practice.  We practice this skill frequently in our math classes by offering students images and video of everyday life and asking them to address it through a mathematical lens.  While they may not all become brilliant mathematicians, our hope is that developing this mathematical lens will enrich their lives.

Building Relationships

Seventeen years ago, I was sitting in a sterile, public school administrator’s office being interviewed for a teaching position.  When asked about my best qualities as a teacher, the first thing out of my mouth was my ability to form positive relationships with my students.  I explained how I listened to students’ problems, took them to perform community service work on my own time, and went to important events in their lives outside of school.  I professed that because I worked to develop relationships with my students, they would behave better in class, work harder, and gain self-confidence.  Almost immediately I realized that the principal interviewing me didn’t hold the same beliefs.  She quickly directed the conversation back to curriculum and testing, and I left the office knowing that I didn’t get the job -- and feeling somewhat grateful that I wouldn’t be working for this person.

I am fortunate to find myself working in a school that puts a premium on relationships, and we have structured our middle school to reflect this belief.  We offer students and faculty opportunities to connect with each other throughout the daily schedule and the calendar year.

• Group work -- I can honestly say that not a day that goes by that a student does not have the opportunity to work with another student or group of students.  Learning to work together is our culture.

• Advisory -- our advisories are single gender and multigrade.  Advisories are small, six to eight students, and led by a faculty member of the same gender.  We meet first thing each morning for fifteen minutes and have casual chats, foster important discussions, or play games.  
• Breaks -- our students have two breaks during the day, one during the morning and one after lunch.  Students can choose to play or talk together.  Students are discouraged from doing academic work at this time.
• Advisory intramurals -- each day during morning break, two advisories compete against each other in fun games like handball, beach volleyball, and pinball.  It has become so popular that half of the school comes down to watch the games and cheer.
• Exploratory -- twice in our six-day cycle, our students attend a class called "Exploratory." Faculty members choose a pursuit that they enjoy such as photography, board games, knitting, Pinterest, Lego robotics, theater games, and coding; and students sign up for the class.  Exploratory classes change three times each year.  Students (and faculty) of different grades and genders spend time together in pursuit of mutual interest.
• Dances and activities -- we hold three dances per year for our middle-school students.  Nearly every student attends and they are highly anticipated.  There are also three after-school social activities per school year like bowling or roller skating.
• Buddies -- all of our middle-school students are buddies with lower-school students.  Buddies get together six to ten times per year to participate in fun activities centered on the younger of the buddy pair.
• Extracurricular activities -- In middle school all of our students are encouraged to participate in athletics or our musical theater production.  Nearly all of our students take advantage of these opportunities to play, compete, and perform together outside of the regular school day.
• Overnights -- All of our students participate in two separate overnight trips during the school year where an emphasis is placed on developing teamwork among the students and faculty in the grade.

As a faculty, we also talk about ways to continually develop relationships with students.  None of these require teachers to be charismatic "pied pipers;" they are simply good practice in establishing and growing relationships:

• ask questions and listen
• be genuine
• go to extracurricular activities and talk to students about them
• smile
• be patient and persistent in your attempts to connect
• be observant of students’ changes in mood and ask them about it
• share your own passions
• tell interesting stories from your past

Being a part of something, belonging to a community, is especially important during the middle-school years when adolescents and preteens start pushing away from family and trying to decide who they want to be.  It is sometimes a confusing time in a child’s life and a time of struggle with self-confidence.  We know that connecting with others helps middle-school students to find their own way and be happier, which is why we put so much effort into building our relationships with each other.

Using Minecraft and Plotz to Visualize Limits

At the start of class for the last two weeks, my algebra team teacher and I have been using a discussion on “area under a curve” to extend our students’ thinking.  Of course, our eighth-grade algebra I students do not have the calculus tools they need to solve this type of problem, and we are not trying to teach them the necessary algorithms.  We’re asking them to envision different ways that the problem might be solved.  One of our primary goals in this algebra class is to create divergent thinkers who realize that the process of solving a problem is often more important than the solution.  By offering them problems that are “unsolvable” given the math that they know, they are forced to think of the problems as abstractions, to ponder the same ideas that intrigued the likes of Archimedes, Descartes, Leibniz, and Newton.

