Wildfire Education

In this episode, Doris talks with Michael Hudecek of St. Clair Superior Development Corporation. He shares his “overwhelming success” in piloting Korda’s model in one of Cleveland’s most impoverished neighborhoods.  Doris: Okay. Hey, Michael, how are you doing? Michael: I’m doing great. It’s good to see you again, Doris. Doris: It’s great to see you. It’s been such a short time and such a long time since I last saw you. Michael: It was an intense six weeks we just experienced. Doris: Yeah, how did it go? How did it go? Michael: It was overwhelmingly successful. Doris: That’s awesome. Michael: You know, that comes with a large caveat of, tons of trials and tribulations and it wasn’t perfect. But for year one, we left just overwhelmed at how wildly successful this experiential learning program is. Doris: Talk about the success. Who were the kids? How was it successful? Michael: The students all came from two schools in our service district. A little background about myself, my name is Michael Hudecek and I work for St Clair Superior Development Corporation. And this is, to my knowledge, the first CDC run foray into urban entrepreneurship for youth, so we’re sort of treading new water, none of us are experienced educators and the students came from Nexus Academy, which is an e-learning high school. The kids spend half their time in the classroom and half of their studies happen at home. And then one of the students goes to St. Martin de Porres, which is actually who hosted us for the summer. Doris: So they’re kids from public schools. Michael: Nexus is a charter school and St. Martin de Porres is a private Christian-run school, actually, a really interesting model. Doris: Yeah, it’s a really interesting model. It’s awesome. And the neighbor, could you talk for a moment about the neighborhood. Michael: Yes, so the St. Clair neighborhood runs from about East 30th to Martin Luther King and from the lake to Payne. So it’s the near east side, roughly the same geographical location on the east side of town as Gordon Square is on the west, so proximity to downtown is really quite amazing. It’s probably the most genuinely diverse neighborhood in the city. There’s a large Asian population. It’s predominantly African-American, but there is an old Slovenian neighborhood so there’s a lot of leftover ethnic neighborhood. They hold Kurentovanje in that service district every year, which is a huge Slovenian Easter time celebration. Doris: And just very briefly, because I was very excited about this, you said you’re not educators and it’s an economic development corporation and you decided to do this class because your goal is…? Michael: We really wanted to provide access to entrepreneurship to kids in our neighborhood. The Cleveland Flea was started by our CDC and has grown wildly and not without our help, or without our help largely in recent years, and residents weren’t getting opportunities to access them. So we first started trying to do some stuff with adults and then realized that for actual change to take place, we needed to reach kids sooner. Not that adults can’t learn entrepreneurship, but besides learning entrepreneurship, which hopefully will create new businesses in the future, it’s really just amazing life skills, soft skills as a lot of people like to call them, financial responsibility, you name it, and the thing that piqued our interest about your program, specifically, is it’s sort of project-based learning, teamwork, and not the usual lemonade day, park on a corner, sell ten bucks worth of lemonade and pat yourself on the back. Doris: Yeah, and yeah. Michael: We’re just trying to do something new and different and attack it in a different way than normal. Doris: So you did your first pilot. Michael: Yeah, we just finished our first six-week course, we had five students and it was really amazing. We worked with two businesses in our service district. The first one is Upcycle Parts Shop, which is another program that we run at St. Clair Superior Development Corporation. They’re what’s known as a creative reuse center, so they divert waste materials from residential, industrial, and commercial sources, and then resell it as art supplies as well as doing community art programming. And then our second business was APE MADE, which is a local screen printer, she does mostly clothing and apparel screen printing. And then for our final project, we were gonna have a third business but we decided to let the students try out their hand at starting their own and when we get to that, they had a really amazing concept which blew us away at the end of the day. Doris: Oh, yeah? What was it? Michael: So they wanted to launch a gym because they recognized there was a gym desert. If you look at a Google Map of where gyms are in the neighborhood, you see tons of gyms downtown and tons of gyms in the heights. But the crescent moon that sort of shapes those areas, mostly impoverished regions don’t really have access to gyms. The major component was childcare, which they highlighted from getting out and talking to people, and then a lot of those people work all day, they don’t have time to go home and feed the kids, find a babysitter, go back to the gym and come back. So it was really cool to see them identify a need and try and solve it. Doris: That’s awesome. Talking about if you had to net out the growth you saw on the kids from the start to finish as a result of your pilot, how would you describe it? Michael: Totally different people. Doris: Wow. Michael: Most of them were shy to begin with, some of them were ace students and totally, you know, brilliant by traditional test-taking standards but hated public speaking. As you said frequently this summer, wanted you to have an answer for them, and by the end of it, the weakest, again by traditional standards, air quotes, you can’t see at home, was probably the strongest kid in the room. He was confident, despite the fact that he was the youngest, he was 14 and everyone else, he was going to be a sophomore, everyone else was gonna be a senior, he excelled at every turn and the girl, he was the only boy, the girls kept chiding him for being young and immature, and he was the one who, when you gave him a task, came back to you with concrete information. Doris: That’s awesome. Michael: The ace students were finding reasons why they didn’t need to keep going and he was like, “Oh, I found this cool thing.” And he wasn’t braggadocios about it. He just sort of presented it matter-of-factly and really blew me away. Doris: That’s awesome. What do you think, so when, you know, we talk to educators after they’ve implemented and we talk about those skills, creative problem solving, critical thinking, all that stuff. But if I had to pick one, the one that every student universally says first and most generally, is confidence. Would you agree? Michael: Hands down, yeah. Being able to sit in a room, actually, the funder from Burton D. Morgan, who funded us, made it to the final presentation. So he was in the room, our executive director was there, some of our staff, and they had, you know, six or seven people in suits show up for their final presentation. There was some tragic circumstances, they lost a lot of days preparing, some team members were out for large stretches of that, and in the last 36 hours, they pulled it together, put an amazing show on and blew everybody out of the water. So it was just one of those, you know, when you’re down and out, you pick yourself up and keep going. And I think it was the trials that they had in the first two rounds that really gave them the confidence to pull it out at the end. Doris: Yeah, so that’s, I think that’s really important. There are a lot of programs, a lot of programs where what you did in the final part of your class and what we do in the final part of ours, is the entire class. Choose something you care about, create a business model. I have found the same thing that having them work on someone else’s specific problem first allows them to learn. Talk about that. Michael: There’s just so much from an entrepreneurship standpoint and the reasoning and logic that the students don’t know when they get going, so again, as someone who hasn’t been doing this very long, as an outsider, it just seems like the leap from, “I know nothing,” to, “I’m gonna start this business, that means a lot to me,” is just putting too much on their shoulders in too small of amount of time. And having a concrete single identifiable problem instead of, “I’m gonna change this world because there’s a need that I see”, allows them to focus and learn some basic tenets that they can use later on. That again at the end, they don’t necessarily know they’ve been taught, they just had to learn because they needed to solve this problem. So it was just really great to see them tackle it and then by having multiple iterations, grow the problem a little bit, take on more responsibility and they’ll tell you this, they didn’t think in the middle of the second one that they were gonna be able to do it. The same way in the middle of the first one, they say, “Oh, well we tackled the first one, we can do this. We’re stressed out but I know we can do this.” And then again in the third one, “Well, I guess we made it through that second one, there’s no way we can’t finish this one.” Doris: That’s awesome. Michael: So based on your concept of sort of like growing the responsibility as they come along through the program and expanding what they’re required to respond to is really helpful I think for their growth. Doris: So, Michael, you’ve never taught before this. Michael: I spent six weeks in Costa Rica teaching ESL. But it was a drastically different environment, teaching ABC’s and one-two-three’s to six year olds. Doris: So talk about what it was like before, during and now, to teach as a teacher. Michael: I think the most amazing part for me was that I felt like I was on a parallel track with the students and we had a lot in common through the whole process. They kept saying how, “We haven’t done this.” And I said, “Neither have I, you know, we’re failing together, this is great.” Doris: That’s awesome. Michael: And I think the confidence as an educator improved greatly as well. At each step, I became more confident along the way and I think as someone who never did this and as a non-educator, you kept saying, “Oh, it doesn’t matter, you’ll be fine, you just got to do it.” And as I was leaving the workshop with four days to go, I was panicking and thinking, “Okay, well, we don’t have any more time so this is just gonna have to work out.” And to your credit, it really did. Just showing up and going through the motions and trying to stay one step ahead and connecting TED Talks and news articles and different workshops that we could do in class with the work they were doing on the business, just was great for everybody, including me. I mean, I still watch a TED talk at least once a day now as a result of it. It was just something that I enjoy as an adult. And I think to get away from the education standpoint, it’s something that we’re trying to use in our organization. We’re actually trying to get together an office wide project. A lot of our work tends to be siloed and so we’re trying to tackle a neighborhood project in 2017 that none of us like is responsible for, but that we identify as a need. So we’re sort of taking this experiential learning back home. Doris: That’s awesome. Are you gonna use any of the stuff that we do in the class? Michael: Yeah, it is predicated on that model entirely. Doris: That’s awesome. Michael: So it’s gonna be really cool, and I think that it’s a great reminder as adults and professionals that we shouldn’t pretend that we know everything and stop growing as people. So this has really been great for me. And at the final presentation, the day before was our annual meeting and I had to give a speech and I hate public speaking and it was great to be able to tell these kids. “I was up last night, making my own slide deck, I’m 33 years old, I still don’t like doing it, I wish I was you right now, because 15 years from now you’ll say, ‘Oh, that’s easy, I don’t, you know, it doesn’t stress me out.’” So it was just really cool to be on these parallel tracks with the students. So anybody, at any level of their life, should experience this once, whether as an educator or somebody on the other side. Doris: Yeah, and to your point about TED talks and there are so many things that are part of this model that, if you bring them in to your work, are fantastic, collaborate, you know, better collaborators bringing the rest of the world into what you do. Michael: Absolutely. And just thinking creatively about every problem, there are so many different ways to look at the world and it’s easy to get stuck in the one that you’re in because that’s what you do and it’s how you do it. And the more opportunities to shock yourself with these different mindsets, it’s amazing, if you’re paying attention, how much applicable reasoning and logic can be brought in… Doris: Yeah, we talked… Michael: Unrelated fields. Doris: Unrelated fields. We talked right before your first day of class and you were mapping out your plans for the, remember, for the first days, and you just said something now about staying one step ahead, which is before I didn’t think you understood that totally, you were nervous about making sure you had something to do every day, but clearly, now you have a different perspective on that. Michael: Definitely. I think it’s hard too, your tendency is to wanna plan and decide what’s gonna happen. Doris: Per minute. Michael: And for like the students who want an answer, there’s no answer. They’re gonna get stuck on one thing tomorrow, and then two days later, it’s gonna be something you didn’t even see coming necessarily, and so you just have to be thinking, “What might they be having trouble with and how can we try and figure it out?” And to be honest, a lot of times I didn’t figure it out right away and it took me a week, and then all of a sudden, it was like, “Okay, this is what I’m doing wrong. This is how we’re gonna implement it.” And I’m sure sometimes I didn’t really nail it. But I… Doris: Oh, yeah, sure. That’s all right. Michael: To your point, like I just had to do it and I’ve done it and I’m already thinking about next summer, how are we gonna do things differently? Doris: How great is that? Michael: It’s been really phenomenal and everyone at St. Clair is really grateful for it. The opportunity to go through the workshop and the fact that you’re championing this model for anyone and the fact that it’s open access and you’re trying to just get this way of thinking out in the world, I think that’s important for the youth of America. Doris: That’s great. That’s great. And you knew, one of the things, you mentioned at the beginning, everybody talks about these soft skills and I’ve decided not to use that term anymore. The reason is that in my travels I’d found that people are, there’s something about “soft” skills that devalues it and actually I really think the skills we’re talking about are the hardest ones to develop, they’re harder to develop than learning, memorizing my whatever and they’re… Talk about the skills that you’ve seen these students develop. And what you think they’re leaving this one summer program better equipped with as they head out? Michael: The ability to work in teams, I think is probably the biggest improvement for all the students when we were doing the first challenge. And even to some degree, when they were solving their own problem, they tended to wanna break up the work and say, “I’m doing this part and you’re doing this part,” and getting them to say, “We’re doing this and I’m helping work on this. But if I need help, I can talk to you,” I think was really important. And again, drawing parallels to our office place, a lot of times, as adults, we forget that when we’re in a group, whatever organization it is, you have talented people all around you and being able to ask for help is something that’s not really encouraged later in life. You’re supposed to have all the answers. So it’s really great for kids to recognize early and often that asking for help is good and helpful, and various ideas are good and helpful. Again, the confidence presenting in front of people, the confidence in having an idea and not coming up to me and saying, “I have this idea. Is this even the realm of okay?” And by the end, they’re throwing crazy ideas out there and if I say no, they come back five minutes later with a new one. It’s not, “Oh man, you shut me down, this is the end of the day, I’m done.” It was, “Oh, okay, well, let me see what, why that didn’t work and come back to you later.” And so the confidence to fail confidently, I think, is the biggest one outside of, you know, again asking questions and teamwork. Doris: I love that. It’s so funny because you come out of having done it and these are all different schools, they’re all different courses, different programs, different sets of students and everybody comes out of this saying the same things, right, about what these students have gotten out of it, and I call it substantive confidence because I think of it as, it’s not of the empty, “Oh honey, you’re great. Let’s make sure everybody gets a ribbon whether they won or not.” It’s the confidence that comes from knowing, “I can navigate complexity, whether it’s relationships, problems, situations, I know I can navigate.” Failing badly and picking yourself up, “I have confidence that I will be able to navigate whatever is in front of me.” And that is so important for students going out into this particular day and age. Michael: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. Doris: So what’s next for you? Michael: So we are regrouping for next summer. This is part of like a three-part program. So we’re actually in the midst of planning a pitch competition for the fall. We have some funds to hopefully start a small company in the neighborhood, so we’re excited about that, and we’re working on getting that together now. We’re actually using Flipgrid as our entry point so it’s been great to integrate that technology. My wife is pregnant and we’re due in like a month. Doris: Congratulations. That’s exciting. Michael: Thank you. So we figured Flipgrid was an easy way for them to get their first 90-second pitch in there and then we’ll do a more intense follow-up once I’m back from paternity leave. Doris: That’s great. And next summer, what are your plans for next summer? Michael: Next summer, we’re coming back better than ever, hopefully, now that we’ve got one under our belt. I definitely wanna have more students. I think having the opportunity to have different teams, not only to mix personalities and provide different experiences working in teams, but also to have that little competitive edge of one-upping your fellow students. Doris: Yeah, I have to congratulate you because people might think having a small cohort to start with is a really lucky, great, easy thing. It actually makes it more difficult because there’s a natural energy that comes from having multiple teams. If one team’s kind of stuck, they’ll look over their shoulder, the other teams going at it, and I think it’ll be so interesting to see how your experience is different as your class size grows. Michael: Yeah, we found even just as the teachers, we stepped out a lot. There was so little for us to do every little bit that it felt suffocating to be in the same room with the students because they kept looking over their shoulder, feeling like we were judging them. So Aiden, who was interning with us this summer, a student from Hawken, and I would just leave for hours at a time and just say, “When do you want us to come back? Well, you know, you have until you need some help, if you have any questions, we’re across the hall.” Doris: So that’s funny, the first, the reason in the Toolkit we give you the first full three weeks mapped out is that because they come in passive, wanting you to tell them everything, we find that these structures and teaching them the methodologies and all that stuff in the first stretch of the class is really important, but over time, they have the tools, they have the skills and they’re applying them, so there is more, later in the class, more time for the instructors to be out of the room. Michael: Yeah, you’re just sort of shepherding them back to whatever direction you need them to go, but they’re doing all the work. I can’t say enough about the amount of time they put in both at home and in class, on their own accord. I mean, we were very flexible and told them, “You know, if you wanna go home, we can go home.” And more often than not, they said, “Oh, let’s stay.” Or, “Let’s go do some more interviewing.” Doris: So if there are people listening who are thinking about trying something like this but intimidated and a lot of people do get intimated because it’s so weird, what would you say to them? Michael: I would say, just do it. Start tomorrow. Don’t wait six weeks, don’t wait 12 months. The amount of time, so we started talking about this in February and we didn’t start implementing it until mid-June, and I spent so much energy on stuff that was a waste of time having gone through it once. Just like trying to plan and prepare and thinking about what’s gonna be perfect and there is no perfect. Doris: No, there isn’t. Michael: Just get one under your belt and you kept saying that this summer, and you know, having not gone through, you say, “Well, yeah, but there’s gotta be like something you can give me.” Wanting that answer that doesn’t exist. You know, it’s like this desire to have a path. Doris: Yeah, so we’ll give you the toolkit, you’ll have a starting point, and just go to town. Michael: Go to town. Doris: Nice. Michael: Let them have at it. Doris: Michael, congratulations. I’m so excited for your students, past and future. Michael: Thank you. Yeah, we can’t wait to do it again and we really couldn’t have done it without the support of you and your team. So thank you all. Doris: Oh, nice. Okay, so we’re gonna keep going because I just, we ended the podcast session and Tim turned off the mics and you just started saying some stuff that I really want everybody to hear. So I listened to you, knowing the kinds of kids you’re working with, and my heart is just full thinking about what you just did this summer. And if you could talk a little bit about the kids you worked with. Michael: Yeah, I mean as I was just saying off mic earlier, poverty is just really hard. I think one of the biggest struggles we had was just the effects of uncertainty in your life at every turn, for people especially that young, deaf sisters leaving their kids with them for emergency daycare, transportation issues, lack of money, you name it. Every turn, when things seemed like they were on a course for smooth sailing to get to the end, something tragic would arise and somebody would have to be out for a day or two. And of course, it’s not a fault, no one’s mad at anybody. You have to reassure them that it’s okay and that no one’s mad. But it’s just a reminder of one, how important this opportunity is. Many of the kids…I don’t remember if we talked about this on the mic earlier…left saying how grateful they were that they had skills that they wouldn’t have had otherwise and how they’re gonna have it later in life. Doris: So the kids already got that. Michael: Yeah, just saying, “I don’t wanna, you know, I don’t wanna be done at high school, I wanna go to college, I wanna be a nurse, and having these skills under my belt now will be really grateful. Like I didn’t, admittedly, I didn’t wanna be here.” Some of the kids were supposed to be in another program and we tugged them back and they were crestfallen and then found that they really were enjoying it and were grateful for the opportunity. But our end goal, I think we were talking about too, is not to be the ones administering this program every year. It’s not that we don’t love doing it, my experience was amazing, but we hope to get teachers at the schools where the students we’re reaching or coming from, to recognize that, if I can do it with no background in education and practically no resources, somebody with an entire institution behind them can be having a much greater impact than Michael Hudecek can be with 5 or 10 or 15 students. Doris: Yeah, and if we get this amidst what we’re trying to do, we don’t want these to be add-on weekend summer programs. We want all students to have, develop these kinds of skills in school classes. Michael: Yeah, and that’s where we’re hoping to get at, too. So we are hopefully championing your cause on a very small scale. Doris: Well, and you know, we’re here to help anybody who wants to do it. Michael: And she means that. People listening at home, if you talk to Doris and you have a question, she will get back to you as soon as she possibly can, so don’t be shy if you have a question, and if she says, “Call me,” she means it. Doris: Well, and we can give you a starter kit. I think that’s also, thank you for saying that, I think. I think that the big thing that teachers need to know if they wanna try this is we give you a starter kit with step… Michael: Yeah, the toolkit’s immensely helpful to get off the ground. Doris: Right. So you can just have something to try and it’s right there in front of you. You said something about, you talked about the kids who went to the wrong place. I thought that was really interesting the first day. Michael: Yeah, we worked with Youth Opportunities Unlimited, which is a local sort of first job organization. They give young students between 14 and 19 summer employment. They make minimum wage. They show up, most of the jobs are manual labor or nominal tasks around for organizations that are usually nonprofits and don’t have the funds to pay for the extra help they need in the summer. And so, we partnered with them and the students were actually getting paid, but due to some administrative things, they ended up at the wrong site, which was a teen center and all their friends were there and they were so excited to be just learning about hip-hop and muraling and gardening and doing all this amazing fun stuff in the summer, and they showed up and I told them that they were basically in school again for six weeks. But it was nothing like school, which they did not believe, when I told them that. Doris: So they were not happy that first day. Michael: They were really unhappy and within 48 hours, they were the ones who were most excited and were saying, “Thank you so much for making us leave, we know we fought you on it but this is the best thing we could have done for six weeks. We can hang out with these kids for the next nine months at school, but we can’t ever get this back.” Doris: And why do you think they thought it was good that they were gonna be returning to school? Michael: They recognized immediately that the public speaking skills, the ability to work in teams, the confidence they were getting from it, and the ability to tackle a challenge that they felt completely unprepared for, was inside them the whole time, and that they didn’t need to judge themself against other people anymore because they had it all the time and they just needed somebody to say, “You can do this.” And force them to actually do it. Doris: Yeah, that was the most beautiful thing, we’re gonna end on that note. Okay, thanks.

In this episode, Doris and Alison discuss the themes that emerged from this season’s conversations with 62 entrepreneurial educators who have courageously ignited change in how we do school. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Alison: Hey, Doris. Doris: Hey, Alison.   Alison: How are you doing? Doris: I’m great. Alison: Yeah, I’m feeling pretty great, too. Wrapping up Season 3… Doris: Yeah. It’s been an incredible journey. What an adventure and what an amazing thing to have all these educators with such important and interesting and inspiring things to say and have their voices and their ideas captured. It’s been extraordinary. Alison: I couldn’t agree more. I mean, I felt really honored, from a production side of this season to be able to highlight these educators in ways that…you know, they’re not usually getting that recognition. Doris: Yeah, I don’t think teachers do, absolutely. We’ve talked about it that a lot. They don’t. Alison: Right. They’re inside their classroom and they don’t have that kind of spotlight usually. Doris: That’s right. And it was your idea to call this season the “Firestarters.” And I loved it when you first said it. I knew that was right and I love it even more now, because, really, that’s what everything we’re talking about is all about. It’s about how do you make system change when you have a system that is entirely wrong, which I believe is the case with our education system created in the 19th century. How do you make systems change? And it starts with, whether it’s a school or a public school district or another country, it starts with a brave risk-taking person who says, “We need to do this in a completely different way and I’m willing to step off the ledge and take a huge risk to do something completely differently with students in a classroom, in a school.” And people who aren’t in schools, I don’t think can really grasp how difficult that is to do. And, because there are people, educators, who are brave and courageous and will put themselves in harm’s way in order to do this, we have now schools all over the world that are changing their practice in ways that changes the lives for their students.   Alison: It’s powerful. And to see that pattern over and over where because they’re taking that risk because it’s creating results with their students, others in their school community start to open up to changing their practice, approaching things differently with different methods in their classrooms that can equally impact students. Doris: That’s right. You know, it’s interesting. We are at the same time as we’ve been creating Season 3 and having all these conversations. We’ve also been creating a new organization, a nonprofit, where we’re doing this work. And there are organizations now all over the world and growing numbers who are organizing around this work, how do we help schools? How do we change the education system so that we’re better preparing kids? But none of it works. None of that will make a dent if we don’t have teachers and administrators inside schools willing to take the risk and also put an incredible amount of energy and effort into trying something new and then building something new. And that’s really what we’ve had here. We’ve had conversation after conversation with educators, heads of schools, principals, teachers of all types in all kinds of schools, who are raising their hand to say, “I’ve got to do something differently here.” And then we have teamed with them to help them so they have a starter kit, so they don’t have to build everything from scratch themselves, that’s really what we’re doing here. And then they take the starter kit, they try it out inside the class, inside the school, not with a spotlight, not creating a brand new big program, just try it out. And the minute they do, they see for themselves, “This is better. This is doing school better.” And from there, they take it. It gives them even more courage to change over time everything, what they do and how they do it. And we’ve been seeing that these Firestarters, the ones, you know, I may have worked with, four years ago, like Jeremy in the last episode. And he comes in as a science teacher, and four years later, wow, listen to the program which is entirely DSST Public School’s program. That is their program that they’ve created and is growing like crazy. But it has to start with one educator somewhere inside a school who raises their hand and says, “No, I’m not doing this any more like this. We are not doing… I will put myself out there.” I imagine that most of the people who listen to this podcast are educators themselves. And to the educators, when they hear us talking like this, they completely understand what I’m saying. For those not in education, I want to linger on this point because I don’t think there is an industry out there that is as change-averse and risk-averse in how it’s set up as the education industry. I really don’t. And to make change from within and not only make change, but to use our favorite word, radically different, radically different approach, inside a system where all eyes and all operations and everything we do is set up to evaluate the students and you and the school using completely different measures and priorities, to stand up and say, “I’m gonna try something radically different and it doesn’t fit into any of the norms that this system has been guided by” is a really brave thing. They are Firestarters. Alison: And it’s spreading. That, it’s contagious. We’ve seen it, that when one person is having results like that, the others in their institution feel more courageous, feel like it’s not as risky for them to start trying something new like that. And I’m always a firm believer in, kind of, that inside-out approach to change and to know that we’re having traction in the education industry is incredible. I mean, it’s so calcified, like we always say. Doris: Well, and it’s because…the reason that happens that after one teacher or administrator does one pilot using these methods, it’s inevitable that one year, two years, three years later, it’s had a ripple effect. You know, well, like wildfire. The reason is, this is better. It’s just better, and it’s better for kids and there’s no arguing with it. And, you know, as you hear me say so often, what teachers have in common is they all chose kids as their life’s work. So if you aren’t too jaded by having done it for too long inside the system, if you still have that little thing inside you which I think educators do, this is, “Oh yeah, kids. This is about kids.” Then when you implement a pilot and use these methods that are radically different and you see the results in your students, you can’t go back. And when others in the building see those students, they are compelled to try something different. Alison: And we’ve seen it now. So we had, in this whole season, 62 educators represented who really embodied all that you’re talking about. They were across 20 states, 7 countries, impacting students in all those areas, which, I mean, it really is even more motivating. You know, to do this work is something that’s inspiring day-to-day for me and to start to see this now scaling in this way is more than I could have hoped for. Doris: You know, we have kind of an amazing collection in Season 3. We’ve worked at having sort of a little bit of everything. But every story is different and if it were up to me, we would just continue to have these conversations. They’re extraordinary and they’re inspiring and they’re all different. Every teacher, every educator is themselves a designer. They’re designing the learning experience of their students. So everyone is unique. And as we continue to work with more and more educators in more and more countries in more and more schools, I wish we could just have these conversations all the time. Every one of them is interesting. I’m never ever bored by hearing what these educators are doing and how they’re using these methods to then create as a starter, you know, as an igniter. And then how they’re shaping their programs themselves, it’s really cool. And, you know, we’ve talked about this but it’s impossible to listen to this without understanding that we’re not just talking about transforming the kids. We’re talking about transforming the adults. The adults are getting transformed in beautiful ways. It’s like being in this system or in this line and you’ve just been told to get in line, keep marching, don’t get out of line, don’t talk, da da da, and then somebody says, “Wait, wait.” And they step out of line and they do their thing. They get to be themselves and they never go back in that line. And that’s really what the season, I think, is all about. Alison: Yeah. I think there were some common themes that we saw that were to your point around taking risks and being brave. We heard people talking about this idea of Deschooling, not only the students, but themselves, to that point, where they felt like it was a rewiring of the way they were approaching their work and their impact. We heard about this idea of leaders in their school really creating a space for them. You’ve been saying creating the conditions lately, which is a helpful way to put that, so that there’s space for these educators to be creative and come up with new types of programs. Doris: And to experiment. It isn’t just organic, actually. What’s happening is you have to have the leadership of whether it’s a school or the district, but at some point, it’s the school building. You have to have the leadership in the school who has the will to create the conditions so that the experimenting and the innovating, you know, the now overused word, can happen. That’s really important for people to understand. It isn’t just about a teacher in a classroom deciding, “This is wrong. I want to do it differently.” That’s a necessary ingredient but without the leadership, it just doesn’t happen. Alison: Absolutely true. And, I think, as well these schools, when you talk about, you know, innovation is a buzz word that a lot are using and, you know, same with skill building, and these are things that people are paying a lot of lip service to. But they are, in their implementation, falling short in a lot of ways. And so to really see how these educators, with the help of their leadership, have been embedding this inside their schools so that their students are learning the skills so that they’re coming out impacting their communities by solving problems with businesses or other community leaders. You know, I think it’s really powerful. Doris: Yeah, I agree. And the methods are really important. Without having methods for educators to take and use, methods that have been developed over the course of years and literally, by now, thousands of students, everybody has to… Alison: By you. Doris: Well, but everybody has to start by scratch. And there are lots and lots of teachers who are starting from scratch and they’re doing fabulous things. But if we want to really create a new education system, we have to have some practices that have been developed over time with some shared principles and some shared approaches. It doesn’t mean every, like…You know, I don’t want an education system where there’s a single method or single practice. Of course not. But what we’re talking about are some very basic needs of a teacher. When wanting to create something new, “How do I design the curriculum? What do I have to think about most when I do that? And then are there some things others have already developed that I can use to test drive this? And then what is the actual teaching of it? What does it look like minute to minute in the actual classroom with the kids? I’ve got four walls. I’ve got 35 kids in front of me. I know how to do what I’ve been doing that last 20 years. What the heck do I do with these 35 kids in my 45 minutes every day?” And for this kind of innovation to happen well and in a healthy way, there has to be some methodology as a starting point that people can take advantage of. And that’s really a big part of what we’ve been doing, of course. But then, when you listen to these podcasts, they’re all completely different. They’re not all entrepreneurship classes. They’re, in fact, as you know, this is a massive thing because six years ago, when I started entrepreneurship class, for years, I had such a hard time with the baggage of assumption. “Oh, it’s a marketing class.” “Oh, it’s about how to make money.” “Oh, it’s about…” No, this is about doing school differently. And when you listen to these podcasts, you can’t go into these podcasts thinking, “Oh, but this is okay for an entrepreneurship class or an extracurricular or whatever.” You can’t listen to what these teachers have done inside core academic classes and what impact it’s had, the results. You can’t listen to that and come out the other side and say, “Yeah, it’s not rigorous. It’s a cool thing over here.” No, this is about changing the way we do school entirely. Alison: This right. So to say the least, it has been an inspiring season and we hope you listeners found it useful. We are going to be taking a break here over the holidays but we will be back in the new year with Season 4. In the meantime, be courageous, take some risks and try to ignite some change at your school. Doris: That’s right.

