JosieHolford 
“The Great Disruption: Technology and the Future of Schools” The latest issue of Independent School magazine is out and it’s a good one. Among many good articles there is this from retiring NAIS president Pat Bassett: The Third Great American Revolution. It’s a stirring call for action, almost a manifesto – for educators to rise … Read more
I’ve been playing with a new graphics tool – easel.ly – and this is my first effort. I took the slogan Think*Make*Improve from Sylvia Libow Martinez and Gary S. Stager’s invaluable new book Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom. The result is a bit of a pig’s breakfast and probably runs counter to every principle of good … Read more
In his new book, psychologist Louis Cozolino applies the lessons of social neuroscience to the classroom. And here are his head (!) lines excerpted from The Social Neuroscience of Education: Optimizing Attachment and Learning in the Classroom The human brain wasn’t designed for industrial education. It was shaped over millions of years of sequential adaptation in response to ever-changing environmental … Read more
Award winning social studies teacher Ron Maggiano is leaving his job. And this is why: Our classrooms have become intellectual deserts where students are not allowed to use their imagination and their natural curiosity in order to learn new tasks and explore new ideas. Teachers who dare to be innovative and creative are more often … Read more
Come to the Edge We might fall. Come to the edge. It’s too high! COME TO THE EDGE! And they came And he pushed And they flew. Christopher Logue “Come to the Edge” frequently misattributed to Guillaume Apollinaire Sail in a new direction Simply by sailing in a new direction You could enlarge the … Read more
Here’s a book that looks useful: Building Resilience in Children and Teens Strategies to help kids from 18 months to 18 years build seven crucial “Cs” — competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping, and control — so they can bounce back from challenges and excel in life. The book describes how to raise authentically successful … Read more
Did you see the film Race to Nowhere? The film challenged the obsession with competition and evaluation in our education system. It looked at the damage done by valuing children and their learning on the basis of test scores, grades, GPAs and college acceptance letters. It was released in 2010 and was shown to groups of concerned … Read more
I love these quotations from the National Institute for Play home page. “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” Plato “The truly great advances of this generation will be made by those who can make outrageous connections, and only a mind which knows how to … Read more
As a follow-up to my post The Perils of Education I was preparing a piece on play. My chief concern being that the word play – like the word progressive – is itself so plastic and open to so many interpretations that defining it is like holding water in your hand: However hard you try … Read more
What 60 schools can tell us about teaching 21st century skills. Here’s the TEDx Denver version of the talk Grant Lichtman gave at #naisac13 in Philadelphia. I take my title from an extraordinary compliment that Grant paid Poughkeepsie Day School on his blog where he wrote: “…Poughkeepsie Day School, a school that has preserved the fires of the … Read more
Alfie Kohn is coming on April 25th. Just look at the great header Christina Powers created to herald the news: Go here for more information and to reserve your seat In association with Vassar College and Oakwood Friends School Alfie Kohn will present “The Progressive Schools Our Children Deserve: Helping Students Become Critical Thinkers and … Read more
What is more discouraging in history than the way in which, again and again, the human spirit is freed from its shackles only to be more tightly bound by its liberators? – Opening sentence of The Technique of Progressive Education A. Gordon Melvin 1932. 1932 – two years before the founding of Poughkeepsie … Read more
We know that empathy – that ability to walk around in another’s shoes – matters. We know that developing empathy is important. But how do you do that? The 4th and 5th grade put on a show last week. Not just any show for this was a play they had written themselves based on their … Read more
The strategic planning process to date has primarily been one of listening and paying attention. When we look at the comments from the parent and faculty surveys and the listening sessions we are struck by the thematic congruity. One thread – woven throughout – can best be summed up as Learning by Doing – a … Read more
Connecting the Dots: Becoming a Knowledge Age Innovator Interesting 2009 short article by Deborah Westphal of Toffler Associates Key points include: Innovation is essential to the long-term success of every organization. But innovation isn’t what it used to be. Discovery doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Innovators have always relied on ideas that have come before or are emerging … Read more