Is our eagerness to apply business models to school reform a sign of the failure of schools? Or a failure of our current thinking about the purpose of schools?

This is Part 3 in a series. | Part 1  | Part 2 | Part 4

“The Root, Stem, Leaves, & Fruit of American Education:”

Pedagogy, Policy, Politics, & Progressivism

PART 3: THE ABUSE & INTERNALIZATION OF THE ‘FREE MARKET’ MODEL IN EDUCATION  

Chris Thinnes

The vice of externally imposed ends has deep roots. Teachers
receive them from superior authorities; these authorities
accept them from what is current in the community.
The teachers impose them upon children.
- John Dewey

I wonder if… advocates in the education arena will stop and
reconsider whether they are importing free-market chaos
and free-market punishments into the lives of children?…

This is part two of a two-part post on this #StuVoice workshop for
6th grade students from Cortez Middle School & Curtis School.
You can find part one here.

A Public/Private Student Partnership Workshop for

Cortez Middle School & Curtis School Students

Part II: Summary & Reflections

Chris Thinnes

The more collaboration, the more synergy; the more synergy,
the more powerful and expansive the outcomes

Al Adams

‘Public purpose’: To make the waves that raise all boats.

Pat Bassett

Recently I explained that “Cortez Middle School & Curtis School are developing a long-term partnership to promote 6th grade students’ exploration of pressing questions about educational opportunity, access, and attainment; the varied cultural and socioeconomic perspectives of their schools’ constituents; the experiences and insights they can offer as members of public and private school communities; and their capacity to solve problems that affect their and their friends’ lives in the ‘real world.’” Last week, Cortez Middle School generously hosted an initial visit to set the tone for our longer-term learning partnership over time.…

This is part one of a two-part post on this #StuVoice workshop for
6th grade students from Cortez Middle School & Curtis School.
You can find part two here.

A Public/Private Student Partnership Workshop for

Cortez Middle School & Curtis School Students

Part I: Background & Facilitation Plan

Chris Thinnes

The more collaboration, the more synergy; the more synergy,
the more powerful and expansive the outcomes

Al Adams, 2000

Earlier this year I wrote about a transformative experience at Parthenia Street Elementary School that confirmed for me some of the principles that should govern partnerships between public and private schools. “What couldn’t be clearer,” I had suggested at the time, “is that ‘partnership’ — like any learning experience — involves vulnerability, humility, and reciprocity.…

Professor Carla Rinaldi on “The Courage of Utopia”

Chris Thinnes

This post quotes extensively from Carla Rinaldi’s “The Courage of Utopia,” in Making Learning Visible: Children as Individual and Group Learners (Reggio Children & Project Zero, 2001).

A few weeks ago, I mentioned receiving from Debi Binkley (Assoc. Superintendent of Upper Arlington City School District) a copy of The Ohio Visible Learning Project, and since then obsessively poring over a range of extraordinary background works from Reggio Children’s collaboration with Project Zero on ‘Making Learning Visible.’ I’m taken by the notion of the school not only as a ‘learning community,’ but as a community that researches learning — and by the prospect of using documentation to differentiate ‘assessment’ from ‘evaluation’ in a manner that effectively deconstructs popular American notions of testing, reporting, and accountability.…

Revisiting our decision to opt out, and a copy of our update to the school.

Chris Thinnes

In “Opting Out of High-Stakes Testing: Our Family’s Decision,” I reflected on my son’s decision to opt out of high-stakes standardized testing, and our family’s decision to support him. In that post I made this claim:

In searching my own conscience in an effort to be supportive to my son — a 9th grade student who first expressed his desire to opt out of the California Standards Testing (CST) program, but was debating whether he should commit to it — I knew it was more important than anything else to honor his voice and his decision-making as authentically and respectfully as I could. I found myself, however, struggling at moments to guard against a real temptation: to hold him hostage to my own convictions about the repugnance of high-stakes tests and the uses to which their results are put.…