Our students’ first attempts to best measure the area under a curve mirrored the earliest methods of the Greeks -- the exhaustion method.  The students quickly decided that they could fill the area using different size polygons and circles, and they would ultimately get pretty close to a solution.  While this was a good first step, and started them down the conceptual road to limits, we ultimately decided that it would be problematic to obtain the measurements of different sized shapes.  Some students wondered if using a single shape of the same area would simplify the process.  Then one of our students, Rion, said that every gamer knows that shapes on the computer screen are just made up of the same size pixel, and that the problem could be best addressed by filling the area under a curve with pixels that could be counted.  Extending this line of thought, Rion thought that he could use the Minecraft creating website, Plotz, to illustrate the idea that reducing the size of the squares, thus increasing the number of squares under the curve, would result in a more accurate answer.  Rion shared these images with the class:

After this, we discussed the idea of being able to reduce the error of the area measurement to a point where for all practical purposes it was accurate.  While the students certainly did not reinvent the concept of a limit, they did discover, in a general sense, the way a limit could be used to help solve this type of problem.  Our hope is that they will be able to apply this concept and type of thinking to other problems that we challenge them with in the future.

My team teacher and I believe that it is vital to continue to push the students’ ability to think of math in abstract terms.  This forces the students to see math as something different from memorizing steps in order to follow the predictable, worn-out path of textbook examples and problems.  It forces them to engage with math -- to wrestle with it in a way that builds engagement and deep conceptual understanding.

Coaching Middle School Cross Country

I am incredibly lucky to coach middle school cross country.  It is a sport where everyone gets playing time (and the least skilled get the most playing time); where there is a completely objective measure of achievement; where athletes are encouraged to talk to each other during practice; where almost all spectators, parents, and athletes buy into the philosophy that individual growth outweighs the importance of winning; and, perhaps foremost, it is a sport where my coaching ability (or lack of it) is not scrutinized at every meet.  The gun goes off, my runners take off, I trot onto the course and cheer, offer some quick words (often unheard by the runner) of encouragement or tactical advice, and then I trot back to the finish line to do a little debriefing.  The fact that I don’t remember any parent complaining about my coaching ability has little to do with my prowess and a lot to do with the nature of the sport.  

I feel for other coaches whose words and actions are on display for crowds of folks to analyze.  There are probably not too many middle school coaches out there who relish the public side of coaching -- most just enjoy being with the kids, want to pass on their love of the game, and like the idea of being able to accomplish something meaningful with a group of adolescents.  In a game like basketball, there is no such thing as a perfectly coached game.  Coaches make mistakes in every game; the most famous coaches in the world will acknowledge this.  Put that fact up against the American culture of analyzing coaching by pundits and self-proclaimed Internet experts, and we are left with the idea that it is the fan’s God-given right to analyze and publicly criticize.  While this may be acceptable with college and professional sports, it gets a little scary at the middle school level.  Yes, there are middle school coaches out there who probably should not be coaching middle school athletes, and hopefully they are counseled out of the field; however, I watch a lot of middle school sports and I infrequently see coaches who are that far out of step.

So, I will continue with my middle school cross country coaching career.  We will have fun, persevere, and compete against ourselves and others.  In the process, I get to stay out of the limelight and focus on sharing my love of running and listening to the banter of twelve-year-olds as we run through the hills of Biltmore Forest.

Tent and Travel

I love traveling with a tent.  It creates a sense of freedom, trust, and independence that is absent when I walk into a motel room, lock the door, switch on the air conditioner, and flick the remote.  I have car camped, backpacked, and bike toured around Asia and the United States and all of these modes of travel bring me closer to people, closer to nature, and closer to myself than if I stayed in hotels along the way.  

I recently returned from a car camping trip out West with my family.  Most of the places that we went in West Texas, New Mexico and Southern Colorado were places that I wanted to show my boys since they had meaning to me from previous trips.  We camped under the penetrating sun of the Guadalupe Mountains, beneath cool Pinon Pines near Santa Fe, within fifty yards of a 1200-year-old Anasazi ruin at Chaco Canyon, and ten feet from the crashing waters of Bear Creek at the Telluride City Campground  -- and at each place we met and interacted with people and nature in a way that we couldn’t have if we had locked a motel door behind us.  There was the probation officer we met at Hyde State Park who had bike toured from Chattanooga, our friends the McGraths with whom we rendezvoused at Chaco, and the Catholic Cardinal and his friend from Flagstaff who were four-wheeling around Telluride.  Each morning we woke around sunrise and were in bed soon after sunset, reading either our individual books or our out-loud book, Journey to the Center of the Earth.  Our rhythms quickly matched the natural cycles of the Earth, and it became more comfortable to sleep on the ground than in a bed.  We made up games at campsites.  I loved pinecone bocci ball, but my sons preferred throwing pinecone hand grenades.  The boys whittled, chased small animals, and climbed rocks while Elizabeth and I made supper or read.  

There was some whining, complaining, and restlessness -- but it seemed to diminish as we went deeper into the trip.  The boys learned to be more patient, to manage their time, to find ways to overcome boredom, to deal with loneliness, and to be physically uncomfortable.  They saw so much -- bats swirling out of Carlsbad Caverns, lush springs in the middle of the desert, blooming agave, 700-foot-tall sand dunes, tiny Permian fossils, Anasazi petroglyphs, hot springs, pronghorn antelope, thunderstorms racing across the plains, and a sky that never seemed to end.  We were a family together every hour of every day for three weeks, rarely leaving each others’ sides.   