In this episode, Doris speaks with Jeremy Wickenheiser, Founder and Director of Entrepreneurial Studies at DSST Public Schools. He shares his journey from teaching high school science four years ago to building an entrepreneurship program that has scaled across the large network of urban schools in Denver, Colorado. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Doris: Hello, Jeremy. Jeremy: Hi, Doris. Doris: I am so excited for this conversation, I met you four years ago. You were a science teacher. I’d like you to introduce yourself, and your program, now that you’re the Director of Entrepreneurial Studies. Jeremy: Sure. My name is Jeremy Wickenheiser and I currently at DSST Public Schools, which a public chatter network located in Denver, Colorado. We currently have 13 schools of mix up middle schools, and high schools, serving approximately 5,300 students. And the Entrepreneurial Studies program we built and designed is currently being implemented in two high schools, one middle school in our network in the school-based that’s approximately 600 students. And we also have different kind of summer programming for both, you know, current students, alumni. And then we have kind of capstone experience that involved international travel and those kinds of pieces. And then we’re also increasingly starting to work with the educators actually within our network to bring this kind of learning into their kind of core content classes, if you will. Because a lot of what we do is actually, I believe, is very much of framework of learning that can be applied to any sort of content that it just so happens that we’re using entrepreneurship as a vehicle to deliver these critical skills. But you can very easily do that in your statistics class or your biology class, or what-have-you. And we’re increasingly working with teachers in our network to do so. Doris: Phenomenal. I’d love for our listeners to hear a bit about you, Jeremy, and about why you do this. Why are you so passionate about this? Jeremy: Right. So, I grew up in a really small town in Northern California, went to UC Santa Barbara, where I got a degree in creative studies with an emphasis in biology. Then I went ahead and joined Teach for America, taught on the U.S.-Mexico border in South Texas, four years. And then came up to DSST Public Schools here in Denver, Colorado, where I currently teach. And DSST Public Schools is a charter network that was founded in 2004, built on the idea of, how do we create inclusive schools that, you know, foster, I would say, diversity or also providing a high-quality liberal arts focused, STEM-focused education that all students can access while emphasizing values as well. So, my path, in terms of teaching was since I studied biology in college, I taught a lot of different science courses, built a solar car engineering program. And then when I came to DSST, I started at our first high school and taught biology and what would be the equivalent of an AP biology course. And then I helped to open our second high school where I taught physics for the first two years, then I looped up and taught AP biology, and regular biology with our students. And then kind of that’s the time when we kind of started to foray into this space of entrepreneurial studies. And so, you know, for me I started to really, think could be a vehicle for developing these critical skills if, you will, because, you know, one of the things that I see in terms of education is, I think it’s about finding an equal balance between academic and support and competencies. But then also at the same time to giving students the space and time to both ask and answer the questions, you know, things like, “What I’m I put on this earth to do? Like what is my why? What is it that I care so deeply about?” Because, I think, especially when you look at young people today, I would say, more so than any time previously, they care super deeply about finding a career where they find meaning and purpose in that, more than just collecting a pay check. And, I think, then that’s where…That, you know, became for me kind of my mission and purpose, you know, is in that way, right? To help young people today. I would say, find their talents and gifts and help them think about how they’re going to uniquely use that to create the deepest impact that they can. Doris: I love the way you said that. So, what has this meant for the students at DSST? Jeremy: So one of the things that DSST has done since it’s opened is 100% of our students have been accepted in four year universities. You know, but we know that, you know, that’s not enough. It’s not enough just to be…I think some people say, “That’s enough.” But it’s not enough just to be accepted to college. Right now, I would say, our network is really shifted in terms of how we think about that and it’s, you know, much more so about, how do we actually help all of our students to be able to graduate from college. And, you know, I’ve had the opportunity to have conversations with people all over the city, and, I would say in terms of education, and then also in terms of higher education, and I’m thinking, you know, in the business communities. And, I think, there’s a couple of things that really stick out. You know, first, I think, the reality is, there’s a really big disconnect between K-12, higher ed and then the business community in the sense that when you look statistically, there’s data out there that says, “94% of the Chief Academic Officers from universities believe that they’re doing a good job, preparing students for careers post-college. But then on the flip side of it, only 11% of CEOs and hiring managers believe that to be true.” And that’s like a massive gap, right? And so that’s confirmed. I mean, when I talk to people they’ll tell me time and time again like, “Yes, you know, students even after coming out of college have all these academic content. Maybe they took, you know, a degree in computer science, whatever and they have all this content, but then all of these other skill components that kind of wrap around it. You know, this critical skills, you know, like resilience, and collaboration, and problem-solving, they may not have those kinds of pieces because the system hasn’t been designed to kind of give them those skills.” And so, that’s kind of why we started making the shift of, okay, well, if we’re going to deeply invest in helping and, I would say, supporting really, so all of our students who want to go to college, be able to graduate from college, we have to go ahead and give them the skills to do so. And it’s not just the academics skills, right? But also all these other skills that wrap around it. Because when we look across the country today, the reality is that less than 60% of students actually graduate college in six years. And if you’re a first generation or a low-income student, you have a 9% chance of graduating college in six years. But at the same time, we know that diverse teams or better teams in every sense of, you know, the word. And so, we have to do a better job of making sure that all students can kind of access that path, which is why we’ve gone ahead and made this re-orientation. Doris: Absolutely. And I won’t even call it soft skills because that diminishes what we’re talking about here. It’s so interesting that we do that in the education system. We, privilege that you learn how to differentiate an equation and then we say, “Oh, and isn’t it nice? Let’s create a program over there.” Maybe it’s a sport that you’re in or maybe it’s a STEM class or robotics, or some other thing over there where you learn things like, how to work with other people well. And how to communicate effectively, and how to problem solve when there’s no answer in the back of the book. And we call those soft skills, when in fact, anyone who’s been out of school for five minutes knows what we now have research to support, which is what makes you successful in work and in life is more based on your ability to do these things, others will call soft skills and I won’t, to be able to work well with others and be adaptable and flexible and resilient and handle failure well, and pick yourself back up and all of those things are the things that will mostly determine your success in work and in life. And even your happiness in living in a social world at much more so than your ability to take a part of sentence with grammatical…Like, it’s crazy, what we do. Jeremy: Right. I mean, these are the…I think of them like critical skills, because I don’t think…They’re definitely not soft skills. They’re harder to learn, in all sorts of the words. I also don’t really like necessarily like the term 21st century skills because they’re skills for every century, if you will, right? So I really think about them, as I would say, the critical skills because, I think, they’re critically important. Doris: Yes, I completely agree. And it’s time for us to throw out the 19th century model and acknowledge that these are actually core academic skills. And put the responsibility of schools for giving students learning experiences over the course of their childhood where they’re not only going to learn how to learn really hard stuff like statistics and mathematics and grammar, but they also, at the same time, must have the opportunity to develop these skills in school so that they’re really ready and prepared to be successful in the world they’re going out into. We have to call this academic, and we have to change what we call rigorous academics to include developing skills like this. Jeremy: Yeah. Doris: Okay, and I want to hear how it started and what happened. I remember you were coming to me around four years ago, you were an AP science teacher, and your school head decided let’s try an entrepreneurship class, and you were going to do some, sort of, an entrepreneurship class as an academic class for your seniors, came to the workshop. What happened? Jeremy: So, right after that workshop. I think, that was actually a big shift for us, in terms of, okay, we saw that this works, you know, after school, now, I think, the next logical step is…You know, then we believed, I would say, in inclusivity and access, and when things happen after school or have to happen after school, and on the weekend, that isn’t inclusive, and that is not accessible to all students. And so that isn’t right. And so, very much if we believe that this is an opportunity that all kids should have, which I do believe that it is, then let’s take it into the school day. So we started very small, which is the senior intensive course that had, I think, 11 students actually, two trimesters long, you know, built around the same ideas of solving real problems for real stakeholders. And for us, you know, the program that I built has been always been framed kind of around two big of overarching questions. The first is, “Who I’m I?” and then the second is, you know, “How will I create impact in the world?” Doris: Yes, and I’m going to actually interrupt you here because, this is really important as people understand. This isn’t about business and money making. Entrepreneurship, for me, is about training ideas into successful, repeatable realities. And, you know, when you think about that broadly, it applies to a lot of things, which is kind of what you’re saying. Jeremy: Right. Because as we think about entrepreneurship, we’re not…You know, the way that we say it is…This isn’t about the next software startup. We’re not training students, you know, to be the next, you know, startup CEOs. There will be a small fraction that do that, may be 1%. Because we get asked a lot, you know, “So the kids learning finance? Are they learning marketing? Are they learning…What are they learning?” And I, you know, I try to tell people that they’re learning, what I would say, right, is the idea of validation kind of portion of a lot of this. And they will learn some of those finance and marketing skills, but they will learn it in the context of the problem that they’re trying to solve. We want to give kids the skills, so that they can go learn all of those kind of pieces on their own as they need to on demand, right? Because that is what the world very much demands. I mean, how have I learned how to do all these things? I did not go to college for this at all, right? I went a head, and I talked to people, I watch a lot of videos, I read a lot of books, you know, those kind of things and that’s what we’re asking, I think, of everyone as we’re going to move forward throughout your career and life. Doris: Yeah. What an absurd idea. Think about it. So, I’m going to decide ahead of time, with all the information that is out there, I’m going to decide a head of time that this little sliver as content, maybe this little sliver of finance or this little sliver of history is the thing. I am going to make sure I teach this room full kids, and that’s what’s going to prepare them best for whatever comes their way. When you think about it like that, it really puts what we’re talking about in stark context. Jeremy: Yeah, I mean that does make sense, right? So, it’s very much about giving the kids the skills and adults, too, right? The skills to recognize when, “Hey, I don’t know something and then what do I do from there to go figure it out? How can I learn on my own and how do I have…” First, I would say, again, the humility to say, “I don’t know how to do this. And that I am willing to kind of seek help,” right? Because that’s a really hard thing to do. And that here is a network that I built around me. Or here’s books, here are all sorts of resources. You know, we live in an age where you can access all sorts of information. You know, so then how do you actually then take and use that? Doris: Absolutely. To your point about how you’ve learned, what you need to do the great work that you do? We’re teaching… as an example, in graduate schools, if you look at what we’re teaching in graduate schools of education, every bit of it is the wrong stuff. We’re actually not teaching people, the people who are going to become our teachers, the skills they need to get the learning to happen, to create learning experiences for others. We’re also, in graduate schools of education, with teachers of the future, it’s all this content, and it’s completely beside the main point, which is, how does learning happen in all these different people, and then how do you craft an experience and guide all these different people through it to make the kind of learning happen. both in terms of learning, how to learn hard stuff and developing the skills, and then how do we see if it’s actually happening? You know, it’s funny because I taught for 22 years, and what I’ve noticed is as, I’ve now been teaching other teachers, is that is that once you do the best work, like you, the thing they’re worried most about is they’re worried about, what each an every individual care in their class needs most next. And that’s why you couldn’t prepare for that before you knew who you had in the room. That’s why you’re constantly learning yourself. Jeremy: Right, I agree. And I think if you’re going to empower kids you also have to empower the teachers, right? And give teachers the skills that they need to do learning in a different way. So, I think, that’s what’s challenging about going down a path like this is you may want to do work differently with students, but then the questions is how? Like, how do I actually do that? And what are the fundamental skills that I need as an educator to be able to best serve the students that I’m working with? Because, you know, in your classrooms and my classrooms, it looks really different sometimes, where I think, a lot of it much more about facilitating, right? What you’re there to do is to kind of facilitate and to, kind of direct, if you will, but you’re also there to learn, even as an adult. And to understand to have the humility to kind of step into that space and say, “Hey, you know what? We’re in this together, and I am going to learn from you, and you’re going to learn some things from me.” And, I think, that takes a lot of humility from an adult, too. Doris: Certainly. And the way I talk about this, when it comes to the students is students today, young people, they want to work on…they want work that’s relevant and meaningful. I think everybody always wanted that. But in this day and age, they really understand when they’re sitting in a classroom, and they’re being lectured a sliver of content that it isn’t relevant. And your leaderships has the foresight to have pioneered, been pioneers really, in changing the way we do school and knowing that we’re going to have to experiment and we’re going to have to do that by letting our teachers experiment, because we have to come up with entirely different methods and these are not different methods for extra curriculars or the extra stuff in the fab lab. These are different methods for how we teach, so that the learning happens in any classrooms with any students. And re-defining really what we look at when we think about serving our students in school. And what we look at when we think about what academics means to us. And I really applaud you, I applaud your school, I applaud your leadership because this is what’s required if we’re going to do school better. And the reality is we’re not talking about doing school better inside a private school or certain charter schools that have the resources and the will. We’re talking of doing the school better for all kids. Jeremy: I 100% I agree. I think that you’re right, it’s very much about shifting, you know, what is, I think, the role of school. Because let’s be honest, right? School and learning are two different things, and education and learning are different things. And we need to, I think, very much inspire young people to become life long winners, right? So that they’re continuing with learning throughout their life and continually diving in. You know, because your why can fundamentally very much change throughout your life, but if you have the skills, where you can, you know, think critically, think deeply understand who you are, understand other people on the context within which you fit, and understand kind of where you want to go, then you can go ahead and constantly, I would say, re-invent yourself, which is, I think, what kids today are going to be asked to do multiple times kind of throughout their lives. Doris: And so, you started with a pilot and then you did it a second time. I remember coming to the final presentations of your second entrepreneurship class. But what’s really interesting is what has happened since and how really school-wide change has happened in a great way at DSST. So, tell us a little bit about that. Jeremy: Right. So, I mean, we have seen, I would say, the momentum just continue to grow. I would say the next, you know, big points along that journey is when we decided to take it now just from 12th grade but into the 9th grade and how are we actually taking this to a broad number of students. So, it’s not just, you know, 12 kids, but we’re talking now a whole grade level of students. And the intentional work that happens within our schools actually, were the staff team came together to say, “You know, do we want to actually change the schedule of our school to allow for an elective course like this..” And ultimately those were some of the decisions that we made, and so we designed the entire schedule to go ahead and allow for and accommodate that. And then also working with the middle school team as well to bring it down into the 8th grade and 7th grade on the same campus, and the we’ve also scaled it to a 9th grade class at one of our other about other campuses. There’s a lot about the program that we do on top of it because we’ve had, I would say, really gone ahead and built up this very robust full kind of vertical model. So today this far we have, you know, approximately 600 kids in our courses in our programs that’s now scaled within our network of 13 schools and as we look into the future we’re poised to continue to scale, and, I think, our current target is to scale to five additional high schools within our network. You know, serving approximately 1,400 kids within the next four years. And we currently have, you know, three additional people on the team and we’ll scale that to probably 10 in total, including myself, as we grow. And we continue to go ahead and build very robust partnerships, you know, both locally, nationally, and internationally, to allow our kids to, I would say, increasingly access this network of global changemakers, if you will. So, I think, that’s one of the big things that is core for us, too, is we’re very interested in the global sustainability goals. And how do we actually bring people together to tackle real problems that are very big in scope and that matter? And I firmly believe that to do that, we actually have to connect people from across to globe to solve these problems. It’s not like some people from one area of the world will solve all these problems other people. It’s very much about this interconnectedness and authentically working together to collaborate, to build solutions to these very real, kind of, like, daunting problems. And I believe that we have to actually start empowering young people to do that work now, today. And it’s not about, you know, reaching some point in your life where you’ve had a terminal degree that you can now contribute. But how do we give you skills to do that now? And how do we increasingly scale that across our network? But the reality is, that isn’t where we started that’s where we’ve come. And we’ve come that way in a pretty, I would say, a short period of time. But if you go back to the beginning, you know, it started with this after-school program, that then it went into the school day, very small but has grown increasingly large in a very short period of time. But, I think, it always comes back to this idea of dream big, start small, but most importantly start. And one of the little things that you can do along the way to go ahead and get there. Doris: Exactly. And DSST is a very special school. Really what we’re talking about here is the story of what happens when the leadership of a school decides that we need to change the way we do school. And a leader like yours, like Bill, creates the conditions that allow a teacher like you to take risks and to himself experiment and to experiment with the school, and try things, different things, multiple times over that you don’t have any experience with, but that you have the confidence, can lead to something that makes school much more impactful and effective for the students. And so, that’s what’s interesting about the story and while DSST and your school and you are such an exciting story. What’s really important about this story is that this is happening elsewhere, and it can happen everywhere. And what’s important is just start with a leadership that has the will to create the conditions for it to happen. Jeremy: Yeah. So, I think, that’s true, and, I think, I’ve been fortunate to have the support of our network and board and everyone to go ahead and go on this journey, which I’m very thankful for. You know, that’s been a hallmark of our network, which is why I’ve continued to remain here, if you will, all these years. Because, I think, there’s a couple of things. One, you know, DSST is very much leading nationally, I would say, on this conversation around inclusivity and equity and pieces like that. And then, I think, there is also very much this humility of saying, and knowing that we don’t have everything figured out and every day we have to get better for our kids. And, I think, that becomes a part of everything that we do as a network, which has very much led to us taking this step of how to do we provide students with this critical skills that they’re going to need later in life on top of this academic foundation. Doris: Yes, so, we are at an interesting time in education right now. Industry-wide educators understand..they really accept actually, they not just understand, they accept that what we’re doing, how we’re doing it is not helpful. They get it. But what they don’t have that they need is the “how?” So, if I’m teaching five classes a day, whatever, inside a school, I need very well understand that my giving the worksheets and my giving the tests for a specific stuff and getting…I get that this is not the most hopeful thing for every single individual kid the room, but I don’t know how to do it differently. And as an industry, we need to create a completely different set of methods for the practice. And that’s really what I’m, you know, as you know very well, that’s what I’m working on. This is giving teachers inside classrooms the methods they need to create a completely different practice. And every teacher like you, like others, every teacher, once they’re given what they need to try this out, this completely different, radically different way of constructing the learning experience and then actually executing it, which is what we call it instructional practice. Once they try that and they’re given what they need to try it, they’re designers, they’re artists, they’re architects, they will make it on their own, but we have to give people, give teachers the tools to completely and totally change the way they do school. Jeremy: Yeah. I agree, and I think, you know, that’s where, you know, thankful to have randomly stumbled across you on the internet, if you will, you know, years ago fortuitously where I came across the workshop that you all were running because, I think, that has dramatically shaped and changed the path and You know, and, I think, a lot of people were probably very grateful to you. I know, I certainly am in the sense that, you know, I think, you’ve been a catalyst. And quite frankly, I think that’s what the best educators do is share, and what the best educators do is, you know, take and learn from others. There’s need for us to…As we’re trying to do all of this innovative work to, kind of, do it in silos and to do it packets, but we really should be taking and combining the best of what people are doing across this country because this is hard work. It’s really hard work and to be able to do without the people makes that certainly a ton easier. Doris: Yeah. Every other industry has figured this out except education. We’re better together than alone. And that comes also into play when you’re trying to change what you do in a classroom, or you’re trying to change an entire school system. Jeremy, it’s been an absolute pleasure to talk to you. Jeremy: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for having me, Doris. I really enjoyed our conversation, too.

In this episode, Doris speaks with Kesha Conway who has been piloting Korda Method across the Ashtabula Area City Schools District. They discuss a recent project in Lisa Raffa’s high school Government class at Lakeside High School, where students found their agency while identifying solutions to community problems. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Doris: Hello, Kesha.   Kesha: Hello, Doris. How are you doing?  Doris: I am doing great. And you and I have now really gotten to know each other. We’ve worked together for about two years now. Kesha: Yeah. It’s been awesome.  Doris: It has been awesome. And so, you know, you came to the first pilot, Burton D. Morgan, which is a phenomenal foundation in Cleveland that really supports, and promotes and grows entrepreneurship education in Northeast Ohio, funded scholarships to our workshops for public school educators, and educators who are working with public school students. And you and Laura were from LEADERship Ashtabula County, applied for those scholarships, and you both came to the first workshop. And what I would love for you to do is tell a little bit about yourself and then tell the listeners, you know, what brought you to the workshop, and what has happened since, and why it has happened since.  Kesha: Yeah. It’s so exciting. So, a little bit about me, I practice law for a long time. I never really thought it was my thing. So, I found myself working at LEADERship Ashtabula County, running leadership programs, and I wanted to do things better than I had done before. I found your workshop, I came, my mind was blown away. I did my first pilot and I work with kids from Ashtabula County. There are seven public school districts and two private schools in the county, and I work with kids from all of those schools. And I did a leadership lab which was like entrepreneurship-based, and that was my first pilot. And then after that, one of the local school districts opened their doors to your methodology and to my enthusiasm, I guess, about it, and I did my second pilot within the four walls, so to speak, of that school, and that was last spring. And again, it was business-based. And then the first three weeks of this school year, I co-taught with a teacher in that same school district, Ashtabula Area City Schools. The high school is Lakeside.  Doris: Yeah. And in between, you came to the workshop a second time with this teacher.  Kesha: Yes.  Doris: But talk for a minute about what this did for the students that you were teaching and at the end of the day, this is why we do this. Given where you are and where you’re doing this, why does this matter for these students in this county, Ashtabula County? And this is in Ohio. And describe it a little bit because people from all over the world listen to this, and I think setting the stage a little is really important.  Kesha: Yeah. Ashtabula County is the largest in terms of land mass. It’s the largest county of 88 in Ohio, but it is one of the most rural, and it’s one of the most poor and one of the most unemployed. So, that’s kind of like a snapshot of the county. The schools, I think the largest high school graduates around 200 kids each year and about 60% of them don’t know what they’re going to do after they graduate, meaning like, they don’t have college plans. So this matters for students for so many different reasons, but it really matters particularly for the students in Ashtabula County where it’s economically disadvantaged right now in time and which kinda trickles into the schools. These students out here, they almost have like an inferiority complex because their schools have very little resources and they just don’t really think that anything, anything that’s going on, in and around them matters or is significant or is even worth fighting for. So, these kids, when they come out of their pilot have this new confidence that swagger to themselves and to what they are doing. That’s why it really matters. So for example, the students that we were just working with, I was talking to one of them afterwards. And he’s a student that really never went to school, never went to class. And I asked him, you know, “How’s school going now?” And he said, “Well, now, I am in my other classes. I’m trying to get better grades and I have applied for a job for the first time in my life.” And I said, “Well, what made you want to get a job now in your junior year?” And he said, “Well, now, I know that I can do it.”  Doris: Yeah. And some of these kids were really good. They never ever been in any kind of situation like this. And that accomplishment, I mean, that’s pretty…that’s gotta have had something to do with some of that swagger.  Kesha: Yeah.  Doris: What I would really love to hear you talk about is your pilot that you did this year inside a high school government class with this teacher, Lisa, and she’s been teaching this government class for many years in this public school. And you worked with her as she piloted this in a project in her class. And I would love for you to talk about that class, the students, what they did, and the results that you saw.  Kesha: We set it up a little…very similar to how I’ve heard at least two other people in your podcast do their first pilot. In that, we did like a museum walk and the students chose, and there were, like, different local issues. Lisa was really passionate and her priority was she really wanted the kids to make connections between government and their daily lives. So, through that museum walk, the students chose an issue that mattered most to them. So, in the end…and there were like 30, 33 students, and homelessness was one of the topics that they presented on, mental health, the drug epidemic in the county, and the welfare system. Well, I’d love to share some excerpts from my co-teacher, Lisa Raffa. She has been a teacher in psychology and government in the last 20 years at Lakeside High School in Ashtabula.  Lisa: I really feel the challenge of this project is to get kids more engaged in their community and more involved in their community, and have a different feeling about their community with the twist and the learning twist of it being from a government standpoint. Now, we’re going to take the community of Ashtabula and we’re going to learn about it, and we’re going to learn about the government. And then it will extend on to the government of Ohio, and hopefully, what’s happened to some expressions of the national government. So, at all levels and we’ve incorporated all branches. And this is a different self-inquiry, you know. It’s in themselves and they are the investigators. And this is a different kind of questioning because you’re not questioning about content, you’re questioning about, you know, higher level thinking and higher level problems. And you’re trying to get a kid to do some self-inquiry because I’m used to I give them information, I spit it out, they absorb it, and I find out how well they absorbed it in the exact information I gave out. This is something that is a method that we’re just not used to, but the most important thing I feel like they got was that they can do it and they could do anything, and they’re feeling confident about themselves.  Doris: Yeah. So it’s an 11th grade, right?  Kesha: Yes.  Doris: It’s an 11th grade government class and her learning objectives were her wanting them to engage with and learn about local government. So, the idea was that they choose local problems they want to solve and then, you know, the way the solutions are, you know, in order to come up with a valid evidence-based, well-researched solution, you have to get into how the government impacts, the local government impacts the problem or the solution or…well, you can talk about this better than I can. I saw the presentations and I was really impressed. But I’d love for you to talk a little bit about that and also who these students are.  Kesha: Sure. So, the students…This was a class where you could tell the minute I walked in the room the first day, government was not a class that they cared about or school in general. The first week of class, there were so many absences. I was a little scared about how this would go. But by the end of it, no one was missing and everyone was staying after class to get their work done which was pretty awesome to see. What happened was after they started digging around in their respective issue, they found something that they cared about. For example, you know, the team that was working in and around homelessness, one of the girls shared with her team that her dad was homeless while she was growing up and he lived in a certain park, and they’re still a homeless population there. And it’s really close to school and, you know, there’s a stigma around being homeless. And once she opened up to her teammates, they just took off. In that same team, there was a student who was very defiant and he tried so hard to not care about anything. He was always taking bathroom breaks. He was always on his phone. He was, you know, just always, always being really combative with his teammates. And after she shared that, a few days later, he came into class. And I was checking in on that team just, you know, seeing how things are going and whatever, and he was the one that looked at me and he said, “Ms. Conway, we have a lot of work to do. Can you please go talk to another team?”  Doris: Wow, wow. That’s really something. I’ll tell you, I came…You and I talked along the way during this and I came to the presentations. And I was really blown away by the variety of problems they chose, and the really creative solutions, some of them came up. Some of those teams, in particular, had really innovative ideas and they all involved, in some form, local government.  Kesha: Yeah. Let’s hear from a student about her experience.  McKenna: My name is McKenna Grady and I’m a junior at Lakeside High School, and our topic was welfare. And while we were researching it, like, it was showing how the different branches and stuff relate to the welfare and how the money gets disbursed and everything. So like, I have a better understanding of it, rather than just, like, reading it out of the book. And I learned that welfare doesn’t necessarily just fall under one category. Like, usually when people think of welfare, they think of one program, but there’s actually, like, a lot of things that go into it. There’s food stamps and then, like, the TANF program which is, like, cash assistance. And, like, there’s just a whole bunch of stuff in Ohio. And after looking into different countries and stuff, it’s hard seeing how, like, their welfare systems are way different than ours. So kind of just based our solution off of that. And then with our local solution, it was kind of just like how we could get people to save money and worrying more about getting off of welfare, and getting out of poverty.  Kesha: So, this student, I mean, she really hit it home to me after the presentations and she kind of put those…my level of anxiety about, you know, them being able to understand and apply what they learned in this pilot to the particular test, the state test that they have to take. I mean, I remember the first day when Lisa and I were…I’m kinda queuing up there the whole pilot and she sat there with her hands, you know, across her chest, and her head kinda cock to one side just kind of fuming. You could just see, like, the blood, just her blood was boiling. She was mad. She was really mad and she thought that this whole thing was going to be a waste of time. She probably reacted like that for the first, I would say, like, the first few days, you know. And then she was making all the transitions that one can only hope for. By the end of the pilot, she told me…now, going through those three weeks, she said that she felt more prepared for that test because of all of her research and all of the things that she learned about the welfare system, and how it connects on the federal level, on the state level, and at the local level. And yeah, she felt more prepared for that test because of what we had just done in those last three weeks.  Doris: Yeah. Well, that’s pretty big and I’d like to hear what you think, and maybe have some specific stories or maybe you can tell in general. I felt watching those kids present and listening to what they are presenting, I felt hopefulness from them. Did you experience that in them during the course of the pilot?  Kesha: Yes, without a doubt. The first day I got in there, it was your typical…you know, everyone just got into their seats. They just kind of…they barely looked up. They just wanted to know what they had to do, they would do it, and then they wait for the bell to ring, and go. By the end and right before the presentations, that classroom was just alive, and they were working together and sharing ideas. And there were so many different kids in that class, like, so many of them didn’t know each other’s names, you know, etc, etc. And by the end of it, they found out that they had so much in common that they just assumed that they didn’t. And they had, like I said before, coming out of those presentations, they had the swagger that I don’t think that each and every one of them, like, knew they had.  Doris: Well, because they…I mean, I have my idea, but why do you think? Why do you think they had that?  Kesha: Because that was theirs. They did that. All of the work, all of the…I don’t know, anticipation, all of the unknowns they discovered, that was theirs. And that was the first time that they were allowed to have authority over something in their lives that really mattered.   Doris: Let alone inside school, inside an academic course.   Kesha: Heck yeah.   Doris: I also have to say and we can call this whatever we want. I’m not going to use any edu-jargon. I witness a moment in those presentations and there were a lot of them, a lot of kids, a lot of presentations, that I’ve never seen quite like that before, and it was really tender, and it will stay with me forever. But there was a student who clearly didn’t speak English not only as a first language, but barely spoke English. And his team was presenting, and they had given him one part of the presentation which was to read, just read a slide. And he was extremely nervous. His English was very…he had very little command of English. He was struggling mightily and another member of his team, a boy, walked over. So, there are four or five people on this team presenting and these boys were not standing next to each other. In fact, they weren’t standing on the same…they were standing on different sides of the screen, the large screen where the presentation was showing. And one student saw that he was struggling, and very, very gently moved over next to this boy to stand unobtrusively, quietly. He didn’t want to take the attention at all away from the boy who was presenting to basically stand very, very close to him so that he could, I assume, though I couldn’t hear it, whisper. And then it was hard to even tell because the boy was trying to do it without you being able to see. But I assume he was whispering to the boy who was reading or trying to read what the item was so that the boy could then say it. Is that what was happening?   Kesha: That was exactly what was happening and that’s what I was trying to say. But you said it way better about how there were a lot of students in this class that had never interacted with each other before and now they’re friends. Doris: It’s really something. And we are now in this happy position because of all the good work that you’ve done in Ashtabula where we now have multiple educators from a couple of other schools, a middle school and a high school who are coming to workshop to design their pilots, and go back and pilot in their schools. So, it’s spreading in Ashtabula County. Kesha: Yeah. So, there are nine high schools out here and after my first pilot…well, at the presentations, at my first pilot, there were several administrators from several different school districts in the room. Immediately after the presentations and, you know, after they were kind of grilling the students in all the right ways, they approached me and several of them said, “We need this for our students.” And that was just seeing the presentations. So, I was totally pumped. And fast forward to now, there are two school districts now that are working with you to spread this throughout their districts.   Doris: The reality is that the timing is really, really good for trying out a completely different way of teaching. There’s something that’s happened literally in the past few months. I think I spoke earlier of this as feeling like we’ve kinda past the tipping point where, literally, everybody who’s in education paying any attention at all. And I don’t mean just attention to the conversation, I mean attention to their students. Totally, without a doubt, with the world so vastly changed by technology and the classroom not, this stark contrast between how we do school in K12 and the rest of the world outside of school is undeniable. It doesn’t work and, you know, everybody in education in K12 has chosen kids as their life’s work. They’re not doing it for the money. And I think we all know that this is not…we’re not preparing our students, we’re not helping them. And what you’re describing is you’re describing an area where there really are some very significant problems and it’s very well documented, and discussed lately. Very very slow economies and what feels like little opportunity and big problems, the opioid crisis, and depression, and suicide, and all these things. And we’re talking about a methodology that’s rooted in the idea that if you capture a person’s, let alone a student’s interest and imagination, everybody not only has the ability to learn, but they will love to learn. They just learn different things, and love different things, and are interested in different things. And the great thing about technology is you can set up a learning experience for a large group of people where everybody is learning and doing very different things in the same space.  Kesha: Yeah. This stuff is so important to students out here, so to speak, and students in general that…I mean it’s, like, my imperative right now. It’s the thing that just drives me. So, watch out, world. Here we come.  Doris: Great talking to you, Kesha, as always.   Kesha: You too, Doris. Thanks so much. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING In this episode, Doris speaks with Nicholas Timms from Hillfield Strathallan College. He shares the story of how transforming a traditional small business course grew into a student-run Design Studio, with high school students marketing and creating solutions for local businesses. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Doris: Hello Nick. Nick: Hi Doris, how are you? Doris: I am wonderful. I’m so excited to talk to you. Nick: Yeah, I’m really excited to talk to you too. Doris: Yeah. And Nick, you came to the workshop three summers ago. Nick: That’s right. Doris: And I would love for you to start by telling our listeners about yourself, who you are, what you do, where you’re doing it, and why you came to the workshop, and you know, start with that. Nick: All right. Well, I am a second career teacher. I came to teaching after 12 years in the advertising industry. I originally trained as a graphic designer and worked in a variety of different areas of the industry. And my mid-30s, I just decided I need a change and I had always wanted to be in education. And you know, it took some shifts in my mid-30s that really sort of lit a fire under me to start that change. I went back to school for teaching, and just by chance, I was hired on a short-term contract at a school, an PK-12 independent school in Hamilton, Ontario called Hillfield Strathallan College. And when I started, one of my colleagues said to me, you know, “If you want this to be full time, just make it full time.” And I spent that first year just seeing everything that was available at the school and realizing that it was the kind of place that if you wanted to try something, you could and they’d support you in that. So in my first year, I took a group of students to Tanzania and we climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, and we worked at a school, and I teach Communications Technology so we’re looking at things with technology, graphic design, and web design. So it just seemed like a really good fit for me to be here, and soon after that I was hired full time, and a few years ago, one of the courses that I was asked to teach was Small Business Management. Now, I had worked independently on contract work as a designer, so I kind of, “Maybe I can do this.” And the first year, I jumped in and I was following sort of the curriculum that was set by the previous teacher, and that it was a great curriculum but it wasn’t totally clicking with my approach and it was at that time that my colleague and the Director of Academics, Brenda Zwolak sort of tapped me on the shoulder and showed me your workshop and said, “Let’s go.” So we registered, bought our plane tickets and we went south of the border to attend. Doris: Yeah, that’s absolutely wonderful. And you came out of the workshop, and what’d you do with what you got there? Nick: So, full disclosure, I was exhausted, because in the Canadian system we’re about three weeks behind you so we were still in the middle of exams, and I flew down and I remember thinking, “Do I have the energy for this right now?” And you know, went through the workshop, sat with you, sat with Alison, looked at what I could do and how I could rebuild, not really rebuild because it was a great program, but how I could adapt to it and change it. And you know, I had my booklet from you and I had all of my notes, and the one thing that really sort of stayed with me, one of your parting comments was, “Just pick one viable thing, one thing that you know that you can do.” And so that’s what I did. I sort of looked at what we had done in the course. I used a lot of your resources and I revamped the course for the next year. So going into the next year, I had two different classes with two very different groups of students, and realized that I kinda had to teach two different courses that year just to appeal to all of their senses. Doris: Yeah, because it’s about them and not about us, right? Nick: Right, yeah, for sure. Doris: You know, I know it’s been a while, even that has been a while, but how did it go, how was it for the students, how was it for you. What happened? Nick: So the first year, it was sort of the first year in teaching any course. I changed it every day. So I was looking at different competitions that were going on within the community. I was going down to our university, to their innovation hub and listening to university students talk about businesses they’ve started or how they’ve launched ideas. I took some of my students down to see them talk, or sent them down to see them talk. So there was a lot of that but there was a lot of just sort of eye-opening experiences. One of them that, you know, struck me, I was in Buffalo, which is just about an hour south of here, and there was a skin cream that I saw in the store and on the back, it said, “Created by Zandra; a teenage girl and CEO.” So we looked up this product and here is this, you know, 14, 15-year old girl from Buffalo who’s created this amazing skin care product line but all of the proceeds are going towards keeping girls in school and encouraging them into post-secondary education. So a lot of the course at the beginning of the year just became highlighting these points and sort of case studies. Why was this product successful? What was the market? What was the problem that they were trying to solve? So using approaches like the BMC, the Business Model Canvas, students were coming back and pitching these ideas as if they were the entrepreneurs. Doris: Oh, that’s fantastic. So then what? What did you…you know, talk about what this kind of education has been like for your students, what’s come out of this for them, the first year since then, what are you finding? Nick: I’m really finding they’re really digging deep into their sort of creative mindset. So you know, much like we talked about in the workshop, I would have local entrepreneurs come in and pitch their problem. So one was a man who has a solar energy business and he wanted to reach a bigger market to encourage people to buy in to solar power. Another was a local artist who, you know, in the final 10 years of his career really wanted to make an impact and get into social media and market this product, but he didn’t know how to do it. So that was great to see the professional side come in, seeing students interviewing them, and then working in groups to deliver, to deliver ideas. And to see the really creative ideas that came out, ideas that I never would have thought of. And that’s the great part. Some of the ideas that they came up with, I don’t know how they came up with them. Doris: Yeah, well, they did a lot of research also, probably. Nick: Exactly. A lot of market research, digging deeper. I feel like I said “dig deeper” probably 60 times in a week, but you know, then as we worked through the year, it was on them to come up with their own project. So our school mascot is the Trojan, so we came up with this concept of the Trojan trials and it’s sort of like a shark tank approach where they come up with a concept for their business and they have to make it happen. They then pitch to a panel of judges from industry. Doris: Sure. Nick: And it’s a full day event, we record it, there are prizes and awards, prizes for, you know, best idea, best presentation, best pitch, most viable product. And what was great out of that, especially the last year was to see the number of students who actually turn their business into reality. Doris: Oh, that’s interesting. Nick: And we had other groups who didn’t implement the business, but really came up with some neat ideas. Doris: Yeah that’s what happens, right? And Nick, I want to ask two questions, I found that while I found programs like that now increasingly all over the place where high school students, even middle school students are creating their own business ideas and pitching to shark tank type panels. I, in my experience, having had the students work on solving problems of other businesses on teams and learning foundational skills, how to do good research, how to creatively problem solve with some parameters and some… That having students do work in problem solving prior to that is for me an essential. That the quality of what they do when they create their own businesses, to solve their own problems, is entirely different if they have done all this stuff beforehand. Do you find that as well? Nick: Absolutely. When I look back at some of the problems that came to us, they weren’t, you know, always glamorous problems that teenagers wanted to jump into. They were solar energy and a local ceramic artist, and some of the kids haven’t thought of…you know, keen on ceramic artists or potter and all in their like, so a lot of it was sort of getting past that. It’s not about the product, it’s about the problem and learning about the industry, learning about who that target market is. And so it’s all that work ahead of time to get into the mindset of that. Or when we were looking at solar energy, looking at how much can one household produce with solar panels and how much is the government going to subsidize them if they invest $40,000 to put these solar panels on the roof. And what’s the profit factor in that, and how do they figure all of that out? And when they would ask me that, that is when I would say, “I don’t know how. That’s what you have to go and figure out.” So as a teacher, it was great. I could just say, “You go do it. I don’t know.” Doris: I don’t know. And I think not having any answer in the back of the book forces them to focus on, I don’t think it, I believe it that…and I’ve seen it, it forces them to focus on the process. Instead of where can I find the answer to the question and give it back to the teacher, they have to…it’s an entirely different type of learning because they’re learning by doing and they’re doing it on a team, so they have to really very intentionally and thoughtfully craft process. And that for me, is the strategic part of all this. And having done it with problems you give them that are of someone else, you know, whether it’s solar panel company or ceramics or a new water filter design, they learn a lot of foundational skills by doing that, that I think they bring in to this shark tank kind of thing and it becomes an entirely different thing than what I see when I go around the country and I see the kind of, “Oh, let’s do a startup weekend with a shark tank,” which…and I’m not disparaging those. Those are fun things and they’re