The Wheelhouse

Not all learning is standards-based and not all learning is tied to a specific course or to a specific discipline.

The academic world is artificial. Learning is so much bigger than progress reports, report cards, state assessments, and the five paragraph essay? We invented some of those things to live within the artificiality of the classroom. Let’s connect the classroom to the world beyond. And COVID has shown us it’s possible - not only possible, but preferred. We scratched the surface even with little preparation. Now we have the time to rethink.

Standards are great. But, SO WHAT? How do we connect those to life? What do we really want our students to engage with and how do we use all that we know to create learning goals, experiences, and ways of measuring that move learning beyond the “fourth wall”?

Each and every student comes to school every day wanting to be successful. Some have the skills to do so, others both students and adults fall short. Some have all the skills they need while others lack the skills needed to meet academic, social, emotional, or behavioral expectations.

But isn’t that what school is for? If everyone came fully loaded with all the skills, attitudes, and motivation, what would they need us for anyway? Isn’t our job to embrace each beautiful young soul, figure out what skills they bring and what skills are lacking and then put a plan together to address those issues and get them to the finish line?

This episode explores Students Matter's definition of Accomplishment-Driven Leadership, one of the three pillars in it's Teaching, Learning, & Leading Infrastructure.

This episode is a conversation with Jill Lewis, an educational consultant and former president of Colorado ASCD about the idea of Liminal Space, the movement from a space of what we know to the unknown. That space in the middle, the liminal space, is a source of infinite possibility. As educators strive to teach our children in the midst of a global pandemic, we are caught in that space where we have left what we know and are striving to function well in a space in the unknown.

This episode highlights the the need for urgency in proving to each student that he/she is both distinctive and irreplaceable.