How to Teach Young People to Change the World

Is the American Educational System Obsolete?  Yes, answers Tony Wagner, the Education Fellow at Harvard University's Technology and Innovation Center.  Prior to that, Wagner had spent over 10 years at  Harvard's School of Education analyzing the changes that need to happen in education in order to prepare students for the 21st century global economy.

In his new book, Creating Innovators:  The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World,  Wagner studies American innovators and discovers some common patterns in their childhood and education--patterns that, alas, are discouraged by most traditional schools.  Wagner puts forth a case for a radical transformation of the fundamental principles of education, with the emphasis on the following five principles:

1.  Focus on Collaboration and Teamwork, rather than Individual Competition and Achievement

All the most important ideas and issues are just too big for only one person to handle

2.  Take a Cross Disciplinary and Multiple Perspectives Approach

This is kind of the curricular corellary to the point above.  Wagner points out that the Carnegie-unit-based high school structure is now 125 years old and is outdated for today's realities.

3.  Take Risks

Innovation, by its nature, requires experimentation, which means that most time, you are going to fail and/or be wrong.  That is anathama to way traditional school curricula approach most things.

4.  Learning Should be Active, Not Passive

Wagner argues that our current educational systems make students into learning consumers, not learning creators.  How are they suddenly going to turn into creating exciting new ideas and projects if they've been trained to sit back and be spoon fed everything during their education?

5.  Learning Should be Based on Instrinsic Rewards and Passions

Traditional schools are built around motivating students through extrinsic rewards--grades, gold stars, praise from happy teachers and parents, etc.  But innovators are driven by their internal passions, ideas, and motivations.

You can learn more by viewing this TED-style talk by Wagner:

or by reading a recent Forbes article: Creating Innovators:  Why America's Education System is Obsolete;

or, of course, by ordering his book.

Should The Hunger Game Be Banned--And If So, Why?

Right now my son is taking a class that is discussing arguments for and against banning books.  So it was with more than my usual interest that I read the list released this week by the American Library Association of the 10 books that have received the most requests during 2011 to ban them from schools or public libraries.  Because it is the young teen obsession of the moment, most of the headlines will highlight the inclusion of The Hunger Games series, which came in as #3 among the 326 reported challenges last year.  However, what is more interesting to me is the way The Hunger Games differ from the other books on the list, and what that tells us about our attitudes to young people and literature.

Here is the list of the top 10 books and my abbreviations for the reasons they were challenged.  I will admit up front that I haven't read any of them except The Hunger Games series and the two "oldies but goodies" that have been complained about for years:

1) ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle  

Language; Religion; Sex 

2) The Color of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa 

Sex

3) The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins 

(see below for reasons) 

4) My Mom's Having A Baby! A Kid's Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler Sex  

5) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie 

Language; Racism; Religion; Sex 

6) Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor 

Sex; Language; Religion

7) Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley 

Insensitivity; Sex; Racism; Religion 

8) What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones 

Sex; Language 

9) Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar 

Drugs; Language; Sex 

10) To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee 

Language; Racism

That is, to summarize:

#1 reason for challenge:  Sex (8/10 books)

#2 reason for challenge:  Language--presumably profanity and/or racial/sexual slurs (7/10 books)

#3 reason for challenge:  Religion (4/10 books)

...and then there are a few additional reasons that apply to only one or two books.  This is not to say that they are not important issues (Drugs, Racism, etc.), but they apply to the minority in terms of why the books are sought to be banned.

Now let's look at the reasons why The Hunger Games was banned.  The first reason on the list, which is presumably the most frequently-given cause for concern, was:

Anti-ethnic

Anti-ethnic?  I don't remember ethnicity being an issue at all in the books.  The ALA seems to attribute this to the filming of the movie, since apparently the complaints tended to complain about African Americans being cast in "lighter skinned" roles or vice versa.

The next reason given is Anti-family.  Again, I don't get that at all.  Certainly Katniss' main motivation, at least in the first book, and really throughout the series, is her love for and desire to protect her family.  There are some less idyllic family relationships, but it seems to me that most of the families that we do see are pretty close and good role models.  Perhaps they just don't like that the government is taking these young people from their families?  I don't know what the concern is here.

