{"id":2506,"date":"2018-08-21T09:13:39","date_gmt":"2018-08-21T13:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dacha.com\/?p=2506"},"modified":"2018-08-21T09:13:39","modified_gmt":"2018-08-21T13:13:39","slug":"timeless-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/?p=2506","title":{"rendered":"Timeless Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/span>Three nationally known educators that I respect a great deal – Ira Socol<\/a>, Chad Ratliff<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>and Pam Moran<\/a><\/span>, all from Virginia\u2019s Albemarle County Public Schools<\/a><\/span>\u00a0– have a new book out called\u00a0<\/span>Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-based Thinking Change Schools<\/em><\/a>. It\u2019s dynamite, and here\u2019s what the three of them had to say about it, school today, educating young people, and hurling. Enjoy!<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>What led the three of you to write this book? What was its impetus?<\/b><\/p>\n

The three of us have been talking with each other about education for almost a decade. We all \u201cmet\u201d in the early days of Twitter, and we\u2019ve been challenging each other ever since. In 2010 we began working together in Albemarle County, and in ways big and small, we teamed with great educators there to transform the learning experience for every child. We\u2019ve written about these transformations separately and together and presented to groups across the nation – and beyond – separately and together. We finally decided that this was a story worth putting together, a story that could both inspire and offer hope to educators everywhere.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>Why the focus on progressive education? What drew you to write from that perspective and about that topic?<\/b><\/p>\n

As Chad says at the start of one chapter, \u201cThere are really only two types of schooling, that which is meant to assimilate and oppress and that which is to enlighten and empower.\u201d So there is \u201cprogressive education\u201d – which to us means paying close attention to the \u201ctimeless\u201d ways humans learn – or there is what we might call \u201cadult-centric formal education.\u201d \u00a0Ira adds in that same chapter, \u201cWe don\u2019t ask kids to develop \u2018grit,\u2019 we choose to surround them with whatever abundance we can muster. We don\u2019t choose adult comfort at the expense of children\u2019s. We choose to do what our kids need.\u201d That\u2019s our viewpoint. We disagree, in profound ways, with both the high-stakes test culture and the \u201cgrit narrative.\u201d We believe in children, in childhood, in curiosity, in exploration, in collaboration, in play.<\/span><\/p>\n

You begin each chapter with dialogue among the three of you, which is often about philosophy. Do you ever disagree with each other? And, if so, what about?<\/b><\/p>\n

We disagree a lot. Of course we do. Ira and Chad actually debated fiercely with each other on Twitter in 2007 and 2008, as they worked toward an understanding of what was important to them – Ira coming from a postcolonial view, Chad from a more entrepreneurial, changemaker position. Pam and Ira, Pam and Chad, or all three of us – we have argued and challenged each other through all of our time together. We arrive from different school experiences, from very different adult experiences, and we\u2019ve had very different roles to play. So we will argue about what we\u2019ve seen, what we\u2019ve heard, about how we work with others, about strategies, but we are brought together in our understandings of the need to do better for kids.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/i>Who is the book’s audience – and why?<\/b><\/p>\n

Timeless Learning<\/span><\/i> doesn\u2019t read like the typical education book of these days. It\u2019s a complex, somewhat circular narrative because none of us are linear thinkers, and all three of us are storytellers by nature. That said, we think this is a great book for teachers for the hope it offers and the support it presents. We think that it\u2019s very important reading for educational leaders in any role because it presents proven-on-the-ground beliefs and actions. For those studying education – either as pre-service teachers or as graduate students in leadership – <\/span>Timeless Learning<\/span><\/i> offers a different narrative, a different way of thinking about how to make schools great places for kids to be – great places for every kid. Parents, too, are finding value in the book. \u00a0Many parents of young children came through school in the \u201caccountability era\u201d which, in many schools, was a double-down on compliance-based, test prep schooling, and they don’t want their own children to endure that.<\/span><\/p>\n

You write in the afterword that you purposefully avoided focusing on data. Why, particularly in this day and age?<\/b><\/p>\n

