Redesigning School

No one knows for sure what the world of jobs will look like in ten, twenty, thirty years. We do know, though, the world of work is shifting profoundly. The question for schools is what educators should do about it.

In a sobering but ultimately invigorating post, Rennie Greenfield writes, "Much of 21st century schooling is languishing in an outdated paradigm in desperate need of a revolution, and, if it does not evolve, the system will be guilty of dooming these students to the impending jobocalypse."  In this episode, Rennie joined the pod to talk about his research and what it means for schools.

We mention a few articles and videos that you might want to review:

• The Future of Work
• Society Is Changing What the Future of Work Will Be Like. Are You Prepared?
• What ReDesigning School Looks Like: The Story of Engineering

We're in the middle of a very heavy and very exciting lift. Not only are we opening a new school next fall, but we're also designing one that will use very different teaching methods and designs than most high schools. As we do this work, we think it's important that you to get to know the actual human beings at the heart of The Mastery School of Hawken.

Next up: Janae Peters, Entrepreneurial Studies teacher and a key member of the design team for the Mastery School. Even as a kid, Janae wanted to be a teacher in part because she liked being a student. She seeks experiences that challenge her where, in her words, "it's hard, let's do it, let's learn, and then let's go." With a focus on equity, urgency, and empowerment, Janae Peters is a force for good. We're so glad she chose to join Hawken this fall. 

It's a bit of a challenge to write an episode title for a conversation with Daniel Gray-Kontar, Executive Artistic Director of Twelve Literary Arts. This arts organization in historic Glenville on Cleveland's east side has a mission to bring "performance poetry to public spaces, while supporting poets and writers of all ages with youth programming, adult professional development, and brave spaces to dream, write, and teach into reality a world of social justice and equity."

 First, Daniel is brilliant, so the conversation ran wide and dug deep. Second, the stakes he outlines were so potent that no clever phrasing -- at least none we could think of -- could rightly capture the import of his work.

In this episode, Julia and Terry were joined by Ambrose Faturoti, Hawken's Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Justice for Student Life and a member of the design team for The Mastery School of Hawken. They spoke with Daniel about the intersection of arts and social justice and so much more.

To see Daniel and Twelve Literary Arts in action, check out these videos. Get ready to be inspired. 

What's it like to design a school from the ground floor? Particularly a school that's built on massive paradigm shifts around teaching methods, assessment models, and more? Julia Griffin and Doris Korda of the Korda Institute for Teaching share their thoughts on where we are with the design of The Mastery School of Hawken, which opens in ten short months. 

We're exactly where we're supposed to be, they say. And that's a complicated and invigorating place. 

We're in the middle of a very heavy and very exciting lift. Not only are we opening a new school next fall, but we're also designing one that will use very different teaching methods and designs than most high schools. As we do this work, we think it's important that you to get to know the actual human beings at the heart of The Mastery School of Hawken.

Next up: Julia Hodges,  Mathematics and Engineering teacher at Hawken and a key member of the Design Team for the Mastery School. Julia's years in the aerospace industry gives her perspective about how to design educational experiences that allow high school students to understand how mathematics and engineering work in the real world.

If you want to see Julia's approach at work, check out this video about her Engineering class.

We're in the middle of a very heavy and very exciting lift. Not only are we opening a new school next fall, but we're also designing one that will use very different teaching methods and designs than most high schools. As we do this work, we think it's important that you to get to know the actual human beings at the heart of The Mastery School of Hawken.

Next up: Ambrose Faturoti, Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Justice for Student Life. He's also a key member of the design team for the Mastery School whose work focuses on developing community partnerships with our Glenville and University Circle neighbors. 

Ambrose has a passion for connecting people and communities. "We have a really important opportunity with young people who, when they leave us are going to be leaders in whatever sectors they find themselves," he says. "I want to help students understand how to practice empathy." He also has a flaw, however, which he reveals towards the end of the episode...

If math is a language, most of us learn it as if it's a dead one, calcified and inscrutable. Some teachers, though, use methods and approaches that make math sing. Hawken teachers Dr. Chris Harrow and Zack Kordeleski join the podcast to discuss how they design opportunities for students of all abilities to discover and fall in love with the magic and beauty of mathematics. They also describe what excites them about how The Mastery School of Hawken might take these ideas to scale.

"Everything about the way we structure school communicates that failure is the opposite of success," writes Julia Hodges in The 'F' Word. "You either pass a class or you fail a class; and that pass/fail determination is made on a rigid timeline and leaves a permanent mark.... According the rules of school, failure is to be avoided at all costs."

In the real world, though, failure is the genesis of success and a natural part of creativity and problem-solving. " Outside of school," Julia notes, "failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of the process."

What better way to start Season Two of the ReDesigning School podcast than an eyes-wide open examination of this failure to understand failure? Julia is a Hawken teacher and member of the design team shaping The Mastery School of Hawken. She also teaches a Macro course in Engineering that seeks, in part, to reframe failure so that students come to see it as an essential and even welcomed aspect of making something that matters.

Take a look at the short video about the Rocket Science class Julia mentions. It's worth the minute, we swear!

Thanks as always to Nick Fletcher for editing this episode. 

In our summer series of episodes, we want you to meet the actual human beings at the heart of The Mastery School of Hawken. Third up: Zack Kordeleski, lover of all kinds of games, physics and mathematics teacher at Hawken, and a key member of the Mastery School's design team. Zack has been thinking about ways to redesign school since he was a kid when school left him uninspired and bored. Now, as a teacher, he's inspired and engaged with re-imagining school based on a series of basic principles: purpose, curiosity, and intellectual intersections such as the one between physics and philosophy that fascinates him.

If you want to see Zack and the other Mastery School teachers in action, watch here!

In our summer series of episodes, we want you to meet the actual human beings at the heart of The Mastery School of Hawken. Second up: Katie Zielinski, architecture teacher at Hawken and a key member of the Mastery School's design team. Katie brings years of professional experience as an architect and a vision for how to use design principles to invigorate educational experiences for students at The Mastery School and beyond.