Loss, and growth

Since mid-November, I have been writing every day for hours — it's the most disciplined I've ever been with writing — with anything,  actually — in my entire life. I have been writing and sending out a newsletter about daily actions anyone can do to strengthen democracy, a free press, a healthy environment, and people's civil rights and liberties.

It has not seemed relevant to this blog so I haven't been posting in this blog. I don't think I want it in this blog. But it leaves this blog neglected.

This blog has morphed over time as well; it started out being largely about my search for a more responsive education system that supports and respects teachers and students. When I observed the wedges being driven between various education stakeholders in Chicago and across the country by the privatization movement, I created an education idea-exchange, H.e.a.r. Chicago Talk, and this blog became a companion for that. As my freelance and my personal work changed, my interest in nature-based formal education changed to a love and fascination with local greenspace more generally.

I have considered letting the blog morph again into an instrument of civic participation and activism. I don't think that's the right fit for this blog. You can receive my daily five-minute actions by going to tinyletter.com/fiveminutes (click on the red link to see an archive, and yikes please excuse the massive typo in the first sentence of today's letter). You can also find me occasionally guest blogging about activism on elainesir.com, a lively space for unique interviews with fascinating people and examinations of work, life, family, and society.

This blog may morph again; actually, it might be bound to. I think I need to embrace my tendency to wholeheartedly explore many things — all kinds of things, interlocking things and very different things, things that do not meld into one cohesive Big Picture — as a feature rather than a bug.

I have been thinking about this tendency, and this blog, and my work, and my interests, and my way of going through the world, and I do perceive a thread. What I want to do in all these things is facilitate equitable access to things that make life free and worth living — access to nature for all people, access to a good and respectful education, access to the resources needed to do one's job right, access to civil rights and liberties.

In my consulting work, I do an array of things — line editing, curriculum development, content architecture, nonprofit program development. I have been advised to narrow my focus or it'll never all work. But I have accepted, I think, that I can't; or rather, that narrowing my focus means doing a wide array of consulting with one thread in common: helping people and organizations with a mission to better help their clients access their content.

Meanwhile, while Resistence is Necessary and Not Futile, I sorely miss my forays into the urban wilds. I hope to continue to explore nature in and around Chicago and elsewhere, and I hope to explore this thread of access more; and I hope my newfound writing discipline will actually benefit, not continue to silence, this blog!

Thanks for your support while I sort out these new priorities for this new era.

Children and Nature Network 2016 conference debrief

I've just returned from the Children & Nature Network International Conference and it was just love all around. It is always validating and inspiring to be among people who share your values and ideals--particularly when those people love children and animals. I feel energized and focused personally and professionally. I think the main takeaway is The Future is Here. To whit:

1) Buildings don't have to keep doing things the same way. Conventions don't have to keep doing things the same way.

The location of the event was the St. Paul RiverCentre, a model of sustainable practices. Think about the last time you went to a major convention or conference. Did you notice all the horrible waste? I always do. Paper programs, plastic bottles, cups, and utensils, no recycling, over-air conditioned rooms, lights on everywhere. The RiverCentre uses windsourced energy and green cleaning products. They have recycling and composting receptacles everywhere. Their "plastic" cups and cutlery are compostable! They capture and use natural light. They are LEED, Green Globe, and APEX/ASTM certified. Of course, all this saves them an immense amount of money, now that it's in place, in energy savings, trash hauling, and other factors. Buildings don't have to keep doing things the same way. Conventions don't have to keep doing things the same way.



2) Mayors must be responsive innovators. People who elect mayors must expect responsive innovation.

St. Paul's mayor, Chris Coleman, is no-b.s. serious about doing things in a reasonable way that makes sense with today's world. "Good things happen when you put children at the center of policy," he said in the opening plenary--and by all accounts, it looks like he means it. He outlined seven additional principles, starting with "Cities are leaders and innovators." Chicago, I'm afraid, seems to do its best in many matters NOT to innovate.

Other Coleman principles include: All city departments play an important role; public input is important; partners are crucial to sustaining impact; all the levels of government need to be involved; equity, sustainability, and greenspace have a role in design; and you need vibrant spaces and places for people of all ages. How many of these does Chicago's leadership do? More importantly, perhaps: How many of these do we Chicagoans expect of our leadership?

3) The environmental movement might finally be getting smart about authentic transformation that puts forward a diversity of young environmentalists as leaders and partners, not as "inclusion goals."

CN&N's Natural Leaders is a diverse group of young, talented, charismatic, and dedicated conservation leaders. They featured prominently in the event on a number of levels, and the difference in the level of conversation about youth and diversity, about the movement's present and future, was clear in comparison with other conferences I've been to. Not that there's not more work to do, a lot more work. But I feel like CN&N has made some smart moves in this realm. The tired, somewhat colonialist talk of "inclusion" is being retired to make way for notions of partnership, connecting, and capacity building.

4) The future is not top down, nor bottom up--it's a living, changing network.

CN&N focused a lot on networks -- not just "networking," but on the power of network weaving for collaboration, support, resource mining and sharing, and planning among organizations. In our resource-poor field (current America doesn't care a ton about children or nature) in our super-connected world, learning and leveraging these tools will be very powerful.