An edited version of this post appears on GOOD as
“Are We Educating for Capitalism or Democracy?“

This is Part 2 in a series. | Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 4

“The Root, Stem, Leaves, & Fruit of American Education:”
Pedagogy, Policy, Politics, & Progressivism

Chris Thinnes

What democracy and education mean is
something that needs constant reworking.
- Jim Garrison

Cease conceiving of education as mere
preparation for later life, and make of it
the full meaning of the present life.
- John Dewey

Part 2. ‘Career Readiness’ v ‘Society Readiness’

In my introduction to this series I proposed “that pedagogy, policy, and politics have been isolated and protected as separate discourses — both in the hyper-local conversations of our learning communities, and in the national discourse on education;” that we must “work together to bridge .…

Reflections on our decision to opt out, and a copy of our notice to the school.

Chris Thinnes

With the onset of the high-stakes testing season in many public school districts, comes the onslaught of conflicting emotions and ideas, at home and at school, about the meaning and the consequence of a decision to opt out. A difficult decision faces many of us at home, as parents or guardians, which I only now feel eligible to address because we’ve lived it in my house this past week. I have thought a lot about this in the past, and voiced many strong opinions about it — but, like anything else, experiencing this is another matter entirely.

I may tell the whole story of our family’s conversations in a future post.…

An abridged version of this post appears on GOOD as
“Performance v Learning: What’s the Purpose of Education?“

This is Part 1 in a series. | Part 2  | Part 3 | Part 4

“The Root, Stem, Leaves, & Fruit of American Education:”

Pedagogy, Policy, Politics, & Progressivism

Chris Thinnes

 We must not forget how closely the school is
connected to the society in which it is situated.
- Carla Rinaldi

We want to see democracy, not capitalism, survive as
the root, stem, leaves, and fruit of American education.
- Peter Gow

1. Introduction: Old Wine into New Bottles

In a series of posts in the coming weeks, I want to explore a central and sweeping proposition: that pedagogy, policy, and politics have been isolated and protected as separate discourses — both in the hyper-local conversations of our learning communities and in the national discourse on education — and that this separation has caused damage to our schools, to their stakeholders, and to our children from which we now must decide to recover.…

[A Process Post on 'Our Role & Our Moment in Schools']

Chris Thinnes

In “Let Us Plant Dates,” an earlier process post on our role and our moment in schools, I speculated that we might look back on these years “as the era in education when everything was changing, and not the era in which it that change was fully defined or realized.” Reacting as much to personal and professional frustrations, as I may have been squinting towards a clear-eyed view of how to put my best foot forward, I ventured that ”perhaps our ‘lot’ in life is not to see our clearest visions concretely realized, but to make that experience plausible for another generation of students, educators, and families that will follow us.” I cited the inspirational thoughts of Rubem Alves (sourced here and here) from which I had taken my cue:

This is not the moment of birth.…

Professor Carla Rinaldi on Cultural Competence

as ‘Educational-Relational Thinking’

Chris Thinnes

This post quotes extensively from Carla Rinaldi’s “Infant-Toddler Centers & Preschools as Places of Culture,” in Making Learning Visible: Children as Individual and Group Learners (Reggio Children & Project Zero, 2001).

It is necessary for us to learn this unity
in diversity, and this diversity in unity.
- Carla Rinaldi

Last fall, under the umbrella of my conference blogging for the NAIS People of Color Conference, I began to ask myself pressing questions about our obligations in schools to “Bridge Conversations about ‘Teaching & Learning’ and ‘Diversity & Inclusion’.”  I referred to an excellent presentation by Dr. Steven Jones at the fall CFEE conference, in which he forced the matter to a central question: We expect all students to demonstrate proficiency in math .…

An adapted version of this post appears in GOOD as
“Stop Exploring ‘Innovative Education Models’: We Need Action Now“

