By Katrina Kennett
I’m told that former Boston school superintendent Michael Contompasis supplied the push for a fabulous event I had the honor of facilitating in late October. Contompasis, also a long-time Headmaster of the esteemed Boston Latin School, is quoted as saying, “Repeatedly stating the obvious, that schools are not working for too many of our students, has just not been sufficient. We need to present new mental models of the future of school.“
Oscar Santos, Executive Director of CCE-Boston, took him at his word and joined in putting together an expansive group of thinkers for a deep look at what has been described as one the few innovative school prototypes to appear, the Vanguard Academy Design for Learning.TM Participants were invited to join in critiquing the design elements of Vanguard, reading along with the story of a day in the life of “Zach”, a student at the school. Following a welcome from Santos, I explained the afternoon’s activities to the more than two dozen invited guests, including front line educators, district administrators, higher education deans, neuroscience researchers, writers, policy makers, and funders.
The core ideas for Vanguard have come from ERC Co-Founder Larry Myatt, who has been at serious school redesign since his involvement with Theodore Sizer’s Essential Schools movement. Along with ERC colleagues, me included, and with a host of researchers, teachers, engineers and private industry and STEM collaborators, Larry has ably “reversed engineered” to address persistent flaws in traditional school design that continue undermine learning and development. Link here.
Zach’s “day in the life” takes him, and us, through a typical school day. Typical for him, perhaps, but dramatically different than what American high school students have experienced for more than a century. A refreshing new curriculum approach draws Zach and his fellow students into urgent local and global issues, connecting with far-flung experts as well as local partners, and spawning deep, sustained projects that emerge from their passions and curiosity. School days offer unique, flexible structures that support learning in differing student configurations with support from teachers who represent innovative, integrated knowledge and skill bases. Relationships, rituals and resources in the school make it a safe place, less prone to bullying and isolation, and free of a reliance on age-alike cohorts, as Zach says, “I like that here you almost always work with different age students, not just the kids you were with every year since kindergarten.”
Modules, lasting a week or two, provide chances for students to catch up and regain confidence in a particular skill or subject matter, while Accelerated Learning Labs connect students who are particularly enthused about an issue or subject matter, where they can “go deep” as Zach says, and keep a project going for months and even year to year. Outdated “Algebra I” has given way to spreadsheets, programming and functional thinking, and math now has a new and far more positive reputation. Technology, arts and design are continuously integrated into the schedule, rather than being siloed, and provide students opportunities in each area generally not available in a comprehensive high school “master schedule”.
As the event unfolded, after reading each section aloud, small breakout groups pursued three key questions – what’s different (from traditional schools)? What do we like about it? Is it better than what we have? Those small-group conversations were energetic and far-reaching, produced no shortage of differences from traditional “school”, and a series of resounding “yes” answers to “is it better than what we have?” Participants enjoyed diverse points of reference from group members from different professional domains and parts of the country.
After the third and final reading and analysis activity, each breakout group was asked to identify two changes they would want to make in schools as soon as possible that derive from the Vanguard prototype. Link here.
Here’s what their responses look like:
Link above: http://www.educationresourcesconsortium.org/grand-challenges-network
Mary Helen Immordino Yang, Director of the Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education (CANDLE) at the University of Southern California attended, joined by a colleague, Rebecca Gotlieb, educational neuroscience researcher at the University of California Los Angeles. Professor Immordino Yang provided a penultimate piece to the day with commentary linking key aspects of Vanguard with the growing body of research intended to guide changes in the student and teacher experience. (Of note, after the event, a conversation emerged among several of the participants, newly dismayed at the number of things we do in school that in truth may be stressful and damaging, rather than helpful.)
Santos draw the event to a close by asking audience members for final thoughts, pledging more innovation events and conversations to come. Meanwhile, Contompasis concluded his experience as a part of the critique group, reiterating his assertion – “This was a major event, so many new possibilities. Proof that more than ever we need to present new mental models of the future of school, of schools that work. Vanguard does just that.”
After the event, Myatt was pleased, but noted he was not greatly surprised with the reactions and the depths of the critique. “These Vanguard elements appear in Zach’s story because they offer starkly preferable approaches to things we know work poorly in schools. Vanguard was a design exercise. And this prototype -not a “model”, he adds- can be and should be, adapted for different communities -their values, resources, and traditions- things that both matter and differ greatly. This is a “reciprocity” approach, intended to reframe the role of schools as places that enrich their communities, starting with being better places to learn for its young people.”
He cites the benefits of a long collaboration with Design Instinct Learning and the use of the ERC Design Studio tool with providing new insights and starting places, including “the ability to build upon, not ‘end run’ around, what we’ve learned from Prof. Immordino and others from the neuroscience community over the past decade.”
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For more information on the event and/or on The Vanguard Academy Design For Learning TM, email me at Katrina@educationresourcesconsortium.com.
Dr. Katrina Kennett is a Professor of Education at University of Montana Western and serves as a Consulting Practitioner. See her bio here.