I've brought home with me a ton of ideas from the conference. I can't wait to get started.

A couple things to think about from _Catalyst Chicago_

Catalyst Chicago had some food for thought recently--as it often does. 

Waukegan teachers and district are at an impasse in regards to pay and benefits, and have been for almost a month. (Update: They have reached an agreement and the hope is that school will start on Monday.)

Teachers need better pay and resources and to be treated like adults; legislators' policies and local/state funding priorities persist in not acknowledging this. It's maddening that we have not adjusted as a culture to a healthier education ecosystem.

However, kids have been out of school almost a month. The strike has been a big strain on libraries and other already strapped community resources, and on working parents. And think about the consequences for students, not only for learning, but in many cases for nutrition and safety.

Catalyst quoted an area principal that pretty much sums up not only the current consequences of the strike but the whole tragic frustrating mess of a dysfunctional education-policy/funding system. “It doesn’t matter whose side you’re on, it’s really obvious who’s getting hurt.” 

The other story that caught my eye goes in the Who Could Have Expected Anything Different file. Catalyst reports that enrollment in teacher-prep programs has declined. Poor working conditions, policies based on mistrust and micromanagement, unearned blame, low pay, little support, never-ending conflict...well, of course many young people don't wish to enter the profession. 

And also this: one person opted out of teaching because, while still in his teacher-prep program, he felt (quoting Catalyst here) “in the middle of an ideological war that surfaced in everything from state-level education policy on down to his course textbook, which had a distinct anti-standardized-testing bent.”

This really hit me, because...ugh. Because war, even ideological war, claims many unintended innocents.

Let's hope we emerge from this time of ideological conflict with a better, stronger, set of solutions for K-12 education.

Illinois Raise Your Hand and Park the PARCC

Well, since my last blog post, we've had two family weddings--one of them being mine. It wasn't a big to-do or anything, so I thought I could just sort of carry on with everything else in life, but guess what? One actually gets pretty immersed in such things. Everything is settled down, now. Please pardon the absence.

Now then: I recently(ish) had the pleasure of speaking with Wendy Katten of Illinois Raise Your Hand. This organization, headed by Wendy and run by a host of amazing and dedicated parents, does an incredible job of bringing substantial, high-quality, well-researched, real information to parents and the public about issues in education.

That was a lot of gushing, there. But they deserve it. The group is amazing.

IL Raise Your Hand is currently working to delay the new state test, PARCC. There are many reasons to delay this test, including your most basic cart-before-the-horse problem: Illinois and other states have not completed the implementation of the standards the PARCC is correlated to, so, even if the test itself were ready (it's not) it could not possibly capture a valid and reliable picture of students' progress.

If you've been following my blog you know that I think the violent rejection of the Common Core State Standards is largely a misdirected result of immense frustration and grief related to longstanding unresolved inequities in education. I don't hate all things Common Core. But I do hate illogical, meaningless, unnecessary high-stakes testing that could not possibly result in useful information. All this testing can make a person very nervous--and I'm not even the one being tested. I support the movement to park the PARCC. Here is Raise Your Hand's position paper and a petition to sign.

http://ilraiseyourhand.org/content/park-parcchttp://petitions.moveon.org/sign/isbe-acquire-a-waiver-1

Pass it on.

H.e.a.r. Chicago Talk, Summer 2014

H.e.a.r. Chicago Talk is tomorrow, Wednesday, August 6. Speakers include an artists who co-created a traveling edu-installation to see what would happen, an expert on the true meaning (and possible use) of data in schools, and a co-creator of a local Chicago-based podcast all about education.

What an interesting group! We're convening at Black Rock on Damen just north of Addison. Presentations start promptly at 7pm. There will be eats n drinks.

http://www.hearchicagotalk.org!

I Have a Dream that people everywhere will be able to read "I Have A Dream"

The "I Have a Dream" speech is under copyright. Even on TheKingCenter.org, they have an image of the pages of a book with the speech, but it is displayed such that it is exceedingly difficult to read. I totally understand they have a RIGHT to enforce copyright...but whether the copyright holders like it or not King's most famous speech has become a part of our nation's shared legacy, and I just wrote them to beg that they not enforce that right.

We have free access up until 1923 to the words of people who had a voice...but those who had a voice were a select group. As the 20th century wore on, more women, immigrants, and minorities were able to speak--but we don't hear them nearly as easily. I feel if our copyright laws didn't stop public sharing of our history at 1923, we would be a far, far more progressive and knowledgeable country. 

The prompt on the site was "I have a dream that..." Here's what I wrote:

I have a dream that you will make the text of "I Have a Dream" freely available online, so kids and adults around the nation and the world have an opportunity to learn from this speech. It has incredible, terrific power to teach--about human nature; about the power of focus and determination as well as hope and trust; about the most conflicted, vexing theme of our nation's history and present. And--as an educator of English and literature I must add--it is also an incredible text for studying rhetoric, persuasive techniques, poetic language, word choice, and features of the spoken word versus the written.

