The post below is from Chris Lehmann's blog "Practical Theory: a View from the Classroom." Chris is the principal of Phildadelphia's Science Leadership Academy and believes problem-based and inquiry-driven learning can help students develop critical-thinking skills, be engaged, and experience deep learning.
Is Underhill School simply "good enough?" Can we be one of the transformative schools Chris talks about below? What would it take for that to happen? What would you, could you, contribute? Please comment!
"There are a lot of really good schools in the world - schools where kids learn from teachers who care about them, where kids get into good colleges and learn stuff and generally have a good experience with teachers who care about them. There's nothing wrong with those schools - they generally do right by kids, teachers like teaching in them, and generally teaching and learning in these spaces are enjoyable experiences.
But there's another level that schools can achieve. Schools can transform. They can eclipse content and skills and become about something more. They can be about realizing the best versions of ourselves...
...I knew I wasn't as good a person as the kids (students) thought I was, although I wanted to be. So I tried to be. And while I think I always fall short of the ideal, I think I'm a better person for the effort. The easiest place to explain how I felt about this was, not surprisingly, the basketball court. I was not a particularly good basketball player growing up. (I know, this comes as a shock to everyone.) And when I started coaching, I quickly realized that I had to learn like crazy to be worthy of a group of young women who showed up to practice every morning at 6:30 am. I had to be better. We could lose games because the other team was taller, faster, more talented. We could lose games because our shots just wouldn't fall. But I never wanted to lose a game because I wasn't good enough - I wasn't worthy of the trust those girls put in me. The same thing was (and is) true at SLA. I knew we'd be up against some pretty long odds to succeed, and I knew we might not make it, but I wasn't o.k. that the families and faculty that put their trust in our dream might be let down because I wasn't good enough.
Finally, there was the realization that not everyone had this experience in the classroom or in their school… that in so many places, kids were happy to just do what was asked of them, teachers were willing to keep recycling "good enough" lessons out every day, and administrators were happy to see classes that were functional, never asking if the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.
And so… here are some (by no means all) of my components of the transformative school:
- The school has goals beyond the accumulation of skills and content, looking to educate "the whole child" in real, profound ways. At SLA, this is what leads us to talk about "thoughtful, wise, passionate and kind."
- The whole must be greater than the sum of its parts. It's not just about "great teachers" and "great kids," but rather about an entire community that is better because it is together.
- And the very important corollary to that - each part is made better by the whole. (Or in other words, we are made better because we have been together.)
- Whatever values we want for the kids, we must want for ourselves - if we wish to transform the lives of kids, we have to be willing to be transformed ourselves. If we want kids to discover the best versions of themselves, we must be willing to do so ourselves.
- And when this happens, it should spread well beyond the walls of the school so that the community can share in the transformation.
- This doesn't happen by serendipity. There has to be systems and structures that allow everyone access to these ideas. At SLA, those are the core values, the essential questions, the individualized learning plans, the capstones, Advisory and so many other systems, structures and processes that we have put in place to make our school about much more than a discrete set of classes. As so many kids have said at the end of their tenure at SLA, "You did more than teach us a way to learn, you taught us a way to live."
- Know that you -- the school and all the members in it - are always a work in progress, and the knowledge of how much growth is left in front of you should be a profoundly humbling experience each and every day.
- Know that good ideas evolve over time… transformative schools are evolutionary in nature. Schools that are healthy for all members rarely go through hard 180 shifts in directions. They change over time, often slowly, but always in ways that should make sense given the mission of the school.
- Never settle. Never think you are done. Never be o.k. with just being a "good school." Never stop learning, growing and attempting to be that best version of what you -- and the school -- can be. And never underestimate how hard this is.
I don't know that SLA is a transformative school - I like to think that on our best days we are. We certainly aspire to be. No matter what, it is a worthy effort."