Reason number three is Insensitivity.  They don't explain exactly what that means.  But I guess a bunch of teenagers killing each other could be classified as Insensitive.  Certainly, sensitivity is not a virtue that is lauded in the books--but, then, it rarely is when one is fighting for one's survival.

Reason number four is Language.  I don't remember much use of profanity or slurs in the books.  I think what offensive language there is would certainly, in my mind, be overshadowed by other concerns.

Reason number five is Occult/Satanic.  Once again, I don't recall anything that would fall into that category.  In fact, the book is almost relentless practical and material; I don't believe there is any discussion of spiritual elements at all (for example, there don't seem to be any priests/minister/religious authorities or churches/temples, etc. in the land of Panem).

Only number six can I really fathom, which is a complaint about Violence.  As I have written here and here, I am concerned about particularly young adolescents being wrapped up in all the violence and missing the political and morale message of the series, which is what I think makes this an excellent triology of books.  I wouldn't ban it, but the excessive violence and mature political themes is why I tend to encourage parents of middle schoolers to delay having their children read the books until they are in high school and are a bit more mature.  

So it amazes me that is the last reason given, and that The Hunger Games is the only one of the top 10 would-be banned books of the year that raises the issue of violence.  Rather, it is the issue of Sex, and then Offensive Language, that seems to be causing the more ire among those who want to censor the books in schools and libraries.

Of course, our values in these areas differ from family to family.  For example, I don't use profanity, and my son doesn't use it, and that would be way down on my list of reasons to restrict him from reading a particular book.  I am also personally of the opinion that it is good for students to read about some of these controversial issues, like sex and drugs, as they are coming to grips with making those kinds of decisions in their own lives.  Certainly, I would rather have my son learn by reading about them then experimenting with them in real life!  But that is my philosophy.

However, I will say that for this Banned Book class, each child had to choose a book to read from the comprehensive list of banned books (in agreement with his or her family, of course).  My son wanted to read the most frequently banned book, which was Catcher in the Rye.  That book, of course, was one of the first and still one of the most frequently banned because of...Sex and Language.  But he read it, and his reaction was much the same as my was when I read, long, long ago in high school--it's OK, but I don't know what the big deal is.

Curriculum Resource: Food Rules Animated with Actual Food

Regular readers of this blog know that Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, changed my life.  After reading that book, I dramatically changed what food I bought and where I bought it as part of my ongoing effort to reduce our family's carbon footprint.  I think it is an incredibly important book, and I urge everyone to read it in order to understand why our current food choices are not environmentally sustainable.

Pollan followed up that book and his In Defense of Food book with a guideline for what we SHOULD be eating entitled Food Rules:An Eater's Manual.  This distills his advice about what foods we should be eating, both for our own health and the health of the planet.

Now animators Marija Jacimovic and Benoit Detalle have created a short video of a talk on Food Rules that Michael Pollan gave.  His words are accompanied by a stop animation film using food itself to illustrate his points.....which I think is really kind of great.  

So if you haven't read the books, at least start the ball rolling by watching the following video:

Michael Pollan's Food Rules from Marija Jacimovic on Vimeo.

We are talking about these kinds of issues in our Healing Oceans Together environmental group/educational coop.   But the books themselves raise issues that relate to many different disciplines, including biology, physics, chemistry, economics, political science, history.  

I see these books relating to the posts I had last week about imagining the future and issues with STEM education.  They raise serious and potentially disasterous questions about our food production system, the breakdown of which could lead to our students' future in competing for food in their own version of a "Hunger Game."  However, Pollan remains optimistic about things we could do differently, and does provide do-able suggestions for making better food choices.  So, as Maria raised in the comments, it does make our high schoolers aware of potential problems in their future, but gives them reasons to hope and suggestions for things to do to improve the situation.

It is certainly a topic that can make many of these subjects very real to our students.  

Contest Helps Students Develop Reflective Writing Skills

Now that NaNoWriMo is over, it's time for us to refocus our writing classes on non-fiction writing.  There is a national contest on a wonderful topic that may be just the thing to help us!

