When A School Is About Learning
I am just back from EDUCON, where a lot of the talk was about new ways to learn, the new era of education to come, the loneliness of being an innovator in a largely innovation-averse sector.
One of the things I came away with was that we don’t still, after all these years, have good models for talking about what a highly effective school looks like and feels like, from a learner’s point of view. (And I mean all learners–not just kids.) So while I propose, as a given, a short list: the child/student is at the center of the enterprise, and the student is most important person in the school’s dynamic–here are additions to the list–a few other attributes of a highly effective “learning” school. These have been developed after years of culture-watching in breakthrough districts, in writing about innovative school models, and in working with leadership teams now engaged in real innovation.
1. The adults in the building are passionately engaged in learning. In my experience, when the adults in a school are really fired up learners–passionate about their own quirky projects and deeply interested in their