I respect that you have the right to enforce copyright. But I beg that you gift the world the privilege of free access to this incredibly important document. We currently have free access to the words of many tellers of the American story, such as Patrick Henry, Lincoln (and indeed all of our presidents), and Mark Twain. But the affect of copyright laws has been that the tellers of our history are restricted to privileged white men. Undeniably, those men have a vital story to tell--but it's not the only story, and the copyright laws have unwittingly perpetuated their antiquated prerogative.

We can't ask all post-1928 world-changing texts to be made freely available (though I think that would be very helpful for reviving and nurturing a civic mind and a sense of compassion and understanding in our country)--but MLK's speech--that is really an exceptional, special piece. Please, reconsider your enforcement of copyright.

(Update: The 1928 was an error. It's 1923.)

Climate Adaptation for Urban Nature...and Conceptual Adaptation for Urban Residents

I've been to several excellent nature-and-education-y gatherings this spring. (I generally tweet such experiences in a significantly more timely manner than my blogging about them, so Twitter is a good way to get the gist of a lot of thought-provoking happenings).

It's been months now but my first break-out session at the April 3 Chicago Wilderness 2014 Congress, "Climate Adaptation for Urban Nature," has continued to blow my mind. The session was conducted by scientists from the Field Museum, Morton Arboretum, and Northwestern University, who outlined Chicago's plan for climate-caused changes that they see startiiiinnng...now!

The first aspect of the session that surprised me was the realization that a concrete, specific plan is even in place. While on the public wavelengths we are stuck in this ever-circling eddy arguing climate-change legitimacy, among those who can actually do something about it, at more local levels, stuff is actually getting done. For example, the session leaders told us, there are pilots already in place testing replacing trees at the edge of our ecological zone as they age out and die with trees that will be hardier to the new climate.

It was a tremendous relief to me to know that just because we only hear useless demogoguery doesn't mean necessary planning isn't happening. It's just a shame intelligent policy and implementation has to be conducted by stealth.

But this realization also was tremendously disconcerting. Replace our beloved Chicago trees with, like, pecan trees?? But what about the tree-ful signs of spring and summer and fall and winter? What about our familiar leaf shapes and smells? What will our parks look like? That's crazy! Crazy I tell you!

It sounds so obvious now. Of course, climate change brings ecological change, and far better to prepare for and facilitate the change, since there is no repelling it. But even for someone who thinks about climate change a lot (I do my best worrying in the early morning), it was, for a reason I don't understand, shocking to think about this element.

I was left with logistical questions. What about the critters that rely on these trees? You can't just go and and and replace the contents of an entire niche. What about all the other elements of that ecosystem--the plants that require the shade of those trees, the birds that eat the insects that live on our current trees, and so on? I'm pretty sure these scientists have thought about all that and only touched on this plan in the one-hour session, but their outline left me doing a Looney Tunes level double-take.

And I am still chewing on a question that straddles logistics and, I don't know, maybe philosophy. Given that everything is going to change and there is no stopping it, what is the point of conservation and restoration? What are we conserving? Plants and animals and systems that are going to disappear from our area anyway? Why are we restoring to a time that will never return?

Given the well of emptiness and loss this question leaves in me, I'm going to go with this question  neither logistical nor philosophical, but spiritual, at least for me.

I'd been mulling over this sad question since the Congress, but one of the speakers at the Center for Humans and Nature's May 4 Ethics and Nature symposium actually answered it, in part, in her talk. Conservation plant scientist Pati Vitt pointed out that a healthy and whole ecosystem is better able to adjust to climate change than a degraded one (think about how much less damaging the droughts and winds of the Dustbowl would have been if we had cultivated the land more thoughtfully).

Okay--that sounds right, and useful. But that doesn't sound like the whole answer to me. Maybe it's also that the notion of climate change makes all of us, even those of us who accept its reality, want to continue with our comfortable and comforting ways. I hope that's not it. I hope--I think--I don't know the answer yet. I do know that it seems increasingly important to keep conserving, keep restoring, and still keep planning.

Given the subject of this post, I thought this photo I took at last week's Nature Play workshop put on by Chicago Wilderness was a propos. Hah.

The Common Core crucible

Can we talk for a second about that kindergarten show that was canceled so kids could cover the academic imperatives outlined in the Common Core? Here's the letter to parents:*

There's a lot of angry scoffing going on in my Twitterverse about this. It's held up as Exhibit A of the  Common Core's hatefulness.

This letter does not show us that the Common Core is bad or inappropriate. It shows us that the school principal's judgment is awful. Yes, a main principle of the Common Core is to prepare high-school graduates for college and career. Yes, there must be a continuum of learning from K to 12. But obviously best practices for teaching kindergarten include providing a developmentally appropriate curriculum. Having kindergarteners do a show for their parents is developmentally appropriate. Having them "study" for academic readiness is not developmentally appropriate.

The Common Core does not ask that educators make kindergarteners study. The Common Core asks that educators provide environments for kindergarteners to play, draw, ask questions, listen, experience art, and relate to others.

The Common Core is a core. A starting point. It leaves ample room for teacher expertise--its point is to leave ample room for teacher expertise. The roll-out was handled badly.