The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, in partnership with Target Stores, is running a reading-writing competition called Letters About Literature.  In it, students write a personal letter to an author of one of their favorite books to tell them why that book changed the way they think about themselves or the world.   The book can be fiction or nonfiction, even poetry, speeches, short stories, or graphic novels, but it can not be a comic strip or song lyric (even if published in a book).  Also, the author can be living or dead.

The competition is divided into three levels.  Level 1 is for 4th-6th grade (students must be at least nine in order to participate) and letters are expected to be 100-400 words long.  Level 2 is 7th-8th grade, with letters that are 300-600 words.  Level 3 is for high schoolers (9th-12th grade) with a recommended 500-800 page length.  Students can enter through their schools or as individuals, and homeschoolers are specifically encouraged to enter (apparently a number of winners have been homeschooled).

While the exercise is worthy just in itself, there are some great prizes for the winner.  Two national winners for each level will get to choose a favorite library (school or community library) to receive a $10,000 grant from Target.  Those winners will also each get a personal Target gift card for $500.  There will also be four national honors awards for each level; the national honor awards come with a $1,000 grant to a favorite library and a personal $50 Target gift card.

The website also has a great 36-page Teacher's Guide with lesson plans and worksheets to help students write an appropriate reflective essay on their chosen book.  The worksheets not only develop generic essay writing skills, such as crafting an engaging opening paragraph, but lead students to see the difference between a reflective essay and other types of writing, such as book reports, literary analysis, or a simple fan letter.

All in all, this looks like a wonderful project to me.  I've already discussed it with my son, and we definitely plan to be working on it this month to be ready to submit something by the deadline, which is January 6, 2012.  It combine something we love (books) with something we need to develop (nonfiction writing) with a focus on appreciation, which is a virtue that we trying to expand on during this holiday season.

We hope lots of you will join us in this competition.  If you do, please enter the book that you (or your child/ren or student/s) choose to write about in the comments below.

What Education is Supposed to Be About

It's getting to be that time of year when, whether you are student or teacher, homeschool or institutionalized school, we're all just ready for school to be over. ( Of course, most homeschoolers I know continue to homeschool over the summer as well, but usually in a more laid-back way, especially since most of the group classes, coops, and projects are suspended during the traditional school "summer vacation" period.)  It is not a season when most of us wax eloquently about the wonders of schools, especially these days when the end-of-the-year focus is so fixed on standardized tests and numerical quantifications of our students' performance. 

So it was such a treat last night when, as I was reading Gary D. Schmidt's latest wonderful book, Okay For Now, when I came upon a beautiful passage that reminded me what education is really supposed to be about.

In this book, set in 1968, 8th grader Doug Swieteck (who also appeared in Schmidt's Newbery Honor award-winning book, The Wednesday Wars) is the sole transplant to a new junior high in a new town who is attending a pre-school orientation for new students.  Divided alphabetically, Swieteck is assigned to the principal's section, where he has to listen to rule after rule after rule of school regulations--being on time, boys keeping their hair short (1968, remember), girls keeping their skirts long, etc.  He acts up a bit and is excused to go to the bathroom.

On the way there, he overhears what the science teacher, Mr. Ferris, is tell the other group of incoming students.  Here is what Mr. Ferris tells them:

"Within a year, possibly by next fall," he was saying, "something that has never before been done, will be done.  NASA will be sending men to the moon.  Think of that.  Men who were once in classrooms like this one will leave their footprints on the lunar surface."  He paused.  I leaned in close against the wall so I could hear him.  "That is why you are sitting here tonight, and why you will be coming here in the months ahead.  You come to dream dream.  You come to build fantastic castles into the air.  And you come to learn how to build the foundations that make those castles real.  When the men who will command that mission were boys your age, no one knew that they would walk on another world someday.  No one knew.  But in a few months, that's what will happen.  So, twenty years from now, what will people say of you?  'No one knew then that this kid from Washington Irving Junior High School would grow up to do".....what?  What castle will you build?"

Thank you, Mr. Ferris, and thank you, Gary Schmidt, for reminding us all what it is that we teachers and student get to do together.