I sometimes forget in the rush of daily life that being together as a family is more important than anything.  As the school year progresses, and the stress of too much to do in too little time hammers away, I will be sustained by the memory of listening to the steady breathing of my family as they slept under the dome of our tent surrounded by the great Western night.

Delayed Gratification: Marshmallows, Minecraft, and Control

This morning was monumental, much better than A’s on a report card or 99th percentiles on standardized tests.  This morning my eight-year-old boy got up and said that he wanted to finish all his work first thing in the morning.  Walter Mischel, make way for Charlie Douglas who just passed the marshmallow test on a grand scale.

While I’m off for a few weeks during the summer, my two boys enjoy the pleasures of Papa Camp, which shares a few of the same attributes of their traditional “sleep-away camps,” like regular meal service, swimming at the lake, and poopy-sleepy time.  However, unlike most “sleep-away camps,” Papa Camp has some work involved. (I refer to work here in the purest Mark Twain sense as being something that you have to do rather than something that you choose to do.)  The work involved is daily reading, writing, math, exercise, piano and chores.  This summer, rather than working out an intricate schedule of these activities for the boys, I gave them a spreadsheet with the activities listed and told them that they needed to do all of them each day.  They also have a limit on screen time each day, and they must keep track of this as well.  I have refrained from nagging, and let them figure out the how and when of getting the work done, when to play MInecraft (more tempting than a marshmallow for my boys), and when to loll around trying to deal with summer boredom.  

This morning, one of the first things out of Charlie’s mouth was, “I’m going to do all my work first thing this morning.”  When I asked him why, he said that he wanted to get it done first thing because he didn’t do all his work yesterday.  When I prodded a little deeper and asked him how it made him feel not to finish his work, he said that he didn’t have the “word” to describe it.  I really could care less about the word that he might have chosen; maybe he will be able to name it later, but what is important is that he displayed a huge amount of self control, a large amount of grit that I have not seen exhibited before in his work.  The motivation to get his work done first came totally from inside, which is more important to me than almost anything.

Charlie has always had the ability to persevere to do things that he wants to do -- to play.  He can and does spend hours designing and making intricate Lego structures.  He figured out, by himself, over many, many hours how to use I Movie to make a video about his Dream Team of Lego heroes.  However, up to this point in time, he has not displayed the same stick-to-it quality in things that other people, like his parents and teachers, require him to do.  It is amazing to me to see this transference of grit from the things that he wants to do to the things that he is asked to do, and I wonder how and why this blossomed within him.  

I know that this quality, possibly more than anything else, will help Charlie to be successful and happy. The self-control to postpone gratification, in eight-year-old Charlie’s case, the power to choose to do his work before designing worlds in Minecraft, will reduce negative stress in his life and give him control over his world.

Learn to Use Math

I frequently use math.  You probably do too, so I’d like to give you a math awareness challenge.  At the end of the day today, spend ten minutes or so making a list that describes when, where, and how you used math during your day along with the math skills that you used.  If you are kind of geeky like me, you may want to put it into a table:

when	where	how	why	math skill used
5:45 AM	bedroom	looked at clock when alarm went off	oriented me into the day	telling time
5:50 AM	bedroom	counted pushups	helped me to set and reach goals of physical fitness	counting
6:10 AM	kitchen	measured ingredients for pancakes	prepared food that tasted decent	measuring
6:30 AM	kitchen	read info from yearly physical from prior day,  (specifically my body mass index and how it related to averages)	helped me to understand my physical condition and enforced beliefs about eating and exercise	reading tables and comparing data

Perhaps you will be surprised by how often you actually use math.  We frequently use math for day-to-day tasks, and we never think about it.  We use math to help us make sense of the world around us and our place in that world.  One of the other things that becomes obvious from my table is that I was not born with any of the math skills that I used in the first forty-five minutes of my day.  I learned all of them.  

I’m not sure where I learned the skills listed above, but I’m pretty sure that I learned all of them before I was six or seven-years-old.  I carry all of those math skills (and a few more) around with me every day in what I like to call my math toolbox, a toolbox that was first opened soon after I was born. I am almost always unaware when I use my math tools.  However, every time that I use something in my toolbox, I get some practice with that skill.   I remember how to do all of this math because I do it on a regular basis.

I also know that folks can lose the computational math skills that most of us take for granted.  My father has lost most of his cognitive function due to Alzheimer's.  While he may recognize a number on a clock, he has no concept of what that number means.  He doesn’t know the difference between ten dollars and a hundred, and he couldn’t count twenty paper clips on a table.  While Alzheimer's has done other terrible things to his mind, it has also taken away his ability to make sense of the world by using math.  