The assessment component has been handled naively. They should have recognized that standards that ask for deep, authentic, critical thinking cannot easily be captured in a standardized test.

Implementation and training has been handled bad, bad, badly. This should be local, in my opinion--but god knows schools, districts, states needed the time, space, and money to come up with something intelligent and helpful, and none of those things were forthcoming. MONEY is needed. TIME is needed. TRUST is needed. SPACE is needed. Legislators and educational-services providers need to understand this and step back. Like everything else in our country's operations, we have forgotten all about Process and gotten distracted by the shiny parts of Product. Then we don't understand why complicated things break down.

The Common Core is not evil or stupid. It seeks to emphasize critical and deep thinking.  It prioritizes children. It prioritizes teachers' expertise. Except for some insanely difficult exemplars at the lower grade levels (where'd they come up with those?), it is reasonable. It's not perfect. But it's a framework, not a prescription.

Here's an idea: Screw the tests. Have kids take the PISA and let all the rest of the standardized tests go; instead spend the next two years developing an intelligent, respectful, and fully funded roll-out of the Common Core. Don't have politicians do it. Don't let educational publishers get involved. Find master teachers and curriculum directors and pay them to take the time to do this. Make the Common Core implementable.

Then, after that, like five years from now, or ten years, THEN come up with tests, if we must. But I bet by then we'll find they're unnecessary, a dangerous and useless appendage left over from NCLB, like an infected appendix.

Educators know what's good for kids. AND the Common Core is not evil, but rather a lightning rod for the helplessness that both educators and parents feel right now, for different reasons. AND the people who run that kindergarten made some weird and terrible decisions. All these things are true. Can we stop yelling now?



*Courtesy of Washington Post; at least, I hope so.

1) A Finnish guy, an American hero; and 2) H.e.a.r Chi Talk

Many thanks to those of you have rsvp'd for H.e.a.r. Chicago Talk. I'm getting very excited about this one. I just heard Pasi Sahlberg speak yesterday, thanks to Raise Your Hand Illinois, and, while listening to how Finland employed mature vision, humble intelligence, and faith in its people to strengthen their society is rather deflating because, well, frankly, this sort of behavior is not in the cultural DNA of the U.S, a place with a history of addressing complexities through stridency and slogans--it is also inspiring, or galvanizing, because it helps give shape to problems and solutions.*

Sahlberg mentioned that all of Finland's great edu-ideas--the ones on the right-hand side of slide 14 here, came from the U.S. Say wha? Really?? Which?! Where?! When?! I gathered by the end of the presentation that what (I think) he meant was there are innovative and engaging and pedagogically appropriate and child-developmentally-appropriate and teacher-respectful practices happening at individual schools, and that Finland's really done its research over the past forty years--but there is no mechanism to catalog, disseminate, propagate, and scale these individual and locally occurring ideas.

So. Here's where I get back to H.e.a.r. Chicago Talk. Sharing and amplifying these localized ideas is the exact point of this idea exchange. That's why I started it. That and the need for a counter to the yelling and anger and conflict that's been happening in Chicago and nationally in edu-fields. H.e.a.r. Chicago Talk is meant to be a place where great ideas can be shared and those who reach and teach can feel inspired and re-charged.

There is so much to learn from Finland's experiences. Let's start by sharing and learning from our own great ideas.

Islandwood: A couple corrections

An IslandWood educator, Maddi Sullivan, offered a few corrections to some inaccuracies in my blog post about IslandWood. I'm writing them here and also updating the original post:

1. The Mill Pond is technically down at the harbor, rather than where the Floating Classroom floats.  Its sectioned off from the rest of the harbor and is how the big logs were transported from ships etc into the mill. During the waning tide the logs would get dumped and they'd enter the mill pond and the gate would be shut to keep them from exiting as the tide rose. The pond with the Floating Classroom was created during the time of the great mills but it was simply a small stream that was dammed for drinking water etc in the dry months. There would have been no way to get the logs from that pond up at higher elevation and a couple miles away, down to the mill via water.

2. We don't have rain boots for kids to borrow, but just about everything else: rain jackets and pants, warm fleece jackets, hats, gloves etc.

3. "in the dining hall, where kids serve themselves buffet style"---the kids actually eat family style, not buffet. So one kid brings platters of food to each table and everyone serves themselves from them.

Thanks, Maddi! I really appreciate the note.

Outdoor learning in Seattle: IslandWood's School Overnight Program

[UPDATE 4/16/13] An Islandwood educator, Maddi Sullivan, offered a few corrections to some inaccuracies in this post. I'll note them as updates below. Thanks, Maddi!

I had the opportunity to go to Seattle a few weeks ago, and while there I grabbed the chance to visit four exciting elementary-school programs that get kids doing science outside. Three of these are sibling non-profits and the fourth is based in a Seattle public K–8 school. This post is dedicated entirely to IslandWood's flagship School Overnight Program for fourth- through sixth-graders. I'll address the other programs in subsequent posts.

