Five Core Values

1. Philosophy behind this Core Value:

We are innately curious, full of questions about how and why the world is the way it is. We must question to get closer to the “truth,” whatever that is, and to understand deeply. The best questions challenge assumptions, lead to more questions, and help us see in new ways. Sustained, deep, critical questioning -- both within the curriculum and of our systems -- is essential for learning.

2. Essential Questions sparked by this Core Value:

• Why question?
• When should we question? When shouldn’t we?
• What are the best questions to spark thinking on this topic/text/problem?
• What makes a question purposeful and engaging?
• Whose perspective am I in when I pose this question? How might this question be perceived from another perspective (someone older/younger/of color/uneducated/religious/etc.)?

3. Possible actions educators could take to support this Core Value:

• Teachers: Frame all units of teaching with Essential Questions that are kid-friendly and highly debatable/interesting (e.g What if my right is your wrong?, Do parents always know what’s best for their children?, Do numbers lie?). Use the Essential Questions criteria developed by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe to help, referenced here in this Essential Questions bank.
• Administrators: Support teachers in the above. In addition, frame yearlong professional development work with a series of Essential Questions (e.g. We are doing well as a school. How do we do better?), allow discussion of them, and be open to the variety of directions/answers that result. Solicit possible “PD EQs” from the teachers themselves for the following year.
• Consultants: Share current research and literature on the positive effects of using questions with schools and districts that you work with, or design research of your own. Help schools and districts design questions that are truly “essential” and not just important. Use the Essential Questions criteria developed by Wiggins and McTighe to help, referenced here in this Essential Questions bank.

1. Philosophy behind this Core Value:

We are all human beings worthy of respect, dignity, and compassion, no matter what our age, ability level or background. As educators, we must first try to understand the system from the students’ perspective, empathizing with their educational, biological, social and emotional needs, and then moving toward more compassionate communication, policies, and design. Compassion should be 360 degrees, involving all parties: teachers, administrators, parents, and students. All learners, including educators, learn best when we feel understood, heard, and cared for. Building compassion in a school community is essential for learning.

2. Essential Questions sparked by this Core Value:

• What does this child need? Can I (or someone) else provide it?
  
• What does it feel like to be a student in school all day?
• What does it feel like to be a teacher in school all day?
• What does it feel like to be an administrator in school all day?
• What does it feel like to be a parent of this child?
• In what ways am I similar to this student? In what ways am I different? How can I be aware of these similarities and differences without judging her?
• Would I want to be a student in my own class? Would I want to be a student at this school?
• Does this student have unique needs that might be invisible to me or the system? (e.g. a student experiencing racism, a student with dyslexia, a Muslim student fasting during Ramadan, a student whose parents are going through a divorce, etc.)
• What’s one thing I can do today to get to know this student/parent/teacher better?

3. Possible actions educators could take to support this Core Value:

• Teachers: Shadow a student for a day, based on Alexis’s experience with shadowing from 2014. (Here is an overview of the story and the blog posts.) Reflect upon your observations with your students, fellow colleagues and/or administrators. Another idea which is very easy to carry out is simply to ask students to do a free-write at the beginning of class, homeroom, or advisory. Ask them to write continuously on whatever they want, whatever is on their minds, until the time is up (for HS, I advise 10 minutes. For younger ages, use your own discretion). There are no topics or ideas that are off limits as long as they are writing the duration of the time. Explain that they will not be read by anyone except you and it's a chance to just release some of what is on their minds before you begin the focused work of class. This exercise often produces shocking results; students have far more -- and more serious -- things on their minds than you might ever guess. (In my experience, students have written about the mundane sadness or anger they feel over grades or friends, but also about the anniversary of the day their twin sister died, the fear that no one will ever love them enough, and what a failure they feel like because of their learning disabilities. All of this came from teenage boys and girls who looked perfectly happy during class time and in my interactions with them. Sometimes when we give students the time and space to feel human, we are surprised that they actually are.) This exercise can be a way for you to better understand your students' silent struggles, develop compassion for them, and build a bridge to them, showing yourself to be an ally, a caring adult in their life.
• Administrators: Support teachers in the above shadowing initiative or writing exercise, or other compassion-building practices. Talk openly about the importance of empathy, caring and compassion in faculty meetings and practice it yourself with your staff and colleagues. Consider using School Retool’s “Shadow a Student” Initiative in your school and sharing the reflections among faculty, students, and parents. Build on the shadowing work by asking and acting on what can be done better from the students’ perspective. In addition, consider shadowing a teacher for a day -- not as a formal observation but to remind yourself (or experience for the first time) the demands on teachers. Build on the shadowing work by asking and acting on what can be done better from the teachers’ perspective. Additionally, students could be encouraged to shadow teachers for a day to understand the demands on them and all that goes in to planning, teaching, grading, and organizing. Follow-up on all types of shadowing could include open forums where faculty, students, and/or parents come together to share their takeaways and insights.
• Consultants: Share current research and literature on the positive effects of empathy and compassion in learning, especially when it comes to neurobiological effects and how the brain “turns on” in safe, friendly environments and “turns off” in stressful, apathetic ones.