“You Are ‘the Education System’:”

C.H.I.L.D. and “the Hyper-Local Stage”

Chris Thinnes

So the question before us is how do we affect change?
- Chris Lehmann, ‘Organize‘

The time has come for us to retake the language of school reform.
- Chris Lehmann, ‘Disrupt Disruption‘

I have been drawn in recent weeks to a slew of impassioned posts from several strong voices in our field, each managing more than the last to suggest to me that we — all of us invested, personally and professionally, in the lives and the futures of our children and our schools — are headed towards a defining moment in the history of our schools.…

[Process Post after #NAISAC13]

Chris Thinnes

Reflecting on my role in helping to facilitate a three hour workshop on public-private partnerships, in which it couldn’t have been clearer how much work remains for public and private school stakeholders to examine and to revise our assumptions about each other; following a day of workshops in which conference attendees were exhorted to understand that supporting deeper learning is not just an opportunity, but an imperative, for us all; and compelled for a variety of reasons to examine the conflicts between my professional responsibilities and my personal points of view; it was cathartic to sit outside the #NAISAC13 conference hotel around midnight last Thursday with my close colleague and friend, at a safe enough remove from others’ eyes and ears to dig down deeply about the big picture for both of us: our understanding of what we can bring to this world, and how best to honor our deepest convictions in this moment of history.…

Chris Thinnes

Last year in Texas, on a visit to a New Tech high school with school and district leaders from the EdLeader21 PLC, we had the opportunity to hear from students that an intentional culture of deeper learning had a transformative impact on their lives. Among many highlights was a young woman’s response to questions about the differences between her experiences as a senior at New Tech @ Coppell, and her close friends’ experiences at the district’s central high school.

On the subject of homework, she told a story about how her friends, for a couple of years, were jealous because they thought she didn’t have ‘homework’ at New Tech.  She admitted, as well, that she was secretly delighted that she did not — on her account — have to suffer through the boring nighttime chores her friends complained about on facebook.…

Patterns of my Conference Experiences:

A Process Post

Chris Thinnes

The contours of floodplains from torrents long ago . . . The taut threads of highways sustaining fragile connections between remote towns . . . The gleam of sunlight reflected off the cars of the isolated drivers in the Arizona desert . . . The perfect squares and circles of the geometry of farmlands from 30,000 feet. . .

It’s on the plane back from the conference that you usually start preparing yourself for the opportunity to share what you’ve learned — and while you might prefer to have a long conversation with everyone in your circle, you know there won’t be opportunity or time. Inevitably someone will ask “what were the big takeaways?” or you’ll seize the opportunity to do so.…

Pas de Deux:

On Public & Private School Partnership in EdLeader21

Chris Thinnes

The more collaboration, the more synergy; the more synergy,
the more powerful and expansive the outcomes
Al Adams, 2000

Something in the air this month — seemingly more an offshoot of my calendar, than my conscience — has had me thinking, more than ever, about the value, purpose, and extraordinary consequence of intentional and authentic collaboration between public and private schools. In recent weeks, I have been collaborating with Ken Kay, Clif Mims (Martin Institute), and Paul Miller (NAIS) in the design of an upcoming workshop on “Public-Private Partnerships for Systemic Educational Change.” I’ve been working with Ken and Bill Taylor (St.…

More Questions Still for the NAIS Board:

Another Open Letter to the NAIS Board of Trustees
about John Chubb’s Appointment as President-Elect

Chris Thinnes

PLEASE NOTE:

The following post represents entirely personal views that should not be associated with the views of my employer, or any other institution with which I am affiliated.

This post follows my original “Open Letter to the NAIS Board.”