IslandWood is a 255-acre outdoor learning center located on Bainbridge Island, a half-hour ferry ride from Seattle. The site is old logging land formerly owned by Port Blakely Tree Farms; the ground near the mill is still springy from mounds of sawdust beneath the dirt, and on the mill pond where men used to float logs for transport, a floating classroom now carries kids collecting water samples.

[UPDATE] The Mill Pond is technically down at the harbor, rather than where the Floating Classroom floats.  Its sectioned off from the rest of the harbor and is how the big logs were transported from ships etc into the mill. During the waning tide the logs would get dumped and they'd enter the mill pond and the gate would be shut to keep them from exiting as the tide rose. The pond with the Floating Classroom was created during the time of the great mills but it was simply a small stream that was dammed for drinking water etc in the dry months. There would have been no way to get the logs from that pond up at higher elevation and a couple miles away, down to the mill via water.

The center is the compassionate, careful, and thoroughly researched implementation of its founder’s vision. Seattle-area resident Debbi Brainerd bought the land with her husband Paul in 1998 for the express purpose of creating a "magical place" where Puget Sound area children could learn about the region's natural and cultural history.

Forest...one of IslandWood's five distinct ecosystems

The mill pond, another ecosystem

The cattail marsh, a third ecosystem and the location of a bird blind.

Today, about 4000 students from over 70 Puget Sound schools, including about 50% of Seattle's public school students, participate in IslandWood's four-day School Overnight Program annually. Rain or shine, fourth- through sixth-graders are outdoors for most of their waking hours, using the plants, water, wind, and sun to do academic work that other kids are using textbooks for.



The center was developed by the design firm Mithun, known for environmentally sustainable architecture, and is gold LEED certified.

Buildings are located and positioned for minimal impact on ecosystems and watersheds. Windows are placed and angled to capture sunlight in the winter and maintain shade in the summer; dirty water is filtered through shale-and-plant cycles with the goal of reuse; rainwater is collected in cisterns and organic waste is composted. Buildings have solar panels, skylights, and sound panels to capitalize on natural energy and physics.

Countertops are made of recycled yogurt containers (you can still see the foil) and bathroom stalls of plastic milk bottles. Panels, floors, beams, and doors are constructed from reclaimed or sustainable wood and building insulation from old newspaper. Artwork and ornamentation are made by local artists from locally sourced and/ or recycled material.

Yogurt-container countertop in a classroom

A Muir quote etched in a Mobius circling an old milled beam

Student-made sidewalk mosaics

Glass-bottle bathroom tiles

Each of these elements is made explicit to kids as they come into contact with them. Everything at IslandWood, in fact, is optimized for teaching moments. And everything is kid friendly. The place was made for kids--not (only) for adults who want kids to pay attention and learn things. Hundreds of chlidren were consulted for the center's creation.

 That is why at each bunk there is both a forest-facing window and a little nightlight.

That is why the benches of the "Friendship Circle," the outdoor amphitheater, subtly demarcate individual seats (children of a certain age need their space, even in friendship circles).

It goes without saying that kids requested a treehouse.

People, there's a treehouse!!






It is constructed by the local Seattle outfit Treehouse Workshop with meticulous attention to the health of the tree.


Every student gets a science journal for sketches and notes--some prompted, some open--about plants, animals, water, air, and earth.  Kids climb a canopy tower to compare tree features, weather, and humidity at the different heights.



They do scientific investigations of water quality and soil type; they study ecosystems, animal tracks and scat, and orienteering. They observe plants and animals from a bird blind in the marsh, a boat on the pond, and a suspension bridge over a ravine, among other places.

Bird blind

Suspension bridge

There's a place to check out boots and coats, so no one needs to worry about staying warm and dry.  [UPDATE] Actually, IslandWood doesn't have rain boots for kids to borrow, but just about everything else: rain jackets and pants, warm fleece jackets, hats, gloves etc.

There's a garden and a beehive; kids learn to make a snack from fresh-picked food from the garden.

Classrooms are multi-level, because children love going into their own corners, and because the architects wanted to break up the literal and metaphorical flatness of the classroom. The multi-level design also aids in the functioning of barrel-and-tube models of watersheds, as gravity is an important component.

Education at IslandWood is predicated on gentle experienced insights into the interconnectedness of resources and actions. This is as effective a social principle as a scientific and ecological one: in the dining hall, where kids serve themselves buffet style, there's a leftover-food weigh-in station.
[UPDATE] The kids actually eat family style, not buffet. So one kid brings platters of food to each table and everyone serves themselves from them.

At the end of the meal, students weigh what's left on their plates and compete by table for the least amount of food wasted; numbers are significantly lower by the end of the week. (I would love to see this used for math-lesson teaching moments as well as a resource- and waste-awareness ones.)

IslandWood curriculum is mostly science, but integrates other important areas of learning as well--specifically those areas that teachers report get lost in the standards and accountability churn. Artists-in-residence provide curriculum in the arts, while mill structures and a cemetery are fodder for social studies.

These subjects are combined in the lessons of instructors from the area's Native American communities, who work with students on songs, crafts, and other traditions.

 (All photos taken by H. Lukic or me, but this video is from IslandWood's YouTube channel.)