great but we’re talking about entrepreneurship education as an academic course, to me makes sense because it’s about skill building in decidedly academic things and it’s not really about the money or even business actually. Nick: Yeah, I find it at schools too, a lot of it is not about the mark. At the beginning of the year was, “How am I going to be marked on this?” And I would just say, “Well, we’ll figure that out. We’ll get to that.” And I had to be reminded, “We need marks.” And I would, you know, we would do midpoint check-ins and presentations and those sorts of things, but the mark wasn’t the focus here. What was great was when that client came back and they pitched their idea, and the client jumped on board with something. And so I hadn’t thought of that and there’s no mark for that. That is a connection that was made and the sharing of ideas. So yeah, I could give you an A-plus or whatever might fit that, but it’s not about that. And I think they see that now, so students that I taught last year who I’ve passed in the hallway and they say, “Oh, I just read this,” or, “I saw this idea and I thought it was what we learned in the class.” Or, “This is empathy” or this…you know, those are the great moments where I don’t even remember what a mark was and it doesn’t matter because, you know, people don’t really remember their mark a year down the road or when they’re coming back, remembering things we learned, that’s where I would think, “This is what we’re doing here, it’s great.” Doris: Yeah, that’s what we’re doing and I think the interesting thing about what you just said is as teachers, it’s a very common thing for a teacher teaching any course to talk to students about, “Look, don’t worry so much about the grade or the mark. You worry about the learning and the growth.” The difference in this case is it’s not even so much what you say that you say it’s not about the mark. It’s that they get to a point in the class…and the reason, at the beginning, you just say, “Oh wait, we’ll figure it out later” is you know that when they get engaged, when they realize, “Wow, this is about my solving a real problem for someone out there.” Then that becomes where they get their motivation and their drive, and then their fulfillment for having done a good job afterwards. Nick: Yeah. I completely agree. Doris: Yeah, it’s really interesting. And then the other thing I was going to ask you about in terms of these businesses that the students themselves are creating is what do you find with the students who move on and actually continue with the business? Do you find entire teams doing that or just one student here, one student there? I just think that’s interesting because I have found in my own entrepreneurship courses that increasingly they develop businesses that are really viable and have legs but very few of them move on to create them because things like going to college and other things seem to draw them instead. Nick: Yeah, I look back at the first year after taking the course to the second year and the ideas that came out of it. What I learned from the first year is what you just said. Come up with something that you can actually do. So the first year we had some amazing ideas that couldn’t necessarily be pulled off in the time that we had, or what we had to work with. In the second year, we talked about those ideas and how we could actually make them happen. So when I think back to four specifically, one of them, a group of students did something that was very feasible to do within the school. They put together amazing presentations. They went to school fairs and pitched their idea to our parent community to get feedback. They were sort of like a Makerspace 3D modeling type of business. Another one was just a simple app that would take them out of school and into universities, and it was helping kids to shop for themselves and cook for themselves. And then the group that actually got up and running, you know, easily turned it into a summer job. So while some of them didn’t bring them to life, it sparked sort of an entrepreneurial mindset within them where they’re now thinking, “Oh, when I go to school, I want to take this course but I’m looking at this school because they also have an entrepreneurial program,” or, “They have an innovation hub where I can work and bring ideas, I will, you know, bring them to life.” So even for the students who maybe when they go into university, they’re not looking at that, they’re looking at ways to include that into their education. Doris: So Nick, it’s one thing to talk about doing these as weekend workshops or summer camp programs, but why would some…a class like this fit, as in for academic credit class in school. What are your thoughts about that? Are the students learning things that you could qualify as academic in this class? Nick: Absolutely, they are. I mean, I think I look back…well, I look at our strategic plan for our school and out of the pillars that have come forward, one of them is entrepreneurial spirit. And you know, looking at that, what is that term and we work to define that and everyone can have their own definition. But you know, part of it is the idea that kids are going to school for jobs that don’t exist yet, or the market has changed and it’s so important to be able to go out and come up with that job or come up with that idea. So just having those skills to me are just as important as any other skill that we’re learning in school. For kids who came to the course because, “Oh, I needed to fill a spot in my time table.” They said, “Okay, well, if that’s your reason, that’s great. But I want you to leave this class with the ability to stand up in front of 200 people and pitch an awesome idea in 2 minutes or less, and do it with confidence, and strategically, and really wow them,” because that’s something that you could take into any job, into any industry anywhere in life. Doris: Yeah, I was just going to say what you just described. Anybody who’s been out of school for five minutes knows that if somebody can do that, the skills required to be able to do that well and the confidence and the mindset and everything else are much more the qualities that determine someone’s success in life or productivity, then one’s ability to regurgitate facts even assuming you can remember them a year later after you’ve memorized, right? So Nick, you give a great answer, you’re the teacher of the class. How is this accepted as an academic course at your school and in your school community? Nick: I think people are looking at it sort of from that same lens. They’re looking at it come forward in their class. it’s making that sort of crossover into another class where I can, “Here are the materials, if you want me to show you what to do, but the kids know how to do it, they’ll show you.” So it’s seeing or having my colleagues see this as a really viable path and that they’re bringing skills into their other courses. So I think it’s something that just naturally contributes to all of the other classes in an academic setting. Doris: Yeah, and I mean, in the three years since, you know, you came to the second workshop I ever did and what’s been really interesting since then is to see that of the hundreds of people that I’ve had the luck to work with, fewer than a third of them are teaching entrepreneurship classes. I mean, they’re teaching all the…what people consider core subjects and interdisciplinary courses and all kinds of things. Nick: Right. Well, and what I teach…so I taught the Small Business Course for a number of years. This year, a new teacher is teaching it with the same setup, and it’s great to see what new eyes bring in to something, right? “What did I overlook? What didn’t I cover? What could I have done better?” And what’s exciting for me as a teacher is working in a school that embraces that idea to do something different or, you know, create a new challenge, and not long after the course, I think it was the January after the course, the Head of our college sent out a blanket email to all staff and students that said, “If you could do anything in this school, the sky’s the limit, money’s not an issue, what would it be?” And so a colleague and I who had both worked in the advertising and design industry before teaching, instantly said, “Oh, we would run a studio. We’d run a marketing studio within the school.” So you know, we pitched our proposal and then we found out about this fund, so there’s a great fund at our school called the David Tutty Joy and Innovation Fund, and it was named for a parent who had unfortunately passed away and a fund had been started in his name to encourage anyone to come up with something new. So we pitched this idea and we were given the go ahead, and they funded the renovation of a studio space, and you know, within six months, we had hired six students and two accounting students to manage our books, and six student designers. And we run it in the classroom setting, we follow the curriculum, but we don’t know what it’s going to be until we get a client in. So you know, we advertise… Doris: It’s awesome. So they work on solving a client’s problem? Nick: Right. So they don’t work on anything that our classes are working on. So the client will come in, “I’m a doctor, and I need a new website for my practice.” Or, “I’m starting up a new practice and I need help. How do I develop a brand?” So the students run the meetings, they ask the questions, they work on things like, you know, as simple as professionalism, greeting them at the door, the handshake, that first point of contact, getting the information, working with the accounting students to quote on the job. The accounting students in the background have to figure out, you know, at the end of the job, was this profitable for us? What’s the profit factor? Did we quote properly? Did we need to revamp that? But the great thing on it or about it is the student designers will work on the design and as a teacher in the classroom setting, you can give your feedback and then the project’s over. But here, the client comes in and says across the board, “I don’t like any of the designs. I need something new.” It builds up that resilience in the kids. So they have to start over whether they like it or not and they might present an idea that they love but it’s not a fit for the client and in this case, you know, the client wants what they want. So it’s teaching that resiliency, developing their creativity further, and also really listening to somebody’s needs, getting out of your own mindset and figuring out what they want. Doris: That’s fantastic and that’s amazing. And the other thing that it is, is every client that comes in probably is offering up something new that they don’t know, the students aren’t familiar with, so they have to learn because of the need to learn. So they’re probably learning how to learn some really hard stuff. Nick: And it goes the same for Kristy Faggion, who was my colleague who I run this with. It’s the same for us. So you know, we think, “Oh, we can figure this out. We’ll figure out how to do it.” And it’s not always a success. We’ve had some areas, you know, where we haven’t succeeded and we’ve learned from it. Doris: That’s fantastic. Nick: We’re in our second year now, so some of our designers have graduated and gone on to school, and some of them have gone on to school in a related field. And then we have new designers coming in, the senior designers mentor the juniors. The senior accountant mentors the junior accountant, and we just sort of get to oversee it as it unfolds, which is really exciting and it’s also just really amazing to see the kids pitch to people from, you know, outside of the school to do something different. And you know, after school hours, they’re happy because they get a paycheck. Doris: That’s awesome. I love this. I love hearing all the things you’ve built here, but what I also…what this also says…so one thing that’s exciting about this is you as a teacher, as a designer, as a learner yourself, it’s really inspiring. But the other thing that’s really exciting to me is that you’re telling the story that is the…the sort of poster child for the need to have school leaders who are willing to let teachers experiment and innovate. And you know, the reason I wanted to find an independent school myself seven years ago is not because they’re better but I wanted to find one that would allow experimentation where I could use it as a lab. You’re using your school as a laboratory, Nick, and it’s really, really inspiring. Nick: Yeah. And there are those moments where we sit here and think, “Oh my gosh, what have we done?” And one thing I should have mentioned today in my grade nine class, this is Communications Technology so we’re working on vector design. So students are drawing vector portraits either of themselves or their dog or a celebrity, and a grade nine student is doing an amazing job, and yesterday she came up to me and she said, “You know, I showed my mom and I was just hired to do six vector portraits at her office of the employees for their website. What should I charge for this?” So we had this great talk about what is your work worth, and all these things. And then I thought, “We haven’t even finished the project yet, then already she’s got a job to design six of these…” Doris: Isn’t that something? Nick: “…of these portraits and she’s 14.” Doris: And it isn’t about the money, it’s about the empowerment that comes and the confidence that comes from knowing that you’re able to do something that someone else thinks has value and that you’ve created while you’re still in school. Nick: Doris, we had one student who has now graduated who was a senior designer last year, and he…you know, they get a paycheck in our design studio for any work that’s not done during the school day. So they can sign out the laptop if they have to meet that Monday deadline. They log those hours, they get a paycheck. And when he went to India to visit his family, he told me that, you know, he had told his grandmother when he gets his first paycheck, you know, when he was all grown up, he would give to her. And he got his paycheck from here and when he went to visit her in India, he gave her that first paycheck, and I thought, “What a neat experience that was in the first…” And I secretly went into my office and, you know, wiped a little tear from my eye thinking, “You’re so grown up already,” so. Doris: Yeah, his first paycheck, he didn’t have to wait until he was 24. Nick: Yeah. And it was something that he created for himself. And then, you know, one of the greatest things is seeing how wonderful the clients are with students. And also, hearing from clients afterwards saying…you know, the number of times we’ll hear them say, “I wish we had this when I was in school.” And I think that’s how education is changing, right? We have to adapt with these things and even if, you know, this is a design thing that we’re doing, but if the student’s going in to medical school from here, they’re still taking all of those components that they learned and adapting them to meeting people, talking to people, problem solving. Doris: Well, yes, and what you’re describing is design writ large. It is design in the broadest sense, which encompasses problem solving. It encompasses empathy, all those things you talked about. And I agree with you, what’s happening in education is we’re seeing people like yourself creating entirely different models of what school can be and for the kind of learning to happen that people living today and tomorrow need, we have to involve members of the community outside the school walls. We have to. And they want to be. That is always the single thing educators on training are most worried about until they’ve tried it. And the minute you ask somebody, “Hey, I’m teaching a high school class,” whether it’s a history class or a design class or an entrepreneurship class, and, “Can you come in and be a judge for some presentations?” Or, “Can you be a mentor?” That it is never hard to get people to participate, do you agree with that? Nick: I completely agree, and I worried about that too at your course thinking, “Who am I going to get?” Really picturing my neighborhood and picturing the businesses, and it all just came out through conversation; standing, you know, paying for an object. “Where did you find…” you know, a conversation comes up, “Where do you teach?” And sort of the aha light comes on. And then even at our school, and this is what I would recommend to other schools, our alumni manager has become my best friend through this process. So you know, I want a judge who is in…I need someone from the tech industry or somebody who knows something about app development and into the database, and then I have three people lined up. So it’s also a great way to reengage people into your schools who might have graduated, even students who are just finishing their first year of university. Doris: Yeah. And I was just talking to a public school teacher here I work with, who was very worried about the same thing when she went through the training. And literally, what she did is she asked one of the student’s parents she knows who works for an insurance company, and that’s all she had to do, and that person within, I think she said two days, came back with somebody who said they’d love to help out. This was in middle school, a history teacher, love to help out, we’ll get somebody who knows…you know, who does work with immigrants in this community, and they’ll come be your judge. It’s like the easiest thing, even things specific like that. Well, Nick, I’m blown away by the wonderful things you’ve done in these three years, and yet, I’m not surprised having seen you in the workshop. And I can only imagine what you will have built three years from now. You’re having a blast, huh? Nick: Yeah. And if you are ever, you know, heading up this way, I’d love you to take you through DesignWerx, our studio, I don’t think I mentioned the name, but I’ll introduce you to some of the student designers and accountants who are sort of running the show here and letting you see them pitch and do their thing, so. Doris: I’m going to absolutely take you up on it. We’re going to be in your neighborhood soon and I will take you up on it. Nick: Terrific. Doris: All right. Nick, thank you so much. Nick: All right, thanks so much, Doris. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode, Doris speaks with Pam Reed, Humanities teacher at Columbus City Preparatory School for Girls. Pam shares how different it is to teach with this radically different method, as students learn history and critical thinking by solving contemporary problems that they find meaningful. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Doris: So, hello, Pam. Pam: Hi. Doris: So I’m so happy to be with you. And this is just after you finished your pilot, your first-ever. Can you please start by telling folks about yourself and then what brought you to the workshop. Pam: Yes. So my name is Pam Reed. And I’ve been teaching in Columbus City Schools for 20 years. I love everything about urban education. I started teaching at a middle school on the south side of Columbus and was working with the mostly Appalachian and African-American population. I went to an elementary school for one year and found that elementary is not for me at all. And that time I got my master’s degree in teacher leadership. I have my national board certification in ELA, which I just renewed. And then I came here to Columbus City Preparatory School for Girls, where my daughters both also attend. I have two girls who are 15 and 11 who go here. I teach 8th grade English. And then this year we are starting a pilot program of teaching an 8th-grade humanities class, which I got to write and teach. Doris: That’s so exciting. So you’re teaching humanities and you’re teaching English? Pam: Yes. Doris: And this is a… Can you tell a little bit about the school? Pam: Yes. So our school started in 2010. The founder of the school still works in Columbus City and she visited different private girl schools around the country to find…to put together a model of what would work for us. We’re one of the few urban middle schools for girls in the country. We basically take girls as a lottery system from all over the city. And teach them like we have an advisory program here. We have morning salutes. We have a morning meeting every morning. Our girls get to have core enrichment. So they do…it’s not like a traditional thing where there is intervention. We have clubs and tons of opportunities for shadowing and hospitals and businesses. It’s a really different environment. Doris: And it’s the only girl’s public school in the City of Columbus, correct? Pam: It is. We’re one of the few in the state. I don’t think there’s another public girl’s middle school in the state of Ohio. Doris: Really interesting. Pam: Yeah. Doris: So you came to the workshop. Talk about what that did for you and what you came out deciding to do and what just happened like tell us a little bit about that. Pam: Well, as a teacher, I’ve always been a risk-taker. So if there was something that was new or innovative I was always willing to try it. And coming to the workshop, I had no idea to be honest with you what to expect. Doris: Sure. Pam: So my principal kind of posed this entrepreneurial lab idea. And when she posed it I actually wrote a grant to get kind of what I envisioned in my head. But the workshop was not what I had envisioned. I thought it would be one of the pre-packaged like here’s what you do kind of deal. Doris: Here’s the packaged curriculum for an entrepreneurship class. Pam: Yes. And here’s how we’re all going to practice it the same way. And we’re going to… And what it was kind of my dream educational experience, where I got to be the educator that I’ve always wanted to be. It was… I said to then, that it was…it’s like getting permission to teach the way that I always wanted to teach. Doris: That’s awesome. Pam: Which was through critical thinking and research analysis and questioning things and but it wasn’t content, you know, curriculum-driven… Doris: Driven. Pam: …it was allowing the students to find their own way through history or through ELA. Doris: Yeah. So you came in thinking you were going to get this curriculum to do an entrepreneurship class. And then you ended up designing, in the workshop, a pilot for your humanities course. Pam: I did. When we did the business model, I could see that becoming a problem-solution… Doris: Framework. Pam: A framework for looking how my students could look at situations in history or current events. Doris: Yeah. And because when you got there and you started seeing what this was and decided, “Oh wow, this is…I want to use this in my humanities course.” You started thinking very differently about the start to your humanities course this year. And can you describe a little how you set up what these students of yours just went through and this is the first month of school in 8th grade in your humanities course and how many girls in your class? Pam: I have 31 girls. Doris: 31 girls. So tell us a little bit about your pilot. Pam: So I dissected all of my curriculum. I made all these maps. I did all these things. And I still couldn’t wrap my head around how do I get them to care about history? And I didn’t want them just to do history or turn something in, in history. I want them to make connections between what’s happened in the past and what’s happening today. So my student-teacher and I, Ms. Ellis, we found 40 of the most important events kind of what we thought were the most important events of the 21st century. So everything from the minimum wage gap to the Pulse Nightclub shooting to the transgender military ban. And we found pictures. We just started out with pictures. And we set up the library with pictures all around the room and just a placard that described what the event was just “Pulse Nightclub shooting” that was it. So the girls would have to go around and they examined everything. They took notes on what they saw. And they can use their phones to do research. And then they had to pick one event. And the next day we did a problem pitch. I was so not sure how this would work. Pam: I was like this was going be a disaster. Doris: Yeah, scary, yeah. Pam: They’re going to not do it first of all.  I will have girls bow out because they don’t want to speak. And what happened was every single person had a pitch prepared for the next day. A 60-second pitch, to explain why this event is the most important event in the 21st century. And they did their own research overnight like this is the first week of school they’re doing this big huge thing and… Doris: What are some of the examples of whatt the girls came in and pitched the next day? Pam: I mean, well, like the Charlottesville attack, the clash at Charlottesville, they did a ton of research. It was the research that impressed me the most because if I would have said, “You have to research this,” and given them this whole list of questions that they had to answer. I gave them no direction. So what they came in with were stories of people who were involved in Charlottesville or how the minimum wage actually affects a single mother or things that I just I didn’t think about, the girls listening…so the audience, were active listeners. They had to rank the pitches. So they ranked. They had to pick the top eight because we have a big class. And the top eight pitches became our actual research project topics. And man, they were a very diverse group of topics. Doris: Yeah. And they’re contemporary issues these girls wanted to solve or address somehow. Pam: Yes. And everybody got their first or second choice are the groups that they wanted to work on. And so Black Lives Matter, racial profiling, Trump presidency. So they were researching…they had to figure out the, what the true problem is. We had to go through this process of how do we refine a problem? Doris: That’s huge. Pam: It was huge. Doris: Yeah. Pam: It challenged me so much as a teacher. It’s not just… It’s very different for me just to give curriculum. I know how to do that. Doris: Yes. Pam: But for me to get you to think about how to get a question out to a solvable problem and you’re 14 years old. Because they would say like, “How can we possibly solve this problem?” Doris: Right. Pam: You can. There’s a way for you to do it. And when they would…so we worked through a six-question kind of distilling process and they would get their question down to something that they felt was solvable. And they went in directions that I didn’t even think they would go in at all. So women’s rights, at first they wanted to look at domestic violence and how domestic violence can influence women and their decisions. And what they ended up with was how women should have STEM…be trained in STEM projects because…and how they should stand up for themselves in the workplace and know what the laws are. It was a totally different direction. Doris: This was the team, yes, that presented the wage gap between men and women. So this is a great story because what you described to me the other day after I watched them and some of the other teams and I was so impressed with these 14-year-olds who are presenting about the wage gap between men and women and how to solve it. That what you’re describing is really interesting to think about that they started with having chosen a domestic violence and as they…what you said to me was that as they did their research, they realized number one they probably couldn’t solve that problem in a month and number two, that a lot of the root causes for domestic violence have to do with a woman not feeling empowered and not knowing how to self-advocate. And so they then changed or refined the problem they were working on. And that’s how they ended up coming up with the problem of the wage gap between men and women and a solution. I thought that was quite extraordinary. Pam: I wouldn’t have thought of that. Doris: Yeah, but they did, through their research. Pam: They did. They went in a place I would have never gone it was far better than anything I could have ever given them. Doris: Yeah. So then all these teams you now get them… And you’re right it’s really hard to get them to refine their problems, so that, there’s something they can grab hold of and get their arms around and then what? Pam: So after they refined the problem and they started coming up with a viable solution was looking at the past of the problem. So they had to take the problem they came up with was the wage gap could be an example, and they had to trace it back through its roots. And that seems like a simple thing but to look at the timeline of an actual historical event or an idea or an issue in this country is pretty big. So like my girls who looked at Black Lives Matter, taking that back through time like they took it back to slavery and then they looked at how we’ve handled issues with racial inequality in this country since then. So it was more refined than just the timeline they actually looked at the nuances that happened at each step and how each step built on so we got to the place where we are now. Doris: Which is so interesting. So most of the students are African-American themselves? Pam: Yes. Doris: And these 14-year-olds are looking at really in a kind of a sophisticated adult way at cause and effect historically. Pam: Yeah, perspective. So my big ELA standard that I wanted to touch on was perspective. And that’s also part of historical thinking and social studies. So when they were looking like for racial profiling or oh, the Trump presidency was really rich. I thought they would get into that and just be mad. Doris: Right. Pam: And what ended up happening was they came up with this…they figured out that it’s…and a lot of the groups figured out that it’s not about how one group feels, it’s about the other groups that are on the outside of that, perspectives that they have. So instead of…they went into it thinking they were going to look at why people voted for Trump and what they figured out was it was looking so they said in our own community in the Black community, we look at it this way. And that we need to change some of our biases, look at our stereotypes. So they created…their solution was this whole thing on a bias. They called it bias, B-I-A-S.  It was knowing you’re…like getting your stereotypes, understanding, like looking at all your information, knowing what you’re talking about that before you just start talking about it. Doris: Interesting. Pam: Which is very sophisticated thinking for an adult. Doris: Let alone a 14 year-old. Pam: Like for a 14-year-old they had an insight that most adults don’t and that’s…don’t just believe something because somebody said it should be like that. You should get to know the person and understand…and actually every team in its own way kind of came back to that same solution in some way. That there’s another perspective and that you need to understand somebody else’s… If I would have come at them and said, “Hey, you need to walk in somebody else’s shoes,” or done some of those cliches. Doris: It’s meaningless, yeah. Pam: It would not have made any difference. Doris: But they had this problem they were passionate about that, they’d chosen. They wanted to come up with something creative and effective to solve it. And so they had to do a bunch of research to learn. Pam: They did. They had to understand the past of the problem so that they could work on the future of the problem. Doris: Fantastic. So somebody who’s trying to teach history in these four weeks you didn’t get to decide what parts of history they were going to… Pam: I did not. Doris: Yeah. And did they learn history in a way that you think will stick and will grow? Pam: Yeah. It’s far more meaningful and impactful than anything I could have taught them, far more. And if they could make connections to the news they would come in and say like, “I saw this thing on the news,” and it’s like so they’re still building forward with the idea that they originally had. And none of them went in the direction they thought they were going to initially. Doris: That’s interesting. And so I saw half of them present. And I was really impressed. And I was impressed in every dimension. I was impressed with their presentations. I was impressed with how thoughtful they were. I was impressed with how each one of them connected to its historical roots and context. Some interesting things I learned things I didn’t know. I don’t know if you did. Pam: I did. Doris: Yeah. And I was impressed with their solutions. They were really thoughtful. Pam: They were very thoughtful and very doable. That was the thing that was pretty cool. Doris: So you are a risk-taking teacher. And you’ve been teaching for 20 years. How different has this been for you? You’ve only done it once so it’s early but how different was this for you? Pam: Well, it’s different for me in every way possible. I’ve never been a by-the-book teacher. It’s I mean, I’ve always created everything that I was doing. And I’ve never used a textbook. I’ve never been a teacher like that. But like you say it’s Deschooling but it’s Deschooling me. Doris: Yeah. Pam: It’s not Deschooling the kids. It’s Deschooling me after 20 years of teaching there still is like a kind of a finite way of looking at teaching still like we will all get to point Z by this date and… Doris: And that’s how you…you’re so indoctrinated to think like that. Pam: Yeah. There’s a rigidity of it where it’s like you know I teach, I assess, I re-teach, I re-assess and I figure out where we’re going. And this is like I pose a problem. And the problem takes a…there is the intentionality of how I have to do is very different. I still always spend a lot of time on my lessons. But that… Doris: Oh, it’s a lot of work still, yeah. Pam: But this is different. It’s not coming up with the answers. It’s coming up with questions. So the question has to be a very different question than what I’ve asked in the past. Doris: Yes. Yeah. Pam: Yeah. There’s a lot more why, and how do you know, and then just walking away, and leaving you with it and they do not like that. Doris: They don’t like it because it’s not…they’re so trained that the way school works is the teacher tells them what to do, they do it. And then the teacher gives the grade. And this is so different. Pam: Yeah. This breaks all the rules of traditional education and it feels freeing. It feels like that permission to teach the way I’ve always wanted to teach. It feels scary because I don’t have the answer like there’s not a…and I don’t make up an answer key, never been that teacher but there’s not like a right or wrong to this. Doris: Well, you can’t control the box, right? Pam: I can’t control where they go with it. And even…I mean, I can definitely assess them through rubrics and different things but it’s like the rubric it still has to be kind of fluid depending on where we go. So I have an idea in my mind when I’m starting. I’m also very tough on myself with who I am as a teacher. Doris: I’ve noticed that. Pam: So there’s always that part where I want to do better. I won’t say perfect. But I want to do better. And I want it to be…and I think for me it’s been good to kind of know, I can’t control the better, the better happens because of what they do. Doris: What they do. Pam: It’s not about what I do. I mean I can build all the parts around it that will give them support or questions or… Doris: The pathways, the… Pam: …pathways the rubrics. The things that will help them know, “Hey, here’s where we want to go,” but where they end up going, is really not… Doris: And isn’t that kind of liberating for them? Pam: It’s very liberating for them. This group of girls, most of these girls have been craving this, their whole educational career. Doris: Talk about that, what do you mean by that? Pam: They have been waiting for a teacher that would allow them the space to grow as learners. What I see I can think of one group in particular when we were doing the migration. I would just walk over just to do check-ins with them. And they were so intent on where they were going. I’m not going to say I was inconsequential they don’t need the structure. They made their own structure. Like all the things that they did it was very eye-opening to me. I had some girls who still craved asking the questions and wanting a little guidance. But most of the girls they just they want the space. Doris: So what you’re talking about to me is makes me smile every time I hear a teacher who’s been teaching for years discover that almost as a surprise, right. And it’s because of the way the system of education, the way we set it up we think that we have to force them in some way or trick them in some way or we have to be the pressure that causes them to learn. And then we’re so surprised when we give them meaningful work that’s meaningful to them. We’re so surprised that every one of them is interested. They’re curious. They want to learn. And they will, if you set it up well and you’re there to scaffold the way you’re talking about, they’re going to go further and deeper than we can ever get them to go by muscling them through it, right? Pam: Yeah, it’s funny for years that I’ve talked to other teacher…like my student-teachers about the carrot on a stick, teaching is smoking mirrors like you have to behind the scenes manipulate things. But this has shown me and it should show every educator, whenever we think, especially, about this generation that they don’t care they’re tuned out. There’s nothing that matters to them, like they do. Doris: They care a lot. Pam: They care so passionately. They’re just looking for a way to show that they care. And giving them…there’s a lot of choice in my class the way that it’s structured this year, but it’s authentic choice. It’s not choice that’s a manipulated choice or choose A, B, or C. It’s been very, very open. And for them, that has been…that’s made all the difference because they feel like they’re in charge. Doris: Yeah. And that isn’t…what’s hard for people to wrap their heads around is that they’re having…working on something that’s relevant and real that no one’s solved yet. And they’re deciding what that is, does not mean it isn’t rigorous. Those two things are completely separate things. And they’re not even separate from the learning objectives. Pam: No. They’re not. I can hit all my objectives. And it’s completely rigorous. The challenge is absolute there in my class. My principal is very…she wants to see the result of something. Doris: Right. Pam: When she’s come into the room my students know what the objectives are like they can tell you and it’s not that they can say robotically like, “We are working on…” They know. They’re like, “Well, right now the perspective of what we’re doing is authentic.” So I’m hitting all of my objectives. Doris: Content as well as skills, right? Pam: Content, standards. Everything is in there. It’s just set up different. And it’s not just project-based learning because I’ve done project-based learning for years. Doris: No it’s not. It’s a very specific thing, isn’t it? It’s weird. Pam: Yeah. It’s like something beyond. Doris: Right. And so what we have is a very specific methodology that basically allows the students that kind of spark an interest in learning. Pam: Yeah. Well, I’m thinking because we just did a thing on system of human migration where they had a current event and I’m thinking like I had a student. She went to this totally different tangent of where I would have ever thought that she would go. But her research questions… Was she going in the direction that would give her the best results? No. Was her thinking the way that she was working through the process of it dead on? Yes. I mean, it’s like…and she’s one of my students that struggles with this the most. She’s one of the ones who’s like, “Give me the answer. I just want the answer, tell me what to do. I don’t…” Doris: “I don’t want to have to think about.” Pam: “…I don’t wanna have to think about it.” So to see here completely engrossed in ignoring her team and sharing with me like the amount of research that she did on the questionings and how she analyzed every little bit of this. It didn’t matter to me so much that she went in a “wrong direction.” What mattered to me was that she was engaged, she took a risk, like, she took a big risk. She went with something that she felt in her heart mattered and proved why people had moved out of this country and knew it inside and out. That’s my goal. Doris: The girls I thought it was really extraordinary to hear what they…after the presentations you asked them some questions? Like why did we do this? Pam: Yeah. Doris: Do you think the girls are understanding ‘why’ because this is the tricky zone, the deschooling where a lot of the kids really are not comfortable yet, in this place. Pam: They’re not. But they can really see that the way that we started out the year helped them understand that history is not isolated. It is not something that just happens. It happens one time. So they could really see that there’s a connection between the past and the present. Doris: Yes. Pam: They could…they like the open-endedness of that, they were in charge of their own learning. They like the empowerment, the ownership of it. Even the girls who were kind of freaked out by it… Doris: Yeah. Yeah. Pam: …still liked that they were in charge of it. I think they liked having an authentic audience. I mean, I know that’s something that they talked about is having actual people come in and not just presenting to a class or having paper that they turn in and so I’m done. And even though I’ve seen that the last presentation that we did have an authentic audience. I could see the remnants come over from the last one where they’re taking it more seriously. It matters to them more. So I’m definitely seeing they’re making the connection of why we’re doing this. Doris: So we’re about five weeks into school. We just had an interesting conversation earlier today. Pam: Yes. Doris: And what happened? Pam: I’m trying to figure out a way we can…I’m just trying to figure out how I’m going to teach…my next standard is about exploration and colonization in the 15th and 16th century. And I’ve only taught social studies once in my entire career and taught it very old school. Doris: Right. Pam: And so I wanted to… Before this week, we had done a current events project on the system of human migration because I don’t want to teach it just an ‘explore and colonization’ and chronologically, here’s what happened. I wanted them to understand the system of human migration first. So they looked at maps of human migration currently. They chose a country. They did a week-long project to show how human migration works today. And that was good. And I got to this place where I got stuck. And it was the… So you ask the questions about what do you really want them to learn? Because I do get stuck on what I want to teach. Doris: Yeah. Because your first answer to that question was throwing in front of me these… Pam: Content. Doris: …all the content. I want them to learn this content and that content and this content. Pam: Yes. I don’t know how to teach it. I don’t know how to…and then you’re like what do you want them to learn? They walked away with one thing that you want these 14-year-old girls to learn. Doris: In two weeks. Pam: I had to picture a specific girl in my head, and like, what is the end goal? It helped me so much because I know what. I want them to learn the system of human migration. Why people move. Doris: That’s it. Pam: It’s just as simple as that. And I was way overcomplicating it. And trying to figure out… Doris: What you were going to teach, what content you were going to teach them. Pam: How am I going to get them to know all these things? Doris: In two weeks. Pam: Right. Which is hilarious because I just saw these real-life examples of how I don’t have to give them everything, that they figure out…if I’ve posed the questions they have to show me that they can figure out…that it is it’s deschooling me. Doris: It is because in two weeks you can’t teach them everything about human migration. Pam: I can’t. Doris: You can’t. And even if you had them for every day for two weeks and they didn’t have to sleep or eat and you didn’t have to sleep or eat and you could talk for 24 hours a day for two weeks, you still couldn’t do it. And we also know because we have tons of proof and evidence that they don’t retain…that kind of being taught doesn’t stick anyway. Pam: There’ll be a lot of hot air wasted. Doris: Yeah. So you churned all weekend and you came in today with all this content. I said choose a girl and you chose one in your class, and you said if in two weeks she could come out of that two weeks having learned one thing what would it be? And you said it really well, why people move. And I went, “Yeah.” And so then when we use that as your starting point, it kind of freed you up to construct something very different. Pam: Yeah. Yeah. So now they are going to look at the refugee crisis, authentically, like what’s happening. Columbus does have a lot of refugees. They will be able to authentically figure out a solution to a crisis that’s happening.   Doris: Right now. Pam: Right. This is a relevant thing. And because I mean I have a lot of girls whose families are immigrants. This is not just some… Doris: Theoretical. Pam: …’over there.’ Right. It is something that is happening here to our girls. And you pointed out that we have a very vibrant Somali community. So we have not just past European colonization examples that they can look at. I don’t know what examples to look at. Doris: Because they’ll decide. And they’ll come up with some solution to making Columbus a better place to live if you come here as an immigrant. And in the course of it as an expert teacher, you’re going to be able to push them with your questions to understand the historical context for this, why these people moved here, whoever they choose, and also to look at other examples in history. Pam: Yes. Doris: And what is your hope in two weeks that they’ll come out with? Pam: I think that, honestly, from looking at what migration studies look like in college, it really will have the same background knowledge as a college student who studies the sociology of human migration. I mean, it’s not the way that this shifted in the project that it’s shifting into is something that they will really care about and that they have people in their houses that are rich sources of information of how you come to a new country and understand something. And looking at…like that’s an authentic way to look through the lens of history and why did people come over, what was it like when Columbus came to, you know, but it’s not just like, “Hey, Columbus came and all this and stuff happened.” It’s, “Was that a successful example of a migration? Was it not a successful one? Why was it…? That could we learn from that… whether it was successful or not successful? Were there successful migrations in the past?” Doris: So in two weeks these 14-year-olds, instead of, what you were coming in with which was your lots and lots and lots of research are around the content you’re going to throw at them they are out of these two weeks each and every individual student is going to have done a different…their own personal exploration journey following what is most compelling and interesting to them, making their own discoveries, and coming out of it with that nuanced more sophisticated, understanding that, “Whoa, the reasons people move are many and they’re complicated and they look…they’re all different kinds of things.” And how great is that? Pam: Well, if I were an employer in the future or a college doing admissions and I had kids who could critically think, who can analyze things, who can work in teams, these are so much better than regurgitating some historical facts or regurgitating the fact that, you know, this happened on this date and this… Doris: When people look at this kind of education which I think is more rigorous actually than traditional school and they ask yeah, but well, that’s great that they’re engaged, but what about learning history, and what about learning critical thinking, and what about learning writing, and those academics? Pam: They are still doing everything that you just said. There’s way more critical thinking. I can say that for sure compared to what I’ve done in the past. I love being a writing teacher. And so that part will never go away but I can get them to write so much deeper and they actually care about what they’re writing about, versus it’s just an assignment. Doris: Right. Pam: And the curriculum? I’m hitting all the content in the curriculum I need to hit. Doris: That’s awesome. Pam: I mean it. There’s no part of what I’m doing as leaving anything behind. It’s so nice how parents come into open house and then they…the parents see the challenge, they see what their kids are working on at home and they are supportive of it, your principal walks in, she’s supportive of it. You have kids who are complaining because your class is challenging so you know it’s rigorous… Doris: That’s a good sign, yeah, Pam: Right. There’s no part of what I’m doing right now that I go home at the end of the day and question and say and I really wish I would have done that better. Like I am learning to let go of perfectionism with education in that class because it was free-flowing. It’s a fluid class. There’s not… Doris: Because it’s all about the individuals in the room. Pam: Yeah. It’s not about me. And it’s not about me. Doris: That’s right. Yes. And you know what I’m going end there. And I’m so proud of you. And this is a lot of fun. I’m having fun with you. Pam: Thank you. This was amazing. Doris: This is great. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode, Doris and Alison discuss the journey that led to a recent workshop with educators in Slovenia. Also featured in the episode are excerpts from some of the entrepreneurial educators and students who came to the workshop in Slovenia. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Alison: Hey, Doris. Doris: Hey, Alison. Alison: How are you? Doris: I’m great, how are you? Alison: Yeah, I’m feeling really good coming off of this workshop in Slovenia. We had 27 educators from 13 schools across the country who came to Ljubljana, which is their capital city, to learn some of these methods and take this work back to their schools. It was pretty inspiring. Doris: It was really inspiring. Alison: Why don’t you take us back and share with our listeners the journey that led us here? Doris: Yeah, I would love to. It’s really interesting because it all comes together as a little snapshot of what we’re seeing happening around the world, but it’s a lovely story. So several years ago, I got an email from Janez Gorenc, an English teacher, a high school English teacher in Slovenia in a city, Novo Mesto, and he had done research, he was looking… Now this was years ago, and entrepreneurship education, which seems  almost mainstream now. A few years ago, it was really rare to come across anybody talking about entrepreneurship education in K-12. It’s really happened…this whole thing has really happened very quickly. So when Jan-,… I got this email from a high school English teacher in Slovenia who had done research and found Steve Blank’s blogs about what I was doing and the entrepreneurship class I was teaching at Hawken School. You know, we set up a call. He wanted to talk to me and that’s when we met over Skype several years ago. And I was immediately struck by his… Well, you know Janez, he’s an extraordinary guy. Alison: Absolutely. Doris: He’s a passionate, compassionate, incredibly kid-centered educator who really wants to change the world in Slovenia for kids, and I immediately saw that. And he had been doing research on his own about how he could bring something into his teaching that would help students develop skills. He felt like our education system wasn’t equipping students to succeed once they got out of school and he came across this whole idea of entrepreneurship education and became really passionate about bringing it to Slovenia, starting with his own experimentation and practice. So we started talking years ago and sharing and doing what people do when they’re experimenting with something new, and he actually came over to Cleveland to one of our workshops. And has been, for the last few years, bringing entrepreneurship education into Slovenia in every way he can. He, with… I believe he has a podcast earlier in our season, so I’m not gonna try to go through all of this because I am afraid I might get it wrong and I think anybody listening, after you hear this episode, if you haven’t listened to Janez’s earlier episode, you should to hear his journey. But he started a “Startup Weekend” for teachers in Slovenia. He actually took on being an entrepreneur himself to experience it. He started a club at his school because it was really not accepted yet to have any kind of an entrepreneurship class as an academic course, so he started a club. And that’s really hard work because you’re trying to get students to volunteer to do something that, as he told me many times, when they show up for this after-school club and they start getting into it and they realize that it’s really hard work, you know, he loses a bunch of them. But the ones who stay and stick it out, he’s had extraordinary success with. He’s brought teams to the U.S. who have qualified for and competed in international entrepreneurship competitions, he’s experimented with using real problems in these teaching methodologies in his English classes, and he’s started a community and a movement within Slovenia along with some others, and we met them, who are banding together to bring very different kind of learning and teaching model into Slovenian K-12 education. So Boris Kunilo, who sponsored us and hosted us, who runs Spirit, which is an agency that puts on, I think we heard, 30 different workshops for students and teachers a year… Alison: That’s right. Doris: An extraordinarily passionate man who is banding together with others to really change education in Slovenia. We met with Maja Krušič Šega, who heads Entrepreneurship in Education in the Ministry of Education. Totally passionate about bringing entrepreneurship into Slovenian education and she’s working with her counterparts in several countries, right? Wasn’t she… Alison: That’s right. She mentioned Portugal, Luxembourg, and Austria, right? Doris: Yeah. And… So these people are together, along with several others we met, actively working to create programs for teachers and for students where teachers and students experience the entrepreneurial process. Sometimes in an academic setting, sometimes in a separate program, but always connected to the learning, to the skills, to the process. And facing… You know, they’re facing the challenges that, you know, everyone who’s doing this and trying to do this is facing or tends to, which is the word “entrepreneurship” has a lot of negative baggage associated with it, as we know. Alison: Right. Doris: And people hear “entrepreneurship” and they think, “Ah, it’s about business and money-making and profit.” And actually, entrepreneurship education really isn’t about business or money-making at all. It’s about skill-building and problem-solving, and turning problems into successful solutions. And, you know, one of the things I found really interesting when we were in Slovenia was to hear people talking about the bumps and bruises and obstacles and hardships they’ve had along the way because of the misconception among academic circles about what this movement’s even about. Alison: Absolutely. I think that’s an interesting point you’re bringing up, as well, because I think a lot of these countries are looking to enter into the global economy in the same way that our own country’s talking about being competitive and having the next generation really prepared to go out into the workforce and add value and solve the problems that we’re facing. And so they’re having these conversations at these wider levels, but once it’s actually then being positioned inside the school or needing to be adopted by school leadership or the teachers, they’re facing very similar challenges. Doris: Yeah, and actually I experienced this with others that we’ve worked with for years. In public school districts in other countries, but I also experienced this very personally at Hawken School. Because even my own faculty, many of them, interpreted entrepreneurship to mean marketing. I mean, I’ve heard that many times. “All right. Why are we teaching…why do we have a marketing class?” And that’s incredibly… If you’ve ever been inside a school and you understand the way academics work and the way departments work and the sort of, the politics of academics and… You know, this stuff is, politically, really, really tough stuff, and I experienced it in my own little world in my school, and I was the Associate Head of School, so I also had an advantage in a big way, politically, and it still was tough. Now as people saw what the class actually was, and more important, as they saw the students come out of the class and rock it in their traditional classes and… Really, teachers choose to teach because they’re all about kids. And as the teachers saw the kids come out, they realized this isn’t a marketing class. This is something very different, and they, really, everything changed, but the reason I’m going on and on about this is that we just came from Slovenia, and we met with the people who are bravely, courageously and with an incredible amount of energy and resilience and stubbornness, actually, bringing a very different model of education into Slovenia. They believe in it, they’re doing…they’re working it in every way possible with students, with teachers, with administrators. They’re putting on the programs and there remains in most of Slovenian teachers, and probably most of Slovenia’s citizens, this visceral reaction to the idea of entrepreneurship education that is not helpful. It makes it really hard. Alison: And what was also encouraging is that from the wider perspective of the types of teachers that were there… art teachers, math teachers, language teachers, history teachers, again, kind of opening up, seeing the value of entrepreneurial education, again, as a vehicle, not as a tool to teach business, but as a vehicle for building these competencies and skills in students that they feel is really important for the trajectory of their country. Doris: Yeah, and I agree, and that’s what we’re seeing, right? We’re seeing that… And this is what’s so exciting to me and the reason the time for what we’re doing is really appropriate. We’re seeing that first grade teachers are coming to this. You know, high school math teachers are coming. None of these… Well, there were a couple people there who are teaching entrepreneurship, but out of 27, maybe 2, and the rest we’re all… Alison: Psychology, science, across the board, really. Doris: Yeah, and so whether you call it project-based learning, you know, PBL, or you call it entrepreneurial education or whatever you call it, what they understand pretty quickly on the first day, and we see this consistently in all these workshops. Pretty much by the first morning break, everybody in the room understands, “Oh, this isn’t about entrepreneurship. This isn’t just, you know, PBL.” This is about doing school completely differently. And what I loved about this workshop, unlike some of our others… You know, in our others, when we can, I make sure that we have a sense of who’s coming and what they, why they’re coming before we actually, you know, before the workshop because for me, personally, I only wanna do these. They’re pretty intense, they’re really immersive, and the goal is to get people doing school differently. So having somebody come who just wants to be a spectator and clap at the end and say, “Oh, that was cool, that was a great workshop. Thank you,” isn’t really interesting to me. So in this case, we didn’t know who was coming before we showed up for this workshop. Just the way it worked, Spirit offers these workshops. Anybody can sign up for them. And we didn’t know prior to the workshop who was coming, and they didn’t know much about what they were coming to, I would say. Would you agree with that? Alison: Yes. I believe that there is some description around methodology, entrepreneurship education, this, that and the other, but generally speaking, they were not coming in with as specific goals as we’ve seen some of the other educators we have trained. Doris: Exactly. Yeah, and you’re right. They knew it was for K-12 teachers and they were going to learn a methodology of teaching and entre, …right. So almost immediately… You know, I’m obnoxious, and I immediately sucked them in and made sure everybody in the room over the course of the first day was identifying where in their practice, in their program, they were going to do a pilot. And you mentioned the psychology teacher, I thought she was extraordinary. She was really struggling the first day trying to think about where and how she might implement this in her class. She teaches, I think, five classes of psychology. Everybody’s required to take it. She teaches 16-year-olds in a very small town. She said it has a population of about a thousand. And she was one of the last ones in the room to figure out where she would pilot, and you could see her, you know, her forehead scrunched as she was concentrating and trying to figure it out. And then we had a session and she came up with… she knew what she was going to do, and she was going to get a first responder, who’s the only first responder in her village… You know, the guy who I guess shows up if you call the Slovenian equivalent of 911. And he was going to talk to the students about the kind of stress that he has associated with his job, and talk about himself. And then the students, she was going to put them on teams and have each of them come up with a plan for him to manage his stress, and they were then gonna present it…they’re going to present it two weeks later. And in the course of that two weeks, she’s going to be able to guide the learning with her questions so that the learning objectives she has for them, which are many, some of them content-based having to do with psychology, some of them, other. She’s going to make sure that they learn what they need to learn about psychology in order to come up with a really solid, you know, science-based solution. And that was a good example, but so here we are. We’re in Slovenia and we have 27 teachers show up to this workshop. And by the end of this workshop, everybody in the room was not only committed to trying something completely different in their teaching, like a crazily, radically different method, but had a really well-defined and detailed idea of what that pilot was gonna look like, where and which class they were gonna do it and when and what they were gonna do next. And we’re now gonna have these pilots sprinkled out over the next several months, as you put it, in 13 different schools in Slovenia. That is gonna do more to educate Slovenian teachers and citizens about what this kind of student-centered learning looks like than any advertising or anything else we could do. Alison: Absolutely. And I think it’d be great if we share now some of the feedback and reflections from some of those teachers from the workshop itself as well as some students and Janez. We had a bunch of people who were able to share a bit more. Doris: Wonderful. Alison: Yeah so we’re going to hear from Andreja Prescar, Jasmina Horvat, and Matic Pilko from Srednja Ekonomska Šola Ljubljana as well as Maja Okorn from Primary school Šenčur. All of whom are educators and one administrator. Andreja Prescar: I think it’s very great experience for us. I came here to see the Korda Method, because over the last five years, each year we made entrepreneur projects. We also know this method can be used in other subjects. Because we are not making entrepreneur, we teach children how to live in real life, live in the future. I think this is very important. Jasmina Horvat: I’m Jasmina. I’ve worked for five years on this kind of project. We are doing something which student identified with our schools. And we’ll do solving problems, creative. I don’t know what will be the result but the process is important. Matic Pilko: Hi, I’m Matic. And yeah, basically why I’m here is because I like to teach in a new way, in a new direction because the 21st Century brings us a lot of new technologies, a lot of new problems, and the students have to learn how to see problems and then how to solve them. That’s basically what Doris is doing. So I was really grateful that I could hear her ideas. And I would really like to connect students with companies, real problem, real solution, and real experience. And also, it’s good because they see that they can do it. They can do it and they will do it because their real life will hit them hard in a few years and these skills that we are doing, this stuff really matters. They got the real experience, real skills that are useful and that is what they will bring to community, to the city of Ljubljana. Maya Okorn: I went to other workshops but these two days really were something different. Not only because of this practical work, which was really intense, but also because it really opened my mind and I really got this pilot for a project in school, so. As a teacher, I see kids and, actually, they’re not doing anything meaningful. And it really…I was really thinking of it. I’m thinking of it every day, because I’m saying, “Look, what are you doing?” “No, we’re just here waiting.” And the problem that kids will be the one that really solve the problem properly because that’s the real problem. I was thinking those kids should involve…we should involve some parents, some local environment. I hope, I mean, I think they will solve the problem in sort of way and I really hope that we will make it real in our school. And that will be something that it will be a part of our curriculum or whatever. So, but for the kids, I really hope that they will make this personal experience which will change them and, I mean, like self-esteem and stuff like that, so. This is my goal. Alison: Let’s hear from some students as well. We have Larson Cundrič and Rebeka Udvanc, who are going to share more about their experiences. Larsen Cundric: In Slovenia, when you say the word “entrepreneurship” everybody gets scared. So the first thing, entrepreneurship is not something scary. It’s a very good thing. It’s that you basically learn teamwork and how to make an idea work or come from an idea to a real product. They shouldn’t promote it as entrepreneurship in school. I mean, they should promote it as teamwork or something like that. But I think they promote more…they promote being individual. They like making something alone, but they should be promoting teamwork. And that’s a huge thing that the school system in Slovenia is lacking right now. Everywhere you go you end up in a team. I mean, even teachers need to collaborate with a certain, like…be a teacher, you want to do things alone. Everything. I mean, you’re not on isolated island. I mean, communicate, step outside of comfort zone, get to know other people, team up with them, make something great. Rebecca Udvanc: I learned that I can do things by myself and that I’m not just one of many others who just repeat after everyone else and do what the teacher tells them. But I can make ideas on my own and I can do some projects, sell them, learn things, and really accomplish things that I would never even dream of. I think that’s better because if you do something because you want to do it, you lead with your heart and with your inner motivation, and you’ll do it much better and learn much more. It makes you feel that you can do something, that you’re powerful to do anything you want. And yeah, I learned that and I want others to learn that too. Alison: And finally let’s hear from Janez, the Firestarter who brought us here. Janez Gorenc: Okay so my name is Janez from Slovenia, from actually from a small town, Novo Mesto, where I teach English and I try entrepreneurship at a high school. I’ve been teaching English for, like, this is the 22nd year and entrepreneurship for about 7 straight years. And while I started off in my first school, and I started without any structure, I just thought I knew everything but I found out I didn’t know everything, I actually knew nothing, I started learning all these different methods that I tried to implement. Some of them worked, some of them didn’t. And until I read in Steve Blank’s blog about the Korda Method, actually what Hawken was doing. I then was kindly invited to come to Cleveland, to the workshop. I went there, changed my view of everything, actually. So I tried to implement it in after-school classes. It worked wonderfully but not as I would have liked. So, also tried to implement it in my English classes. Some classes it worked wonderfully, other classes not so much. So when I… I’m probably one of the few privileged few people who had the opportunity to be at two workshops, two Korda Method workshops. And this one, actually, has opened up completely new perspectives, again. Even though I saw some, I heard somethings for the second time, it’s better to hear them twice than never. But also, it gave me more structure, more details, you know, the minute details that you will need when you want to do teamwork. Not that I didn’t have structure before, but somehow it all got watered down, like, they didn’t know what to do, what the first step was and what the second step was. And necessarily I would have to go there and say, you know, “You have to do this and this and this.” And it would require sometimes too much study, too overwhelming, and they just didn’t do it the way I would have liked. So this new approach, I’m hoping, I can overcome some of that. And then, maybe, at a certain workshop, who knows, I’ll learn some other stuff. Yeah, constant learning. So yeah. Besides working in my school I’ve also worked with projects outside my school. I’ve worked with primary school kids with many different teachers, great, great teachers. I must say I’m honored, to be part of a team that has also done some workshops, started weekend workshops for teachers that have, in a way, transformed also their experience, their teaching methods, in a way. Also, one of the administrators of an informal group, it’s called, in English it would be “Edupreneurs.” It’s a group for teachers who are just trying to be entrepreneurial in the educational system. Why is it important? Well, why I entered into this, why I started doing entrepreneurship? Because I wanted Slovenians to become more entrepreneurial, to have more great businesses, and that is all great. But in the process of learning, in the process of trying to, you know, come up with new methods, I found out also what Doris Korda also says very often, that entrepreneurship is also a great vehicle to teach other stuff. So you have…on the one hand, you bring up kids, you train kids to be more entrepreneurial but at the same time, they will learn stuff through the challenges, authentic challenges, things that really matter to them. So, you know, all of this didn’t come at once to me. I had to do it step-by-step and say, “Ah, look. This is where it works but it also works over here.” So in Slovenia right now, we are, we might be, in a sort of a transformation period. The Ministry of Education also is getting into this big time. Big, big time. And they’re hoping, and I’m wildly excited about this, they’re hoping to, in a way, bring this entrepreneurial mindset, entrepreneurial classes, in a way, they don’t yet know how, I think, but they would like to bring it into all schools from primary schools, secondary schools, universities even, which is a great, great opportunity to basically transform schooling, transform education on the national level. We can do this. We’re a small nation. Not too different, you know, quite egalitarian. So it can be done, I believe it can be done. I hope I’ll be a part of it still in the future. Thirteen school that were here. So, as I said, many of the teachers that… I’ve worked with many teachers that have been to Startup Weekends and gone back to their schools, done some things. I believe many of these teachers, perhaps, lacked structure, maybe. So now, what they’ve started here is a pilot project that they would like to do at their schools. And this pilot project actually has the backing of an institution that is formal that is, wow, from the United States, which is a big thing, really. And this, I hope, I’m hoping, will it be the start? Well it never… I don’t know what the future holds for us. But I’m hoping that it will be, yes. Thirteen here and then 23 and then 230 and then slowly it might spread. Not to all schools probably, definitely not to all teachers. But it will spread to those to whom this matters and that is what is important. People who would like to do this, and I’m sure there are plenty, plenty out there, will know what to do, who to turn to, and that it can be done in a different way. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode, Doris speaks with Michael Hudecek about the youth entrepreneurship program he developed as Program Manager for St. Clair Superior Development Corporation, an organization devoted to transforming one of the poorest neighborhoods in Cleveland. Michael discusses what he learned in his second iteration of the program. Michael shares his work to spread the method to local schools, including Open Doors Academy, an after school enrichment program for adolescents. Jacquelyn Clemens, Program Manager at ODA, discusses her work to embed this method across the program’s curriculum.   Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Doris: Hello, Michael. Michael: Hi, Doris. Doris: So I am really interested to hear what you have to say. But if you could start by telling our listeners a little about yourself and why you came to the workshop, to begin with, and what you’ve done with that. Michael: Sure. So and as you mentioned, my name is Michael Hudecek. I’m gonna be 35 here soon, which is making me feel old. Doris: Oh, yeah, old, old, yeah. Michael: Yeah. So I have a political science degree. I never really knew what I wanted to do with my life and ended up having started my own company, kind of deciding I didn’t want to do that anymore and ended up working for a community development corporation in St. Clair, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Cleveland, running a Youth Entrepreneurship Program. And I didn’t have any background in education at the time. I was passionate about entrepreneurship, having just gone through it myself. And I was trying to figure out what this program was gonna look like and our program manager said, “Hey, you’ve got to meet Doris Korda, she’s doing this really cool stuff at Hawken, you should go to her workshop.” Doris: Yeah and I should say, you know, that before you arrived Burton D. Morgan, here at this foundation locally reached out and asked me to, you know, connected me with James Amendola from St. Clair and said, you know, “I really like you guys to meet,” and that’s when this idea of St. Clair had this idea to create a Youth Entrepreneurship Program and that’s where you came in. Michael: Yeah, I remember meeting you for the first time in that coffee shop, trying to tease out what your curriculum looked like and being really worried about how things were gonna get set up in three months or so to go before we got started at this point. But again not having a background in education or teaching entrepreneurship, just having done it myself, I was very stressed out about like the meat and potatoes of how this was gonna work, when you said, “Just show up, it’s gonna be fine.” Doris: That’s right. I remember. Actually, you wanted me to give you, stuff to read. And I said, “Just show up,” right? That’s right. Michael: Yeah. And to be honest, I read just about every textbook from every other entrepreneurship course I could find in the world. Doris: I believe it. I believe it. Michael: Amazon and eBay, buying used textbooks, So I could figure out what’s going on, because… Doris: I believe it. Michael: If this lady’s stuff isn’t legit, I need to have a backup plan, right, like the workshops ended four days before my program was ended. Doris: That’s right. So you came to the workshop and four days after the workshop, your summer six weeks intense immersive entrepreneurship course for these kids was starting. Michael: Yeah. So and not just any kids mind you. These kids came to us through a collaboration with Youth Opportunities Unlimited which is like a county-wide employment program for young adults in the community and it’s basically a lottery. I didn’t know who the kids were beforehand I didn’t know what schools they were coming from. We were all sort of jumping into this at first with no clue what was going on. Doris: Yeah. Michael: Scary on many levels. Doris: Scary on many levels and I remember you were telling me about that first summer and of course, there’s even, we even have a podcast from the earlier, earlier, season with you talking about what happened in that first one which is really interesting. But now why did you decide to come again and to do it again and what happened there? Michael: So the exciting part, on why I got really and why I emailed you to come to the workshop again it was because of the amount of change that took place in six weeks in the kids that I saw. And how they were engaged in a way I’d never seen public school kids, even private school kids, not just engaged but passionate about what to do. And these kids most of them had been given up on from an early age because they were in a public school system in the city of Cleveland. And as long as they graduated without getting expelled or hurting somebody that was like a success story. And I knew that it was my job and my role at St. Clair as entrepreneurship manager working in the youth entrepreneurship space to make sure every possible student I could in the city of Cleveland could touch this program. And I went to after-school programs and public schools and talked about how amazing this was and they have to go and I made sure that there was either scholarships or money available in our budget and we ended up getting six teachers together from Design-Lab High School, St Martin de Porres, and Open Doors Academy. And I kind of strong-armed my way into coming back by saying I really wanted to make sure that I was able to support them and that I really could benefit from another opportunity to experience this in the workshop. Doris: Yeah, and I think it was really… But how was it sitting through the workshop a second time? Not that there’s a lot of sitting, but… Michael: No, but it was great as you would go through the core teaching strategies or show examples of how to engage with your students. At every turn, I was able to recognize was that something I did well last year or was this an opportunity for growth? And being able to take notes and sort of highlight the things that you realized you needed to work on because I’d only done this once and you’re learning on the fly, of course, it’s not going to be great. And I think reflect on my experience the first time and really pick out the things that I did well and critique the things I didn’t do well and sort of hone in on areas I needed to pay more attention to and you too. I think as adults sometimes we forget that we’re constantly learning by doing. And so having opportunity to return to the workshop and kind of pick up on cues, having gone through it once was really amazing. Doris: And you’re raising a really important point. So I’m now in the fourth year of doing this with teachers from other schools. I’ve been doing it with teachers from Hawken first and other teachers in my department before that. But you came into this with experience as an entrepreneur and the mindset of an entrepreneur. And that is, about how do I take ideas and turn them into something and experimentation, an attitude of experimentation I’ll call it, is necessary. And so when you came out of the first one you were wildly excited about the impact on your students and I could see the impact on you and the idea in when we think about how to fix school it’s a completely different world now. The education models that we’ve had up until now it’s well-known they’re not working anymore, given the ways in which technology has changed everything. And we’re in a period now of experimentation, we have to be. We’ve got to come up with a completely new model for school and for teaching and that’s innovation. That’s educational innovation. And that means experimenting and iterating and going again and that’s so not part of the culture of schools. It’s not. Schools are risk-averse. I was talking the other night about how a lot of what my work is about is creating the conditions for risk-taking. And so I think that’s great. That’s what you were doing and then you came out of this and it was phenomenal to have the six folks that you brought to the workshop. They’re from very different kinds of programs. And now we have pilots going on all over public schools in Cleveland. So you did the workshop again. And then you did the class again. Tell us about the second course and what business have you used, and how you set that up. I’d really like to hear about that. Michael: We had a woman who’d been in Glenville for 60 years, who ran their family business and closed it down so that she could start an incubation space for young entrepreneurs, just like you can’t write a better story than this, right? Doris: Yeah. Michael: Running for council has been a mainstay of your community. She’s trying to do something that would help people in their community. And she grew up in the same neighborhoods that you grew up like there’s a direct connection there and yet that was so much harder for me to build the why does this matter over those two weeks, along with all the other stress of it being the first problem. That the second business owner, who was an Asian guy who ran a bike company walked in with his bike stand, with a $30,000 triathlon bike that won a world championship and his product and all the prototypes that he went through and he sort of talked about this is really important to me, this guy right in front of you, I will fail if you don’t help me. Doris: Yeah. Michael: His pitch to the students was all about why he as an entrepreneur had his whole life into this product literally, financially, emotionally, time-wise, everything is tied up into this. And if he doesn’t succeed with this, his family is going to pay the price. And they got that immediately, in a way that even though there was a connection on the first one that seemed so obvious to me and product was great but the amount of work that came out of just that connection to the brand and then why it was important to him and why what they did came back and then even the feedback that he gave was so great. He was just so encouraging and was able to say, “Man, my engineers came up with the same solutions and they did the research and it was so similar like I should just fire my engineering department and just bring you guys in.” Doris: Well, what I don’t think people haven’t seen it up-close realize is the amount of work and research these students do, even in a two-week timeframe. And it’s a crazy academic topic challenging. So talk a little more about the kids who came this time and what happened. Michael: It was amazing. The student outcomes were the same, just blown away at every turn the amount of growth that happens in just six weeks time. Some of them went from being A students who needed to regurgitate an answer to ones who were excited about the opportunity to be given that space. Some people couldn’t even put their name on a sheet of paper because they were just that socially afraid, like their emotional capacity was just so drained from years of being beat down in school as the “dumb kid” and we’ve talked, I think briefly afterwards, about that interpersonal relationship was really one of the things that I focused on the most this year. Last year, I was so worried about me in many ways in retrospect and my selfishness to want the product, being the presentations to meet a certain standard. Doris: As a teacher, the first time around you’re focused on making sure oh, my Gosh, are their presentations gonna be good? Which is such a natural…yeah. Michael: Well, and one of the reasons that it’s important for the students to have real people in the room to listen to them, to put the pressure on that, that also reflects on you the teacher, right? I mean I was hired to make sure the summer program goes well. And there’s a ton of anxiety as an adult that goes along with it as well. And so I spent so much time worrying about, making sure the kids had the right content or their presentation was great. And in the year two, yes, I was still worried about that because I think that’s human nature but I tried to repeatedly remind myself that the good stuff happens when you focus one-on-one or with those groups in a very personal way and you relate to them as people who are in this challenge together, right? Doris: Yeah. The difference, what I hear you saying is that this time around you really understood that keeping the eye on the ball is not keeping the eye on making sure that they get the content so that their presentation’s good, but keeping the eye on each and every individual student and the growth and learning each one has to do. And if you do that, if that’s the thing you care most about, then the rest it’s gonna be the best learning experience for those guys. Michael: And again, all of them would say and somewhere I have their blog posted, say this is that they realize the value of it even if at times it was so difficult they left feeling like this matters, this program, even if I don’t get all of the complexity of it, I get that it makes me better positioned in my life, no matter what I do from here on out, whether it’s going back to school, whether it’s pursuing a post-high-school career opportunity, interviewing, whatever I do in life I’m better for having had this experience. Actually, one of the young women that was in the pilot I did the first year, contacted me just before the second one happens, “Okay, can I do this again?” Doris: Oh, wow. Michael: It was really amazing to hear her excited about wanting to come back. Doris: Wow, that’s amazing. Michael: But you know that’s a testament to how powerful it is. And for the first time, really to have that agency to make decisions in a learning environment, is really powerful for kids. And that was really powerful. Doris: They’re working on work that matters. It’s real. And they’re coming up with solutions in a team and presenting them to people who know their stuff. Michael: I think the importance of setting up the structure of the class in a way, in which, it’s iterative and they can try and fail and experience that and sort of get back up, but also making sure that the problems are real and that you do your best to convey why it’s important to them. And if it wasn’t that they were concerned about the CEO, they recognize that they were getting to do some cool stuff and learning about an industry they might have no otherwise like thought about, let alone dug so deep that they understood the spectrum of car bike racks out there. Doris: You know, it’s not a secret that I’m a ridiculous idealist. But I really do believe what John Dewey said, that people are innately interested and curious and that learning itself is something that people are wired to love. He said it much more eloquently than I’m saying it. And that if you as a teacher your job is to engage a student with their interest. And I’ve always felt you get them to trust you. And then you capture their interest and their imagination, the learning will come. And I think this is the first podcast I’ve quoted Dewey because I always hold myself back but I can’t listening to you. You know, he said as teachers you don’t have to engage in trickery. They know when they’re really engaged in the learning and they’re growing from that. Did you feel that with these guys? Michael: Yeah, absolutely. And I think you say it all the time. It’s you stopping telling them what they need to learn and you give them the space to learn the stuff they need to learn and the skills to get there. Doris: Yeah. Michael: And if you create the right problem, the learning comes with it. And so I could get up there and talk about target market as much as I’m blue in the face, but until they have to explain to a CEO why they chose this product instead of the other product that they were considering, it’s totally irrelevant to them. It’s like a vocabulary word that they’re never gonna use. Doris: So Michael, when you think about teachers taking something like this on for the first time, which is a very scary risky thing, what are some of the things that you wish you’d understood before you were really nervous going into it the first time? What were some of the things you wish you’d understood going into the first one? Michael: I think the first one is forget what you want the kids to learn. And learn more about the kids. Doris: That’s awesome. Michael: Slow yourself down and talk to them and have a dialogue both in teams and one-on-one as much as you can. If that means you talk to every kid for two minutes every day or twice a week or whatever the time allows, do it as much as you can. One, the more engaged and the more you understand them, the more they trust you and the more they’re gonna open up and the better the learning will be because they’ll take more risks, because they feel safe. And it will also get you out of your selfish concerns that they’re not learning content, right? Because we, as adults, we are always judged by the end product. And we’re not encouraged despite everybody talking about it to take risks or try things out and fail and learn from that failure. We’re just supposed to know right away. And I think one of the powerful things as an adult is this is really about creating that same safety that you’re trying to provide for the kids as an adult and remembering like you’re never gonna nail it the first time. I’ve never done this before. I just have to go out there and do the best I can. We talked about that four-day turnaround after the first pilot and even a year later having just gone through it again I had four more days from the workshop, revisited to take things away and then start over. And I messed up a lot of things again and you too and that’s okay. Just even talking to you now I’m remembering all the things I would do differently the next time. And it’s building in a way and you talked about scaffolding some time and it’s scaffolding the student growth and it’s remembering to scaffold yourself along the way and not expecting to have eternal power from day one. But then you know, if you build a few bricks, that’s a great pilot and that’s okay. And step away and let it be messy because the messiness is where the good stuff ends. Doris: Yeah. And you’re right. We use the words a lot now about risk-taking and failure and all of that, but the reality is that that is messy and it hurts and we’re not used to it and we avoid it at all costs. Michael: Yeah and that makes me think too like people always ask like, “What does this look like, what’s the curriculum?” and kind of the point is that it’s really about what do you want the students to learn like you always say, “What’s your learning objective? Let’s start there and build backward.” And no matter how many times you go to a workshop, if you don’t know the box that you have to play with, that you’re a certain school or after school program you’re never gonna be successful because this isn’t and life isn’t about one size fits all solutions. It’s really about taking the time to be thoughtful and tailor things to make sure that it’s the best experience you can provide today. Next year, it’s gonna be a little better and growing organically from that. Doris: Right. That’s right. As a teacher, you need the tools, but you’re the designer. Michael: Absolutely. Doris: And you have to know what you have on your palette. So, Michael, it’s really exciting. Michael: It’s always great to talk to you, Doris. Doris: Yeah, same here. One of the educators that Michael brought with him the second time he came to the workshop was Jackie Clemens. Let’s hear what she designed and what she’s doing next at Open Doors Academy. Jackie: So I actually went to school for public health. I did my final project on homeless use and depression and PTSD. And that is where my first job was. And there I learned a lot. And it was really intense and definitely health-oriented and prevention-based. But I found my passion was just a lot earlier. I did Pre-K for a quick minute. And then I got involved with Open Doors Academy, which is middle school and high school. And that’s where I’ve been since I’ve been in Cleveland. So we’re an out of school enrichment program. So not a daycare, not a hangout session, we are an academically-based program. We do one-on-one mentoring and coaching with the kids. We’re in the different schools throughout the entire city. We are offering curriculum-based work where the kids are exploring, health and wellness, arts and culture, global social education and then, of course, the school stuff, like tutoring and homework time, things like that. So I was primarily working with middle school kids. And I had this opportunity over the summer to get a group of high school kids together and try this entre experience out. I have a nice small group. We started off with a nonprofit. We partnered with Negative Space, an art gallery. So it was tough for them to figure out where to start and even understanding the nonprofit. When we were in the initial interview with Negative Space, they were so profit-oriented. When kids tend to think about business it’s like money, my money but it was awesome to sort of see that made that shift and really delve into understanding people, wanting to do things because it’s important. And they’re passionate about it and the business wanted to grow and they wanted to be able to reach more kids, open up more programs and expand their social media presence. And so the kids had to figure out how do all these things tie together, what are best practices that other places are doing, what are they doing well, how are they making it happen, how are they reaching a broader population. And that’s they did a lot of their research on. In traditional education that’s saying, “Hear my voice, memorize my words, regurgitate and repeat,” isn’t really leaving the kids much room to develop a sense of personal drive. In the real world, you don’t have someone saying, “Okay, here’s your next step.” So it’s hard for them to adjust. And it’s honestly just as hard for the teachers or staff or whomever to adjust too because it’s truly a mindset. But once the kids get into that place and that rhythm, they adapt. I actually have a quote from one of the kids that I think explains it the best. She had some challenges, to say the least, and was very confused, did not have much like personal drive. And so this will start to paint the image with where we ended on our last day. So she said, “My growth from day one to the end of week three has increased by a thousand, because in the beginning, I was extremely shy and honestly, didn’t wanna do anything because it was hard. Once the second week was almost over I gained confidence. I was still a little shy but realized I couldn’t really change that. I’m really glad I went to this camp because it boosted my intelligence and the things you never knew about grew from a little to a lot and that being an entrepreneur is over the top tough.” So she found a way to overcome obstacle after obstacle and after her group presented and the amount of pride she had, you could see it in all the kids basically. They were just so proud. So Open Doors Academy shifted their model for high school. And one of the major things that they’re gonna be integrating is this program called Global Education Intercultural Fluency. The kids will work in groups and delve into research about something that feels real to them. And then they’re going to implement a solution, whether it’s local right in their community or beyond. So traditionally, some of the global education workshops were once a month and it was like oh, it’s brilliant speakers, let’s talk about it, maybe we’ll do some volunteering. And I’m not saying that that doesn’t have its place or the kids can enjoy it, but again this process is about putting it back on the kids and letting them, creating the drive and guide where they want to go with it and what they want to do and making it really meaningful and then conveniently enough, they’re developing all these skills along the way. All too often kids don’t get to taste this drive for lifelong learning really on their own. Oh, good, I got an A on this test, great. Mom hangs it up on the fridge, but to have something that feels so real that you built from level zero and then present in this grown-up adult way it brings them into the future with a sense of empowerment. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode, Doris talks to Terry Chou, science teacher at Joaquin Miller Middle School in California. Terry shares details about her students learning innovation in her Science Enrichment and Research (SEARCH) class. Listen to what she has discovered about teaching at the intersection of science, business and technology. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Doris: Hey, Terry. Terry: Hi. Doris: So, listen, I am really excited to hear more about your search class. And you came to the workshop, the very first one we did back at Steve Blanks house, in his living room, in the summer of 2014. And, you know, we actually communicated quite a bit before you came because you were really doing your homework, I remember, to find a place to go for what you were looking for. And I remember you’re telling me that you were a middle school science teacher at a public school in California. And you really wanted to find ways to excite your students about… Terry: Yeah, I was looking for…actually I was in the process of creating the search class. Which came about because I wanted to teach innovation en masse and I needed to find, like, ways to do that. And originally the class that I had had in mind was sort of like a science fair class, a science fair prep-class, research, pure research. But kind of thinking back and forth that entire school year and leading up to the summer I realized I really didn’t want to teach that, that what I really wanted to teach was innovation. And then learning a little bit more about what innovation meant, it’s the intersection of science, business, and technology. And so the business part, when it fell into place there, I realized I needed to sort of investigate the business perspective because I didn’t have a business background. I’m completely a science teacher, science person, studied science in college and so on. And so in looking at business perspective, my brother-in-law actually who did study business, he suggested that I look into the lean startup movement. Doris: Yup Terry: And from there, from lean startup movement, I came across Mr. Blank. And so I actually emailed him. I emailed him directly about, you know, “I’d like to learn more about this program. I’m a teacher, I have this class that I have in my head that I’d like to kind of fulfill,” and you know, did he have any suggestions for me where I can start because I had no background? And so he actually was the one who said, well I think he actually forwarded my email… Doris: To me. Terry: And you, yes. And there at that point was like, “Oh great. There’s this workshop I can go to.” As someone who didn’t have any business background or anything like that but has an idea for using entrepreneurship in a sort of a science elective class. And so it kind of fell in place perfectly timing-wise and curricularly just to be able to immerse myself in that realm of that the business sort of world that I don’t have personal experience with. And so that really just kind of kickstarted. And as I learned more about lean launch pad and the lean startup, I realized it was a perfect fit because essentially the philosophies use the scientific methods to validate all of your assumptions on nine core aspects of a startup business. And it just fell into place at that point. Doris: Yeah Terry: Very nicely Doris: Yeah, no it’s great. And then, of course, the curriculum you built around that, so that’s, you know, it’s like in a science class you may employ the scientific method but how you go about teaching science and teaching the students and getting the students to learn science is all about a whole bunch of other things. And you created a course coming out of that workshop and I remember talking to you in the fall multiple times as you were looking for how to engage the students. And it really was…It’s interesting because you came in thinking you needed to learn about business and that’s what you were looking for. But I actually think this all falls under the heading of innovation. Terry: Yeah. And I think, especially with sort of as I started in the Fall…so I basically went from workshop to actually teaching the course. Doris: Yeah, I remember. Terry: I was able to readily use…like I needed to use disparate tools and sort of, sort of come at it right away with this. And as I started in the Fall, yeah. A lot of things just kind of I realized a few things. One of the things first is that the business part is really is like a scaffold. Doris: Yup. Terry: And that scaffold allows students to formalize and they communicate ideas in their head. But the creation, sort of the process of the product design and all that, you know, using technology and trying to figure out which technology would match my students best, that we hammered out throughout the Fall. And I think probably midway, sometime by Winter, I started to realize that the innovation part was great but really this class, at least for my class, was all about learning really deeply about yourself, the students themselves: and how they interact with people, how they communicate with people. And essentially, the concept for me became, okay, you know, we’re really as a teacher my job is really is to elevate these groups of students into teams of students. Otherwise, the innovation just wouldn’t happen. Even if they had a wonderful business and they’re kind of chugging along with the product, the product won’t come to be its full potential if the team wasn’t completely on board. And so then by the Spring when I had sort of my second iteration of the class since it’s a semester long class, I was able to kind of try to focus more on that aspect. And I think since that point, I think that’s been something that I’ve kept in my head as, yes the business is important, yes the learning of science and writing, the literature review, as well as learning the tech and building the product.   But ultimately, none of it will really push itself to its full potential without the team understanding they have to work together as a team. And so it’s been great actually as a teacher…because you know, I get to then consult and advise teams. And I treat each little startup company as a team from the get-go. I tell them how important it is for them to really think of each other as a team and not as a group. And I think semester after semester we’ve seen kind of like, just it’s been more amazing projects like one after another… Doris: Yup Terry: So, and it’s all from the same business structure and the same tech but it’s sort of driving home that message that you have to interact with each other as a team. There’s just, you can’t, you can have all the fancy dreams you want but if you want an actual product to be made and communicated well, it has to come from a team mentality first. Doris: Right and that’s where all of the approaches that we’ve built that have to do with teams having a real challenge that they’re…that they find meaningful… Terry: Right. Doris: …with a deadline where they have to come up with a solution and all that, all those approaches around collaborating productively, feedback, how you give each other feedback, what…how you identify your strengths, bring them to a team, identify, all that stuff that we talk about, that actually is the most powerful part of the whole thing. Terry: Right, and I would agree with that because the science, the business, the tech, at least for search class, really in order to see it through to its maximum potential that one semester can offer the students, they don’t have that much time actually. And so if they cannot coalesce together, if they cannot resolve their conflicts sooner than later–and they realize this at the very end of the experience–that you know a lot of time is wasted. But then at the end, they realize, “Oh, you know what maybe it’s better that we resolve these conflicts as soon as they show up. Maybe we do need to kind of, I personally need to contribute more when I see either myself or someone else is kind of drifting off and they’re not being productive, they’re not coming in and helping to design.” And so I think some of them definitely say in their reflection blogs that they realize that they’re better as a leader like on the side. They’ll kind of be able to be a quiet leader. Some have said they like sort of just being able to be at the forefront and sort of dictating as they go. But they realize who they are. You know, they come to a clearer understanding of, “I’m a talker, I like to actively bring people into the…I now know that I need to actively step up my game because I just I let it go. I let everything procrastinate too much.” And or, you know, “I’m better off on the side. I’m a quiet leader and I see that now.” Doris: And they see that that has just as much value, it’s just that’s who I am and that’s how I contribute. Terry: Exactly. And so I think that I would identify as the most important thing that is learned in my class. Even though they do learn business and they do learn science and they do learn all this tech, learning about themselves every semester it just comes back to that. They learn more about themselves that anything else. Doris: And I would argue that…so that is consistent with every single, you know, everybody who does this and implements in their own completely unique way in whatever class in whatever…you know whatever school with whatever aged students says the same thing. They learn crazy amounts of some particular science or they learned a new technology or they really developed their writing. But more than anything else they learned about themselves. And the, what’s the reason we use you know we overuse these words and I wish there were new ones. But the reason it’s so transformative for many of these students is because they realize the extent to which they’re able to learn, what I can do, how I can contribute. It isn’t this closed conversation between the teacher and the student. Teacher gives student an assignment… Terry: Mm-hmm Doris: …student does what he or she is told to do, hands it back to the teacher. Teacher pats on head or doesn’t pat on head, says, “Good job” and it’s done. There’s this, in addition to working on authentic problems, doing the work as a team makes it meaningful and relevant and urgent and they take ownership of what they’re doing in a way that they don’t if they’re just an individual contributor in a classroom. Terry: Right and even if they’re not, I mean I know…so like the whole project-based learning curricular design, actually I was just talking about this to someone at a conference that I had spoken at, the FabLearn conference… Doris: Yeah   Terry: …at Stanford University this last, two weekends ago. And I was talking to them about project-based learning. And his…he came at it with, “You know, project-based learning is great. And these kids get into groups and they do this project for what? Two, three, four weeks? And then they’re done with the project and then it’s done. And they disband…and it’s then it’s as if you know they move on to a new project. So it’s as if they really didn’t learn as much because it somehow truncated their learning. You know, it was done, the piece was done, they got their grades, and then they move onto new projects, new groups, and so on.” And we were talking about search class actually and I appreciated his comment on, it’s interesting because when you set it up like this where the kids come up with that problem… Doris: Yeah. Terry: …and then they have to pursue the solution. And it’s almost like even after the class is done, there is still reason to move forward. Doris: Absolutely. Terry: There’s still…the project is never truly, I mean unless you’re actually going to build your business and start your company, there’s still so much more opportunity beyond just that particular project or that class. And so, you know, it…in some ways, this type of class where students define and then pursue solutions or define the problem and pursue solutions of their own, I think does more to promote life-long learners than simply sort of the traditional classroom group project. Doris: I agree. Terry: There’s no, the borders are blown wide open. This project can literally go to as far as you want it to. And so it kind of actively gets students to think about well, what’s the next step? You know, versus a lot of projects, even the project-based learning kind of projects, there’s an end point and then you have to move on. But this type of situation, it’s almost begging students well, what’s your next step? What’s your next step? Well, you know, what do you have in plan next? And there’s always a next. Doris: Yeah, because it because they’re…what they’re working on is real and it doesn’t just it’s not a, “Here’s your assignment, project or not an assignment. And when you’re finished, you’re finished.” It’s there’s this real thing and you’re building, you’re innovating. And they’re passionate about what they’re doing. We had a student we were talking to today who’s in a space where they’re actively working to define the problem that they’re working on in the music space where the four of them are very, are wildly passionate. And he is crazy excited about the opportunity to work on something he’s actually interested in in a class in school. And one of the things that I think is, this does, is that it when you say life-long learner, it redefines students’ relationships with school.   