I have made a critical, albeit inadvertent, mistake in my reactions to the NAIS board’s appointment of John Chubb as ‘President-Elect.’ By itemizing a series of critical questions about Dr. Chubb’s demonstrated and express commitments in my open letter, and by reposting a far more scathing, and possibly distasteful, critique of Dr. Chubb’s positions and actions by ‘Ersatz Wonk,’ I have helped confuse the question of who bears the ultimate responsibility to address the intent and impact of the board’s decision to appoint him.…

PLEASE NOTE: Not long after I posted “An Open Letter to the NAIS Board re: John Chubb’s Appointment,” a writer who wishes to remain pseudonymous sent me a copy of this lengthy letter. My reposting of this letter does not imply a validation or agreement of the views expressed therein — or, for that matter, the length at which these views are explored. I find both unfortunate. Neither this letter, nor my reposting of it, should be associated in any way with the views of my employer, or any organization with which I am affiliated.

All Hail the New “Four Cs” of NAIS

Guest Post by Ersatz Wonk

 
Let me be the first, as far as I can tell, to congratulate the NAIS board on its selection of Dr.…

Jumping to Conclusions:

An Open Letter to the NAIS Board of Trustees
Regarding John Chubb’s Appointment as President-Elect

Chris Thinnes

PLEASE NOTE:

The following post represents entirely personal views that should not be associated with the views of my employer, or any other institution with which I am affiliated.

This post was followed by “More Questions Still for the NAIS Board.”

It has been 48 hours since your announcement that your “extensive and rigorous search…has resulted in the selection of John Chubb as the new president of the National Association of Independent Schools.”  Presumably the intent of such a notice was not only to communicate the outcome of your search but, strategically, to invite NAIS members — and, perhaps, the broader public — to appreciate its value.…

Chris Thinnes

Reflections and resources from an #EdCampLA session on January 12th, 2013
( This post has also been excerpted and adapted on GOOD )

“The more collaboration, the more synergy; the more synergy,
the more powerful & expansive the outcomes…”
Al Adams, 2000

INTRODUCTION

There are eleventy-seven questions in education I find both vexing and exciting. Some of these emerge from efforts to construct authentic partnerships between public and private schools and their constituents. As a private school leader and a public school parent, I am concerned about the assumptions that often govern such partnerships between students, teachers, parents, and leaders in the public and private sectors — assumptions that, in many cases, strengthen misconceptions each of us have about ‘the other.’

In my experience and opinion, the problem starts with unchallenged conclusions that we in private schools, despite our best intentions, often draw — about our entitlements to resources, and about the effectiveness of our learning models.…

Chris Thinnes

This post shares resources from www.EducacionProhibida.com.
You can follow @EdProhibida on Twitter.

704 collective financiers. 90 interviews with educators. 45 experiences of transformative education. 8 countries. 1 film. 0 limits on sharing with colleagues and friends.

After spending a lot of time thinking about transformative models of education and partnership, and the links between the two, I can tell you that I deeply admire the model of Educación Prohibida [Forbidden Education], a documentary from a team of passionate young film makers who believe that “the main shortcoming” of current school models “is in a design that does not consider the nature of learning, freedom of choice, and the importance of love and human connections in individual and collective development.” The film is not without its questions and controversies, some of which are explored on their site.…

Chris Thinnes

Reposted from a CFEE newletter at http://eepurl.com/tj6ML

Resources from #PSP2012

TEACHING AND LEARNING AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL

Thank you for sharing resources from “#PSP2012: Teaching and Learning at Home and at School” with learning communities around the world. In the last month, thanks to your support, users from 127 countries have viewed the recorded presentations from Carol Dweck, Richard Gerver, Nikhil Goyal, Steven Jones, Ken Kay, Alfie Kohn, Wendy Mogel, Ken Robinson, and Yong Zhao:

17 year old Nikhil Goyal’s “Why Learning Should Be Messy” has been accessed a staggering 37,500 times alone!

Please continue to support our efforts by encouraging friends and colleagues to visit the #PSP2012 site, to watch the recorded presentations, and to use the “Covenant to Help Inspire Learning & Development (C.H.I.L.D.…