IslandWood encompasses so many elements of my dream school. Just getting out into green spaces is important for physical and emotional health, but that's only the beginning. Students on the School Overnight Program get to experience nature to an extent and in a manner that will likely engender stewardship of natural resources. There is sustained interaction--four days at the center, with two thirds of the day spent outdoors. And--so important and fulfilling in my mind--kids also learn important academic skills and concepts through experience and exploration, guided by mentors and coaches. Children who aren't focused or interested in classrooms often respond strongly and positively to experiential learning, especially outdoors.

The chimney in this lodge conveys the region's geologic history

Art, science, and learning are everywhere

In my dream world, IslandWood is a year-round school.

A slightly (...slightly) less wildly unrealistic dream is of a school system that allows for full, authentic integration of IslandWood-like programs. Imagine a school set-up that facilitates as part of its regular everyday curriculum repeated visits to a wilderness area, for example throughout different seasons, or at various times of day. Imagine lessons in math, writing, literature, and P.E. that take place outdoors or respond to outdoor experiences. Imagine curriculum standards, societal expectations, and budgets allowing for thorough in-class followups to wilderness experiences (IslandWood staff are available to visit classrooms after their IslandWood stays, but it is left to individual teachers to make time in their overpacked schedules for this visit--or to connect the residency to class studies in any other way).

Not everywhere has the natural beauty that the Puget Sound area has, but there is nature everywhere, even in cities. Cultivating health, activity, and environmental awareness and stewardship, as well as opportunities for experiential learning, is important--and possible--everywhere. For example, in my beloved Chicago.

The Chicago River at Wilson Bridge

Beautiful Lake Michigan

North Pond in Lincoln Park

IslandWood was born of the significant wealth of a caring and visionary private citizen and is sustained through grants, donations, and conference and event rentals. The very existence of this amazing place, and the dream of propagating such a model, begs deflating questions about money and public and political will. I'll address those questions in the final post in this Seattle series.

Pecha Kucha Chicago, March 2013

Some thoughts about Pecha Kucha (not pronounced as you'd think...it's p'chAH k'CHAH), a quarterly creative idea-sharing night here in Chicago and in cities around the world. I'm writing about it here because it is a forum for sharing information in a story-like form in a social setting--something to think about for when I finally manage to pull together H.E.A.R. Chicago, my edu-ideas forum.

Pecha Kucha takes place at Martyr's, one of my favorite bars and entertainment venues. The dynamic transparency of the digital age has so fuzzied the walls between our work and personal lives, for better or for worse, that it seems entirely natural learn about local strangers' professional passions in a bar. (I would add here that separating personal and our professional lives is actually pretty new, isn't it? We weren't able to do that until we had enormous urban centers and a cultural stance shaped by the priorities and patterns of industrialization.)

The hosts for the evening were Chicago Pecha Kucha organizers Peter Exley (pictured left) and Thorsten Bösch. I'll let the Pecha Kucha website's FAQs explain further:

PechaKucha 20x20 is a simple presentation format where you show 20 images, each for 20 seconds. The images advance automatically and you talk along to the images...

and

The presentation format was devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham architecture. The first PechaKucha Night was held in Tokyo in their gallery/lounge/bar/club/creative kitchen, SuperDeluxe, in February, 2003. Klein Dytham architecture still organize and support the global PechaKucha Night network and organize PechaKucha Night Tokyo

While it was originally a way for architects and designers to concisely convey what they are thinking about, anyone can present now, on subjects personal or professional:

PechaKucha Nights are informal and fun gatherings where creative people get together and share their ideas, works, thoughts, holiday snaps -- just about anything, really -- in the PechaKucha 20x20 format.

I tweeted during the presentation using the hashtag #pechakucha, though these tweets are long buried by now, I'm sure. Here's a link to the lineup from the evening, and here's a three-point summary:

• Topics varied widely, from a pair of performance artists' snaps documenting installations to a neuroscience professor's history of frontal lobotomies. 

• Presenters' purpose also varied widely; a few geeks geeking out about their objet d'geekery, a few non-profit organizers hoping to raise their profile, and a few of those intensely charismatic folks who are dearly entertaining to listen for six minutes and forty seconds but whom you're glad you can go away from afterward.

• The presentations were all quite interesting and well-paced (or at least, enough so to listen to for six minutes and forty seconds--I think that's part of the beauty of the format), though some were better than others, naturally.

Would I go again? Sure. Am I thinking about pitching a presentation? Absolutely. :-)

*And I mean "geeks" in the best sense: folks really really into and knowledgeable about a subject; wonks.

Finland, Korea, and then fourteen other countries, and then us

Everyone should listen to this excellent program from NPR's On Point. Finland and South Korea are first and second in the world in education as determined by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which measures fifteen-year-olds on math, science, and reading. The U.S. is seventeenth. On Point's Tom Ashbrook speaks with Finland's  Pasi Sahlberg, South Korea's Okhwa Lee, and the U.S.'s Marc Tucker about these results.

