5 Questions Every Parent and Teacher Must Be Able to Answer

While test-prep mania, quality reviews, and data driven assessments rule the roost in schools today,  what's most important is often overlooked.  If you're not able to answer these five questions for every child in your care at school or at home, than you need to re-focus on what is most important. 

1. What are your child's passions, talents, and interests? 
2. Is your child's talent/passion portfolio documented and used to drive learning?
3. Does your child have a personal success plan aligned to those passions with measurable goals?
4. How are you supporting your child in displaying evidence of learning in meaningful ways that will lead to academic, career and life success?
5. Is your child provided with opportunities to learn with those who share his passions and interests rather than just grouped with others by date of manufacture?

So, how many of these were you able to answer?  If it's not all five, what is your plan to refocus and place your child(ren) in the center of their learning?

Why I Agree That Our School System Results in Teachers Hurting Children

Most high school students find school boring and irrelevant

In her popular post, What Parents Really Want to Tell Teachers: What You Do Hurts Our Children, parenting expert Laurie A. Couture compiled a list of concerns for teachers to consider in the context of their own education. I shared her post here on The Innovative Educator blog and while it was met with some support, in many cases it was met with hostile criticism from teachers who felt attacked.

Couture’s post was in response to Ron Clark’s article What Teachers Really Want to Tell Parents. While she was criticized for using generalities, her post was directed toward those teachers who believe parents need to head Clark's advice. There were teachers who were upset that I would publish a piece like this on my blog. Unfortunately, some followers even unsubscribed. Despite this, I shared Laurie’s concerns for two reasons.

1. Laurie is connected with many parents whose children have been hurt by what teachers are compelled to do in our educational system. She does a good job representing why parents have issues with teachers such as these. Her son, who was one such child, does a good job as well. You can read his response to Ron Clark here.
2. I agree with Laurie’s concerns, her advice, as well as the observation she shares with John Taylor Gatto: Most teachers are working in a system that is forcing them to hurt children. I have worked in the public school system for many years and have found that every school has teachers and/or administrators that could benefit from her advice because much of what they are being told to do in the name of kids is detrimental.

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The 12 Most Important Things to Know About 21st Century Learners

The 12 Most blog is pretty cool.  It asks writers to contribute the 12 most of anything.  This could be a great authentic opportunity in a writing class.  Angela Maiers put together a post identifying the 12 Most Important Things to Know About Kids Today.  In her post it becomes clear that when it comes to “kids today” (Gen Y or The Millennials) those who label them as entitled, directionless, having twitter-sized attention spans— are the ones with the problems.  


Below are the five ideas that resonated most with me because these are ideas that are often left behind in classrooms driven by outdated data and instruction.  

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Nine Tenets of Passion-Based Learning

The Schoolwide Enrichment Model is Alive at The Island School

MindShift, a site that explores the future of learning, recently provided an overview of the passion-driven learning talk I gave with other esteemed panelists (Angela Maiers, Amy Sandvold, and George Couros) on the Future of Education. Steve Hargadon moderated the conversation during which we discussed “passion-based” learning. 

Mindshift pulled together nine key points we discussed during the talk along with some additional thoughts from John Seely Brown, co-author of A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change, and educator Jackie Gerstein.

Here are the nine tenants of passion-based learning
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Connecting School Life to Real Life

My 140 Character Conference talk on August 2nd focuses on connecting school life to real life.  In the talk I ask the question, "If school should be preparing young people for the world, why does the world behind school doors look so different from the world outside those doors?" I explain that if we want students to be successful in the real world, schools need to get better at connecting school life to real life and give students the freedom to learn.

Here is the presentation I used as I spoke.  It was created so others can download, copy/edit and share.  I invite others to take and share these ideas. 

Click on the picture and the presentation will open in a new window.

Here is the talk.


I was thrilled to be joined by some of the most influential members of my PLN on this day including Chris Lehmann, Tom Whitby, Steve Anderson, Christian Long, Adam Bellow, Shelley Krause, Dale J. Stephens and others!!!!
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If you are a 21st educator, this is one event you should attend.  There is a special rate of only $1.40 for educators.  Shhh...don't tell.  Regular folk have to pay like $140 bucks.  You can find the educator application here.  I hope you'll be able to attend.  If you have any presentation feedback, please share.