1. Philosophy behind this Core Value:

We are all intrinsically motivated to learn, but in most school systems we give up or lose our autonomy because the needs of the system are often prioritized over the needs of learners. Students should have considerable choice in what they learn and how they are assessed, and trust and freedom to make decisions, choices, and mistakes without fear. Coupled with strong feedback systems and clear organizational goals, this kind of autonomy will empower not only students but also educators to seize learning as their own. A high degree of autonomy for all learners is essential to learning.

2. Essential Questions sparked by this Core Value:

• How many kinds of students/teachers do we have? How does the system we have support, challenge, and inspire each of those kinds? Where are the greatest needs?
• Would I learn well and see social and academic success as a student in this class/school? Why or why not?
• Do our students/teachers seem happy? How often do we see spontaneous, unscripted, not-required acts of creativity, questions, ideas, dialogue and pride from our students/teachers? How do we inspire more?
• How much choice do our students have to study what they are most interested in? How much choice do they have in the way they are assessed?
• If other schools systems have figured out how to have alternative forms of curriculum and assessment that encourage autonomy, such as a “school-within-a-school,” personalized learning plans, and no grades, what prevents us from doing so?
• Does the amount of choice, freedom, and autonomy students and teachers have at our school mirror the amount of choice, freedom, and autonomy in the real world? If not, why not?

3. Possible actions educators could take to support this Core Value:

• Teachers: Encourage a philosophy and program like Spider Web Discussion in your classroom, allowing students to take ownership of the learning and assessment of their critical explorations. You can read an overview of the benefits of this approach here in Educational Leadership (subscription only). To get started, go to Alexis’s wiki and view #16 (the video of a Spider Web Discussion). Then read document #1 (SWD Over a Year) and document #19 (FAQs), and give it a try. You can also read about other approaches individual teachers and whole schools have taken to create more autonomy, such as “school-within-a-school”, personalized learning plans, and no grades, and consider how your classroom might look through one of those lenses.
• Administrators: Read or watch the resources on schools that offer “school-within-a-school”, personalized learning plans, and no grades, and have a discussion about which, if any, components might be interesting or appropriate for your school. The challenge is to counter every “Yes, but…” (e.g. “Yes, that might work in _____ kind of school, but it could never work here”, or “Yes, but, what about college acceptances? Wouldn’t they be negatively impacted?”, or “Yes, but our population’s parents would never get on board with that”) with the phrase, “Where there is a will, there is a way.” Remember that we want to be unafraid of failure in the quest toward getting better, and if we adopt a mindset of solving problems as they arise instead of stopping and turning back at each roadblock, progress will be made.
• Consultants: Where are the best examples of student autonomy that you have seen in the schools and districts where you have worked? How can you share their good work with the world through publishing and presenting? How can you connect schools and districts in need of good models of autonomy to schools and districts that are already seeing success with it?

1. Philosophy behind this Core Value:

Effective use of feedback is fundamental for improving education, both on individual and systemic levels. First, we need to understand what feedback is and isn’t, as highlighted by Grant Wiggins in his blog post from 2014: “Feedback is useful information about the effects of an action in light of a goal.” For all individuals, whether they are students, teachers or administrators, feedback should be useful, specific, goal-oriented, and timely.

On systemic levels, we must embrace feedback as a cherished part of growth. Teachers and administrators should go out of their way to embrace feedback. We must have the courage to ask for authentic feedback because it is the best way to get better and ensure we are reaching our goals. If we embrace 360-degree feedback throughout our systems (never only in one direction), we are taking a powerful stand for autonomy and vulnerability over hierarchy and traditional power structures, and we show all community members that their voices matter. Strong systems of feedback are essential to learning.

2. Essential Questions sparked by this Core Value:

• What do I most want to know about my teaching/leadership from an observer whose observations I trust?
• Who could give me excellent feedback? How can I enlist them as an ally in my professional improvement?
• What are the five most insightful questions I could ask my students/staff that would tell me if I’m achieving my goals as a teacher/administrator?
• What question am I afraid to know the answer to?
• Do my students feel like they have a voice in what and how they are learning while the learning is ongoing (and not only at the end of the course/year)?
• How do we give the most accurate, useful, and timely feedback?
• What would this classroom/school look like if everyone welcomed, requested, and expected feedback on their work, performances, presentations and leadership?