Finnish and South Korean schools almost couldn't be more different. Finnish schools are relaxed and friendly, with decentralized pedagogy, relatively short school days, and little testing; South Korean schools are intensely competitive even for young children, with long school days followed by after-school tutoring and a strong emphasis on high-stakes testing. While South Korea has admitted to significant challenges in its schooling despite its high ranking, mostly related to the amount of academic pressure the children feel, Finland's school system has been a positive example in the edunews lately. Finland and South Korea share some key features in their education system that the U.S. lacks.

• Teachers are highly respected and highly sought after, the way people medical and legal professions are. We don't do this in the U.S, the guests point out.

• As with other high-status professionals, teachers are highly educated through a rigorous standardized training program. We don't do this in the U.S, the guests point out.

• Teachers are afforded working conditions and pay commensurate with the importance and prestige of their job. They have professional autonomy, time to work with colleagues, and opportunities to continue their own professional development. You know, the way people medical and legal professions are. We don't do this in the U.S. On the contrary.

• Funding follows need--schools that have greater need get more money, because they need more money. Quality resources and  facilities are equally distributed, not clustered in better-off areas. We don't do this in the U.S. We do the opposite.

• There is a strong focus on primary education. We don't do this in the U.S.

• Families place very strong value on education. The guests didn't comment on the U.S.'s behavior here, but I will: we claim we do,  but in reality as a society we do not respect educators, we do not feel that other children necessarily deserve the same education as our own, and we hold intellectual achievement, at least as reflected in our public discourse, highly suspect.

So, in short, the two most effective education systems in the world value fair funding, careful attention to the early years, and respect for educators, and we do none of these things.

Generally the immediate rejoinder one hears to praise for Finland's virtues is that we're not Finland, in terms of our demographics, economics, or much else. But Korea and Finland are different in these ways, as well, and extremely distinct culturally, and yet they share these virtues in their education system--of course they manifest them in different forms, just as we would. We can't simply overlay deep cultural dna such as education and child-rearing from one society onto ours, but we can take some key points and make them our own, can't we? We think we can't learn from anyone except ourselves?

Thoughts on the Leave No Child Inside Conference

[Update 6/17: the title of this post has been corrected]

Finally! Some time to write about the Chicago Wilderness Leave No Child Inside conference at Triton College a couple Saturdays ago (you can see my tweets from the sessions here). While its focus was more on the importance of getting kids outside as opposed to  full-on nature education, I learned abut a few interesting programs teachers can incorporate into their lessons, particularly their science lessons:

Budburst is a program sponsored by the National Science Foundation where anyone--children or adults, groups or individuals--can contribute to scientists' understanding of plant cycles and seasonal changes by observing trees or plants anywhere at all--in a forest preserve,  a city square, or back yard. These "citizen scientists" fill out a very simple form to collect data points. There's a website and a mobile app for ease of collection; folks can do it just once or regularly, for one plant or many. Data points submitted by people all over the country are freely available for anyone to see. There are plenty of resources for teachers on the site. The Chicago Botanic Garden, project Budburst's local partner, has additional resources.

The Alliance for the Great Lakes sponsors beach clean-ups, which not only remove garbage from shorelines and water, but--as important if not more so for the Alliance--provide an opportunity to gather data. Adopt-a-Beach volunteers are encouraged to log the garbage they pick up as well the wind, temperature, and other conditions. Scientists can use this data to understand better how conditions affect the spread of garbage and therefore how to target initiatives for healthier beaches and waters. As wth Budburst, anyone can go to the Alliance website and look at the results of thousands of people's observations.

The Forest Preserve District of Dupage County has an ambitious Citizen Science program in the works. Kids and adults can track animal and plant sitings in Dupage County and submit their reports to the Observe Your Preserve website. A searchable database will be created from these data points combined with basic information about the creatures and plants--it looks like a beta version, at least, is already up.

In all three cases a teacher could coordinate a many-faceted science lesson around observation, data collection, and data comparisons and analysis, as well as anatomy of flora or fauna or weather patterns. There are other resources for teachers on these sites, too, for things to do both inside and (especially) outside the classroom.

The other session that I'm still thinking about was on encouraging ethnic and cultural diversity in the get-kids-outdoors movement. The presentation, about a successful collaboration between the Field Museum and the Bronzeville Historical Society, was fine, but I found the discussion afterward pretty deflating. The presenters asked us what we've done or could do to bring greater diversity to the outdoorsy-kid projects we were engaged in. While, after some initial perplexed silence, participants talked about the importance of building relationships with leaders in the target communities and taking measures to ensure said leaders have a key role in the planning and outreach, few in the almost entirely white audience seemed to have implemented those ideas, at least with any sort of strength or confidence or consistency or success--though, granted, that would be why they were at the session--but nor did I get the feeling the session left anyone feeling more equipped to address the issue in their programs. The discussion just seemed sort of hollow to me. I can certainly sympathize--this sort of reaching out across cultural realms is difficult and fraught with potential gaffes, especially in an ethnic archipelago like Chicago, even more especially from the confines of a distressingly white milieu such as the environmental movement. How to authentically change the demographics of a movement or habit or behavior? It's an important question, and it's certainly not an easy one. Well, here's a pretty thoughtful article on the subject...but the trick is implementation, right?--consistent, authentic, knowledgable, and widespread implementation.

