Learning is Change

When I was a kid, I used to make the most sickeningly sweet Kool-Aid. I would put as much of the sugary substance as I could into our biggest green glass and still have it dissolve. The result was cloyingly sweet. In the end, I was the only one that could drink it because your face had to pucker up with every sip. And that was the way I liked it.

Sometimes drinking the Educational Kool-Aid is a little bit like this. Sometimes, we make our own ideas so abhorrent to anyone besides ourselves that no one else is interested in even taking a sip. Creating change and framing and for others should not be like this. It should not be making Kool-Aid that no one else can drink but us.

Our change is not only for us; it is for others.

No one else drives this home to me more then Alyssa Whitehead-Bust. In a conversation with her, she laid out the case for change. It was not ambiguous or self-referential. She was looking forward and pushing for context to fill in the gaps. She was not trying to make Kool-Aid for me. Rather, she had a much better idea in mind.

In both a figurative and a literal way, Alyssa makes us tea instead. She takes just the right blend of tea leaves and steeps them, giving them time to develop a depth of flavor that we all wanted to have more of. You see, Kool-Aid has only a single note. It is sweet. You can add more sweetness to it, but it will never be more complex than sweet. Tea on the other hand, can be lots of things from bitter to refreshing. You are still adding something to the same environment, but you are getting very different results.

I would say that the water is like our educational system. We keep on trying to add more Kool-Aid flavoring and trying to get a different flavor, but it’s still the same result and we are the only ones that ever want to drink it. What we need, is to change what we put into our system. We need people like Alyssa who question what we are putting in the water. They are the ones who tell us that sweet is not the only flavor possible. They are the ones that tell us that no amount of kool-aid is going to help us reach our goal of personalizing learning for all students according to their needs.

We need to make tea instead of Kool-Aid.

My mother is proud of her cooking style, something she calls redemption cooking. She takes lot of different fully cooked meals that she has previously made and she concocts some master recipe out of them. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but it is always interesting and you could never really call the results “leftovers.” Because she creates something new with them, she transforms what these foods were into what they can be.

I hadn’t thought about “technology leftovers” until the other day. In a conversation around assistive technologies, I heard the phrase “technology leftovers” a couple of times referring to the castoff computers that have been in the building for over 5 years.

As it turns out, many times special-education and the high needs classrooms do not get the first crack at school technology purchasing. A lot of times they have to take what they can get, the technological leftovers. These teachers are so resourceful, though, they redeem the leftovers much like my mother with her cooking and they make sure their students have the access and the tools they need in order to learn.

In their “redemption” of this technology, they cater to the very specific needs of individual students. In my conversation the leader of the assistive technology services department, Sue Loeffler, I heard stories of what it means to accommodate all children within the learning environment. She spoke about her goal of giving teachers who work with special needs students the right tools for the right purpose. And, I was impressed with her ability to take leftovers and attach new peripherals like joysticks instead of mice or eye tracking devices for students who have difficulty with arm movement.

I think it says something about just how resourceful people with specific needs can be when they have to be. But, we would rather they not always have to “redeem the leftovers.” We should advocate for them getting new ingredients to cook with as well. It is in this overall resourcefulness that they understand both the realistic aspect of school technology funding and the ideal. Sue, and the people she works with, advocate for their kids, promoting special use for special students.

This is essential. It is essential that we meet these kids where they are. It is essential that we match the student need to the right tool. And I believe we need more people like Sue who can do redemption technology. We need more people who are able to see the true capacity within the tools and within the students and can bring the best out of both. We have to be able to leverage the tools that we have and look into our classrooms and see what is possible.

When we do this, we are advocating for all of the students in our classrooms, and not just the “mainstream” ones. Then we can measure just how well we redeem our leftovers. We can not only look at the technology usage and appropriation, but how well teachers are leveraging  the technology for specific use. When teachers advocate for their classrooms and redeem the technology within it, they truly are making their classrooms inclusive.

I have never been a part of a truly visionary team. In every team I have been on, I have held the role of the designated question asker. I have always assumed that I would need to create whatever revolutionary environment I needed for my own learning. I now know that this assumption was dead wrong.

You see, it is not every day that you hear a truly transformational idea. Is not every day that you recognize true inspiration in others. And, it is not every day where the work that you do feels like it has the power to shift what is possible. It only happens when you advocate for the right things. It only happens when you are asking the right questions. It only happens when you’re addressing a real and unique need as a team.

