Last month, I had the opportunity to interview the head of school, two students, and a teacher from Springhouse School which is one of the most impressive schools I’ve come across in my travels when it comes to grounding the experience in deep, meaningful learning. Jenny Finn founded the school on the idea of what she calls “Sourced Design” which is made up of five principles:

* Take care of vulnerability

* Cultivate personhood

* Build beloved community

* Learn from the Earth

* Love and serve others

What I especially love about this conversation is that all of those principles show up. And I love the way in which the students talk about all of those principles without having to name them. This is a school community with a deeply coherent approach to education. It lives its vision every day.

Hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

Gary Stager has been a friend and mentor of mine for almost 15 years now. There are few people in the education space who are more compelling in terms of both pedagogy and politics than Gary. He makes more sense than just about anyone I know. Given the state of the world, I thought it might be good to check in with Gary to get his take. Hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.

It took a little longer than expected, but as promised here is my interview with a group of middle schoolers and their teacher who are looking at the world with opening eyes and responding by doing real work that matters for their communities and for the world. (If you haven’t watched Part 1, here you go.)

While not every experience at Davis Middle School is like Jose Gonzalez’s STEM Lab, the impacts spread farther than the classroom walls. Listen again for the ways in which these kids talk about their impact and their potential to change the future. It’s inspiring.

If you know of other classrooms that are doing similar work, please let me know. I want to highlight as many student voices I can.

3/27 UPDATE: I forgot to share this document where you can access a number of videos that tell the story of the work these students are doing. Great stuff!

I’m happy and excited to share this inaugural “Confronting Education” video and podcast, especially since it elevates the voices of students.

Sparkling Mindz is a Reggio-inspired global school in Bangalore, India, a place in the world that is staring collapse in the face on a daily basis. Droughts, floods, pollution, violence…it is a challenging place to live. And yet, its fascinating history and alluring beauty are the focus of the students at this school who are not shying away from the big challenges in their community and the world.

The school founder Sreeja Iyer and two of her students will be participating in the first set of Confronting Education workshops that begin next week, and after having this conversation yesterday, I’m more excited than ever to get started.

As I say in the intro, this isn’t a question of “How can we?” I know many of you will watch and think “this is amazing, but there’s no way we could do that.” That misses the point, however.

The better question is “How can we not?” at least try to create experiences in schools that mimic this one, where students are being told the truth about the difficulties we’re facing and then supported to imagine harder and do real work in the world that they care about to make their communities a better place. And, importantly, to create safe spaces where children can work through their personal struggles in difficult times.

The author and education reformer Seymour Sarason defined “productive learning” as “wanting to learn more.” He said if students didn’t want to continue to learn, then the experience was “unproductive.” I hope you’re as inspired as I am by how much these students want to continue to learn, about themselves, their communities, and the world.

As always, I’d love to hear what you think in the comments.

(Note: For clarity, use the closed captioning tool.)

Some links referenced in the discussion and others:

Aashna’s project on Cultivating the Future: Climate Resilient Agriculture

Nikhil’s project on Mixed Gender Sports: To be or not to be?

A book of poetry written by all students at the school

Child in the City Heritage Walks

A collaborative dive into the causes and impacts of flooding in the region

The Surprising Ways Bengaluru’s Students Are Tackling the City’s Water Crisis