Next month I plan to visit a few nature schools and/ or experiential schools. I'm really interested in where they get their curriculum from, and in how they answer the diversity question.

Saturday: Leave No Child Indoors Conference 2013

This Saturday I am attending the Leave No Child Indoors conference put on by Chicago Wilderness. I am excited! This past week I spoke with folks involved with the Children and Nature Forum in San Francisco and Islandwood in Seattle, and have read about similar programs elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest, but have barely begun to explore the nature-based education available here in my own region.

UPDATE: Assuming there is a signal in the conference area, I will be tweeting sessions using the hashtag #ncli. Follow me @Hear_K12 and the conference's feed @lnci.

2013 Predictions?

It will be interesting to review this list of predictions for 2013, put together by past NEA president John Wilson, and see where they've gone. It reads more like a wishlist than a set of predictions to me, but I am congenitally incapable of donning rose-colored glasses, so maybe I'm just not seeing it right.

EdWeek's Rick Hess makes 2013 predictions, too, infused with tongue-in-cheek hyperbole (which strikes me as an excellent way to hedge against coming out too terribly wrong 365 days from now--clever!). His overlap some with Wilson's but strike me as more realistic, less utopian, and more nuts-and-bolts.

Hack Education's Audrey Watters opted out of making ed tech predictions this year, citing her incorrect predictions last year--and sounding as super articulate and insightful about her own self-doubt as she does about any other subject she covers. Do you read her blog? It's smart.

2013 ed predictions: What are some of yours?

Uncommon Denominators

Bobby Jindal is on the warpath in the wake of his school choice legislation being struck down by a Louisiana court as unconstitutional. I'm not writing this blog, actually, to talk about this particular legislation, about which I see nothing good and which it seems to me had better be struck down by the Louisiana and Supreme Courts as well, as it baldly seeks to divert public moneys to private entities. I'm writing it to talk about the weird obsession with school choice in regards to education reform.

There are lots of things politicians, policy-makers, and school leaders might mean when they talk about "school choice," or parents' access to free/ low-cost schooling options other than their neighborhood school. They might be talking about vouchers for private schools, as in the recently struck-down Louisiana legislation. But there are also various kinds of public schools, such as charter schools, magnet schools, online schools, and home-schooling options.

There are differing, and strong, opinions about the effectiveness and merit of some of these public options, but I'm not going to get into that either. What struck me about this most recent school choice article is just how thoroughly the entire discussion about updating and upgrading our school system has boiled down to school choice. Well, that and testing of teachers and students. Why?

There are so very many systemic upgrades needed whose successful application we know would  buoy each and every school: eliminating stark inequities in school financing; funding and supporting whole-family services at school sites where needed; renovating crumbling and outdated building structure and infrastructure; revamping teacher education, compensation, and working conditions to match today's workforce; improving the relevancy and responsiveness of curriculum development. Of course, those things would all take a tremendous amount of money and cooperation on the part of our nation's leaders. Asking citizens to fix these deep, enduring problems themselves requires phenomenally less money, attention, political will, or courage.

I'm not against experimenting with different formats and delivery systems in schools. I believe that innovating forces are generally good and necessary in a healthy society, all the more so when major inequities are present; and, moreover, I believe that one-size-fits-all approaches to children's learning and communities' success don't work. But for the conversation to be meaningful and effective, it simply must get larger and braver.

Welcome to E.A.R. to the Ground

I am a Chicago-based education writer. My background is in teaching and curriculum development; my future is in education reform.*

By “reform,” I don’t mean “refurbishing.” I mean it’s time to start over. I thought about calling this blog Tabula R.A.T.A. because it’s time to wipe the K12 slate clean and start over, on four pillars: Relevance to the real world, Access for all children to an effective education, use of Technology to liberate and empower teachers and students, and Authentic learning experiences that have purpose and context.

But Tabula R.A.T.A. seems like a bit of a mouthful, and a bit…I don’t know, stark? So I’m calling it E.A.R. to the Ground. Equity, Authenticity, Relevance—three qualities around which the experience in the classroom must transform. Equitable access to a quality education for all students; Authentic learning, including a purpose and context; and experiences that have Relevance to actual twenty-first century life.

There are a lot of other things that need to be reinvented—financial and legislative processes, teachers’ training and working conditions—honestly, it’s all a mess. But this blog is going to focus, mostly, on the E.A.R.—Equity, Authenticity, and Relevance—of learning experiences.
So, I’ve been putting my ear to the ground and listening for the coming sea change. I want to be there when the tide rolls in. I want to be part of that tide, make it happen, direct its flow to maximize regeneration. It’s going to be fantastic. It’s going to get us places. It’s going to change the landscape. It might be a little scary, but we can prepare for it, ride it, roll with it, travel on it. We’re all part of it.

*UPDATE: As I write, I learn. Education reform--it means working to make things better, for teachers and students alike. But like so many other terms, like "values" and "family" and "life," and "freedom," "education reform" seems to have been co-opted by political forces. I don't consider "reform" to mean "forcing a narrow band of rigid measures aimed at reducing teachers' profile and autonomy and controlling money." I consider "reform" to mean, simply, changes for improvement.