The team I now find myself on contains two pretty amazing people, Christina Jean and Mia Peterson. I realize through them that I’m where I want to be. They do not wait around for approval. They make stuff happen. And for that and that alone, I am in their service.

There’s no skepticism. There is no ulterior motives. There is only genuine interest in seeing students own their learning. They are never looking to get out of work, instead they are constantly looking for good work to fill their days with.

The good work they want to do is in the service of students. It is in the service of best practice. Busyness has not been an excuse, but rather an emblem of what it is that they are fighting against. They are working toward leaving systems behind that do not do right by learners. They are looking for ways to lighten the load for all that they encounter.

More than anything, though, I feel like what we launch, we launch together. What we fail at, we fail at together. What we communicate, we communicate together. And it is not wishful thinking or overly reflective practice to say that these two individuals are ones that I can learn with. They are the ones I want to follow and the ones I want to lead.

It is only in this dual role that I feel like we move forward. It is our shared vision we are executing now, one that is being created every day by our actions and words and creative acts.

I am struck with a few questions after meeting with representatives from a school that hasn’t even opened yet:

What does it truly mean to go on an expedition? What would we do and where would we go? What does it mean that we want to go exploring? Are we exploring new possibilities in Learning, or just perpetuating what it is that we have always known?

Truly revolutionary ideas come from breaking down walls or not putting them up in the first place. The  Downtown Denver Expeditionary School is choosing not to put up barriers for their kids. When I met with them, they described something much more like “our city as the school.”

When your job as a student is to problem solve, you do great work from anywhere. One of the most profound ideas that came from this conversation was when they said, “We want kids to make things that are useful outside of ‘school’.”

When we make things for one another that are useful, objectively useful, there is no limit to what it is that we can do. Expeditionary schools don’t exist because somebody wanted to go on field trips. Expeditionary schools exists because someone wanted to solve a problem. They have an itch they wanted scratch.

And scratch it they are. Their kindergarten pre-registration was maxed out almost immediately. They are expanding the definition of academic rigor. They are building background knowledge with authentic case studies, giving the ability for students to explore content on their own. The thing that I’m most excited about, however, is what I would call “fluid expertise”. When the only person in the room that has expertise is the teacher and the only people that are learning are the students, we are missing out on the other expertise in the room as well as the expertise of industry and other “real world” leaders.

Matching students to the right expertise in a fluid process allows us to stop hoarding the expertise. We should be making connections for students rather than cutting them off. We should allow students to find both content and people, and enable the connection that happens in a mentored experience. We learn better this way. This is our expedition.

Quiet wisdom is often the best kind. It is the ability to shut out what doesn’t matter, and focus on what is truly important. It is in picking and choosing those things we advocate for, not based upon their current status, but rather on their actual value to ourselves and those around us.

It is the ability to not buzz at a constant rate, and the ability to stop the incessant chatter that seemingly comes with all communication. In this quiet wisdom there is profound knowledge and learning.

But, you have to look for it. In every meeting, in every classroom, this quiet wisdom and soft advocacy becomes clear when you look around.

And I had a chance to look around the other day. What I saw was Josh Allen, our IT Director, thinking about contemplating, and then making a move.

He was contextualizing our conversation, allowing us to see it from multiple perspectives. It is clear that he has cultivated this capacity over time, and it is intentional and filled with purpose.

When I sit across the room from Josh I know he is thinking. I know that he is going deep into the subject at hand pulling out the nugget of truth. In a conversation about whether or not to support particular tools, Josh does not advocate being everything to everyone. Rather, Josh and his team advocate for just the right choices. Creating the right amount of support and just the right balance between strategic and tactical planning. In the quiet wisdom of this space, we can have debate because we know it is balanced and deeply contemplated.

All of this, however, makes me wonder about just how much quiet and cautious attitudes are promoted or questioned in our learning institutions. Do we too often shut out the quiet voices, the voices that aren’t humming and buzzing constantly? Are we too obsessed with process or politics to allow for the wisdom of reflection to seep in? Do we judge those who don’t speak often, instead believing that sustained change can only come from those who speak each and every time a question is asked?

I hope not. I hope that we are cultivating the same respect for quiet collaboration and contemplation, as we have for those can speak their mind at a moments notice. I hope that we give it time and space for those who are interested in making an impact only when they truly see an opportunity, rather than at every touch point imaginable.

I hope that we are cultivating this in our students, not only allowing those who raise their hands to dictate what is learned in the classroom.

Participation and wisdom are not the same thing. Judgment and good judgment are not equal. I think if we look around and recognize the quiet wisdom around us, we will all be better for it.