There are all kinds of data; people need to remember that. Measuring children – or schools – on linear, numerical scales is one way; we just don\u2019t think that\u2019s necessarily the best way. Ira has called the 2002 grad-school-standard text <\/span>Scientific Research in Education<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u201cthe most dangerous book published this century,\u201d much to the consternation of some of his graduate school professors. He says the book implied that only one method of research really mattered, and that method reduced human children to numbers. But we see a very different kind of data as essential. It may start where one of our Australian collaborators does, \u201cWhere do we count the moments when a kid smiles for the first time?,\u201d as <\/span>Tomaz Lasic<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>has asked. Chad watches for that \u201cclosed down\u201d teen who joins a conversation with her peers. Pam rides school buses, sits on the floor in classrooms, talks to kids cutting classes in high school corridors, looking for everything from mood to relationships. Ira looks at kids\u2019 feet as they sit in classrooms and counts the number of kids moving on their own through hallways to measure boredom and trust. Our book is filled with data, just not what people today think is data.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Thinking about the title: What do you mean by “zero-based thinking”?<\/b><\/p>\n

Zero-based thinking is, in education, this idea: Imagine if you\u2019d never seen a school, never heard of a school. How might you plan to get our kids from four-year-olds to 18-year olds, or 22-year-olds? What would you do? What would you want to do? That sounds extreme, but it’s the way real change is developed. Pam often talks about the \u201cBell Labs Moment.\u201d In the very early 1950s an AT&T executive challenged the entire Bell Labs staff, \u201cthe entire phone system of the United States has been destroyed; now, how would you build a new system?\u201d In those days of copper wire, rotary dials, and mechanical switching, the engineers developed – over the next 12 months – everything we now have in phones. They developed the basics of push-button dialing, cell phones, messaging, and microwave transmissions, because they were freed from, as Tyack and Cuban say<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>\u201ctinkering towards utopia.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, there\u2019s a balance. We start with observation and mapping the present state; find out where you are. Then – this next step returns to that research model because it\u2019s never about one change but it\u2019s about moving toward the environment you want (use of space, pedagogy, technology, etc.) – begin the changes that move toward that zero-based desired state. That desired state for every child needs to be your north star.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>Lastly, just what is “timeless learning”?<\/b><\/p>\n

Humans…well, everything is born ready to learn. Watch a two-year-old explore her world. Watch a four-year-old play in a puddle. Kids learn at this incredible rate birth to four or five, and then we impose \u201cformal\u201d education and the learning curve collapses – and not just during school hours. We literally teach most kids that learning is boring and painful and that it comes from passive information intake.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pam and Ira visited a school outside Limerick, Ireland a few years ago – a small primary school, pre-K through grade six, about 40-something kids and two teachers. The verbal skills, the collaboration skills, the vocabulary, and the depth of understanding was astounding. We noticed a few things; one was the multi-age nature of the school (common in Irish primary schools), another was the peer mentoring and support, still another was the consistent complex adult vocabulary the teachers used with the kids, and another was the level of responsibility the kids were entrusted with. But here was the main thing: the school culture was predicated on the County Tipperary obsession with the sport of hurling<\/a><\/span>. Every child had a helmet and \u201churley\u201d (the wooden stick the game is played with) under their desk. When they took breaks from the classrooms, almost all the kids engaged in a mass free-for-all version of the game. It was beautiful to see, and it built this great combination of competitiveness and camaraderie that drove things forward. But not every kid played, and that was fine too. Small groups of others just played catch with their sticks or just talked. Just as in the classroom, one highly dyslexic fifth grader videoed other students reading and talking on an old broken-screen iPhone. He gathered information and knowledge differently, and again, that was fine.<\/span><\/p>\n

The point is that \u201ctimeless learning\u201d is learning. It isn\u2019t school. It isn\u2019t really formal education as we know it. It is taking the natural routes of learning and giving those back to children.<\/span><\/p>\n

**********<\/p>\n

Get <\/span>Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-based Thinking Change Schools<\/span><\/i> online and from independent booksellers. And follow the authors on Twitter: @csratlff, @pammoran, @irasocol, and @timelesslrng.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three nationally known educators that I respect a great deal – Ira Socol, Chad Ratliff,\u00a0and Pam Moran, all from Virginia\u2019s Albemarle County Public Schools\u00a0– have a new book out called\u00a0Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-based Thinking Change Schools. It\u2019s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5,7,71,72],"tags":[504,662,660,661,663],"class_list":["post-2506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-classroom","category-school","category-school-district","category-teachers","category-teaching-2","tag-albemarle-county-public-schools","tag-chad-ratliff","tag-ira-socol","tag-pam-moran","tag-timeless-learning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2506"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2512,"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2506\/revisions\/2512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}