Transformation in education sector: what will it look like?

1. What I’ve Learned
Since Writing
Wounded By School
Kirsten Olson
10.17.12
Prepared for Steve Hargadon interview
http://www.stevehargadon.com/2012/10/wednesday-
live-kirsten-olson-on-wounded.html

2. Message was originally
embargoed, dangerous.
Now much more
accepted.

3. • Joel Klein: “No one says K-12 is doing a
great job.” (September 2012, Harvard Graduate
School of Education)

4. Fundamental Problem
Still Unsolved
• School toxic to many individuals in it--
children and adults
• Resource-wasteful, time-sucking, personally
destructive
• Turns people off to learning
• Systems completely outmoded, floundering

5. Pockets of brilliance all
over the country
• Self-Enhancement Academy in Portland, OR
• Minnesota New Country School,
Henderson MN
• NYC iSchool
• Urban Academy NYC
• Big Picture School, South Burlington VT

6. How do we put this
brilliance together?
• Organizing
• Showcasing
• Reclaiming the “values” conversation
• What is the moral purpose of school?

7. IDEA Values
(For School)
• Courage/Bravery
• Justice
• Open-mindedness
• Love of learning
• Capacity for perspective-taking
• Compassion

8. 3 Big Paradoxes
•
Pleasure of learning...
will lead us to do
tough intellectual
stuff

9. 2. As “education”
becomes untethered
from school, place and
community will matter
more

10. 3. We need to invest
more in
community/”place”
(humans learn in
community) in face of
worldwide learning

11. What I’ve Come To
Believe

12. 1. Sector transformation won’t
be a one-way,
but dozens of ways
• “Here comes everybody”
• Grown in communities
• Grown out of core values and what we
think makes life meaningful
• A “meteor shower” not a blacksmith’s anvil

13. 2. Learning really is
rocket science
• Every brain is different
• Brain incredibly plastic
• Profoundly influenced by emotion, context
of learning
• Explosion of neurobiological knowledge
also explodes old-fashioned school

14. 3. State control of
content will diminish
• Yet commitment to places of caring for
young people should increase
• Radical redefinition of role of “teacher”
• We will increasingly teach/model/coach
how to learn

15. 4. “Choice” masks
cynical individualism
• Market solutions privilege the already
privileged
• Reclaim the moral commitment to
children/young adults
• Make the moral conversation part of the
discourse
• Caring is cool, caring is effective

16. Educational centers
become
• Places of hospitality, community “hearths”
• Places of intellectual exploration
• Places of inspiration and positivity
• Places of creativity and perspective-taking
• Focus on what is best in human beings