The ability to use math in our lives is a skill that is frequently overlooked and taken for granted, but without it we could not function successfully.  It is no wonder that we teach math in school.  However, I do wonder about the math that we teach and the way that we teach it.

If the function of math is to help us make sense of the world around us and to solve problems in that world, then shouldn’t we spend some time practicing how to recognize problems, how to get the information we need to solve them, and then how to apply the math that we carry in our tool box (or that we can access from a resource)?  Unfortunately nearly everyone who attends school in the United States gets little practice at this, which I would argue, is a more important skill than memorizing algorithms.  

We need to present our students with situations and scenarios where they actually have to determine the problem, find the information that they think they need to solve it, and then reach into their toolbox of math algorithms to find a solution.  Students who are taught to recognize problems that others may not see, who are taught to seek multiple solutions, who are taught to appreciate the possibilities of alternate perspectives, and who are taught to synthesize other’s ideas into their own -- these are the students who are going to have control over their lives.

Yes, of course students still need to know the algorithms necessary to solve problems.  However, for math to be truly useful in their lives, students must develop the capabilities to know how and when to use the appropriate tool in the box. They can't do this without practice.

Google Sees Little Value in Test Scores and GPA

It must be reassuring to the folks who believe that school shouldn’t prepare students for the workplace to read the following written by Max Niesen from Business Insider:

In an interview with The New York Times' Adam Bryant, Google's Senior Vice President of People Operations Laszlo Bock explains that some of the biggest stalwarts of the hiring and recruiting world, the interview, GPA, and test scores, aren't nearly as important as people think.

Google doesn't even ask for GPA or test scores from candidates anymore, unless someone's a year or two out of school, because they don't correlate at all with success at the company. Even for new grads, the correlation is slight, the company has found.

Bock has an excellent explanation about why those metrics don't mean much.

" Academic environments are artificial environments. People who succeed there are sort of finely trained, they’re conditioned to succeed in that environment," he says.

While in school, people are trained to give specific answers, "it's much  more interesting to solve problems where there isn’t an obvious answer," Bock says. "You want people who like figuring out stuff where there is no obvious answer."

When I started teaching in the early 1990s, I had already worked for a bank, done some oil and gas properties management, and run different divisions of an automobile dealership.  My first teaching job at Robert E. Lee High School in San Antonio was a shock on many levels, but the biggest head-spinner was that it became clear to me that school had little to do with other workplaces or real life.  Some teachers were unmotivated and would have been fired in a week if school were anything like the working world.  I’ll never forget one seasoned teacher asking me why I worked so hard.  There was little focus on the customers, e.g. , the parents who paid our wages through taxes and the students who were the passive recipients of knowledge that was of little use in their lives.  A lot of time and energy was spent in managing the students’ days, making sure that everyone was accounted for and trying to limit the opportunities for students to engage in illicit or unsupervised activities.  Even amidst this mind-deadening, controlled world, there were many dedicated faculty and students who struggled to teach and learn in a system that really wasn’t conducive to helping students learn how to be successful in their lives outside of school.

The students who were successful at Robert E. Lee High School and most other high schools around the country, the students who learned how to “do school” and be successful in what Bock calls an “artificial environment,” went on to ply their school skills at college.  Then they faced what I and nearly everyone I knew faced when I graduated from college:  they faced a world of work that was quite different from high school and college.  While a college diploma may have given them a ticket into the workforce, it did little to prepare them for what they would be doing.

The most frustrating thing to me is that we know how to help students learn to be succesful outside of school.  We know how to teach students to examine and solve open-ended problems; we know how to instill grit in our students to give them long term perseverance; we know how to help students develop character strengths; we know how to create environments and methods that hone students’ communicative and collaborative skills; we know how to help internal motivation flourish within students; we know that we should limit curriculum to what is truly “lifeworthy.”  If you don’t believe me, pay attention to the experts who have spent the better part of their lives researching and reporting on these topics:  Check out Dan Meyer’s work in implementing problem solving, look at Angela Duckworth’s work on grit, read Martin Seligman on developing character, don’t forget Daniel Pink’s and Alfie Kohn’s books on motivation; listen to what Dave Perkins has to say about lifeworthy skills.

There are many things standing in the way of making school more relevant to life, but the primary obstacle is the collective mindset of institutions, parents, teachers, administrators, and students that we all think we know what school looks like.  In our minds, even though many of us know better, school should look like what it looked like last year, or ten years ago, or fifty years ago simply because that is school.  Unfortunately, the school that we are comfortable with, the school of our memory, grows in irrelevance as the rest of the world speeds toward the future while we remain firmly planted in the past.