3. Possible actions educators could take to support this Core Value:

• Teachers: Read an article Alexis wrote about in Education Week in 2010 about the importance of authentic feedback. Set up an account with Survey Monkey or use Google Forms to create completely anonymous evaluations about your courses for your students. Do this in the beginning or middle of each term while students still have time to effect change on the course based on their feedback (vs. at the end of the course, when students have far less incentive to give quality or honest feedback). Share the findings with the students publicly so they can own them and become a part of the discussion of the results. This does a lot to weed out the exceptionally harsh and unhelpful feedback, as it tends to lose its power when made public. Ultimately, you as teacher still make the decisions based on the feedback, but you can make far more informed decisions, and sharing the feedback with the students often has a unifying, empathy-building effect on a classroom -- students feel empowered that you are considering their voice, even in small ways.
• Administrators: Share with your staff an article Alexis wrote about in Education Week in 2010 about the importance of authentic feedback. Then be courageous enough to ask your staff and faculty members to give you anonymous feedback at least twice a year, in the middle of the first and last halves of the year. Make sure they understand and trust that it is anonymous. Keep it short and sweet (5-10 questions), asking questions you think are key to helping you get better and building trust, such as: “How effective have my walk-throughs and observations been on meeting your needs and/or helping you get better professionally?” “Do you trust me?” and “What is my greatest strength? What is my greatest weakness?” Then, have the courage to share the anonymous results with the whole faculty that took the survey. Talk about the key themes and specific changes you can (and can’t) make based on some of the responses. Then, ask one or two administrators on your team to do the same, modeling the same process. Next, ask for a few brave teacher volunteers to solicit feedback from their students based on the same premise and report back to the faculty on the experience and overall results.

**An important note, if your school is one where teacher trust and empowerment are in short supply, be cautious of jumping in to an initiative like this. It is important that faculty and staff believe that their voices are respected, desired, and valued, or feedback will be very harsh and personal. This, in itself, is feedback. It’s a reflection that trust and autonomy have broken down and need to be rebuilt. But proceed with caution in these types of environments, taking longer to introduce these initiatives so that teachers believe they will benefit, not suffer more, as a result of them and want to actively engage in them. Please note this same premise applies for students who have traditionally not experienced much trust or empowerment in their schools and classrooms.

• Consultants: Share the current research on what makes feedback most effective, both for students on their curricular work and for educators on their performance. Identify educators and schools that have modeled excellent feedback on both individual and systemic levels, and share their examples and results when you work with other schools and districts.

1. Philosophy behind this Core Value:

Alexis’s father Grant once told her: “You are either a talent developer or a slot filler. Talent developers believe that their job is to see the innate talent in each student (or teacher) and draw it out, develop it. Slot fillers are merely going through the motions, placing students (or teachers) in slots that they think they belong in, regardless of who they truly are and what their interests and talents are. Remember that, at the end of the day, your only job in education is talent development.”

We couldn’t agree more. When we reflect on our own lives, we see innate interests and talents that gave us our spark. When we reflect back on our best teachers, our minds are drawn to the talent developers, the ones who recognized what most motivated us and allowed, encouraged, and pushed us to develop it further. In the end, we believe deeply in Grant’s words: our only job in education is talent development. Developing and encouraging the innate talent in each student and educator is essential to learning.

2. Essential Questions sparked by this Core Value:

• What ignites this student’s (or teacher’s) spark? What puts it out?
• How can I adapt this unit/assessment/school to allow students’ varied interests and talents to be put to effective use?
• How many kinds of talents are welcome and supported by the current curriculum? How many aren’t? Why aren’t they and what can we do about that?
• Who were my best teachers? Why? Who were the worst? Why?
• Why do we expect students to do well in all their subject areas when we ourselves rarely achieve mastery of them all?
• Are we uncomfortable with students developing their innate interests and talents and specializing in them before university? If so, why?
• Are my innate interests and passions taught at this school? If not, how would I feel about being a student here?
• Are we cultivating and developing talent or just the appearance of it? Are students (or teachers) achieving out of a love for learning and challenge or to look good?
• What am I really good at that the school doesn’t know about and could benefit from?

3. Possible actions educators could take to support this Core Value:

• Teachers: Encourage a program like “Genius Hour” in your classroom, designing it to suit their innate interests while still achieving clear learning goals. Read Alexis’s blog post on her experience with Genius Hour in her ninth-grade English classroom.
• Administrators: Lead your faculty through some discussions on this topic by posing some of the above Essential Questions. Faculty could discuss them in pairs and departments/teams and then share out as a large group, reflecting on the school as a place to develop talent. Develop some “next steps” and follow through on some changes or ideas suggested in the discussion. This can be a very big leap for some educators who are used to a more “slot-filler” kind of system. But there is the potential to spark some wonderful conversation and tap into much more talent from your students, faculty, and staff as a result of these discussions.
• Consultants: Grant was fond of saying that most educators are reluctant to admit or see how boring school is for most students. Help administrators, teachers and district leaders confront this reality through research, and encourage them to survey their own students and teachers on their interests and talents and how much school encourages or develops them. Help educators see that it isn’t about “fun” vs. “learning,” but rather about creating a generation of students who aren’t merely waiting until they graduate to finally be able to study what they truly love.