Terry: Right. Doris: Because they have this, they come into these kinds of classes before they’ve done a class like this, they come in thinking the way this school thing works and my relationship to school is somebody gives me something to do that I must learn. I then learn it well or not and I get some sort of feedback to tell me whether I learned it well enough or not. And we just kind of rinse and repeat that. And when they realize that my crazily, excitedly learning about and researching something I’m interested in, I’m genuinely passionate about also constitutes learning and can even be done within what’s considered an academic course, that that’s really really, that changes how they look at themselves, learning, and school. And I agree, that opens them up to looking at learning as something they want to do. Terry: Right, and I think that’s, that’s definitely you know something all teachers want to promote. And sort of redesigning their classrooms, or their curricula I should say, is definitely one way to think about when they want that result. And you know I think that also the, I don’t know. I guess…in some sense, I really wish that I were able to take this class and I think that I probably would have had such a different trajectory in life, as well. But I think… Doris: Oh, that’s really interesting, why? Terry: Well, I don’t know. Because I think, for me, I didn’t actually give business a chance. I mean I knew I really wanted to be an educator but that also in my head it never occurred to me to even give business a chance. Or even sort of the startup world where science and technology is pretty much integrated into the business, at least in Silicon Valley that’s where we’re at. It just never occurred to me that I would find a place for myself there. But I’m glad I didn’t. I mean I think in education there is so much to innovate, which kind of gets me to think that I think maybe one of the keys for teachers is in order to sort of help a lot of the teachers out there kind of bring them into this new perspective is that they need to think of themselves as an innovator as well. And that, you know, they may not be in a trendy, high-tech, Silicon Valley startup but that doesn’t mean that you know teachers can’t be those innovators. And we innovate on our curriculum. You know, that’s how we are able to push the boundaries and for ourselves become that lifelong learner too. You know, I just so appreciate actually having the experience now of teaching this entrepreneurship kind of aspect to my class. It’s…you know, I think it’s been a great thing for me. Doris: You said that beautifully. I couldn’t agree more. And I really will say, I don’t even think it’s about business. I think everything you’re talking about is about innovation. Terry: Right. And I think that’s where…right, I totally agree. I think innovation, the spirit of innovation, and just the pursuit of it is really critical for student and teachers alike. And…you know, I think coming away from this particular conference that just happened so it’s fresh in my head that, you know, it is a movement. I truly do believe that. It is not just some passing fad or, you know, a maker space might be a fad. The just sort of a room that people go to to drill and to laser cut and to 3D print. But the maker education movement, the sort of movement towards innovation from the teacher’s perspective as well, the… Doris: Yup. Terry: I don’t know if there’s an umbrella term for all of it. But that sort of thinking…I think it is something that once started, the ripple effects is just gonna continue. Doris: I could not agree more. And you said all of that so well. I’m gonna end that here but that was fabulous. Thank you, Terry. And I loved seeing the excitement of your students when I came to visit you. And, they were on fire. And, by they way, learning not only about innovation, and customer development, and pitching and communications but also learning a lot of science. And they were jazzed about it. Terry: Right. Yes, they can see finally how science is applicable to their lives. Doris: That’s awesome. Hey, have a great day. Thanks, Terry. Terry: All right, thank you so much. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode, Doris speaks with Regina Rosi, Assistant Division Director & Dean of Student Life at Marlborough School, an all-girls school in Los Angeles, CA. They discuss the need to modernize leadership education in K12 schools. Regina shares the entrepreneurial approach required to design courses like these and what she has learned from using community partners to create her curriculum. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Doris: Hello, Regina. Regina: Hi Doris. Doris: It is wonderful to talk to you. Regina: Yes, I’m so excited to be here. Doris: Well, it’s really exciting to me because we had such an amazing time together at the workshop and that was already two years ago. So I can’t wait. Yeah, I can’t wait to hear what you’ve done since. So, if you could please, start by telling the listeners a bit about yourself and then what brought you to the workshop, and what you did since. Regina: Sure. Well, I think like many people, I never really planned on being a teacher. I went to Kenyon College in Ohio and there I majored in Spanish and International Studies. And after graduation from college, I had a fellowship and I lived in Mexico and I was doing research at the time. And then I sort of just ended up in Los Angeles at Marlborough School which is the oldest all-girls’ school on the west coast actually. And I thought I would just be here for a little bit while I applied to grad school, but I really loved the school and I really loved teaching Spanish. And one of the things when I think about it now, when I think about Spanish, is that I graduated from a liberal arts college, and I had a lot of skills, but Spanish was my most marketable skill, and it was through Spanish that I had, jobs in tutoring. I think being able to speak Spanish was ultimately what got me in my job at an independent school even though I was only 22 at the time and had very little actual teaching experience. But what I loved about it was that it was a very real world skill. And, in a way I think that guided me to want to teach a class in entrepreneurship because I found while Marlborough is definitely a college preparatory has a very rigorous academic curriculum and it’s quite traditional in many senses. I felt like we needed more opportunities for our students to leave and to graduate with these real-world skills that they could apply to any job that they might be interested in. But that’s a little bit about my background. I taught Spanish here at Marlborough for 10 years. And in that time, I also took on the role of Dean of Student life in which I was also in charge of all of our leadership programming. And so leadership is one of those words that can be a bit divisive, and it’s so ambiguous as well, like, what does leadership really mean? I think there’s so many ways that someone can be a leader, and it’s not just limited to students who might have a titled position, or will be on a student council. And so, for about five years actually we grappled with this idea of do we want to have a leadership class? How are other schools teaching leadership? And again, with Marlborough being an all-girl school, are there specific ways that we should be teaching leadership to girls? And we actually did research, I did a huge East Coast tour and I visited a bunch of schools to see how they were teaching leadership. And we had actually settled on teaching a course and the title of it was going to be Real World Leadership. And we are really excited about it, it was going to be more hands-on and practical, it wasn’t going to be just about theory. And then I happened to go to the OESIS conference in Los Angeles, which I guess would have been in 2016, February 2016, and that was where I met you. And I saw you presenting at that point, and it was then that I had, like, that lightbulb moment and I was like you know what we should call this class is not Real World Leadership. We should just have an entrepreneurship class because all of these skills that we want our students to graduate with, we could teach them through entrepreneurship. And so teaching leadership has always been something that is a personal passion of mine. I think about my personal mission as an educator is to empower young women and in my case, any student, really, to empower young people to change the world, and I think entrepreneurship allows me to do that. And that’s what makes it really exciting. Doris: I tell you what is really interesting that you just did in a really brilliant way. I don’t use the word leadership anymore for all the reasons you brought up. The baggage it has with it, and the assumptions others make bog it down and make it not just ineffective, but actually in many cases harmful to whatever point I’m trying to make. And, right? Regina: Yeah. I mean, I was surprised. I think it can be a really contentious word. And I had never really realized that before until I started to really delve into teaching leadership. But I don’t know, there’s something about it. And I think that too if you tell students, like, ”Hey, we’re going to, we’re offering this new leadership class.” It’s just, kind of, like, Okay, eye roll, here we go again. Doris: Right. And I think about how for many people this is going to be a gruesome way to say it. But, I think for many people, that word is something that enters into their language as a little kid, as a child. And the way it’s used is very simplistic. ”Okay guys, I’m the leader at this time. Oh, I get to be the leader.” And so, we never get a chance to evolve a more sophisticated definition or use of the word. And it’s more trouble that word when you’re dealing especially with students who are in high school, or middle school kids, it’s more trouble, I found that it’s worth. Regina: Yeah. Well, because I think leader, it implies just one. And I think we all know especially if this comes out so beautifully in a class like entrepreneurship, there can’t just be one leader or you’re never going to get anything done. Doris: That’s right, that’s exactly right. Regina: So I think students are starting to see other opportunities for leadership beyond student council. And I think we’ve moved beyond that idea of there only being one leader. I think students are starting to see leadership as a skill set. And I think they’re also identify saying, ”Oh, well, there’s more than one way to be a leader.  I can maybe be an introvert or I don’t always have to be the one up in front of everyone to be a leader and I think that the conversation has changed a bit. Doris: That’s awesome. So then you came to this workshop, and I forgot that we met in February at that conference, I forgot that. And you came to the conference and I remember it was a pretty intense thing for you. I remember talking about it with you about coming in from years of teaching Spanish to doing this very different thing, right? Regina: Yeah. Well, there were a lot of things that were so interesting to me about that conference. One thing that I noticed, and I’ve told a few other people about this, and this is more from my all girls perspective, I’ve been to a lot of education conferences. And at most of those conferences, the majority of the participants are women. And I have to tell you that that, the workshop, I remember we were standing doing the News Circle and I just looked around and I was like, this is the first education conference I have ever been to where there are more males and females because I did, to be honest, I did feel a bit like fish out of water because math is not my strong point. Like the whole finance piece, I’m learning more about that, but I wasn’t a business major. I took introduction to Micro-Econ in college, and did fine in it, but it was a very difficult course for me and I remember looking around and being like is this a course that I’m going to be able to implement? Because I see all these other people here who teach Econ already or they teach the business course and they just have more experience in this world than I do. But, yeah, your workshop was incredibly helpful for me because it was a big task that I was tasked with, but it was, yeah, it was a fascinating experience. Doris: Oh, I’m glad, and as you discovered, it’s really not about Econ or Business, it’s about how to create that kind of learning, right? Regina: Yeah.  Absolutely. Doris: How to create the course, an academic course where that kind of learning happens. So then, and I actually remember, I mean, this is a couple of years ago, but that even in the course of the workshop, I saw you go from being intimidated to being pretty bold, emboldened I would say, even in the workshop. Regina: Yeah. Well, it was like the light bulb went off and I was like, okay, I think I can. I’m starting to see how I can make this work. Doris: That’s right. And then you left, and you tell us what you’ve created, and what’s happened with that. Regina: Yeah. Well before the workshop, we had the plan. Originally we were going to have a class with 8th through 12th graders. And the goal there was like, “Oh, our older students can mentor our younger students. And this is going to be a great opportunity for inter grade level collaboration and we’re looking for more opportunities to do this.” And I remember sitting there and as we were talking about the curriculum and different ideas, I was like that is not a good idea. I was like, I don’t really see that panning out very well. And I think during one of the breaks, I actually sent a text message to my division head and I was like, “we need to really think about the schedule because we need to split up middle school and upper school because this is just not going to be the best option.” And so, after the workshop we actually then ended up saying, Okay, we’re going to do an upper school elective for 10th, 11th, and 12th graders. And then, in addition, we’re going to offer middle school entrepreneurship. So, middle school entrepreneurship ran in second semester of last year, then we had upper school entrepreneurship. And we actually, I mean, the enrollment… I think the word entrepreneurship there’s definitely a certain buzz to it because our enrollment was high especially given that it was the first year we were offering the class. And we gave students the option that they could take the course for an entire year or they could only take it for the first semester. But if they wanted to continue in second semester as upper school students, they had to have done first semester as well. So we did that. We have changed it. I mean, I really do think of starting a new course is also entrepreneurial because, you pivot and you iterate and you try again and you learn. I get it’s all about building, measuring, and learning. But what we did, yeah, we created, ultimately we created these two courses. I was a little nervous despite going to the workshop. I was like contacting these startups and getting them to work with us, I was like I just don’t… I like wanted to kind of dip my my toe into the water. And so, we actually started by doing a real-world design challenge problem-solving at Marlborough. And so, we had students identify problems that they deemed worth solving. Actual problems in our community. And then we had them pitch those ideas to the senior administrative team. Then my original plan was going to be that the second project they were going to then go into the broader community and like go within a mile of Marlborough because Marlborough is… we are in Hancock Park which is a very old historical neighborhood but we’re 20 minutes from downtown, we’re by Crenshaw in Koreatown, we’re by Beverly Hills, and so there’s a lot of diversity within… we’re definitely an urban school. And that was the original plan. But then the Marlborough project, it went well and I think it was effective. But I was like I think we could do a little bit more. And I was like and what do you know, this is what Doris said, was, go into a real startup business and you’re going to actually get more buy-in. And so, we then ended up, again, I’m still a little bit nervous. And so, I had been to this new coffee and tea shop, and the title of it is Rubies and Diamonds. It’s very, hip and trendy and very LA, and it’s owned actually by a parent who is a female founder, which for me is important. Again, I think I’m trying to really develop a program with more of a feminist bent to it, I guess I would say. And so, as much as possible I’m trying to work with female founders. So this was an easy one and I knew her, and I knew she’d be willing to work with us. And I called her right after the workshop in June and was like, mid-October I’d love for us to partner. And she was so excited, and she was like, ”We definitely need more women founders, we need more women CEO. I love this idea. I’m all in.” And she was awesome. I mean, especially for my first time doing this, it was so wonderful to have her as a partner. I think if I had any advice to people it’d be find, it’d be a little bit nervous to find someone who will help you develop this. Doris: And I also need to interject here that what you’re describing is very common. That people who’ve been educators, the first time you use an external partner to create the curriculum in your class. That is such a foreign idea, that educators are really nervous about it. And I have in the workshops and after the workshops, I actually have to do an awful lot with some of the individual educators to help them just get to that first one. And then once educators have done this once, it’s not hard after that. Regina: That is exactly true. It’s not hard at all once you do one. And, I mean, what I’ve realized too is now I have people, more, and more people coming to me and saying like, ”Oh, this is great, would you be interested in partnering with us?” And how I’d see it is like, why wouldn’t they want to partner with us? Because if you look at, if you think about high schoolers, and that demographic, and as potential influencers, and purchasers, and consumers, I mean, I see it as then you have this new community of people talking about and potentially getting the word out about your business, which is great for them too. So… Doris: Well, and also they have for three weeks, or four weeks, or whatever it is, you have a group of students working for a business who are absolutely masterful with all of this stuff that a lot of these business people are most struggling with and don’t know themselves. So the whole, you know how do you market in this very different era? They can add a lot of value. It’s funny because as we’re finding that more and more schools want to work with us to build some of these kinds of programs. And some of them are entrepreneurship programs with businesses, some of them are history classes and they’re using partners that aren’t necessarily the traditional startups but all kinds of external partners. Getting businesses and industry to want to participate with schools, and teachers, and kids is actually not the hard part. Regina: Yeah. I would agree that is not the hard part. And I think maybe depending on the partnership it depends on what exactly is going to be challenging, but getting them to sign on, and getting them excited, yeah, that is not as scary to me as it once was. Doris: That’s great. And just to add, the nature of what the students are working on doesn’t actually require that much time from the external partner. Regina: No. Doris: So, regardless of what somebody is teaching, so that’s the other thing that I think a lot of people don’t understand until they’ve done it. Regina: Absolutely. I think there is a bit of… I found I had to work this year when I started reaching out to other companies, I had to do a little bit of work in terms of explaining what type of problem is big enough, and juicy enough that students can really dig deep and actually spend three to four weeks on. But then also not something that’s so big and so complex that they’re not quite ready for it. If I just look at it like the progress, last year I was like, “Okay, I’m going to work with a parent company that a parent owns and like, really dip my toe in.” And then this year I’d love to make a partnership with a VR Company. That’s my next kind of thing. Doris: Oh, that’s interesting. Well, and I’m going to give you a challenge to think about, just start thinking about this. I think it would be very, very good for you to experiment with some additional learning objectives inside your entrepreneurship class. So, for example, I experimented in the early days with challenges that required students to learn a little bit about genetics and a lot about biology, or a little bit about water treatment and etc. I think as you dip your toe now into very different, like, I love that you’re looking for a VR challenge. Doing very different kinds of challenges that require students to gain subject matter knowledge that is not business or marketing, but something others would classify as rigorous academics is, and play around a little with that because what ends up happening is that you start really understanding that this is truly a method of teaching and it’s independent of the subject matter. And I think that what that does is it helps your students because they see not only can I do this really hard problem solving, not only can I present and create a cogent, etc., etc. I can learn really hard stuff. And it also puts you in a position to have more impact, I think on other teachers at your school as you see it, it isn’t just its own new silo that’s business. So it’s very convenient to keep it in the entrepreneurship bucket, and it’s actually much. It’s really actually empowering for the students when schools break out of those, well, these are the core academic subjects. These are the ones that are really academic, and these other things are fun things to the side. Regina: Yeah. No, that’s a great challenge. I think that is a goal for our next version and that will be a new challenge for me. But I think it will be good for the girls. Doris: Yeah, that’s awesome. So, you did a great job of describing yourself. You’re an educator. You’ve been teaching inside schools and you don’t have experience being an entrepreneur. It’s not about teaching the girls at your school business. What’s the impact on your students?   Regina: Yeah, you know I think the impact, I love that question because it makes me really think about the students I had last year and got to know them really well. One of the things that I like to emphasize is to see them really thinking deeply about problems and about the work that they were doing and the meaning of what is our duty as a citizen of the world? How do we go about solving problems that affect us, problems that affect our fellow citizens, problems that affect our city? And to see them doing that kind of deep thinking and really that deep learning was really so gratifying. You know, it’s not just about… there’s no test, it’s not about memorizing or regurgitating information but it was really real, the type of learning. And I think that students get really good at doing exactly what the teacher wants them to do. And so, be that, be it a certain style of writing or they get really good at performing for the teacher. And what I love about entrepreneurship is that suddenly that paradigm switch is a little bit. Doris: So, how is this impacting, how is it impacting your school? Regina: Teaching entrepreneurship, it really has taken off. Even in the last year, I’ve gotten, I’ve been on a number of email threads of educators who are saying we started an entrepreneurship program. What are you guys doing in entrepreneurship? And I’ve actually had one where someone mentioned that they had been to your workshop, and I was like, yep, that’s the one. That’s what I tell people too. I say, we use the Doris Korda Method, and I’m a huge believer in that. And we are looking more and more of what comes after entrepreneurship. So they take this intro class and then is there then a Hack for Impact class, or Designing an App for Social Good that could then be team-taught by one of our computer science teachers and by one of our entrepreneurship teachers. But I think this method of teaching does lend itself beautifully to so many other disciplines. Doris: So Regina, taking it back to where you started this conversation with your mission about empowering young women, does any of what you’ve created here and what you’re doing with this radically new class help you achieve that mission? And if so, how, and in what way? Regina: Yeah. I think that’s one of the reasons why I feel compelled and driven to really do this work, and to put all this effort into starting this new class is because I do think that out of everything that I have done in my years attempting to teach leadership or in attempting to empower young women, I found last year by teaching entrepreneurship to be the far most effective way to actually do that. And I think it just kind, I think the main thing is, is that over the years I’ve had students come into my office saying things like, I want everything from, I want to start a club to I have this great idea and I want to help the environment, or I want to help solve the homelessness problem in Los Angeles, or I’m really passionate about dogs or cats. I mean, whatever it may be. And so I think that students especially at this age, have so many ideas and they’re such creative thinkers and they really are driven and they’re passionate and they want to effect positive change in the world around them. But the actual steps of how do you do that? That’s where students need some guidance. And I think that the entrepreneurial model of starting off by saying, “What is the actual problem that I’m trying to solve? And, two is it worth solving? Is this a problem that other people have?” And then going through almost like the product design cycle, I mean, that works whether you are trying to design something for a new skincare product or whether you’re trying to save the turtle. Doris: Solve cancer. Regina: Yeah. And I think that what this class that empowers students to do is to say,” Hey I can do that! Whatever problem it is that I’m confronted with be it, I have to do something for my boss, or I just want to solve this problem for me, or I want to solve this problem because it’s something I care about, and I’m passionate about. I know that I can do it because I’ve done it before. You know I had to create a custom drink for Rubies and Diamonds or I had to come up with this new skincare line for Skin House Cosmetics and I didn’t know anything about that yet. There I was four weeks later after doing research and putting in the work.  I presented to the CEO and her team, and I proved to myself that I was able to do it.” And so, for me I really think that a class like entrepreneurship, it allows students to start with an idea and then turn it into a successful reality. And I think that one of the challenges in education right now is that in most of the academic classes students don’t have that experience of starting with an idea and then actually turning it into something. And I think going through that is incredibly empowering. I think there’s other parts to that… other pieces that you can put into a class. I’m a big believer in that idea of you have to see it to believe it, and you have to see it to become it. And I think one of the things that I’ve noticed with my students is that they see these other women who had a passion, who maybe followed a really non-linear path to get where they are today. But here they are and they’ve taken an idea and turned it into a successful company. And for them to see that and say, ”Hey, she did it and she didn’t major in business or she didn’t know anything about chemistry or she never thought that this is where she’d be. But look at everything she’s accomplished. I can then do that too.” So I think a class like entrepreneurship also gives you the opportunity to put some terrific role models up in front of your students so that they can really get a better sense of all that is possible and everything that they can ultimately accomplish. Doris: Well, Regina, I was taken by you in that workshop and I’m not surprised to hear that you’re just doing amazing work for these kids and your school and keep doing it. And I can’t wait to hear what you’re doing a year from now. Regina: Yeah. I’ll keep you posted. Doris: Thank you Regina. You’re awesome. Regina: Thank you. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode, Doris speaks with Dr. Rand Harrington and Phil Klein of Kent Denver School in Colorado. Rand is Head of School and Phil is Instructor of AP Economics, Director of the Hunt Family Institute for Entrepreneurial Education and Director of Development. They discuss creating structures in the school to leverage expertise both in and out of the building to allow for authentic learning. They highlight the importance of teachers acting as curricular architects to design classes for today’s students. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Doris: Rand and Phil, hello.   Rand: Hi, Doris. Phil: Hello Doris.   Doris: Oh, hello. It’s wonderful to talk to you. Thank you for both being here, this is going to be very fun. I’d like to start for our listeners by having you introduce yourselves. Maybe Rand you can start? Rand: Terrific. Well, this is Rand and this is my fourth year as Head of School at Kent Denver in Colorado. Prior to being here, I was Associate Head of School at the Blake School in Minneapolis where I oversaw academics. But even before that, my work in academics is spanned from middle school through college, and my PhD is in Physics in the University Washington. And I had worked there in the Physics Education Research Group and got very involved in thinking about this gap between what we teach and what students learn. And intellectually, very curious about how to close that gap and applying some of the evidence-based reasoning that a physicist applies to systems into thinking about how to close that gap. Then, I ended up working at the University of Maine and then helping to start an independent in California. So, I love schools, I love working with teachers. And I believe deeply in the idea that education can change the world, that’s the most satisfying work that I’ve ever done. And I’m thrilled to be here and having this conversation. Doris: That’s fantastic. And just Rand, one thing, you’ve been an educator in university public and private schools, yes? Rand: That’s correct. And I was supervising student teachers in the Orono public schools in Maine. And I had a joint employment in the College of Physics and Astronomy and the College of Education, so I worked at both sides of that. Doris: That’s really great and gives you a very interesting and valuable perspective on all this. So, Phil, tell us about yourself. Phil: So, my name is Phil Klein, I am an AP Economics Teacher, Director of the Hunt Family Institute for Entrepreneurial Education here at Kent Denver, and I’m also the Director of Development. My story as an educator, sort of my way in is a little bit different than the traditional story. I actually spent the first 20 years out of college working in the private sector. I worked for Walt Disney and for Procter and Gamble, and for Dish Network before coming to the world of education. I found after 20 years, I had sort of that mid-career conversation with myself, I’ll call it, that many of us have and wanted to know what the next 20 years would hold. And I realized that I wanted to do something different. At the time I was doing this, I actually got a call from a friend who said, “Hey, I know you’ve done some volunteer fundraising for your kids’ school, would you ever be interested in doing that full time?” And my initial answer was, “No, I’m not interested in that.” But then they talked me into having a conversation with the person who was then the head of the school here at Kent Denver and I was sold. And he also said “Oh, by the way, you can teach.” And I think in retrospect, that’s really where I was hooked. I had done volunteer work as a teacher with kids in the first 20 years of my career and loved it. It’s my second year here at Kent Denver, I started the AP Economics curriculum and fell in love with it. I fell in love with the idea of engaging kids in things that they didn’t necessarily know much about yet. But as the kids and I learned together, just watching their eyes open up, watching their world view expand, watching them realize that they now in their head and their hands just knowledge. A lot of it was just for the sake of it in the love of knowledge. But also other kids saying, “Hey, I might be able to apply some of this,” was really really exciting. I also realized that kids love once they have this knowledge. They love to express that knowledge, they love to exercise it. And a lot of the work that I’m doing now in the AP Economics class and also in the Entrepreneurial Institute, are giving kids chances to deepen their level of learning and really deepen their love for the subject material that we’re teaching. Doris: That’s awesome. And so you, as an AP Economics teacher, you were already having a blast with this. Why did you come to the workshop and what you were hoping to do and what did you end up doing? Phil: So, I was I think three years into the AP Economics curriculum and I had been having a lot of fun with a group of kids in that class that were interested in doing simulations. So, simulating markets for some things that they were learning and basically putting together, putting together some small businesses. Coming out of that and some of the excitement there combined with some kids in the school who had ideas for either nonprofits or for small businesses for other enterprises, I realized that as a school, we weren’t fully utilizing the opportunity to support these kids who had entrepreneurial ideas. And I want to be clear up front, the way we define entrepreneurship at Kent Denver might be a little different than the way some other schools or even people identify it. We talk about entrepreneurship as ideas that can add value to the world. And some of those kids like to think of it in the context of a nonprofit. And actually, Doris, I remember you highlighted some kids that created a product that was intended to reduce plastic bags in the oceans. And they did it by creating a kiosk that people could use to exchange their reusable bags, happened to be an interesting underlying idea for a business. But they were really motivated by, I think it was sea turtles if I’m not mistaken. Doris: Yeah, they wanted to save sea turtles. Phil: Yeah. I was really inspired when I came to the workshop and saw that, what you were talking about in the context of entrepreneurship was very similar to what we wanted to do here at Kent Denver. This underlying idea that if a student has something they’re interested in doing, their interest in taking an idea, we call it to taking ideas and putting them into action. I like to tell students of entrepreneurship that as a school, we’re not really concerned about whether their idea works in the end. We’re much more interested in the process. We’re much more interested in the experience that those kids have of looking at problems and understanding that they don’t have all the knowledge that they need yet to necessarily answer those questions. And the part of the entrepreneurial process is, in our case at Kent Denver, reaching out to a network of interested adults, including a lot of our teachers who are interested and passionate about their particular subject matter. And imparting that knowledge on to those kids, whether it’s knowledge of statistics or knowledge of…and we’ll get into an example. Actually Rand was able to connect some kids who were having problems with an algorithm in a quadcopter. And Rand actually introduced these kids to a PhD level mathematician who was able to help them solve some problems. And frankly, I think this kid, Alex, the one who was solving the problem, he’s as interested in math right now as he is in anything after having had that experience.   Doris: Yeah. It’s an amazing thing what happens when you actually see, find out that this stuff is useful somehow. Phil: And you know what, I would say in addition to that, that a kid like Alex it’s useful, but he also, I think, is now just passionate about math. He might not have been in it before. Again, whether he ends up making this quadcopter fly or not and we hope they do. You’ve got a kid who is starting to make connections between what he’s learning in the classroom and opportunities to dig deeper. As we learned, you know, this kid was doing PhD level math and algorithms that nobody at Kent Denver had experience in, and nobody ever could help him with, but it was somebody who was this PhD in math was passionate about connecting this kid to some answers. Doris: Yeah. Well, exactly. And so that you have developed an entrepreneurship institute, yes? Phil: Yes. Doris: And if I’m a Kent Denver student, how do I participate in the institute? What are the offerings? Phil: Sure. So, the institute I would say right now is very much in its nascent stages, and I think Rand is going to talk a little bit about our vision for institutes in general. The idea for the Entrepreneurial Education Institute is to create opportunities for kids who have an idea, whether it’s a nonprofit or it’s a for profit, or just something that they think could be really worthwhile. Right now, in the stage where we are at the institute, the opportunity is for us to connect those students with either other students or adults, whether they are teachers or administrators, or an alumni, or parents who can help connect them to the knowledge they need in order to make whatever that idea is work. I use the example for a minute ago about a company called Magnexo Systems. Magnexo Systems is a group of four boys who started with an idea for a quadcopter, so a drone that actually works better than conventional drones do. We have another girl who is building an app for kids with anxiety because she believes there’s a really powerful opportunity for kids who suffer from anxiety to take advantage of the technology in a really simple app, to help them treat that. We have another group of kids who are working on an augmented reality application that they can use here in the school. The Entrepreneurial Education Institute is designed primarily before we start talking about additional classes they can take is designed primarily to connect them with other students. And with adults who can help them bring those ideas to life, those ideas that ultimately as we say add value to the world.   Doris: Right and I was just going to insert something that’s been interesting to watch. Kids, if you give them the right conditions for coming up with their ideas that they’re passionate about that they want to pursue, they want to do things that make the world a better place. And so it’s been very interesting. You brought up the example that you remembered of this sea turtle group, the group that wanted to save sea turtles. I found that students in all these entrepreneurship programs, after some initial guidance and learning tend all of them to create ideas that will somehow add value to the world. That’s what they want to work on, this generation, they want to make the world a better place. Phil: I remember Doris, you telling us in that workshop that in fact, if kids are working on things that don’t add value that way, there isn’t, we like to talk about it here at Kent Denver as an ethical consideration for what they’re doing. I remember you telling us that the kids actually push back on it, and you question it and be critical of it. And I think in our part of our mission statement as a school is that we set high ethical standards for our students and for ourselves. One of the criteria that we want to set for projects the kids work on is an ethical consideration. And making sure that the kids are able to reflect on what they’re doing in the context of the impact, positive or sometimes, you know, sometimes they’re negative impacts of the things we do. But in a more holistic sense, why is what they’re doing going to make the world a better place. And I do remember that, I remember that coming up very clearly in with the Hawken’s students that you guys interviewed. Doris: Absolutely. So, I want to take it up a level now. And we could talk for hours, I know you and me Phil, about what the incredible steps you’re building and how it’s showing up in your students. But I want to take this up now and say, “Okay, so Rand, this is cool. You have this incredible educator here who’s got a pretty untraditional background that he brings to this and a huge amount of passion for this work, and he’s building an extraordinary entrepreneurship institute and program. How does any of that as a Head of School with a mission… who is, by your own admission, passionate about teaching and learning. You were in an academic school, it’s a high school, it’s a college preparatory school. How does any of this program play into your bigger mission with your school?” Rand: Well, it’s a great question. I do think that institutional structures have an impact even down to the classroom level and I’ve done a lot of thinking about our institutional structures for many years. As you know, colleges and high schools have had pretty much the same structure in terms of being organized by departments. And if you look at the university level, you see that they’ve started for many years have attacked this by creating what you might call a matrix organization, where you have core departments. And then you started seeing centers or institutes of interdisciplinary studies around various topics merged just to connect the departments together. You’ve seen that happened a little bit in high schools but not much, and I think it’s probably time for us to be thinking about alternative structures to support this kind of learning. I don’t think that it’s something that you would want to replace the traditional structures with. Because I think I’ve done well, the traditional structures do provide a really important role in terms of teaching foundational concepts and skills. And so in my experience is that, you know, project- based or problem-based, or entrepreneurship, whatever you want to call it, this sort of applied side of things. Even if done well, often leave a gap in their skill level, it’s in there. So, you develop the skills and concepts that they need to do stuff at a more sophisticated level. So, you want kids applying things that they’ve learned. And so I think, you know, you think about the three reasons for learning in schools. One that resonates with me the most is just love of learning, certainly as a physicist thinking about ideas and the pure love of learning, I think it’s part of what makes us human. And then there’s the reason for learning to sort of get certified, right, to get entrance to the next level, whether it’s college or job. And that’s where grades and assessments come in as mostly what schools do. And then the third area would be learning for a purpose, and this is really what you and Phil are talking about. Learning that’s framed around an authentic problem in the world and a way to apply that. And I think the application piece is really important but also I think it’s really cautionary for schools not to jump past the foundational skills. Kids still need to know how to write, they need to know how do math, and they need to know about civics and U.S. history. And thinking about ideas and literature, and about relationships and all of the important things that make us human in the world, those are important. And so, how does one address this given the biggest constraint we all face in schools which is time, right? We only have a certain amount of time. And every time you put something on the table such as this institute work or these applied ideas, we’ve got to be prepared to take something else off the table, and I think that’s the most difficult conversations that schools have. So, we sort of envision here, we’re starting slowly with this. But thinking about, again, a structure that preserves our core departments but then adding an additional structure that we’re calling institutes, that kids can participate in once it have a certain amount agency and role of encouragement. They really want to apply their ideas across the disciplines in sort of a more authentic context. We also see this as a way to leverage innovation in our current courses too, right? So, rather than just being an add-on, right? If a kid wants to pursue something, for example in technology and design, that they could also approach. And we encourage our teachers to have projects within their own courses that are differentiated, so that a student could do a tech and design related project, for example, in the English class. You know, do a podcast or do something related to technology and programming as part of their core English classes. So, we see this as a lever just sort of innovated in our existing courses as well. But giving kids also opportunities to do things in the summer or doing a capstone project, or an internship project that we already have, some of those structures that exist. You know, I think all schools provide this sort of cross-disciplinary work in the form of extracurriculars. You see it in Model UN, after school activities whether it’s the robotics team or a speech and debate team. And the question is how do we create structures in our schools to support those activities that don’t exist solely within a department. Doris: Well, it’s interesting you say this because I like what you’re talking about in terms of the structures and the institute. So, I separate the question of what are the learning objectives? What learning objectives do you have for this group of students in this time that you’re going to have them? And the learning objectives, are some of them are skill kind of things like I want them to learn analytical thinking and I want them to develop problem solving skills. And I want them to be better communicators and I want them to develop writing skills. And then there can be some and there should be concepts and knowledge, and some people call it content, all that stuff, that can also be learning objectives. And then separately is the question of given those learning objectives, how do we structure the learning experience to maximize the learning that’s going to happen, and the achievement of those objectives? And I think what we confuse in education these days a lot is we talk about the wrong things. We argue about should it be PBL or should it be entrepreneurship, or should it be interdisciplinary, or should it be that. And these things get as educators into these discussions about, “Okay, this is an English class and in what the kids are doing in English class is that a skill or is that content.” And there is a difference between the structures in education, the disciplines and what kinds of things come out of building schools around this academic disciplines in the way that we have. And how we approach designing a learning experience which could be a course, it could be a project, it could be a unit, whatever it is. If I’m teaching, if you assigned me, “Okay, Doris, you’re going to be our physics teacher. Here’s your physics class.” And you say, you know, “This is your AP Physics class, these are the key objectives and they’re really mostly about equipping the students to excel in a way that shows up on an AP Physics test.” I’m going to still use all kinds of different strategies in how I set up the teaching so that the learning happens really powerfully. And it will likely have in it some interdisciplinary projects, real world projects, and some other things. Does that make sense? Rand: You know, you’ve hit on I think exactly the shift in what you might call a modern pedagogy that is happening, where we’re asking our teachers to be curricular architects. And, you know, the old teaching methodology is where you blow the dust off your yellow notes at the beginning of the year and mark it through. Usually determine almost entirely by the table of contents and whatever book that was adopted. And those days are over, and because those days are over and you look at what we’re asking teachers to do. The skill set required for teacher to be successful in this new environment are really exceptional. And so this is why my focus has been throughout my career on teacher preparation, attracting and retaining great teachers. And it is I think the singular most urgent issue in the country is how, is what we’re doing with our teaching profession and making sure that we have qualified teachers for our schools that can do this kind of work. This is a really challenging issue and I think one of the things to loop this back into institutional structures is how do we attract adults into our community who have a high level of expertise and can mentor kids? And I think if we’ve had in our independent schools particularly but also in the public schools, you’re always getting either alums or parents that are interested in helping out. And our departmental structures with our, you know, fairly tight curriculum narratives is very difficult, short of having someone come guest lecturer or guest, you know, come in and talk to kids on occasion to fit them in and find a place for them in our departmental curriculums. But if you think about kids that are working on projects as Phil described, and even Phil’s description, you can see the number of people outside of our school employees or regular faculty, they’d been able to interact with these kids and help them whether it’s an engineer, you know, air electronics, or an alumnus working at a local business. So, the most important piece in terms of attracting adults into schools is figuring out structures that allow folks with nontraditional backgrounds that have particularly high expertise, a way to volunteer their time or to work with kids. And having institution structures rather than just departments I think allows us to do this. It also allows me to recruit faculty in a different way, in the sense that you have folks that are interested certainly and being in the traditional classroom teaching four or five periods a day. But then you have in our independent school world, an ability to attract career changers, as Phil is a career changer. And I think some of our best faculty have been career changers, that have gone from an industry in which they developed deep expertise and now our interest in doing something different. And if we can get them into our schools, a lot of those folks aren’t interested in just teaching, they’re also interested working with kids on authentic problems. And since they’ve been out in the world as you have Doris, they can help mentor kids and really create a lot of value. So, I think we have to look at schools in terms of structures that allow for a different kind of individual to work here and to work with kids. And that’s going to be I think, as a shared earlier, the biggest challenge the country is facing, how do we bring great teachers into the schools? And again, what we’re asking them to do in the kind of pedagogy you describe, Doris, requires such a different skill set. And, here’s my pitch to folks out there that maybe listening to this is, teaching is the greatest profession in the world. And when you hear about all these terrible things about, you know, the conditions and the well pay, and so forth. Let me tell you, if you’re intellectually curious and you love working with kids there is no better job. And I’m hoping too, that we can attract more people that are successful in their industry to come work with our kids because our future depends on it. Doris: I agree and actually it’s interesting because it loops back to what we’re saying earlier about students today, young people today want to work on things that are meaningful, so do adults. And, you know, Phil, you described that after 20 years in the industry, you had a bit of a, you know, mid-career crisis I’ll call it, you didn’t use that word. But that’s a very common thing to say, “Okay, I’ve been doing this, this is great. I’m ready for a new chapter and I want this new chapter to allow me to have purpose and add meaning in maybe ways that I haven’t so far, different ways.” Phil: Absolutely, Doris. I think to it, what I’ve learned and I’m now able to look sort of seven years in the rearview mirror, we ask our kids to be lifelong learners. And we ask our kids to never lose that enthusiasm and curiosity for learning new things. And I realized, I’m one of those people, too. And as an educator, I get so much joy out of really two things, one is teaching kids a concept and I’ll speak specifically for economics. We were teaching recently the concept of exchange rate policy and how exchange rates fluctuate between countries. And for three quarters of the kids in the room, they literally looked and once they got it just said, “Oh, wow.” I love knowing that, just knowing how exchange rates work is fascinating. And there were some kids in the room too who’d say, “Oh, wait I’ll bet I could apply that to my business.” So the kids, this girl with her app, she has to figure out. Well, if people do start buying this, what if it starts to sell around the world? But for me as a lifelong learner, it’s also really inspiring and really exciting for those kids. You just see their eyes open up and the fact that they now understand something that they didn’t is really exciting, really, really exciting. Rand: I’ll just interject here because as part of that lesson, Phil took his class to the headquarters at Western Union. And you can imagine the importance of exchange rates to a company like Western Union. And they got to speak with, you know, leaders from all over the world. They were gathered there at a meeting at their headquarters and talk about these ideas, it’s pretty powerful. Doris: It is and taking, going back to, you know, you brought up an example of a kid who learned very sophisticated math, right, and is now very excited about mathematics. Once you get excited about the power and joy of learning itself. And that’s what we’re talking about. How do you create a learning experience for kids where they get empowered by their own ability to learn and love, interested in learning. Then what the thing is that they’re learning, that’s something as a curricular designer, as an architect, as a K12 teacher, that’s the part of the challenge of how you structure the learning experience. Well, you know, I want them to learn a lot about mass modeling and optimization, and linear programming, and all that. That’s, yeah, I have those goals that are very specific and very old school language rigorous. But how do you get that to happen? As Rand he said, it’s a whole different world now because of the… Rand: I will add one more institutional structural change that we need to do in the schools. And that is that, yes, the teachers coming in need to have a high level of expertise certainly in their content areas. They also need to know how to do design curriculum and activities. And to do that well, they really need to also be psychologists, right? You know, cognitive psychologist and understand how brains work, particularly teenager brains and so forth. And I think it pertains to the need for better professional development within our schools, ability to train and support teachers on their own growth, and have professional growth as part of the expectations of being a professional educator. And we can’t just sort of rely on the colleges that have, you know, to do that and deliver for us the kind of high level teachers that we need. And so, I think you’ll see around the country particularly in the independent school world, but I think you see this in public schools as well. Partner with graduate schools are creating centers for teaching and learning on their own campuses. And so that we can recruit folks that may not have an education degree may not have had that much experience teaching but that they can join a community that they can continue to grow in their own expertise on how kids learn, and that’s really an important piece. Doris: Exactly, yeah. It is an important piece and I would add that all these things are important but if you look at the challenge we have in education, we also need to take the existing teachers in schools who came to teaching for all the reasons all of us have and create programs to help them completely revise, and relearn the way they approach curriculum development and teaching. It’s a whole different practice. Rand: It is. Doris: And the numbers don’t work if we rely only on the new teachers coming in wherever they come from, whether graduate schools or other careers. We also have to work with the teachers who are there and that’s a joyful thing. Because the teachers who are in place, you know, we have globally, what millions of educators who’ve been working with kids and get kids really well and… Rand: My guiding principle around this, Doris, is that whatever we think of as great education for kids we should be doing the same thing with adults. Doris: Exactly, that’s exactly right. Rand: One of the things that we did here was we created an opportunity for faculty to write summer curriculum grants. And so they would come up with an idea. It had to be sort of a transformative curriculum idea that they wanted to try out. And we paid them to come in the summer to work together to develop the idea. Actually, we didn’t pay them so they delivered on it which was to present to the rest the faculty at the start of the school year with their ideas. Doris: Okay, I love that. Rand: And then they implemented during the school year and, you know, we started with I think 30 teachers involved in that program. I think this last year, we had 45 teachers participating in collaborative groups doing basically becoming curricular architects, right, and designing learning experiences. It’s really hard to do that during the school year because of the time constraints. Doris: Yes. Rand: Somebody once told me that redoing your curriculum in the middle of the school year is like rebuilding a boat in the middle of the ocean. You can do it but you got to be careful because you got to keep everything afloat. And so, I think summer is really great time to do this sort of accelerated professional growth and careful thoughts about curriculum design that you’re describing. Doris: I love that, and I love what you did. And so these teachers, just to be clear in the summer who are doing this, are they working together with other teachers…? Rand: Yeah, just the requirement of our program that it’s a collaboration. So… Phil: I participated in one of these summer curricular grant sessions two summers ago. And as a result, three teachers and I were able to integrate the work that was going on in our classrooms between our students during the fall semester. And we were able to cross economics, statistics, and even some art in a project that we did that spanned the entire school. And the motivation for us was that we had time in the summer when we weren’t as busy as we are during the school year, and we had an opportunity to rethink the way that our classes ran. And it was a lot of fun for me to work with one of our statistics teachers who’s been teaching for 20 years. Who was motivated by the idea of trying something new but it was also to instill in me this idea that, there are things that kids can learn by us teaching in a different way that they wouldn’t have otherwise taken away. So, not only were we as teachers motivated to work together, but we then had our students across three different classes finding times outside of the normal school day, sometimes during the class day, to work together on these challenges that we put in front of them. It was always really exciting. Doris: I’m sure it was. And, Rand, I have to say that’s an absolutely brilliant, brilliant thing for you to do. If you’re not in education, if you’re out in the industry, you don’t understand just how significant and strategic, and impactful, and different that idea is. Historically, teachers are in their room and they’re in their silos, and they’re supposed to be, you know, the master of their domain. And in that one program you just described, that you’re kind of hitting on everything that matters in terms of how you create institutional scaffolding for innovation and culture change to happen in the right direction in a school. I’m really impressed that you do that, that’s fantastic. Rand: Well, the teachers have really stepped up. It’s really been a fun program to work on. Doris: It’s great. Well, listen, the work that you’re doing, both of you in the school. Phil, you in the program you’re building, nascent or not, it sounds just like you’re rocking it. And I will continue to want to keep in touch with you and hear how it’s developing, very exciting. And Rand, your leadership in the way in which you’re building new practices inside the classrooms in your school are really, they sound extraordinary. And I love that we had this conversation, I think it’s going to spark lot of ideas for people all over the world. Rand: Well, thank you Doris. I totally enjoyed the conversation and the privilege to speak with you today. Doris: Thanks. Have a great day, guys. Phil: Thank you so much Doris, you too. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode, Doris speaks with Katy Yan, instructor of AP Environmental Science and Honors Biology at The College Preparatory School and former Science Teacher at The Bentley School. Katy explains the shift from research papers to real world problem solving that resulted in meaningful learning about food systems and climate change. She also shares how this led to students developing better research techniques and critical thinking skills in her science courses. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Doris: Hello, Katy. Katy: Hello, Doris. Doris: How are you with your new job? Katy: I’m doing very well, thank you. I’m loving it. Doris: I’m so excited. Listen, please start by telling our listeners about yourself. Katy: Sure. So I’m currently starting a new job at a school called The College Preparatory in Oakland, California. And I teach AP Environmental Science and Honors Biology to juniors and seniors. And I came to the position after having taught a few years in a few other Bay Area schools, including the Bentley School and University High School. But I’ve always wanted to teach. And my parents are both art teachers, and so I grew up in sort of an education environment. My parents and I came to the U.S. when I was four from China, and basically grew up in the Bay Area. Went to school here. Went to college around here. And then after graduation knew I wanted to teach, but also knew that I wanted to work in the environmental sector first before teaching about environmental issues. Doris: Why did you decide that? By the way, we both have in common, I also was brought here by my parents when… Katy: Oh really? Doris: …I was four years old. So, same age. Katy: Oh wow, exactly. Doris: Yeah. It’s interesting. Katy: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Very interesting. Yeah, I think it definitely gives a very different perspective, right? Doris: I agree. Katy: So why I decided to work in the environmental sector? Doris: Yeah, yeah. Katy: Mm-hmm. I decided to do that because I wanted to…I think wanted to get some actual real-world experience in environmental advocacy, environmental science before actually bring that into the classroom and having these stories to share and a particular perspective. And I also was just in generally very interested in water issues, water management issues, environmental justice through my graduate school program at Stanford University. And so I had an opportunity to do an internship at this organization called International Rivers right after graduation. And I started there as an intern, but then gradually moved through that organization to focus really on climate change policy as well as dam development and human rights in Southwest China. Doris: Wow. Katy: And so as a program coordinator for those…both of those programs, I had the opportunity to do some traveling, research, and communication work, writing blogs, and creating videos, and communication tools to sort of raise awareness about some of the threats to river resources and river dependent communities in all parts of the world, but in particular in Southwest China. Doris: That’s really interesting. So then what? That’s really fascinating. Then what? Katy: Yeah. So then after doing this work and really sort of traveling, focusing on Southwest China, I had…I think I was ready to go to the classroom and work with kids. And an opportunity came to teach at University High School, a school in San Francisco, as a sabbatical leave replacement for an AP Environmental Science class. And I jumped at that opportunity. And it was fantastic because I loved bringing in some of those stories, and I think a lot of issues that may not make the front page or that people may not have been as aware of, and then as a way to get students to think critically, more critically beyond the sort of headlines and front pages and what it really means needs to do deep research on a particular issue. Because these environmental issues are so complex and multilayered. And I was able to get a glimpse of that while doing work with International Rivers. Doris: So then what prompted you to come to the workshop? Katy: That’s a good question. I think I was really interested in Design Thinking at the time and also Project-Based Learning, because environmental science is such a rich area for projects that are applied and relevant to a student’s daily life and what they’re hearing in the news, or the sustainability issues at their school that I was really interested in, seeing examples of how other teachers were able to do that in a meaningful way, and so projects that weren’t just one-off projects that maybe could be sustained or have a sort of impact on student lives. Doris: That’s fantastic. And I’m really excited to hear more about your pilot and how you implemented it. And talk about what you’ve created, how it went. Katy: Yeah. So in the winter, I taught a course called, “The Past, Present and Future of Food,” which examines the relationship between food production and the environment. So we’ll cover major issues that students are may or may not be familiar with like pesticide use and concentrated animal feed labs and GMOs. And really give them hopefully a deep dive in some of those big issues that they hear about. And then the final projects, because it’s a shorter semester, we don’t usually do final exams, we do projects. And so in the past years, I’ve done projects that have been things like research symposiums where they do like a research paper on an issue they’re interested in. But this year, I was particularly looking at the group of students that I had and thought something that was a bit more applied to their every day, might be something that was more engaging, more meaningful to them. And so I designed a Social Entrepreneurship and Food Symposium where they essentially brainstorm ideas, topics they’re interested in and brainstorm some issues around those topics and then develop a business idea that will, hopefully, solve or help solve those issues. Doris: Oh, that’s exciting. So did they do this as individuals or on teams? Katy: They worked on teams so… Doris: Nice. Katy: Yeah, after brainstorming some of these ideas, teams, we start trying forming teams around common interest and there were a couple students that were really passionate about particular issues where other students sort of rallied around and we ended up with four different topics. One of them was very research-based on had to deal with integrated pest management consulting which was really cool. They did some great research on that and looking at stakeholders and pesticide use. One of them looked at sustainable school food lunches. Clearly, that came out of interest in improving the current school food system that we had. Doris: Yeah. Katy: And our school food delivery system. One group was just really based on that one student’s passion around social justice came up with an idea for an app that would link community members that live in food deserts with farmers markets and local farmers and providing discounts at farmers’ markets and things like that which was really cool. Yeah, and the last idea was a group of students wanted to start a sustainable fast food restaurant. Doris: Wow. Katy: That was a lot of fun for them interview their friends and see what the willingness to pay was and kind of food that they wanted to purchase. So, yeah, I think it worked well because they were really seeing something that they were familiar with and we’d gone through the Business Model Canvas together before hand. And so, they have the tools and the language to really feel like they were talking about it like experts, which is really cool to see. Doris: Sure. Well, so basically, if I’m understanding this, what had been in the past are a research paper maybe? Katy: Yeah, it was a research paper and presentation. Doris: Got you. You took this sort of models and the curriculum, and the practices from the workshop and you created a final project where you are using entrepreneurship and had teams of students solving problems they themselves cared to solve. Katy: Yup, exactly. Doris: And they presented their solutions. I think as a student, when I’m given license to solve a problem to solve a problem that hasn’t been solved yet and get creative about how I form a solution, that’s a type of creativity that students don’t often get a chance to use in school. Can you talk as a pilot, if you think about this sort of learning the students did in this versus when they did a research paper, would you choose this again? Katy: I think I definitely would. I think both types of projects are necessary and I think I was really responding to the students I had in the room as well and what they were interested in and what they were really lit up around. Yeah, and I think doing this again, may if I were to do again, I would try to beef up the research pieces a little bit more. Doris: Yup. Katy: I mean, a lot of them were taking issues that we had studied before. For instance, the pesticide consulting group took a lot of what we had been talking about around pesticide use and impacts on insects and things like that. Or integrated pest management and then some of the couple of the few took a lot of what we’re talking about organic food. But I think there could have been a bit more of that background research feeding into their ideas. But I think overall, it was something that was memorable and meaningful.   Doris: Yeah, you know you bring up an interesting point. How do you structure the learning of these students and you’re teaching in such a way that the students are really engaged in chasing something they care about. That’s a meaningful to them and that has purpose and I think, I believe I’ve seen it, these methods which really are kind of redefining academics. It’s the whole point approach. I think when they’re applied in whether it’s a chemistry class or a social entrepreneurship class or whatever, it’s really interesting to see the way it engages students in their learning very differently. Katy: Yeah. Doris: Than even a very interesting project that a teacher defines. I think most important really is the completely different mindset and methodology. And you have to sort of approach school and learning from the very different way. I’d be interested in hearing with your one pilot, how your experience as a teacher felt different than what you do in a unit where you’re having students write a research paper. Katy: Right. I think for this particular project, it felt great not to be necessarily the expert in the room because they would have questions about running a particular type of business which I won’t necessarily have the answer to. It’s like, that’s part of your research, we can look it up together, we can sort of explore this together but now you are the expert and your group is going to be the expert among all of us, so teach us. And so, I think that was very exciting. I think in the past when doing research papers, they’d usually been on topics that I had some expertise and I’m familiar with and could guide them. But really, I think there was particular challenge with this project and how best to guide them and there was really more about guiding them and some really fundamental skills around research, around asking the right question. Like we did a number of exercises just brainstorming questions that they had and then prioritizing these questions in thinking about what really mattered to their project, and I think those are important skills as well. Doris: Yeah, and what you just described I think that’s the essence of which is having structuring a learning experience where the students are going deep based on a focus on what are the most important questions. Once they have the question, can you see how doing this kind of thing, the second, third, fourth time that you could even with every team working on very different things, some of the things you have no experience in, can you see how students could actually go very deep into learning science for example in a project like this? Katy: Yeah, absolutely. I think particularly with asking question, I think that’s central to you, that chemistry classes that I teach and biology class that I teach is asking how to ask the right questions. That’s really kind of start someone on the right experiment to just know how to design the right experiment to answer these questions. I think that’s all very related. Doris: So, as a teacher, when do this, what you’re constantly thinking about are what are the questions I should ask next of these guys as opposed to how do I answer? Katy: Right, absolutely. I think yeah, for the exercise we did was coming up with the questions was great because I forced them to ask at least 10 questions, so that was the challenge. Doris: Yeah. Katy: I don’t think they’re used to being asked to do that. They’re usually given one question like whatever class it is, like one question and they have to use their textbooks, use their primary or secondary resources to answer that one question. Whereas in this particular project, I told them to come up with as many questions as possible and then to think about what types of questions those are? Are they open-ended questions? Are they close-ended questions? And then really prioritize like what are the most important questions to them that they want to have answered. And then also the difficult part that came later which was creating the surveys was what kind of questions work best in getting the information that you need? What kind of questions bring out the useful data from the not useful data. And that was challenging too and I think one to the things that was helpful from the workshop was some of the resources you provided around articles from let’s say the Harvard Business School without designing a survey. I gave them that to read, have them think about really what makes for a good survey question and what doesn’t and they think was helpful. Doris: And there’s even the question before that which is based on what question you are trying to answer, what is the right research methodology? Surveys only work for very specific kinds of questions, right? Katy: Yeah, absolutely. Doris: Coming out of a science having learned how to distinguish between one research strategy versus another and how to execute those is massively important. And given that finding the data is not the problem, it’s knowing the question and then how to go about answering it, I think these are really important things. So Katy, if you take a step up as somebody whose work is rooted in a passion for kids and having them develop a love for science, why is any of the stuff we’re talking about are important? Why get creative with these kinds of projects and how you teach science, why even do it? When we’ve done these research paper approaches and lectures and all that for many, many years and we’ve had amazing scientists emerged, why are you even experimenting with this stuff? Katy: I think I do like being very creative in what I do and that’s part of the reason I enjoy teaching so much. But I think for my, particular in teaching environmental science, I have some very specific reasons why I turned towards these sort of project-based learning experiences and activities and exercises. There is always a few students who I think come in having never really taken an environmental science class and don’t know what to expect and are kind of surprised that it can be equal parts science as well as policy, as well as economics and sociology. But overall, the students I feel like, can get very depressed often times with the seriousness and their weightiness of some of the environmental issues that we talked about. And sometimes it feels like there are sort of smaller day to day solutions to those issues. Things, like turning off the lights or even biking to school, don’t feel enough. And on the other end of the spectrum, the solutions that area really meaningful in long term feels really difficult. Things like policy change, societal behaviors changes, those seems really challenging and intimidating. And I feel like something like having a social entrepreneurship project gives us the students a sense that this is something they are familiar with that they can potentially accomplish within their lifetime or when they’re in college. Doris: Yeah. Katy: And it’s sort of a medium span of time to at least feel that it’s something that they can see around that them that is also making a difference, that isn’t just the daily actions where there’s originally long term policy changes. So, I think that’s one very specific reason why I feel like to work small in a particular environmental science class. And I think overall in our general science class, I think it does continue to exercise their data collection, their critical thinking, their data analysis. I think one of the hardest things that they and I learned to do is how hard it is to write and execute a good survey. Doris: Yeah. Katy: You have to still take the skills you learned in a science class around data collection in sample size and apply that to your project to really have effective results. Otherwise, your results are just not going to be reliable. Doris: Yeah, when you think about these methods of teaching and learning and applying them what are some of the things that you’re using now in your other classes that you got out of this? Katy: I think one of the things I did get out of the workshop and this experience is that I think social entrepreneurship as vehicle of doing project-based learning better. And I think we started doing a couple more projects this year in chemistry. And I think if it’s not right away or not necessarily social entrepreneurship, I feel like do have more confidence in developing a project for the students that exercise some of the same skills and engage them is same sorts of issues that they are familiar with. And I think one of the things, which seemed like a small piece from the workshop, but I thought was really powerful, were the News Circles that we did as a group, where we knew we would get together the start of every session and just share major news pieces that we were interested in following. And I started doing and really seen it had a major impact in my current AP Environmental Science class. Because I started this class looking at climate and how that’s different from weather. Because we end with climate change in the spring. I was really seeing climate as sort of a good bookend to the entire class. And right away we started talking about climate versus weather, and whether hurricanes can be linked to climate change or not and what’s sort of the scientific consensus or uncertainty around that area of research. And that was something that I was just planning on doing anyway. And then, unfortunately, all of this stuff around Hurricane Harvey and now Hurricane Irma, it started happening at the same time. And so all of a sudden, the things that we were talking about in class, looking at past data for major hurricanes, category three, four, and five hurricanes, and sort of the human, environmental impacts of that, all of a sudden that became really incredibly relevant to the students. And so they were in these News Circles, suddenly so animated and excited to talk about what they were hearing, what they were learning. And I’m getting the sense that they are paying more attention now because now that we’ve talked about what causes a hurricane and how it might be linked to climate change because ocean waters are warming up more than ever before. And so that has been really exciting to see them realize that, you know what, their learning can really inform their understanding about the news that they’re hearing. And I think that’s…to me, that’s really critical, because as I told them, sort of one of my main objectives for the class is really for them to be able to sift through a lot of the noise that they’re hearing or reading about and really understand the environmental science and the issues behind what they’re hearing, reading about. We’re using facts and research that they’ve learned about to really critically think about what they’re hearing in the news. And I think that’s coming through, through the News Circles. Doris: Well and what a great way to set the table every day for the relevance of the rest of what they’re going to learn in that class. They’re not…none of the students, after that News Circle, are going to question, “What do I have to learn this stuff?” They get it. Katy: Exactly. Doris: And it’s a sad coincidence that you’re teaching this class at a time these hurricanes are hitting. But the interesting thing that I’ve discovered in doing these News Circles all these years, is that even if there isn’t a sad coincidence like this at the time when you teach this next semester or next year…as the students engage and bring in news they find interesting out in the world, it doesn’t take many steps between the news and what they’re going to learn in your class for them to find connections. And they’ll find and build those connections. You know, I know we talked about this at the workshop at first, very often students come in and they view it as a typical assignment, here’s my news article. But very soon, and, you know, they start bringing in news that actually does have a relevance to the class itself, on their own, even if there isn’t something that traumatic. Katy: Absolutely. Yeah. And they’re able to make some connections too, even if it doesn’t…it might be a news piece that might not be directly related to you, maybe the environmental unit that we’re talking about at the moment, they’re able to make some connections to, like, maybe what’s the environmental impacts of this particular issue, or something like that. Or climate change is always a threat. It’s always a theme in anything we talk about. And which is very kind of intentional on my part because that is…I see that as really critical global issue. And I think they get that sense too. Yeah. Doris: Well yeah, they’re learning from you. They’re learning the implications and the relevance and the importance of all this thing beyond the science itself. And I love that you’re doing it inside an advanced placement class, because there’s this notion that in an advanced placement class because they’re so content heavy, there’s no room for this kind of learning. And I think that’s completely wrong. I think that how the learning happens and how…what the learning objectives are, are two separate questions, right? Katy: Yeah, absolutely. Doris: They’re independent. And a masterful teacher can say, “Here are my learning objectives that include both skills, and also, yes, content.” But I can structure the curriculum and the project that’s real and relevant, and here and now in such a way that the students are engaged in work that’s relevant. And along the way, I make sure that they’re learning deeply the content they need to. Katy: Exactly. Doris: That’s great to hear, Katy. That’s awesome. Katy: Thank you. I hope it goes well. Doris: Well I’m very excited to hear what you’ve been doing, and will be very excited to hear what you do next. Katy: Thank you, appreciate it. Thank you. Doris: Great talking to you, Katy. Katy: You too. Thanks so much.

In this episode, Doris speaks with Chad Williamson, Co-founder of Noble Impact. Chad shares his journey to teaching at the intersection of entrepreneurship and public service. He explains how the Sandy Hook School tragedy has influenced their work around social emotional learning. Doris and Chad also discuss the importance of leadership when embedding innovation in schools. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Doris: Chad, my friend, hello. Chad: Doris, how are you? Doris: I am so good I’m talking to you. And I’m so very excited about this conversation because it’s you, and of all that you do. Chad: Well, I’m excited too. Doris: So, I want to talk later about how you and I first connected, but can you please tell our listeners about yourself? Chad: Now that’s the trick because this is part of our curriculum and if I do it wrong, then I would probably get blasted by our students. So really telling you who I am, we challenge our students to start in a chronological approach, starting from born and raised. But I won’t do that because obviously, you know, we might not have time for that. Doris: You can start with how you were born and raised, I like that. Chad: Okay well, I will give it a shot. So I was born in Salem, Ohio, which is a little Quaker town about an hour outside of Cleveland. I don’t really remember much about that because when I was three years old, my dad and mom made the biggest decision of my life and they decided to join the United States Air Force. So my dad became the first Quaker chaplain in the Air Force and my mom was a K-12 teacher, and we moved to San Antonio Texas in June of 1975. And so, that started a whole new life for me, right? It changed my trajectory because from then on out we moved every two to three years of my life until I was 18 years old. Living in Turkey, Alabama, Germany, Texas, Florida, Ohio. And then I ended up going into the Air Force myself when I was 20 years old and spent 5 years in the Air Force. Did physical therapy while I was in the Air Force, so I became a physical therapist assistant. Met a really cool guy in the Air Force who was a physical therapist that I worked with, and we started a company, actually, because we had our official PT licenses on the outside. So we would spend all day in the military, and camouflage and treat people from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm, and then after that, we would go outside in the civilian sector in Tampa and the surrounding Tampa area and treat people in their homes and do home health, so we built a business. And then I got a call one day from my friend after I got out of the Air Force and she said, “Hey, I know you’re doing your physical therapy thing, but there’s an opening at the school where I am working, called Berkeley Prep. There’s an opening for a basketball position.” And she knew I loved basketball. So I started coaching basketball at Berkeley Prep and thought it would be really easy because I can hold on my own a basketball, and I figured that wouldn’t be too difficult. And we went 1 in 15 that year, we were horrible. I had no clue how to coach, so I really dove deep into what coaching was all about. And I think that, obviously, even shines through to what I’m doing today. And then started teaching full-time there. And they were looking for an answer to why we didn’t have really good leadership in students. And so, I said, “Well, let’s start a class around leadership.” So I received the E.E. Ford Foundation Grant in Leadership, and we had $100,000 to build a curriculum around leadership. And I started doing some research around it. And then the following year, we actually started another course around poverty called, Poverty 101, which was a multidisciplinary approach that we took. And that research led me to this Global Leadership Institute in Little Rock, Arkansas, called the Clinton School of Public Service, which was started by President Clinton a couple years before that. And he wanted to start a master’s program that wasn’t necessarily public administration or public policy, it was more so focused on public service, which was the first of its kind. And I thought it was really interesting, and I started digging into the curriculum and really liked some of it, and sort of took some of it for myself and used it for my class. And then a year later, the admissions director there said, “You should apply here.” And I said, “Well that sounds cool. I mean, I know I want more education, but I don’t want to just jump through the hoops to get my master’s degree. But this sounds really cool.” And they had a lot of field work, about 60% of the work was in the field. And so, I applied and got in. Much to my surprise, because I was horrible at school. Hated every bit of school. Even getting my undergrad, it’s just traditional education wasn’t for me and never has been. Traditional recess has always been for me. Tetherball, you know, I can hang with the best of tetherball for sure. Doris: Oh, gosh. I’ve known a lot of this. I did not know that. You are on, Chad. Next time we’re together we’re going to find out. Okay, I’m going to take you on. Okay, keep going. Chad: Are you right or left? Doris: I’m right.   Chad: All right, so now I got some up on you already. Okay, so… Doris: Oh, wow. Okay, I’m practicing. Okay, yeah. Chad: So that led to me going to Little Rock, Arkansas, and pursuing my master’s degree. And my wife was cool with that and she came, and the two chocolate labs came. And so, we made our home in Little Rock from 2008 to 2011. And during that time, I started my own Sports and Public Service series where I brought in athletes to come in and talk about what they were doing in the community. Professional athletes. I brought in Tiki Barber, and Warrick Dunn, and Myron Rolle, and we did a mini documentary with Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady. So the Clinton School has a pretty robust speaker series. Over 100 speakers year. But I was really curious about the sports sector, especially, African-American males, and what they were doing in their communities to make an impact, not necessarily what they were doing on fourth and one or how many points they scored in a game. And this goes back, you know, quite a bit of ways for me. You know, the first time ever heard that “N” word was in Montgomery, Alabama, when I was in 3rd grade. And the only thing, I think, that I could process was, “I’ve never heard that word used for any of my friends.” And I had a lot of friends that were black because the military is the most diverse organization in the world. And when your dad is the chaplain, everybody comes to the chapel. And we knew everybody. And I just knew that my best friend’s name was James, and we nicknamed him “Papa.” And he was black, and we ruled recess together, but I’d never heard him called an “N” word. I’d never even heard any of my other friends that were black called the” N” word. And so, I think that stuck with me, even subconsciously. And that’s why I’m so big on black male achievement, through the work that we do now. And so, you know, one of those guys that I came across was Dhani Jones, and we hit it off and I ended up working with him for three years out of Cincinnati. He was a middle linebacker at Cincinnati Bengals at the time. We started a couple things in Cincinnati, a one-on-one interview show on the CBS Affiliate, and then we started a bow tie organization where we created signature bow ties and designed bow ties for different non-profits around the country. And then I met a guy, one night, at a restaurant in Cincinnati. And he said he was from Fort Smith, Arkansas. And I thought, “Whoa, what?  I’m going back and forth from Little Rock. I know Arkansas pretty well. And he said, “I’m really curious about education.” And I said, “Well, you know, I used to be a high school teacher and I’d love to get back in education, but I just don’t know when the time would be right, but we’ll see.” And he said, “Well, I want you to think about this word “noble.” And so, I remember just doing some research, and there was a video on the Clinton School website where President Clinton is on there, and it’s a really impactful video. And he’s talking about his presidential library. And this is when he dedicated it, “I want people come to this library: Liberal, Conservative, Democrat, Republican, to see that public service is noble. And I was like, “Oh, that word.” And so, it resonated with me at a pretty high level then, and then the timing was right. And he sent me a text in November of 2012, saying, “Let me know when you’re ready for your next challenge.” And I hit him back in two minutes like, “Talk to me, I’m ready.” And so, we started to have a conversation around what this noble thing could be, and then I ended up adding the word “impact” to it because I started looking up just the word “noble.” You know me well enough, I’m always looking for the meaning behind things. And when I put impact to it it just had this ring. So we launched Noble Impact, really, in February of 2013. We had a couple ideas around some things. And this was from our chairman…the guy that I met at the restaurants in Cincinnati. And one of his things, and I think that got him really thinking was his son came home from school when he was in high school, and he and his dad were talking about the homework that he had to do, and he pretty much said, “I’m not going to do my homework.” And his dad was like, “Well, why not?” And he said, “Well dad if there’s no purpose, there’s no reason.” And so, that stuck with Steve, and Steve thought, “Well, I’m I listening to the insights of you know, an average high school kid that just doesn’t want to do his homework or am I listening to the insights of a generation?” And that’s when we started having those conversations about, “Well then, how do we create purpose-driven and relevant curriculum for high schoolers?” And so, we started in 2013, as a summer institute. It went really well. Well enough to where John Bacon, at the time…who still now is CEO of eStem Public Charter Schools in downtown Little Rock, had 16 of his kids in our program and he said, “Hey, I love this so much. Can you start a class?” And I said, “Absolutely.” So it went really well, we started with 24 kiddos, they were sophomores and juniors. And we were at this intersection of public service and entrepreneurship. So we partnered with the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Walton College of Business in Fayetteville at the University of Arkansas, and then the Clinton School of Public Service to have this, you know, nice higher ed situation where we had entrepreneurship and public service that would a focus areas for us. So the following year we learned from that but we also figured out that we’re not reaching everyone, and we had done a pilot. Our first year…actually the first time we ever did Noble Impact was in a 3rd grade classroom in Tampa, Florida, 2nd and 3rd grade in the summer. And it went really well, and I was like, “Man this works in elementary school.” But we were already committed to the High School Institute. And so, we actually flirted with it in our first year at eStem when we did a 3rd-grade pilot. And they loved it. And they pitched their ideas at the end and pitched like companies on how they would redesign their classroom. And it was during that time, I think you pretty much launched the same time I launched. Doris: That’s right, that’s exactly right. Chad: Then we started exchanging notes. Doris: Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, just to add in to when you and I connected, in your research, you’d somehow come across something about what I was doing, and you reached out to me and we had a phone call. And you and I were both so excited because this was actually in the world of progressive education, this was really early. And we were so excited to find someone who was so philosophically aligned. We were so on the same page. And it was years ago, whatever that year was. Chad: We were really early in this thought process. And sometimes I felt we were too early. I felt like, “Man, it’s too hard to get traction.” Because people just don’t believe in this stuff. Doris: Yeah. And you and I were approaching our start in very different places. You were working with public schools, I was inside an independent school. And there was no understanding really of what we’re trying to do, and huge resistance. It was tough. So which has added to why we were so excited about each other, right? Chad: No, absolutely. And I think, you know, you bring up a good point because doing this type of work does vary from private to public to charter school education. And there has to be some sort of a door opening and leadership that’s willing to take on new stuff. And the nice thing about working in NAIS or independent schools, those schools have the flexibility to experiment and to bring on new ideas. Not that it’s easy because it’s still not, right? Because now you’re really under the gun because you have to prove yourself because you’re answering to a lot of different people in private school, even in a different capacity than you are in public school. So, you know, if you create something and you don’t come through with it, you really look bad. Doris: You’re exactly right. And the reason I started with Hawken, is because I wanted to find an independent school that was committed to letting me experiment because you’re right, independent schools have more flexibility. On the other hand, the challenges are different, right? So in private schools, there are expectations about what academic performance looks like, about what an academic course should be like. It’s this whole other set of cultural roadblocks. Now in the last several years I’ve been working with a lot of public schools, so I understand much better the differences. But the work itself, what’s really interesting is kids are kids, and as we have in the education industry now, much more of a movement, globally, around this kind of education. Chad: Yeah, and just to capitalize on your “kids are kids.” You know, I think, sometimes, when you try to do new stuff and you’re excited about something, the thing that gets in the way aren’t the kids, the kids want it. It’s the adults. It’s the lack of imagination from adults that are still…really the only memory that we have of education is very traditional. So if you really want to shake it up, kids are going to love it for the majority of the time. But adults are the ones that are the first to press back, whether it be parents or administrators, teachers, etc. So it just makes me think, you know, that word “innovation”…and it always brings me back to the Harvard Business Review article, “The Innovator’s DNA,” and those five discovery skills and association. Associating is the backbone of it. And then you have: questioning, observing, networking, and experimenting. And you used experimenting the language when we first started. So, you know, that transitioned into when we first started experimenting. And I think that’s what you’re talking about now is what are we seeing now in the space, especially based on where we came from in 2013? But if you don’t have those innovative mindsets, you’re in a lot of trouble. Like you’re not really going to be able to push the envelope too far before either, one, you get fired or two, hopefully, the administrators start to turn a little bit in regards to, “Oh, you know, what this stuff is working, maybe I should get on board with this “change.” And so, maybe we should just make our own little digital platform that rates leaders on their ability to innovate, and then we just fire the people that are below a certain threshold of innovation because they’re screwing up kids’ lives. Doris: Yeah, I’m all for that. I’ll tell you, in the last four years, as I’ve been working now with other schools, public schools, charter schools, schools all over the world, what I have found is the starting point has to be leadership that has the will to make this happen. That has to be the starting point because if you don’t have that, you’re going to be just beating your head against the wall, and it’s not going to happen. Chad: Absolutely. The one thing that sticks out to me when you say that is, then you have innovative teachers or educators that really want to make a difference. They’re coming with all this energy, and gusto, and then you hit a brick wall if you don’t have the innovative leader. But when you do though…and this goes back to my first interview with Tiki Barber, he said this quote, and it’s my favorite quote now. He said, “The ability to respond with enthusiasm to someone else’s potential is almost as rare as talent itself.” And so, that thought process is when I respond with enthusiasm to potential, whether that be kids, teachers, etc., watch out, because then you empower them. You validate their thoughts, and their feelings, and their actions. And then they, you know, for lack of better terminology, they have that wildfire, right, that… Doris: Yeah. Good word, yeah. Chad: …that gets into them, and then you just have to navigate and facilitate. Doris: Yeah, when you and I first connected, my head and heart were all full up and into the impact on the students of this kind of education. And in the last few years, what I have discovered, which is exactly to your point, is that this work is about opening up the adults as well, the teachers and the administrators to the power of what’s possible. And it’s been really exciting to start really focusing so much on the adults in the education space, and seeing what’s possible when they have agency and they’re empowered, and they’re able to experiment and draw on their strengths. I’m really interested, Chad, from you in hearing about what you’ve been experiencing lately with the schools and the districts you’ve been working with. Chad: Yeah. Sure, and I just want to capitalize on some of the things that you said, if you don’t mind. Well, you know, what comes to my mind, and we’ve done a lot of training over this past summer for a lot of different groups because now we’re getting into this professional development space because people are finding out what we’re doing and hearing the stories about how we’re making an impact. And so now, we are able to take it to the adults and maybe even take it to the decision makers. And I think that to your point, you know, you have to be able to influence the adults, the teachers, the parents, the administrators. And the only way to do that, at least through what we’ve experienced out of Arkansas is storytelling. I mean, we have to be able to tell the stories of the kiddos that are benefiting from this type of curriculum. And we’ve used that language a couple times now because it’s hard to describe sometimes, right? And in all reality, it’s just empowering kids to be their own advocates. And however they do that, but for us, we do it through three, you know, different skills. And we see these three skills as paramount to what we do. And number one is listening, number two is story telling, and number three is reflecting. And then we say…and then we have our own purpose statement, right? The purpose of Noble Impact is to increase access and opportunity for every student we serve. And, you know it’s last year, 2016, and I’m at SXSW and at this point, you and I had had maybe in the hundreds of conversations, at this point about, “Man, you’re doing good work. You’re doing good work.” And I thought, “You know what? Yes, this is it.” Like we’re on to something big and kids love it. And so, at this point, we have about, you know, over 1000 kids in our program from 5th grade to 12th grade, and we’re starting different things. But then in 2016, I go to SXSW, I get there really early, it’s a Sunday, and it’s about 2 p.m. and I get there so early that they aren’t giving out the name badges yet.. So I go across the street, I think it’s the Hilton across the street, and there’s a huge restaurant downstairs, and it’s only me in the entire restaurant. And I’m watching…there’s like ESPN is playing and they’ve got these flat screens. And there was a UFC fight the night before. And this guy pulls up to me, three seats down, I’m sitting at the bar, and he said, “Oh, did you see that fight?” And I’m like, “Yeah, actually I did.” He said, “Are you a fighter?” I’m like, “No, no, I’m not a fighter.” I was like, “How is this the first question that I’m getting?” And he looked about my age, right, like early 40’s. And I said, “Well, you’re a fighter?” You know, and he said, “Yeah I love that stuff, that MMA, UFC.” I’m like, “Oh, cool.” And he said, “But, why are you here?” And I said, “Well, I’m here for SXSWedu.” He’s like, “Oh, me too.” I said, “Oh, cool.” He said, “Are you a speaker?” I’m like, “No, are you a speaker?” He said it, “Yeah, absolutely.” I said, “Well, what are you speaking on?” He said, “Violence and compassion in K-12, and how it relates to neuroscience.” And I’m thinking to myself this is some deep stuff. You know, I don’t even know if I’ve really heard that type of language together. And I was looking for something easy like curriculum development or something of that nature, And I said, “Well, so where are you from?” And he said, “Newtown, Connecticut.” And I was like, “Newtown, Connecticut?” And I got my wheels turning, I thought, there’s something there. And he could see me struggling with trying to connect the dots. He said, “My six-year-old daughter was murdered in her 1st-grade classroom in Sandy Hook.” And I said, “I can’t even imagine.” And he said, “Yeah, you can.” He said, “That’s why you responded that way.” And that’s when I met Jeremy Richman. And that changed the way that I thought about what we do, why we do it, how we do it, and who we even are in relation to all of this. And Jeremy scoots three seats down and we spent the next two hours together. We share our lives, we share our stories. He shows me all these pictures of Avielle, and tells me that when the Sandy Hook massacre happened, that just like a lot of other parents and even the community like, “What can we do?” Well, it turns out Jeremy is a neuroscientist, his wife, Jennifer, is a scientist as well. And they started the Avielle Foundation after Avielle was murdered to focus on preventing violence and building compassion in communities, schools. And then this focus on neuroscience while also focusing on social emotional learning. And so, I just started engulfing myself. Like I just started diving deep into all of this language and realized that you know what? We’re not doing entrepreneurship, we’re not doing public service. It is a byproduct of the social emotional work that we’re doing on a daily basis with kiddos in Little Rock that…and if you know anything about Little Rock, one of the things you do know, obviously in 1957, Little Rock 9, there’s significant history behind desegregation. You know, there’s a lot of history there. And there’s still to this day a lot of pain. The school district itself was taken over by the state due to “dysfunctional board,” you know, at the time. And is still run by the state. So there’s a lot of work we do that just can’t be chalked up to the Lean Canvas and entrepreneurship, right? Doris: Those are tactics, right? And I’ve had this for years, and I think it’s getting better, but for years I’ve had that baggage that comes with what I call “Edujargon.” You know, people want to put it in a box, “Oh, this is that Lean LaunchPad stuff or this is the design thinking stuff or this is entrepreneurship stuff.” And it’s like, no, it’s a completely different approach to teaching and learning, and those are just tactics and tools that you use as you’re doing this work. And that’s what it is. It’s a toolkit. Chad: Yeah, and those tools still need to begin with compassion, right? Doris: Absolutely. Chad: And even like design thinking, it begins with empathy. And I like to use compassion a little bit more, especially now that we’re so tight with the Avielle Foundation. And now we’ve actually…I forget if I told you, but we entered into an understanding, an MOU, with Avielle Foundation, and they’re our scientific research partner, and we’re their education partner in regards to, “How do we know that we’re really making a difference and making an impact in the lives of others.” And Jeremy Richman and Avielle Foundation are going to be our scientific research partner going forward with all of our curriculum, which we believe is beneficial to the kids in our program because it’s building their social emotional capacity. And so, I think, when we look at the greatest entrepreneurs in the world, even today and years past, one of the things that they probably do have a lot in common is a high level of social emotional intelligence. And so, even going back to the new masters…what is the new grading system that you’re doing? Doris: The Mastery Transcript, so… Chad: Yeah, The Mastery Transcript. It’s not only about ACT and SAT, it’s so much more. Doris: Actually, it’s not at all about ACT or SAT. Yeah, exactly. Chad: Absolutely, absolutely, it’s about who these kids are. So, you know, that’s what I like about you know, talking with you and knowing what you’re doing and what I’m doing. And I think we’re both pushing in the direction of sustainable and transformational change as opposed to transactional change, right? Doris: That’s exactly right. Chad: So we’re looking for that transformation. And I think, you know, there’s something that tells me we’re on the right path now, especially with our social emotional work. And I know all the social emotional buzzwords today, but I’m just sort of curious like how we’re building social emotional capacity in kids. And I think, to your point, and to what you’re doing is you’re building social emotional capacity through the activities of what Wildfire brings to the table. Doris: Absolutely. And when it comes to measuring, it’s about measuring growth in social emotional capacity and skills. And that’s the point. And it’s very personal. The whole transaction-based system of education that we’ve built over the last century has proven time and time again, and now more than ever to be failing humanity and the planet. And I know that sounds really melodramatic, but I think that’s what people are realizing that this work it’s, Maria Montessori, I keep quoting her because it’s the best way I know how to put it. Is what she said that “The path to world peace is education.” I believe that. Chad: Yeah, and you know, you said, what are you seeing in the districts and who you’re working with. And so, this year was our first year to really branch out of eStem in a big way. So we really piloted a lot of our curriculum in eStem. And John Bacon gave us the flexibility and the leadership to do that, right, from an innovative perspective. And so now, we’re in the Hope School District in Arkansas, we’re in Jacksonville High School, we’re in Baseline Academy, which is now an elementary school, were in Sheraton High School. And so now, we’re getting into that public realm as well, and so we’re going to be seeing a lot of stories happen. And you know, I like to use Twitter for that kind of stuff, right? Instagram, Twitter, etc. because we have to tell these stories. And if we’re not telling the stories and they’re not telling the stories, and we actually don’t know how this stuff is affecting kids, teachers, students, administrators, etc, etc. So I’m really excited this year because we’re going to learn a ton. And I forget if I told you, but there’s a film coming out on Netflix called “Teach Us All.” And we’re in that film, but highlighted in that film is Baseline Academy. And it comes out on Netflix on September 25th. And Ava DuVernay, her production company acquired it and it’s to mark the 60 years after the Little Rock Nine in 1957. So it’s now 60 years later. So what does education look like now? Equity and education. And I think, in all reality, Doris, that’s what we’re all trying to do, right? You and I are trying to have a bigger play in transformational education, taking kids from victims to victors or trauma to triumph and trying to decrease the drama and increase the empowerment where we believe kids can thrive. And we might do it a little bit differently, but in all reality, the philosophy, and the motivation, and intent is the same. And I think that’s why…well, that’s why I like talking to you, so. Doris: Yeah, well, and ditto back at you. And I’m so excited about and proud of the work that you do, Chad. Chad: I appreciate that. Doris: Yeah, and so, you know, we’re in our… I don’t know, 3rd, 4th, 8th chapter of this, and it will be fun to see what our next chapter looks like. Won’t it? Chad: Absolutely. We’ve got to keep building, got to keep writing those chapters. Doris: That’s right. Chad: And actually, and just to get out of the way the allow students to write those chapters. Doris: That’s right, you got it.Thank you, so much for talking today, Chad. Chad: Thank you, I appreciate your time as well. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode, Doris speaks with Sarah Jensen, High School Entrepreneurship Teacher at Nichols School. Sarah brings an extensive business background to the classroom and discusses the value of students developing the skills they’ll need when they enter the workforce. Sarah and Doris discuss the realities behind the trendy but misleading notion of learning through failure. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Doris: Hello, Sarah. Sarah: Doris, hi. How are you? Doris: Oh, I am so great. How are you? Sarah: I’m great. Doris: So Sarah, could you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and your background and how you came into this? Sarah: Sure. It’s somewhat a joke in my family. I come from a family of educators and I think if we had a family vote I would have been voted least likely to be a teacher. So it’s my third or fourth career, but I’m loving it. I came to Nichols through a circuitous route I guess. I started…I was in international relations, an econ major at Brown and I wanted to work globally. So I went to work for AIG, American International Group in New York City. AIG was truly global and I walked in there knowing nothing about insurance not even my own insurance and had an incredible opportunity to use skills that I had. Not so much the knowledge I had, but the skills I had to then learn the knowledge I needed to thrive there. I started on the domestic side working underwriting insurance for U.S. banks and then I was able to switch over and eventually lead the financial institutions group globally. Doris: Wow, wow. That’s a big job. Sarah: It was. It was fantastic. But you’re 20 something, you’re traveling around the world, meeting with Fortune 500 companies, meeting with large companies, developing new products, taking U.S. products and tweaking them for local markets, starting to work with a team of people that you’ve never met from different cultures all around the world. It was before the days of Skype and cell phones. So you’d get calls at home at all kinds of hours. While I was there. I had an opportunity to do an executive MBA at NYU, at the Stern School which was for me perfect because it was this intersection between what I was learning in the classroom and then being able to go and apply it immediately in my job. So I was going school full time which is basically all day on the weekends and working full time. Doris: Wow. Sarah: And so, for me, a light bulb went off that it wasn’t schools over here and work is over here, but there’s overlap and constant intersection was fantastic. So I did… Doris: Yeah. I went…just to interrupt for a second, that so resonates with me. I went and got a masters as an old lady, older than you and it was such a powerful and different experience than undergrad when I’d been in school my whole life and had no context. Sarah: Exactly, exactly. And you’re there to learn new skills, to learn some content and to apply it and the grades were not the focus. Doris: Yeah. Exactly. Sarah: Then I switched to CNA which is an insurance company based in Chicago and I develop some products. We tried to launch there international operations, ended up in San Francisco and had my first child and decided that I was going to start my own business. So I became an entrepreneur out of necessity which is what I think most entrepreneurs, successful entrepreneurs that’s the way they start. You see a need that’s not being met and you develop a company. So I started a company called Get Settled which was for trailing spouses and families of corporate relocations for all the things that the realtor didn’t tell you. So I focused on that and I loved it, and I made so many mistakes. I did things absolutely backwards. Having been successful in the corporate world, having an MBA, all of these different things, I did what I knew and I still laugh about it with my students. I’m like, “You want to see failure? Here you go guys. That’s how it was.” It was successful to a point, but it got to the point where scaling it didn’t make sense. So we’re in New York then we went to San Francisco and then to Boston and again it was like, “get out of your comfort zone, use your skills on things that…” where you didn’t have the knowledge, but you had the skills to be successful and to contribute. And we moved to Buffalo for my husband’s job, another corporate relo. My kids are at Nichols School which is 5th grade through 12th grade and we are thrilled to be there. And as I was sort of unpacking and again had severed everything that I’ve been involved in for over a decade in Massachusetts, I was looking around trying to find when my kids are fairly well settled what was I going to do? And this opportunity came to me through the head of school who saw it. I don’t know what he saw, but I think he saw passion and energy and commitment in a different perspective and said, “We’re looking at launching some pilots, would you be interested in teaching part time?” And I sort of looked behind me and I thought, “Who are you talking to? Me? I’m a corporate person.” And that’s actually how we met you, Doris when we came to Cleveland and after coming and seeing the Hawken Program in action. I was like, “Oh, yes. This is right up my alley. I would love to take on this challenge.” That’s where it began. Doris: Yeah. And then you came to the Boston workshop that year. Sarah: Yes. And I love that because many of the people who were in there had either been working on their projects, their launches for some time or maybe they had already piloted program or they were thinking about doing it, you know, the following year. And I showed up and said, “Oh, no, no. This is June. I’m a brand new teacher in a brand new city in a brand new school and we’re launching it in September.” Doris: Yeah, exactly. Sarah: And it was phenomenal. It was, you know, I without the workshop I know I would have put together a program. Because I would have tapped whatever resources and created something. But I know that it would have been much more traditional tied back to what I learned in my MBA when I graduated in 1997 and relying on my, you know, what I knew versus having the opportunity you have, you brought this incredible combination of an experience in education and on the business side plus you had piloted it. And I have to say the “Oh, my gosh, I have Doris’ cellphone. I can call at any time.” Because it’s incredible when you’re doing this by yourself in a school where there aren’t peers who have piloted something similar to be able to reach out across the network and to those who have done it and who are doing it and share. And I am communicating with members of the workshop that I was in and then others that I have connected through the podcast or through your website. So it’s really fun to share and to get new ideas as part of this community.   So basically, I looked at it as I think year one, as a framework I relied on fairly heavily and then increasingly have taken and tweaked for what works best for Nichols and what works best for Buffalo, and honestly what works best based on my skill set. Doris: Well, I think what you’re bringing up is really important and we’re not talking about just, “Let’s do a project and see what happens and do some presentations.” You have to have really developed methods, curriculum, teaching practice, all that stuff. We’re talking about developing a completely different methodology for teaching in school and all the things you talked about are essential. It’s essential that we have this growing network of educators like you who are not only taking on the pioneer role and braving it, but are helping each other as they go and it’s essential. Sarah: Yes. Doris: So Sarah, can you describe the basic structure of the class? Sarah: Sure, I’m happy to. We initially focus on personalities and teamwork and what that means to work in a team. Because most of the students have never been in a class where 90% of the work is done in teams. And we quickly connect with our first CEO, we work with three CEOs in the fall and then in the winter when they come back from break, the students make their own teams and they work on their own start up ideas and we have a Shark Tank style pitch night which is downtown in the Buffalo Innovation Center called Dig with judges and about 120 guests where they pitch their own ideas and that happens right before March break. And we have debriefed them in between each of those and then when they come back from break, we do it two small challenges, one with a not for profit and one that has a global citizenship component. And then their final if you will is to write something that takes this class which isn’t very obvious, it’s not like calculus. Okay. You took BC calculus, everyone knows what that is. But it looks to try and articulate the skills that they’ve learned in the class into a new setting. So for example, as a cover letter for an internship or to write to a professor in an oversubscribed class or upper level class to convince them that they have the skills and the experience that they need to be in that class. And that’s how the year ends. Doris: That’s fantastic. And this is a senior elective and it’s one of say, five classes a senior will take in the year? Sarah: Yes, they take six classes and they also have a senior thesis running at the same time. Doris: Perfect. That’s amazing. So coming out of that year long experience, what do you see that these students…what’s the growth? What’s your take away about what the students get? And given your background, what’s exciting to me is that you’re able to put into the context of the workplace. What these students get out of this academic class in school that you think they carry with them into the next chapters of their life? What have you seen in the growth in these students? Sarah: How much time do we have? No. Doris: Yeah. Sarah: I am so thrilled and proud of these students. It’s incredible. One of the students this year, he looked at his feet and truly broke out in the sweat every time standing up in front even just in front his fellow students and swayed back and forth. He looked like he was, you know, in the middle of the ocean. He was so uncomfortable. He had great ideas, but could not present. We presented and practice and did the Superman pose and, you know, and all of these different things. And to watch him at the end of the year stand up, lead his team, answer questions with confidence and humor. And he wrote to me at the end and he just said, you know, “I had these ideas and I lost confidence in my ideas because I couldn’t communicate them. Now, I feel that I can tackle anything.” Doris: Wow. Sarah: And I think when I first got in AGI again, I knew nothing about insurance. But I watched people who had experience and masters degrees and they couldn’t speak up at a meeting or a presentation. And I had done a tremendous amount of public speaking or I didn’t know it was tremendous amount at the time. At the school I went to we had no choice, we had to do speeches every single year. So it wasn’t my favorite thing, but I had a skill set that allowed me to get on planes and fly all over the world because I could learn the content, I had the skill. And I think for the students it’s the same thing. Their understanding that they don’t have to have perfected it and none of us have, we continue to learn forever. But to understand that repetition and effort and not being afraid of failing is just gonna stop them on trajectory to do anything they want to do. So I also think another…if I could share another story. Doris: Yeah. I’d love to. Yeah. Sarah: So just some more context. My class is not an honors class, it’s not an AP class and it’s an elective. And it’s everything from students who are dying to take it to students, it’s about the only class that fits into their schedule. So I have a real range of students. Someone who study business, some have no idea, some are going into the sciences, you know, real range and some of them come in and they’re I would say the eagles. They have done incredibly well at school by themselves and they have an absolute death grip on their teams. They are up at 3:00 in the morning changing the slides, trying to control everything. I worked hard with those students to talk about what it means to be a leader and to look at different types of leadership. And I received this incredible again, handwritten thank you note from one of my students who’s headed off to Columbia next year who is this type of student, one of the top students. Just how much he learned about himself and about teams and about how to bring out the best in people and how to step back, and it just was fascinating and exciting to me. Because we have been talking about it, but more one-on-one not so much as groups. And I realized that each of the students are really on their own pack, one had no confidence in presenting another had no confidence in following. And throughout the year, there are so many challenges that the kids have an opportunity to really focus on and skills that will serve them incredibly well in the business world or whatever world they choose to go into because it is about teamwork. Doris: And you may remember from…one of the stories you said reminded me, you may remember from the workshop I talked about this thing called, “Deschooling” and it’s consistent that when you do a class using these methods in school for credit that they come into the class and they’re used to regular school, it’s transactional, teacher says, “Here’s what I need you to do,” student does it, teacher gives back grade, they come in and that’s what they’re ready for. And this thing you’re doing is totally a mindset paradigm, crazy, disruptive, radical shift for the students. And the kid you described who you said didn’t have the confidence to follow, you know, what I’ve seen with those kids, it’s not their fault, we’ve trained to these kids to operate like this is they have a very one dimensional and actually not helpful understanding of what leadership means. Sarah: Yes, I couldn’t agree with you more. I think oftentimes they think it’s the first one to the answer, not the best answer or the loudest or the one who pushes the most. I have had several introverts in the class who have incredible insights and talents that have worked very hard to try and find a voice. And they were so used to just sort of doing their own thing because they didn’t think others would listen, it wasn’t worth it. And I think one of the things about doing presentations weekly and I bring in somebody other than myself for every single presentation every single week we catch up. Doris: That’s fantastic. Sarah: And each of those individual has a different career path and a different personality. So I think the students have this opportunity to not only hear what I think in my perspective, but they hear from their peers and they also hear from this authentic audience on a small scale and then on a large scale. And because we do it again and again and again maybe 35, 40 times in the course of a year, there’s a reason to keep trying I think. And so many of the classrooms they have presentation day. If it goes well, “Great.” If it didn’t go well, “Oh, well.” But we go back at it, we deconstruct, we video tape, we watch, we laughed, we have a bloopers reel at the end of the year where the kids say, “Oh, my gosh. Can you pull up that one? Do you remember…” They’re fully invested in this. Doris: Well, they’re fully invested in this and what you’re describing is the learning process, you know. The learning process requires that you have lots and lots and lots of goes at trying something then reflecting back on it and then revising, trying again. You know, it’s very hip now to talk about fail fast, fail often, you know, the whole fail word. But the reality of it is really failing at anything that you care about is a horrible experience and as humans we try to avoid it. And what we’re really talking about is, you know, to develop these skills, we talk about resilience and the habit of revision and all these things. You have to have experience that you try something and it doesn’t go so well which we call failure and then you get to do it again. And what this kind of class that you’re teaching gives these kids is that opportunity to learn, to really do the kinds of repetitive things that will allow them to in an academic way, I think of it as academics focus on the development of these skills that we talk about, students needing in the world. But we’re not set up in school to teach these skills and that’s what you’re doing, you’re teaching skills they don’t otherwise have. And I love the way you said even in describing your own career path that you learned how one of the skills that you developed is the ability to learn really hard content that you don’t know. That’s part of what these students learn as well. And I love to hear you talk about how the part of the curriculum that is the teamwork and collaborative skills. Talk a little more about what that does for students and give us some examples there as well. That’s a messy thing as a teacher to set up a class in a high school where they’re entirely working on teams. Sarah: Absolutely. So we work with…we do 16personalities.com. It’s free, it’s a Myers Briggs shortened version. The kids love it because they go through, they answer the questions, but then the results that come out say, “I’m a diplomat. I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a campaigner.” Whatever it is and then they have all of this information at the bottom. And they go through and they say, “Oh, yeah, that applies to me, that doesn’t.” And they start to think about what their skill set is, what they bring to the table. And then I create the teams and then I very much take my hands off. And I have a sheet that I give to parents on parents’ night which is a parent’s guide to ESE and I say, “If your kids come home frustrated, uncertain with angst and friction, that’s good.” Right? Doris: Yeah. Sarah: Send them back to their peers. If their team can’t figure it out, they will collectively come find me. I will not come find them. If they’re really miserable over a long period of time, encourage them to come talk to me. But when they walk in the door and say, “Oh, my gosh. I don’t understand any of this. I don’t understand these people, there’s no roadmap, there’s no rules.” That’s exactly what it is and they cannot succeed as individuals and they quickly figured that out and they figure out how to distribute the work and they also figure out how to leverage the skill sets. And I would say that the other side of the student that maybe is the eagle, I have students who have done well at Nichols, but have not loved the traditional school setting. They get into my classroom where it’s real and concrete and fast moving and they thrive. They draw on their own work experience. So I’ll give you an example. Last year we worked with a landscaper who has to layoff half of his employees over the winter because there’s not enough work plowing. He had developed, he has an idea for a garden box and he created a prototype and we had to decide whether or not to launch this. And if we did he’d redeploy his employees from plowing and landscaping into a small production facility to make these garden boxes and to sell them. Doris: Wow. Sarah: So you need to tell him. Does he laid these people off on December 1st or does he launch this? Does he double down or does he, you know, cut his losses? And one of the students whose father runs a paving business every summer is out there as a foreman and involved. He knows firsthand how difficult it is to retrain employees and to lose employees who are working so well every year in the seasonal business. He worked incredibly hard. This was a kid who didn’t necessarily get into the details of things. He worked incredibly hard to try and figure this out, but he also realized that he had to be realistic. But he couldn’t go to the CEO and say, “Joseph, keep all 10 guys.” In their model and he really led his team. For the first time they said, “No. We think you can to this with five guys. So we suggest that you layoff five and that you keep five and this is how and this is why.” Doris: And did you feel as somebody who’s got the depth that you have that they’d done their homework, they had the details behind that to show? Sarah: Absolutely. By comparison to some of the other teams who were like, “Oh, great. Put it on Amazon, put it at Lowes, put it at Home Depot.” You know, in three months here you go. The practical aspects, the life skills or the life experience translating with this new set of skills made this students who wasn’t a leader, wasn’t one of the strongest academically, a leader in his team. And then everyone else who have sort of been like, “Whoa, what? How?” You know, just came around to say, “He really has a lot to contribute.” And the balance of the teams moving forward after that, the more experience they had with one another the more sort of they weren’t equal in skill set, but they were…they had different skills and they were more equal in ability and they started to work together much more effectively. And the teams when they created their own teams, they want teams of friends. Doris: Yeah. Because they knew what they needed and they learned a lot by then. So Sarah, you’ve come…your product of some of the most prestigious educational institutions in the world and you had a successful business career. What do you say to somebody who says, “Well, that’s nice that you have this entrepreneurship elective at this private school. It’s not really academic, does this really belong in a high school academic program?” What would you say to that? Sarah: Well, my first answer is absolutely. I explain at the beginning this is not a mini MBA. I am not…yes, they will learn cutting edge, best practices methodologies, etc. But I would say that I focus very much on creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, communication, citizenship and failing. And there’s so much that in so many different directions to go with these students, but I anchor it there and I used the Lean Startup and we rely heavily on the Business Model Canvas and we work with the framework, the Korda model of the engaged early with an authentic start up and authentic audience. I think with the students, the more that we can get them off campus, the more we can get individuals who aren’t faculty members in the classroom to give them feedback. The kids soak it up, they absolutely love it. But I say absolutely because it is…I use the Venn diagram with the two circles with the overlap and I absolutely believe in the intersection of knowledge and skills. And I think in this world, I have two kids who are students at Nichols so I’m very much looking as a parent as well, I look at them and I say, “The information is there. The question is do you know what to do with it?” And I think a big part of it is to be comfortable in knowing what you know, knowing what you don’t know, teaming up with people who have complementary skills and having quite frankly the guts and the ambition. I think that it’s great to be in a more structured setting, but the exciting opportunities are not coming there. And I think of a student who has the confidence and the skill set to feel that any path that they want to pursue is a viable option then that is tremendous. Because then they will go and pick their college courses, their graduate studies, whatever it is that they want to pursue from there with that lens of, “These are just more tools and more skills that are going to add to my path, but I am very capable of designing my own future.” So I love it, I’m excited to have the opportunity to do it and I’m excited with the feedback from the business community. And we probably work with 85 different members of the Buffalo business community each year as well as the students who have come back from college and the young alums that I’ve worked with. The feedback is, “Wow. That crazy Mrs. Jensen, the thing she was talking about, they were very helpful, they resonated.” When the student gets the feedback, “Yes, you’re in here because of your interpersonal skills has opened a door for you.” I think that that’s tremendous and I don’t think that you can teach that in a traditional setting. I think you have to setup and scaffold these real world interactions and then take your hands off the wheels and let the kids step up, let them struggle, let them fail, let them regroup, let them work together and the confidence that comes out of that I think is incredibly valuable, but I’m a little biased I guess. Doris: Well, I think that’s a great place to end it because that’s exactly the point and you have taken on by teaching a radically different class inside of a school. You’ve taken on a huge challenge and you’re succeeding brilliantly. Keep doing what you’re doing, Sarah and I’m just excited for your school and for your students. It’s a pleasure to talk to you. Sarah: Well, thank you very much. Pleasure to talk to you. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode, Doris speaks with Oliver Smith, Business and Economics teacher at Singapore American School.  Oliver discusses the depth of learning his students experienced while solving problems for real businesses in his entrepreneurship and AP Economics courses. He describes the liberation that comes from teaching students without an answer key. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Doris: Hello Oliver. Oliver: Hi Doris. Doris: So, Oliver if you could start by telling our listeners a little bit about yourself, your background and then what you’re doing. Oliver: Sure. So I’m a teacher at Singapore American School and I’ve been teaching there the last three years. This will be my fourth year there. Before that, I was teaching in public high schools here in Washington State for the previous 15 years. And in general, I teach business, AP Economics, entrepreneurship, advanced economics and I’ve taught a bit of math in the past as well. You know, Singapore American School is a large international school. We have about 1200 students and kind of feels very much like a high achieving you know, school that you would find in the US. And you know, I think since I’ve been here the administration and the school has been dedicated to innovating and finding new ways to help our students be more competitive in today’s’ kind of changing global economy. So yeah, that’s kind of how we met, I suppose. Doris: Yes. and you teach high school, correct? Oliver: Yeah, high school. So right now I’m teaching AP economics and we have a new entrepreneurship class that we’ve been teaching the last two years. And then I also teach kind of a general business class and an advanced economics class which is based kind of on development economics. Doris: That’s great. And a little bit more about the…your student population. Oliver: Yeah, it’s an English speaking school. And like I said, it feels very much like an American school. Most of our students have some connection with the US but we do have an international flavor as well. And you know, I would say that you would…well you’d probably find that you know 60 to maybe 75% of the students have spent a lot of time in the US, while the other portion have mainly lived overseas for their whole lives. But we don’t have very many English as second language speakers, you know, and things like that. But…so again you know, we have a population that’s mainly kind of an American population. But in Singapore yes. So ex-pats in Singapore, yeah. Doris: Yeah, okay, that’s really helpful. So tell me why you came to the workshop and what you took out of that workshop and then what you did with it. Oliver: Yeah, sure. So I think like two years ago, I was tasked with putting together a new entrepreneurship course offering for our students. And initially, I kind of thought back to my previous experience in public school and I’d taught the traditional business plan approach that I’d actually learned in business school myself as well. And I never really kind of thought that that might not be the best approach because who am I to kind of question PhDs who are on these textbooks. So initially that was my plan but then I started doing a bit more research and I ran into a lot of the Lean LaunchPad stuff and… And I found a workshop in California that was through I think an organization called Venture Well. And I ended up attending because that was kind of the best thing I think I could find and it turned out to be kind of mainly attended by professors from universities around the world who kind of wanted to emulate what Steve Blank was doing and you know, other professors at Stanford and Berkley… Doris: Mostly at graduate schools. Oliver: Yeah, mostly graduate schools. But you know, since many of my students actually apply to these schools, I’m like, “Oh, we can handle this.” And you know, kind of took a chance to try something a little bit different. And I saw the potential but we definitely had some issues with the college approach that they were using. Like for instance, I found that the kids they’re supposed to be coming in with an idea of their own. And quite honestly, most of the ideas were terrible. I mean, they were… Doris: Of course. Yeah, we know, I know how that is. Oliver: I think upon reflection you’re like, a lot of the kids would probably agree with that as well. You know, they’re either too broad, too narrow, too unrealistic. And most of them wouldn’t stand up to the tools that we’re using, like the Business Model Canvas and Customer Discovery interviews and they were constantly pivoting or scrapping their projects altogether. And it just led to burn out. I realized that this wasn’t really the best model for my students. So I think again I kind of stumbled upon the workshop… I think I found it on Steve Blank’s website actually. There was, he had an article that was written up about your program. And it sounded like this is what I should have actually gone to first and I wish I would have found your program before I went to the… Doris: The graduate school professor, yeah. Oliver: Exactly. So, you know, I’d say that kind of the biggest things that I took away from your workshop, I think it was just kind of liberating to sort of realize as a teacher, you know, I don’t really have to have all the answers. And it’s kind of fun just to be a coach or a facilitator again rather than a disseminator of information I suppose. And you know, I really learned to love telling students that I don’t have the answers and also answering questions with questions. You know, it was really nice to do that. And I think I also structurally, it really helped out my course as well by using the business problems initially to kind of teach these tools. It really helped the students to kind of put in context what, you know, these aren’t just abstract tools that you’re posting on your wall and trying to fill in. But these were actual tools that you could use in a real life context with real people and real problems. It turned out to be a really good experience for the kids. Doris: Yeah, I was just going to say, I think what you’re saying is hugely important and I don’t think people really understand it until they’ve done it. There are a lot of entrepreneurship classes, K-12 classes even now, where the students start by coming up with their own idea and then going through a process to create a business plan or a business model or a pitch. And what I think is massively important, what you’re talking about, is that you’re giving the students to start a real problem that’s unsolved of someone else, another business, that’s a real one, it’s specific. It’s not a teacher produced project and it’s not a student produced project. And it allows them, as you’ve said, you know, they get to learn some of these skills and methods, working on something that’s tangible of someone else’s before they get to a place where they have to have some foundational stuff before they can generate things out of thin air on their own. Oliver: Exactly. You know, I think also, like the students that I have and I’m sure they’re not unlike students all over the place. But you know, they’re great at playing kind of the school game. You know, if you just kind of show them what an A looks like, they can completely reproduce it. And this wasn’t really one of those kinds of classes where they could do that. You know, I couldn’t show them what an A looked like because I didn’t know what an A looked like necessarily, especially with relation to each one of these business problems. So, you know, that was something that I really appreciated as well and I took away from the workshop. I also like, you know, that the fact that a positive outcome for the students could actually be a negative outcome for their idea. That’s kind of real life, right? Doris: Yeah, exactly. Oliver: Where not everything’s going to work out. And that’s valuable to find that out and as quickly as you can I suppose, right? That was another thing that I really took away. Doris: That’s great. So then you taught this in this entrepreneurship class this year? Oliver: Yeah. Doris: Tell us, give us an example of a business your students worked on and describe it a little and what they learned and what they did. Oliver: Yeah, sure. So we had two kind of very different problems. We scaffolded the whole thing. So we started with a…what I thought was a relatively simple problem but it turned out to be fairly complex. We met an entrepreneur in Singapore who was trying to import single origin Guatemalan coffee into Singapore. And while he had some success kind of B&B where you’re selling to businesses and just kind of bulk and they didn’t really care what the price was, he really kind of wanted to increase his margins and sell to the general public but he wasn’t sure if he had a customer base or not in Singapore. You know, would anyone care about single origin Guatemalan coffee and would they care if it came from a certain farm and a certain hillside in Guatemala? And that was kind of the question that my kids were tackling. And it was really interesting to see some of the things that they came up with. Perhaps local Singaporeans, they didn’t really care a whole lot about it. And they found out through interviewing that his only real customer base would be kind of the ex-pat community. So that was kind of an interesting problem. The second one that we worked on was an app, a phone app. And it was another kind of young entrepreneur who was trying to start an app where people could meet on their travels. Not really like a dating app or anything but just kind of people who were traveling on their own who wanted to meet up and go to social events or go to museums or whatever. And her problem was that it’s kind of like, I guess the idea is like TripAdvisor where there’s a lot of user generated data. So her problem was well, how do I get these initial adaptors to keep coming back until we have like a critical mass of user-generated data? And that was the problem that my students worked on for the second problem. And again, completely different than the first one. And you know, completely different things to learn and it led to different thinking and different solutions as well. So it worked out really well. Doris: Yeah, so either by talking in general or picking one or two students in particular, whatever is easiest for you, tell us about the learning that happened in the course of that course. Oliver: You know, starting out like I said, I think a lot of my students when they first came to the class they thought that it was going to be a class about writing reports on Elon Musk and Bill Gates. And they weren’t really understanding that they were going to be doing the entrepreneurship themselves. So, you know, I had some push back I would say initially where yeah, they were, “Wait a minute, this isn’t really what I was planning on doing. And I can’t kind of play my little game at school here. I actually have to go out and start thinking and solving problems.” And… Doris: Yeah, they’re not happy about that at first. Oliver: No, no. I mean, there was actually a bit of anger I would say. But…and then there are also some kids who are kind of like, “Oh, this is great, I can actually get an A for effort now.” Doris: Yeah, exactly. I don’t have to do much, right. I can…this is cool, yeah. Oliver: But I would say that it actually turned out to be for almost all of the students, it was a positive experience where they really, you know, were finding some things that I had never even thought of as solutions. And you know, I would say that I had a couple of students that, one in particular that she didn’t seem super engaged initially. And you know, all through the class I was kind of, “Is she really kind of getting anything out of this?” But then when the class was over, she actually started her own business online where she was selling swimsuits that she had sourced through Bali and was selling and distributing all around the world. And you know, she was using a lot of the tools and the learning and skills that we talked about in class and she was actually learning and I didn’t really actually realize that I suppose. Doris: That’s so interesting. And as a teacher, I mean, you’ve been teaching for many years in a variety of settings and schools and a variety of student populations and subject matters. How was this different as a teacher and from the more traditional courses you’ve taught and what’s useful? Oliver: Yeah, you know, you get like a sort of a safe zone as a teacher, right? And you don’t really think outside of the box sometimes until you get hit in the head with something new. And you know, I would say that in my opinion this is…if it’s not the future of education, at least it’s a part of, you know, kind of the future of how we are going to be educating our kids in the future. You know, where kids are…they’re using all of their facilities from many different subject areas to solve a real problem. I mean, this is what real life is, right? It’s real inquiry based learning work, you know, you kind of give a kid a problem and then it leads them to rich higher level questions of their own that they have to think about. And I also think it kind of signals a shift sort of in a traditional classroom setting as well where I had the kids getting out of the class and talking to people and we also utilize the flip classroom method as well where we had kids watch Steve Blank’s Udacity videos as part of the course. And they come to class with that already in their toolbox. You know, and I think with technology today, you can do that if you have access to the technology that allows the kids to get some of the work done outside of class. And I also think that it’s okay not to have the answers as a teacher. And that’s something that, like I said, I found really liberating where I don’t know if what the kids come up with is the right answer or not. But with the evidence that they produce, it’s definitely a better guess than we had starting out, you know? And I think that’s kind of a neat thing to think about as a teacher going forward here with not only my subject areas but I’m sure also in other ones as well. Doris: Yeah and did you do a project in your economics class as well, similar to the entrepreneurship class? Oliver: Yeah. So we tried out the business problems in the entrepreneurship class first. And then we liked it so much… my partner teacher, he’d never been to one of these workshops. He still hasn’t but he’s planning on going at some point. But he liked it so much that he…this advanced economics class was his kind of to start out but he really wanted to incorporate the kind of methods we were using in my entrepreneurship class in the advanced economics class. So we partnered up with some NGOs and tried to do some social entrepreneurship problems. And the first one involved trying to get villagers in a small Cambodian community to not only purchase but use latrines. This was an effort to try to raise the sanitation in their village and eradicate some of the health problems they’ve been having and then inevitably hopefully increase their economic standing as well, so. Doris: Wow. So this is in your advanced economics class. Must have required a ton of research. What are some of the things your students learned about working on that project? Oliver: Well, most of these students were students that we had in AP Economics who had done really well and they just really kind of wanted to follow their interest in economics a little bit further. And we really tried to give them a bit more real life experience of economics. With AP Economics, you know unfortunately, it’s a lot of just content and kind of a real traditional approach to education. So we wanted to give them an opportunity to use what they’re learning in our class in the real world. And I would say that a lot of the kids…while they were also learning more about economics, they were also learning about how you study economics in the real world as well. I mean, how do you go out and try to figure out why were these villagers were making decisions they were making? Was it based on economics? Was it based on culture? And they were learning all kinds of things in addition to just the economics that we were trying to teach them as well. Doris: When in the course of the year did you do those, that project and then any other projects in that class? Was that at the end of the year, toward the beginning? Oliver: Yeah, so we’re a semester school. We have two semesters and the first semester was the…our entrepreneurship course. So that was where we first tried the business problems. And again, they went really well considering it was our first effort. Doris: Yeah, I’m impressed. Oliver: So the second semester was…yeah, second semester was advanced economics. And we kind of had to scramble to get these projects together. It was a little bit harder finding NGOs or non-profits that were willing to work with us in Singapore because quite honestly, Singapore doesn’t have a whole lot of economic development issues. So it was a different dynamic, you know, we didn’t have kids necessarily going out and doing interviews as much as they were with the business problems in our entrepreneurship class. Doris: Yeah, they probably had to do a lot of online research, Skype interviews, emails, that kind of thing. Oliver: Absolutely, absolutely. So it was a different dynamic. I would say it was actually a little bit harder as a teacher to kind of keep the kids going than it was when you were sending the kids out and actually talking to people and trying to figure out the insights they’re getting from interviews and so on and so forth. Doris: Yeah. So Oliver, you’ve taught in a variety of schools and you’ve taught at public schools in the U.S. You’re teaching an international school with a very competitive, sort of college competitive population of students and parents. You’ve been teaching subjects, AP classes, advanced classes, math, economics, the stuff that most consider to be pretty, you know, pretty significant academically challenging stuff at a high school level. If I gave you the choice between you could teach advanced economics, mathematics, all these things in only a traditional way or only using this new methodology you’ve been piloting, which would you do and why? And you can only do one, you can’t do both. Oliver: Well, definitely the traditional approach would be easier but I would definitely I think choose obviously this business problem approach or problem approach, I guess. Because you know, I think it’s really important that students understand that they’re going to be able to show that they can actually solve problems at some point in time. When they’re at their first interview with a college or an employer, they can say, “Look, I’ve actually done something. I’ve tackled a real problem and I found solutions, whether they’re correct or not, I don’t necessarily know. But I found evidence to support these solutions and perhaps, you know, even solutions that could be validated in a real world setting.” So these are skills I think that are really important, they go above and beyond what you’re going to find in a traditional classroom where students are memorizing textbooks and filling out multiple choice tests and things like that. So to answer your question, absolutely I would take this real world problem-based approach. Doris: And do you consider the learning academic that they’re doing? Oliver: Oh absolutely. You know, some of the projects that students were coming up with at the end, some of their presentations blew us away. I mean, absolutely blew us away. I mean, they were going above and beyond what was expected and actually…it was tough in some cases for myself and my partner teacher to keep up with what they were doing. So, you know, if you were to show some of these projects to administration or whatever, they…I mean, well we did actually, we had administration there and they were blown away by what our kids were doing academically. And also again, just kind of practically. Doris: Just out of curiosity, tell us some of the kinds of things that they were addressing in these presentations. I think for people who haven’t experienced this, it’s really hard to wrap your head around the fact that these students end up gaining deep knowledge of really, really rigorous academic stuff content in the course of doing this kind of work. People think of it as one or the other. It’d be great to hear some examples of…do you remember some of the kinds of things they presented? Oliver: Yeah. I mean, there were some where students were really kind of… I’m thinking back to our advanced economic class where we had some really amazing students. And they would come up with…well, they would kind of go above and beyond what we taught them in economics and come up with some of the models that we hadn’t taught them before and they would actually figure these models out on their own and kind of use those in their presentations where we definitely didn’t expect that. And then also just kind of some maybe simpler solutions that were maybe not quite as obvious. Like for instance, when we were working on the projects in Cambodia, you know, some students were…looked at some cultural behavioral kinds of solutions that weren’t necessarily obvious and the kids had to do a lot of research to find these out. And also they had to have evidence to support that these solutions perhaps worked someplace else before or they had tried someplace else and that they might work in this context as well. Doris: Yeah, I mean, what happens in a project like that, even if it lives in the advanced economics course and even if they end up with a lot of their work rooted in economics and the application of models, etc. it’s not a single discipline where you have to work within when you’re solving a problem like that. You have to look at behaviors, you have to look at culture. You have to look…you have to consider all that other stuff, which is what happens when you get out of school and you’re doing anything that’s not in a discipline defined classroom, right? Oliver: Absolutely, yeah. And there isn’t a textbook to solve life’s problems for sure. So I mean, you absolutely have to kind of go outside of the context of what you’re learning in class and sometimes use other skills as well. So. Doris: And so did you…I’m also interested in both of your advanced economics entrepreneurship. What kind of result did you see from having them work on teams? What kind of…was there a benefit to that, to the learning that came from that, did it not matter? What do you think? Oliver: Well, this is funny because as a teacher, this was probably our…this was the biggest stumbling block for us when it came to using this method because we had a couple of…well, I don’t know about unique things. I’m sure that there are policies like this in other schools but we’re not necessarily allowed to grade, you know, using group grades. Or at least a large portion of the grade can’t be based on a group grade. So… Doris: By the way same here. I had to figure out how to give grades with this model in a school with people, kids get individual grades. Oliver: Absolutely, yeah, and it’s grades in our school are very important for the students. I mean, they’re very aware of their grades at all times and it’s something we have to wrestle with. I think a lot of the students they would tell you they’re very interested in this learning, in this real life application. At the same time, the grades were important. So when we put them in groups, there was definitely a learning curve for us to try to figure out how we were going to assess students And you know, that took us a while to kind of get going. I think we have a grasp on that now but I think obviously working in groups is a good thing for the kids. So I’m just kind of looking at it from a teacher’s point of view but I think the kids really, you know, they did a great job of communicating with each other, learning from each other, helping each other look at things in different ways. And you know, I would love to do more group work than I do already in my classes. Doris: Yeah, it’s…yeah, you’re right. It’s on the teaching side that you have to do contortions to fit it into a graded system. And that’s where a lot of the work to, you know, on the one hand, I give teachers methods of assessment that can fit into a graded system. And on the other hand, I’m working on the Mastery Transcript Consortium Board to try to create a new transcript as an alternative to grades because I don’t think ultimately grades serve the purpose they’re intended to serve and I think that they’re actually doing the opposite. But I think the kind of learning that happens when students do this challenging stuff on teams is super valuable to the rest of their lives as well. Oliver: Absolutely. Doris: Yeah, so you’ve done this one year and I really applaud you for your bravery. It’s really hard work and it’s really…it’s risky, it feels risky… Oliver: Absolutely. Doris: …yeah, to be in a high school teacher in a really competitive school doing this. It’s risky from a lot of different angles and really crazy hard to be the pioneer in this. So coming out of this year, are you doing it again? What does this mean for your school, for your community? Are you going to get driven out of town? Are you in the U.S. because they said, “Get the heck out of Singapore,” or what’s next? Oliver: Oh gosh, I hope not. Yeah, we’re absolutely doing this again. We felt like it was a success. I mean, there were definitely stumbling blocks but that’s learning for us as well. I mean, we kind of have to learn along with the students. And again, not every business problem or problem in economics is going to be the same. There could be situations where we have to scrap it altogether and be ready to do that. And you know, I mean, we have the trust of our administration to do this and so we feel confident that we can take this risk and it’s not going to get us fired or anything like that. So no, we’re absolutely going to continue with this work and try to find more and more interesting and rich problems that we can, you know, have our students work on. And it’s obviously a lot of work but we’re totally up for it and super excited about kind of seeing where this goes from here. Doris: That’s great. Do the students coming out of your classes, would they say now that they’ve been through the whole thing, would say they would they would, “Yeah, that was good, I’m glad that we did this weird class this way?” Oliver: Yeah, I think so. I mean, just looking at the numbers we have signed up for next year, we have double the number of kids that we had this year. So… Doris: That says it all. Oliver: I think word has spread that’s it’s really a class that’s different from other classes. And it’s a class where you can kind of go out and, you know, learn a lot of different things using a lot of different skill sets. And it’s just something that I think kids really understand that there is value to that in addition to what they’re learning in the traditional classroom setting. Doris: That’s fantastic. And do you, you said your teaching partner wants to do this as well, continue teaching this way. Oliver: Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely and I…like I said, I think he’s also going to be coming to one of your workshops here soon. Doris: Yeah, I’ll be…you’ll have to send me all the dirt on him before okay. Oliver: There’s lots and lots of dirt. Doris: Okay, that’s awesome, that’s great. Well, Oliver, I’m so excited to hear what you’ve done in just your first year. The first year of the pilot is by far the hardest, it’s usually pretty gruesome. And you…I’m sure it was very hard for you but you’ve come out of it. The fact that you have twice as many kids signing up the next year says it all. And I’ll be really excited to hear how your next year goes. Let’s talk again in a year. Oliver: Absolutely. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Doris: Thanks, Oliver. Oliver: Appreciate it. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode, Doris interviews Sarah Swain, former Science and Entrepreneurship teacher at St. Anne’s Belfield School in Virginia and the incoming Assistant Director of Entrepreneurial Studies at Hawken School. Sarah describes the integration of environmental science into her entrepreneurship course and entrepreneurial skills into her core science courses. They discuss the importance of students learning to identify problems, reflect and collaborate. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Doris: Hello, Sarah. Sarah: Hi, Doris. Doris: I am so excited to hear what you’ve done since the workshop. Tell us all about it. Sarah: Awesome. I’m so excited to share with you too. So two things came out of the workshop that I’m really excited to share about today. First, I transformed a three-week mini-course on entrepreneurship into a full year-long “Senior Seminar on Social Entrepreneurship and Problem Solving,” was the title. And that was a pilot year-long program, which was super exciting. And then the other part that I really wasn’t expecting leaving the workshop was that I really transformed the way that I present students in my biology classes, in my science classes, with projects and also with lab design assignments. Doris: That’s really interesting. So how long have you been a science teacher? Sarah: I’ve been a science teacher for a decade. And I’ve worked at two different schools. And I’ve taught chemistry, biology, honors biology, AP biology, and AP environmental science in that time in different configurations along the way. Doris: So I’m going to be really interested to hear the way that what you got out of the workshop changed your teaching in your more traditional classes. But talk a little bit about this social entrepreneurship class, this full-year program that you developed. Tell us about that coming out. Sarah: Wonderful. Well, the smaller pilot of a three-week long intensive course was super fun. And we got kids learning about businesses, trying to design their own, and I wanted to turn it into a full-year class. The school approved and was super excited and suggested that I come to the training in Cleveland. And I just can’t even explain how many resources I got and how great it was from the business model canvas that I was not using, did not really have a familiarity with in the intensive class to the actual approach and a lot of the ideas of how to engage with students and things like New Circle, raising their awareness, and the interpersonal dynamics of teams and assigning students to teams within the business challenges of the longer pilot. So those were some of the specifics that I came out with the knowledge to do. And then what I had to work with, the canvas that I had to work with, was 75 minutes every other day through an entire year with a group of 14 seniors, primarily because those 14 could fit on a bus, mini-bus, with me to go to businesses and take field trips and go to do market research and work like that within the class. So I took the template, three business challenges, where they were addressing real problems at real businesses in the community, and then a fourth problem where they were going to actually create their own business within that fourth business challenge. Took that template and put it into my community and my time that I had for the course. And there was a really neat kind of dovetail with a local youth entrepreneurship festival towards the end of the year that was the goal for the students to kind of aim towards with their own business designs in that fourth challenge. So it really set up very nicely within my own constraints to use the template. Doris: Yeah. So in other words, you modeled your class after what I did with Hawken’s Entrepreneurship Class. Sarah: Absolutely. And with all of the resources that I had gotten in the training, you know, those were there. And it was a really great setup already. I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel. I mean, that was the best thing about coming to the training was that I didn’t have to. And I could play with something that had already been well-established and vetted by you here at Hawkin. Doris: Got you. So tell me about the actual class. What were a couple of those challenges those first couple challenges? Sarah: The first challenge was just awesome. There was an alumni out of the school, Saint Anne’s, that I was teaching at that had started with his wife a river canoeing and kayaking outfitter in town. And they had been in business, I mean, six months, one season. And they had so many questions. He threw out the idea of how they could expand their weekday and shoulder season market as a really important challenge for the students to research so that they would actually be able to thrive, not just survive. So it was a critical, pressing question for the kids to answer. And they loved it, including the first field trip day where we went to the outfitter. They experienced what his business was about. And the kids listened to him talk about things like what was their minimum viable product and different economic terms. I couldn’t imagine in a better way for the class to start to catch the kids and get them super excited about a challenge that they were really invested in. Doris: That’s cool. What was the next challenge? Sarah: So the next challenge was really much more complex. It went from small local business to more of a regional business. And there was also a component where it was partnered with something that was happening for the school. So it was Southland Energy, and they are an intermediate kind of energy brokerage I guess, for lack of a better term, that helps campuses of all sizes to retrofit their infrastructure to be more energy efficient. And then they actually help finance that engineering feat with the savings from the more energy-efficient equipment that they install into the campuses’ infrastructure systems. So this was like less catchy for the students, right? I had to find some way to really engage them. But, of course, it was for their campus. And so the first day, we had the engineers and the person who orchestrates the whole project, including our own head of buildings and grounds come and also the business manager at our school come into the class and present the problem to the kids. And we actually went and got in the crawlspaces, and we got in the attic and we saw the infrastructure and stuff that the kids had never seen before, doors that they had never been able to open. And the challenge there was from Southland Energy really needing to know what things had they missed that were really important, valuable energy-saving devices or behaviors that would save more money and energy than they cost? And that was the challenge. And this one was tricky, and it was good. Doris: Quite meaty, right? Sarah: Yes. Doris: Okay. So as somebody who’s been teaching science for many years, what did the students have to learn in order to do, to solve this problem? Sarah: So they took some of their skills from the first challenge. And they did market research, and they could do some of it with their peers and with the faculty, and that was great. They were looking at what types of behaviors or devices people would be willing to use. How would they be willing to use them? Would they use them all the time? So there were some of the skills that they’d already learned from the first challenge – how to go and talk to people, how to interview them, how to develop good questions – to get at the customers, the people part. But then there was this whole other piece of the energy part and the quantification of energy use that was very important in understanding what was actually going to save more energy and more money than the device or the behaviors or the implementation or whatever it was cost. And they also needed to know about things like amortization. They needed to know about how long that savings was going to last, the lifespan of infrastructure, and how the savings was going to help pay for the cost. So it was going to be, you know, a good savings, but over too long of a period for the actual lifetime of the infrastructure. That was not going to work. So they had a really great spreadsheet that the business, Southland Energy, shared with them to help them calculate these things. But they had to know what to put in and what to research in order to know lifespan, cost savings, cost for the actual device or infrastructure. So those math skills, organizational skills, research skills where they’re not doing maybe the in-person interviewing type of research and learnings things like R-values of insulation. This is the kind of stuff that I used to teach in AP environmental science. I had done a similar type of project where kids were needing to present something as a solution to a door redesign where they’re learning about R values. But it wasn’t the same kind of high stakes… Doris: Well, it was teacher-constructed project, right, so… Sarah: Exactly. It wasn’t for a business that was coming back. Doris: Yeah. It’s a completely different thing to work on the problem that you were given by a real business who’s actually grappling with this current problem. So you talked a bit about students needing to use the skills that they learned in the first challenge to tackle this much more complicated systems problem in the second challenge. How did having, you know, the parts of the method that have to do with developing collaborative skills, the teaming component, of your class, how did that play into the learning that the students had in the first challenge that they had to bring into this second one? Sarah: Sure. Well, one of the biggest standouts to me was raising the awareness of students to problems in the community and in the world. And if entrepreneurship is about finding solutions to problems to move forward in society and in the world in a new way, you know, and potentially monetize that, you have to know where the problems are first and you have to become more aware as a highschooler. And I think that’s something that highschoolers are not savvy with. They are used to being fed what they need to know, and then their job is to memorize it, instead of searching for the really important stuff and bringing it to a forum where the responsibility is on them to actually generate the content. So, I mean, that was hands-down the most important thing. But then all of the details and the research that they did and the skills that they developed and the information that they learned within the challenges that I had set up for them was also really impactful. And well one of the biggest pieces was the reflection piece, a personal reflection and a “how did I fit into the group” reflection. You know, “What was our group able to do? What was my piece in that group?” That helped them process. And I saw that through all four reflections at the end of challenges because often, students are not asked to reflect. They’re not asked to redo or think about how they did something so that they can do it better in the future. It’s just, “This is the next thing. This is the next assessment that you’re going to be given.” And that reflection piece was huge. And also having check-ins with the kids one-on-one was huge to have them process how they could do better in the different skills, which was so important. Doris: Well, as you’ve heard me say so many times, that reflection piece that is kind of a natural ongoing part of this methodology is critical to the kind of learning that happens. And we talk in education about having students develop these 21st-century skills. But the reality is if there’s a single thing in my method that I would point to that I think matters the most, it’s how do you integrate this reflection piece into every aspect of the course, because that’s what creates the connections with the students that allows them to really apply their learning in other contexts. And there’s a lot of research to support that. But it’s really interesting to hear you say that in practice, in your experience, it was very visible to you, even in your first year, how critical that was. Sarah: Incredibly critical. And the quality of those reflections varied wildly… Doris: Yeah, exactly. Sarah: …especially after the first challenge. But I had made up a little grid. There were 25 different characteristics, personal characteristics, that I thought were valuable, that the kids should be developing. Everything from listening, you know, a leadership aspect, to delegating to being able to be led and doing the task willingly, speaking up, being honest. I had a kind of brainstorm of 25 things that I thought were really great interpersonal development characteristics. And after each challenge, I had like a 5 to 10-minute meeting because I didn’t have a ton of time. And I spaced it out with the kids to kind of look at that grid and say, “What do you think your strengths were in person?” Doris: That’s fantastic. Sarah: And then also, rewriting some of the notes in those grids. And you could do better to get to this next place. Anyway, it was a little bit of a skills and characteristics-based rubric that, you know, there were some themes five down. And then there was some development of more and more advanced ideas across the rows of that rubric. Doris: Yeah. I love that you did that. I think that that’s a great example of how, as a teacher, you create systems for yourself to focus on each student’s individual growth. They’re all going to be always at very different places in every aspect. And it’s about the personal growth of each student and not how each student performs against some general rubric. And that’s a rich way to go about that and to discipline yourself as a teacher. So talk about…You said that it changed the way you teach in your regular science classes. Can you talk about that a little bit? Sarah: Absolutely. So just like I was sharing, you know, in environmental science, I was teaching the same kind of content, you know, R values of insulation and energy efficiency, but in a teacher-constructed project that didn’t have a business coming back at the end of this really important information that they wanted to know and that they were really invested in. In my biology classes, I had done great student-directed kind of projects. They got to pick their topic. They maybe were researching an allergy and presenting that. But it was really constrained, and it was like, “Okay. Allergies are problems. So then pick one. And research what this is.” And that stuff is not invaluable. It’s valuable, and letting kids choose something that they’re interested in is really valuable and then presenting it back to the students in their class or even, you know, in like a health fest kind of science fair. But this past year when I was teaching biology and wanting students to do something more self-directed and a research project in the scientific field, this time instead of picking the problem, the thing that I had them go look for was the problem. “What problem are you interested in in biology?,” because there are a myriad. And it was a culminating end-of-year project. So they had learned a lot of content in some of these other, you know, smaller, more directed by me projects along the way to learn the good content. And then taking that content out into the world, they could pick anything and realize that they were versed in biology enough to understand the problem and then present back the solution. So it was still a research project based in the solution-finding. But this time, it was also about them finding the problem, which was huge. Doris: So the difference was notable to you. Sarah: So diverse and so much more investment. And wrestling with like, “Oh, my gosh. I’m so interested in all these different things. And I’m going to gravitate towards my first interest,” and all of a sudden realizing, “Oh, it’s going to be really hard to research a solution to that problem because how am I going to access people or resources that might help me actually develop data along the way here? And so, wait a second. I think maybe I’m still interested in this general topic of an environmental awareness. I’m going to go over and pick this other thing, more discrete problem about palm oil instead of endangered sharks.” Doris: So you structured the curriculum at the end based on this kind of very different method, but did you also find yourself using instructional practices based on these methods that were different? Like, have you find it changing the way you teach? Sarah: Absolutely. Within the whole course, two things specifically: the reflection piece and also the coaching/collaboration piece. That’s one, you know, kind of the interpersonal stuff. And then the other part was within labs. So labs in biology can be a little bit more open-ended than in chemistry. Sometimes with safety, chemistry just doesn’t allow the kind of open-end laboratory explorations that would allow kids to find a problem and create their own solution by putting chemicals together in different ways to address that problem. They might get themselves into trouble, unless it’s a really higher-level AP class where they already know a lot of the principles. So with biology, it can be a little bit more open-ended. So within each lab that I did this year, I did try and really open it up to what questions did the students have about the lab and what problem did they maybe see that was related to that lab before we even got into it, and of course allowing them to approach, where it’s possible, a few different ways to actually conduct the lab. So putting it on the students to find the solution to how they’re going to figure out the answer or, you know, comparing different solutions. “There’s many different ways to do that. Which solution do you want to figure out to obtain that data?” Doris: So I think that when you described that as a science teacher in your classes, you’re now attending to…I think you described it as the interpersonal stuff. What I think is really interesting about that and how that ties to the conversations we’re having in the industry generally is that there’s lots of discussion about the need to develop these skills, you know, collaboration, understanding your strengths and understanding how to bring them into your work, knowing how to identify strengths in others, habits of revision, all these kinds of things. But in traditional classes, in traditional teaching, we look at the development of those kind of skills as this other thing that has to happen in another box. And as you start bringing these methods into your regular science classes and as others bring these completely new practices into their traditional academic courses, that I think is where we really begin to change school so that it serves students better. And they’re learning not only this really hard content, but they’re also developing those skills. Sarah: Yeah. And specifically about those interpersonal skills and coaching collaboration, I always want students to write one individual lab report because I think that that is so important in a biology class to learn that writing skill and to rely on your own motivation to do something that’s a three to four-page paper, potentially. That can be daunting for some kids. But it’s just as important to collaborate with others and be able to write lab reports in teams of two, three, or four because that’s traditionally how, you know, scientists actually work these days. Very rarely are scientists working alone, and they’re collaborating on these large papers, so that was one thing. And Google Docs I will say really helped because when you’re sitting down with a group… I never had a lab report due the day after the lab or even, you know, two days later because we had every-other-day classes. Usually, I’d give it a week and a half because I want to have one class period where they maybe are able to collaborate actually in front of me and I can walk around and ask the kids how they’re doing, you know, what they need to work on to actually communicate with each other instead of dividing and conquering. And then I want to have a day a couple days later, maybe even a weekend later, where I can sit down with each group. And I can actually looked in the Google Doc and gone to the revision history and seen the level of work and effort that’s happening at each level and be able to say, “You know, Johnny, how do you feel about your contribution here?,” as he’s looking at the revision history with only one little box with his initial in it and one little paragraph where everybody else has really done more. And sometimes there’s an explanation for that. There’s an interpersonal situation at home or, you know, just an absolute overload of other things or an emotional thing going on. But oftentimes it’s a place where a student’s going to own up and really be more motivated because there’s nowhere to hide. And I also address with kids who have done just the lion’s share of the work. I say, “Well, you didn’t maybe leave any room for somebody else’s voice here, you know.” “How do you feel? Like those people might be feeling that they didn’t get a chance to share their ideas and actually put something on paper here?” And oftentimes it’s, “Oh, the timing, and motivation.” And there’s some judgments. And there’s some peers putting each other in boxes based on what they’ve experienced growing up together in the same school. And it’s a really great time to break down those boxes and make sure the kids are learning to allow each other to change and grow and get to know each other for who they are now and owning up to what they need to do. And it really shifts the dynamic in classes and makes things a lot more cohesive. And there is some really good just team-building in the whole class. The biology classes this past year, I mean, they were particularly special. And I don’t know if it’s because of this method or just the kids themselves. But there is something about what happened in those regular science classes that just brought the kids together in a community way that was different. And I have to say that the social entrepreneurship and problem-solving class also had that kind of bond, even though the students within the class were so diverse. But man was that good learning. Doris: Well, what I love about everything you’ve described is you’ve done a great job of showing how you’ve taken a very different approach to teaching traditional science classes that incorporates things so that it isn’t about either, “I have students working on things in teams,” or, “I worry about their individual work.” It’s a both and, and we need methods for it to be a both and. But that’s really what students need if we’re talking about educating them to be in successful in the world, “The world doesn’t work with me working at a desk and doing individual papers. And also, I don’t get to do everything in a team. My individual work also and the quality of it and the quality of my contribution is going to be massive to my success.” And you’ve done a great job of describing what you’ve been doing and extraordinarily, extraordinarily interesting how you’ve integrated these methods in your science classes this past year. Really, really extraordinary, Sarah. Congratulations. Sarah: Thank you so much. And I also got to incorporate science into my entrepreneurship class, which is an important thing for me. I want to make sure that these really important and valuable pieces of content are being presented and really engaging in challenging ways. Doris: Well, exactly because, as we know, entrepreneurship is really about mindset and skills more than it is about business. So there’s all kind of things students can learn in the course of an entrepreneurship class. And you’ve done a fabulous job at that as well. Thank you so much for talking to me today, really inspiring stuff. Sarah: Thank you so much for contacting me. This has been really fun to summarize what I’ve been doing. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode, Doris speaks with Adam Lang, a Teaching Chair and Instructor of Economics at Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. Adam shares how his students took ownership over their learning and developed skills by solving problems for community partners in his Design for Social Impact class. He also describes his plan to bring elements of the Korda Method into his AP Economics courses this year. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Doris: Hello, Adam. Adam: Hi, Doris. Doris: Wonderful to talk to you. So Adam, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and why you came to the workshop, and what you’ve done since. Adam: Sure. Yeah. My name is Adam Lang. And I’m a somewhat new teacher. I’ve been teaching at an independent boarding school for the past three years, but my background is in Engineering and Public Policy. And I’ve worked in different industries, different countries. And, kind of, finally realized that I really enjoyed teaching in graduate school, and some of the other teaching that I’ve done overseas. And decided to become an Economics teacher at the Hotchkiss School, which is in rural Northwest Connecticut. It’s 9th through 12th graders. And I teach Economics, mostly Macroeconomics and Microeconomics. But I was given the opportunity to design an elective which I call, “Design for Social Impact,” which launched last year. So we’ve had one full year, two semesters. And right before I launched that course, I went to the workshop just to get a better sense for how I might deliver this class that I’ve kinda been dreaming up and that is an amalgamation of all the different work, in different fields that I’ve done in the past, and really, my way of trying to bring real world problem solving to the classroom. Doris: Nice. That’s fantastic. And so, you came out of the workshop, and you piloted this class. And if you could start… Before you talk about what you piloted, what you built, what came out of it, what were your objectives, the learning objectives for this class? What did you hope that the students would get out of it, when you were going into this? Adam: I wanted to create a class that broadly helped them understand the nuance and the complexity of problems that exist outside of classroom walls. And to give them the skills to really, creatively but practically, approach problems. It could be problems in their own community, in their school, which we looked at last year in our dining hall, or it could be problems outside of their school community, in the local community. We’ve worked a lot with local nonprofits to do that. My background is in…when I studied Public Policy, it’s in Economic, Statistics and Political Analysis. So we worked with local non-profits, a local mayor, a local foundation, to ask them, sort of as clients, what are the biggest challenges that they’re facing? And I wanted the students to understand different stakeholders and their needs. Doris: That’s fantastic. So you came into this, given your background, and you were using what you knew and creating an experience for your students. Coming out of the workshop, you built this pilot and in broad strokes, how did you set it up? It was a semester course, yes? Adam: It’s a two semester sequence course. We called it “Design for Social Impact.” And it’s really an interdisciplinary course, but uses what some people refer to as Human-Centered Design or Design Thinking. And the way I structured it was, I really wanted students to first understand, how do you discover a problem space? You know, we worked a lot on developing empathy, interviewing students, faculty members, staff that had different backgrounds than them, and really understanding their perspective and their needs. And so, our first project was really getting comfortable with performing observations, public spaces, looking at different interactions, and understanding people’s perspectives. Doris: That’s awesome. Adam: We then sort of branched out and took on real projects once we had those skills. We went to our Dining Hall Director and asked him what are his four biggest challenges that he’s facing, and can we have four weeks of his time, and working alongside his staff, interviewing his staff, and using the space in the dining hall at different odd times throughout the day, to help him try to answer his questions. After that, we expanded a little more broadly in the first semester to look at our school schedule. And we worked with administrators, to get their feedback and put together some prototypes. We actually moved into a sort of a prototype phase, where we would actually present potential solutions to them that had been tested. And then, in the second semester, we really worked off campus. So most notably, we worked with a local foundation that had done a comprehensive analysis of the major policy issues within the four regions in our area. And we wanted to address the biggest four questions that he had. And finally, we were lucky enough, in the summer, to take a 10 day trip to Sweden, with 12 students, to look at refugee integration. So Sweden took in a lot of refugees over the past few years and we were working alongside politicians, municipal workers, newly settled immigrants, and just local citizens, to apply the methodology that students learned throughout the year to try to tackle this really complex problem. Doris: Okay. That was wonderful. So, you know, I use the term “learning terrain”, so as I think about the terrain you structure, going from very, very local constrained, “Let’s just learn those basic skills first”, both the kind of, tools of the trade, how to do research, and how to analyze the problem in depth etc. and then progressing on. The first semester, the students, everything you had them do was based on problems right there on campus, within the walls, which I think is really, really smart. You’re a boarding school, you’re in a rural area, it’s not so easy, necessarily, to take them off campus. And did they work on teams, did they have…at the end of each of these projects, did they present their solutions? Can you talk a little bit about, within each project or module or unit, however you call them. What were some of the common elements?   Adam: Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of this was taken away from the conference. It’s a totally team-based, project-based class that when I could, I connected them with a client. And when we had projects that had a client, a real person, either an Administrator, a Non-profit Director, or the Director of the Dining Hall, when we had a client, it was so much more meaningful, because that person really wanted us to come back to them at the end and tell the story, and actually give them meaningful feedback. Doris: I was just going to say, because I think that’s really important, that you know…in education that we’re using this word in a lot, authentic audience etc. But, any person, doesn’t have to be a kid to think about it, anybody who’s working on something that is a real problem for someone else, whose life’s work is focused on that can appreciate the difference between working on something to solve something, doing research, doing a ton of stuff, to present it to somebody who really cares. Because that’s their world, you said, presenting it to real people versus presenting it to… We know now that your classroom teacher is not a real person, right? But, yeah, presenting to you or me, or my mom or dad, not so interesting. But I love that and I think that’s really important. And I love the way you used whoever heads your dining service. That an internal person within reach, but that’s a real person, with a real problem, who cares about what the students come up with. Adam: Yeah. And I think finding and cultivating the relationships with clients that are one, easy to work with, two, willing to work with you, and as you said, three, really care about trying to solve a problem that maybe they don’t have time in their day to day hustle to really put some resources into. And I think we actually presented, you know, valuable information to folks in the end. Doris: Oh, I bet you did. And the good news is that, I find that when I’m in the initial conversations with teachers before the training, this is the thing they’re most worried about, how do I find somebody to work with? And after you’ve done it even once, you realize, first of all, that the way the method is set up, the students are working on external facing things, meaning things outside. They don’t need to interact all that much with the businesses or the real people. There’s an interaction at the start, there’s a presentation at the end, and there are some questions in between. But it doesn’t, to your point, these people are busy, they don’t have a lot of time to spend with these students. Adam: Right. And I had a little anxiety about that as well. And I remember you saying you sit down one night and you just pound out several emails and you try to get some phone calls, and you get that initial discussion going. And I found that people were really receptive. And, to your point, it makes the project so much richer when these kids are talking at the end of their project, at a pretty high level, to somebody who cares about it rather than just sort of talking to each other or talking to me. Doris: Yeah. And it’s a massive, massive motivator for the students, not only generally, to do the work but to do a really good job. So they go a lot deeper and the quality of what they do, and the quality of their thinking and their research and analysis is so much deeper, because they know they’re going to be presenting it to somebody who really cares. So what came out of that, what were the results of your students in all this?   Adam: So I think with the team-based, sort of project-based approach, I think the students felt really energized. I think they felt energized by the class, as a whole, because it was so much different than their other classes. They felt a sense of ownership. Oftentimes, we would start with these “How might we” statements, how might we re-imagine main hallway? How might we do a better job of hiring and retaining staff in the dining hall? And I think they realized pretty quickly that I didn’t have an answer key, and that they were responsible for, as you said, putting a lot of work into it and be accountable. So I think they got excited, they were super engaged. One thing that I did find was that our school structure wasn’t really set up for this kind of work. When kids go back to their dorm rooms, or even if this would be a public school, kids go back home and they do their math homework and they do 15 problems, and they read this passage from a book. And then their homework from my class is to interview the chef at our dining hall or present a prototype to citizens walking through the main town square. We had to do some adjustments to account for that difference. Doris: Yeah. I want to key off of what you just said about adjustments, so you try this and you bravely try it. And then, did you find that you changed all along the way how you did things, as you learned from it? So you had the first project and unit, I imagine you came out of that and whatever plans you had for the second one, you adjusted. How does that look, as a teacher? Adam: Yeah, absolutely. And again, it produces a little bit of anxiety when you’re starting a project and you’re expecting it to go a certain way and it never does, which, you know, this is the real world so you kind of want the students to experience that as well. But I was lucky to have some autonomy with my weekly assignment schedule and my syllabus, but I made quite a few changes. I had my classroom door unlocked in the evening so students could actually find time to meet together in the evenings. I pushed the students to create their own project management calendar, so that they could look ahead several weeks and know when the end date was. And to put that calendar on the wall and know that, “Okay, here is when… My classes meet here. Here’s when your classes meet. When can we actually get together to work on this?” Another thing that changed were the cycle times of my projects. The first few were pretty tight cycle times, meaning from the day in which they were assigned the project to the day in which they had to give the final presentation, they had three to four weeks. I only see my students for three hours a week, and that worked pretty well. I got into a couple projects in the winter, in which the cycle time was longer. And I found that students, their interest waned, you know, they got a little bit of design fatigue, I’ve actually created a bunch of notes for this school year, to kind of change things around. And it’s great to have that flexibility with this elective. Doris: That’s very interesting. So what did these… If you think about your students walking in the door day one, and as they left you, talk about what happened to them. Adam: Sure. And I think one thing that…day one was very different from other classes is just the classroom set up. My model is somewhat of a flipped classroom based on what you spoke of in California where the student do readings and write reflections in the evening and apply those skills in class. They were set up in teams. They weren’t looking in one direction. They also had an entire wall that was theirs to post and pin things on that wall. I think throughout the year and by the end of year they had a vocabulary to articulate the complexities of the problems that they looked at. So they understood what a stakeholders is. They understood how people might have different interests and different needs. And I think especially for teenagers, developing, cultivating that empathy, is very hard. And I pushed them to do a lot of that. I also think that when they…even by the end of the first semester, they really, they signed up for this class and had no real sense of what it was. It’s called “Design for Social Impact,” I mean that doesn’t really help. And the course description had a bunch of jargon in it, so they didn’t really know what to expect. But by the end of the first semester, most of my students were seniors, they were using the projects that we worked on as their college essays for applications. They were applying to business schools and saying, “This is the unique approach I took to look at this problem.” And so, they were speaking about problems in a way that a lot of teenagers don’t. And I just found that the students that I took to Sweden, who had taken the class before, had a vocabulary and had an ability… another thing, that I think was a big takeaway, is there was a real reluctance to talk to anybody who’s outside of their friends’ circle, or outside of their age range, or to actually pick up a phone and call somebody. That’s really hard for teenagers. And, I think, by the end of the year, they could walk up to anybody at our school, or anybody in our local town, with a prototype and feel pretty comfortable doing it. Doris: That fantastic. I used to talk about wanting to be able to take any kid and drop them into any town or village, anywhere in the world, and have them…that they should have the tools to be able to figure things out. And I think you’re describing, in a more specific way, exactly that. So, you talked earlier about ownership, and in everything you just said, I heard that, the ownership of the students. Talk a little bit about how you saw them…what you saw them owning as they left your class. Adam: Sure. I think one example might be, in our work with the dining hall, you know, this group that was really trying to help our Dining Hall Director figure out how he can do a better job of hiring and retaining staff. This group found that…they felt like we live in such a community here at Hotchkiss, we have students and teachers who we coach them, we live in the dorm with them, we teach them, and the staff is often feeling on the outside. And this is what…kind of an insight that the students came up with. And they created these…they interviewed a lot of staff and found out just kind of like personal information about them, what they’re interested in. And they created these storyboards and pictures of the staff that went up in the dining hall and said, “Ask me about fly fishing”, “Ask me about my grandchildren.” And it really, actually did spark conversations and create a connection between the staff and the students, and it was…absolutely had an impact. And the students were really excited about the success that they felt. And at the end of the project, I took down these storyboards. And they got so fired up, they were so upset. “Mr. Lang, why are you taking this down? You know this made such an impact. This is such an important part of our community.” And you know, my response was, “Oh, well, maybe I should keep them up.” But my initial thought was, “It was an experiment, it was a project, it was over. We proved that it worked. Let’s move on to something else.” But they were so invested in the outcome of their work and the feedback that they got from the staff, from teachers, and administrators, who would stop them in the halls and ask them about the project, and from, you know, from their client. So, I think, when there’s not an answer key, when I don’t have a strict lesson plan, I’m working hard to guide them, and give them feedback and push them in certain directions, but really, they’re ultimately responsible for putting together a good product by the end, and I think they felt it. Doris: So how has all of this shifted your thinking and approach as a teacher? You’ve been teaching Economics classes. How are you changed, as a teacher? Adam: Well, so I teach AP Economics classes and, you know, there are some unique challenges with the AP courses. We are expected to prepare them for this exam at the end of the year, and there are certain milestones that we have to hit. And, when I look at my econ class coming up this year, I think it is going to be much more project-based. I would like, you know, for Macroeconomics, I would like them just like my design students, to create a portfolio of their research and their work. Something that they can publish online and something that allows them to own unemployment in Albania. Really research it, look into the history, be able to present it to your classmates, share it with other people, and describe why it’s different from your partner’s, unemployment in Sweden. I also think that at a boarding school, we are expected to be these holistic people who live with the kids, teach the kids, coach the kids, and I think this class has pushed me more toward…this might sound corny, but feeling more like an educator rather than a teacher. I think hard skills are important, but I want to teach the hard skills with the understanding of the developmental phase they’re in and their ability to take what they’re learning now… Let’s say they’re working with an administrator in scheduling, and think about how that might apply when you’re dropped into Malmo in Sweden, and you’re a Public Policy official, and 163,000 Syrian refugees have shown up at the train station. What do you do? Doris: Yeah. And to ask you a question, that spans both of those really good points you made, are you concerned that in teaching this way, including in your very content, objective-based Economics classes, that you have to give up the objective of the students learning what other people call academic things and knowledge, do you have to give that up in order to do this? Adam: Well, I feel like there’s a debate sometimes between teaching hard skills and soft skills. And I work with some people at our school who are really involved with experiential education. And I don’t think it’s one or the other. Doris: Agreed. Adam: I might spend less time on graphing long run macroeconomic equilibrium, but the things that I do cover…and to be quite honest, I’m trying to push us away from AP Economics for you know, this reason we’ve been talking about. Doris: Yeah. Good for you. I am with you. Adam: Even though kids might not be able to graph the exact thing that I want them to graph, I think if they’re able to wrestle with a problem… able to really think about what long run macroeconomic equilibrium is, and understand that theory is theory, and it’s important to have a basis in theory. But to be able to really look at the real world and say, “You know, theory in the textbook doesn’t always play out.” I don’t think you have to give up too much, I actually think you develop a richness of experience. Doris: Yeah, I think that’s where the learning sticks and grows. You know, the idea of students working on projects is not new, it’s not new at all. The idea of experiential learning or apprenticeship, none of these things are new. What’s really new is the opportunity as educators, that’s been afforded us because of technology, and also the challenges that we have in the world because of technology. You know, the accelerated rate of… the complexity of the problems that we’re facing and the completely uncharted waters and the rate of change. But, I think, we are all going to keep developing this different…this very different kind of teaching, this very different kind of curriculum, this very different kind of learning experience that we’re designing for these students. And the more and more, and better and better that we develop it, the more really in-depth, complicated technical things students are going be learning this way. So there’s a medical school here in Cleveland, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. It’s a phenomenal medical school. It’s entirely project based. They’ve never…they don’t have any tests, they don’t have any lectures. And these guys are graduating and operating on people. I’m sure that they’re learning a lot of, not only hard skills, but really, there are things they…have to know how to graph, right? So, I think this is evolving and we’re going to figure out, you’re going to figure out, how to teach the content equivalent of an AP Economics class in this way where they’re also going to be developing the skills alongside that to solve problems that don’t have the answers in the back of the book.   Adam:  Oh, absolutely. I actually invited a friend who works for Google Ventures, and he came from San Francisco and spoke to our faculty about the types of skills that they’re looking for at Google as they do hiring, as a way to sort of think about how we might set up kids. You know, kids are…our kids are only 18 years old, but how we might set up kids to thrive in this space, that’s been a huge space of growth in our country and in the world. And a lot of what he said was that their hiring practices have changed. In a lot of venture capital firms, but also at Google, they’re not looking at GPA’s or brand name schools, they’re looking at what bodies of work can people put together. They’re looking at portfolios, they’re looking at art schools and they’re having to redefine how they evaluate candidates because of that. Doris: Yes, absolutely. Some of the most…actually, some of the work that I think is the most interesting, as I think about creating new assessment models, in K12, are being done in industry. You know, the things Google and Facebook and companies like that are doing for hiring… We need to learn from an education space. Adam: Yeah. And I also think, you know, the Mastery Transcript, which has come from your school, is something that… You know, I was talking with colleagues last week, people on our board, administrators and fellow teachers, about that very topic. And I think that, as we look, as a school, we’re working on an academic strategic plan for the next 10 to 15 years, all of this is coming up, as a guiding force to sort of lead us, as we design our curriculum, as we review them. I’ve been really fortunate to receive a lot of support from our administrators in moving in this direction. Last year…you know, I teach one section of the class. It was the first year the class was offered. I have room for 14. And I think we had 22 kids signed up last year. This year there were 35 kids that signed up. So there are…you know, word is spreading that this is interesting, it’s fun, it’s helpful for their sort of college process, it’s unique. So, you know, I feel very fortunate to be doing this, at this time, and to have the support that I have. And it’s a ton of fun too. It’s just way more fun. I get to know the kids on a much deeper level, because we’re struggling together, to figure out these different spaces. Doris: It’s a blast, isn’t it? It’s more gratifying than anything. Adam: Absolutely. Doris: Yeah. Well Adam, you’re doing extraordinary work. I’m really, really proud to know you and see what you’re doing. And I’ll be very excited to see what you do with your Economics classes, and how you build projects into them. I’d love to talk about that later too. Adam: All right. Thanks, Doris. It’s been nice talking to you. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode, Doris speaks with Julia Griffin, Humanities teacher and Assistant Director of Teaching and Learning at Hawken Upper School. Julia shares how her humanities department adopted a new academic method that transformed the way their students learned ancient world history and better equipped them with skills like writing, research, critical thinking and public speaking. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Doris: Hello Julia. Julia: Hey Doris. Doris: Well, I am very excited about this conversation with you. Julia: Me too. Doris: Yes. And can you start by telling our listeners about yourself. Julia: Sure. So, my name is Julia Griffin. And I am the Assistant Director of the Upper School for Teaching and Learning at Hawken School. I teach humanities and I actually started my career here at Hawken teaching Humanities these many, many years ago and was a Humanities teacher for a long time and then became Department Chair and then Assistant Director of the upper school last year. And along the way in those roles, I had the chance to do a lot of work with you in working on the Humanities curriculum which has been really great and has formed, you know, an increasing portion of my work with the curriculum with the school in the last few years. Doris: Yeah, absolutely. I’d love for you to go back to when you came to me about the Humanities 9 class all those years ago. Describe what happened. Julia: Absolutely. So, we were, you know, we were at a crossroads moment in the curriculum for Humanities 9… Doris: This is ninth grade. The ninth grade require Humanities course so… Julia: Exactly right. Doris: …instead of History classes and English classes, our ninth graders at Hawken for many years and tenth graders have had a required Humanities course. Julia: Exactly. And we were in a moment where…because of some changes in the schedule and then other aspects of the curriculum across the school, we were revisiting what we do in Humanities 9. And we were talking about different possibilities trying to figure out, you know, what to do that could help make the curriculum more engaging for students. It’s a course that focuses in most ways on the ancient worlds or on modern connections and the ancient world. And there’s a lot that is really valuable about it but it but it also can be a hard sell with ninth graders, right? Now, why should we care about these things that happened thousands of years ago? So, we were thinking about, you know, maybe it would be interesting to do something that was kind of problem-based or something that where the pedagogy was a little different. But we really weren’t sure how and I… Doris: And tell me if this is true because my recollection of that also was, that it was both, you know, how do we make this stuff more engaging for students? And also, there was a question of we need to do a better job of developing our students skills like writing and critical thinking it’s… Julia: And research and public speaking, like in a big way or a range of skills exactly that we felt were, you know, hard to teach and that could feel sort of diffused in the humanities classroom sometimes, that we’re sometimes that we’re trying to do so many different things all at once that we’re not always sure where that its landing with students. Doris: Yeah. Julia: So, that was another big part of the impetus. So then, what I remember is that you said, “Okay, great, let’s do this pilot. Which unit do the kids hate the most?” Doris: Yes. Julia: Right? Doris: Yeah, what do they really hate the most? I didn’t say, is there something they don’t like. I said, “What do they hate the most?” Julia: Right. Exactly. And I was like, “Well, I mean that’s not hard.” We have this China unit but it doesn’t really feel to anyone like it really works, but we want to do more with China not less. But we haven’t really figured out how to do that. And you said, you know, “How long do you have for it trying to pilot in the spring?” Doris: Yes. Julia: And I said, “We have about three weeks.” And you said, “Perfect. Great, let’s do it.” And so, we tried it. So we had eight…we had about eight sections of Humanities 9. Doris: Yeah. Julia: And we took three teachers, so three teachers and I worked on this initial pilot. And we tried it in those three sections, the other sections kept doing what they were doing. And then, at the end of the pilot, we surveyed the students who’d been in it and the student feedback was overwhelmingly positive. You know, it was…well over 90% of the students said, “Yes we absolutely think all ninth graders should have to do something like this as part of their ninth grade Humanities experience.” So we said, “Okay. Great. Good.” And we…and we built it into.. Doris: Yeah. I just wanted to know, so what did that evolve into? We did that pilot evolve into? Julia: Yeah. So, that three week pilot formed the basis with some modest changes for what is the first you need of this semester course that ninth graders, that all ninth graders at Hawken take. That we call the Humanities 9 lab. And so, the content in the pilot was focused on China, and Chinese history and culture in this Humanities class. But what we ended up doing within the semester courses is that that courses focused on identity, and culture, and conflict in the Middle East. Doris: Great. Julia: Yeah. So the way that we start the course begins where we…have the room set up as a museum. So, there are different artifacts all around the room, many of them images. So, we’ll have photographs, and maps, and graphs and charts, news articles, things that are just, have just been pulled from news in the last few days to a week. Books, set out on the tables often will have some music playing so…and content wise the museum as we call it, involves a little bit each semester partly because the news changes, right? So will have some photographs and some might be like a really urban setting and others might be, you know, UNESCO world heritage site. Doris: Sure. Julia: You know, out somewhere in the desert. Or we try to have some images that students are going to really know what to do with right, things that are puzzling. Sometimes we have a caption on them sometimes we don’t. And we try to have some images that are going to complicate whatever story. We think many students may be coming into the class with about the Middle East. So, we have a real range and we spend about 10 or 15 minutes like that, there are maybe 50 or 60 artifacts up usually. Doris: Yeah. Julia: So, they don’t necessarily get to all of them. And then, we say, “Great. So, for tomorrow, we’d like you to develop a one minute pitch designed to persuade your classmates of what topic you think we should study further and to compel them to vote for your topic. To have that form the basis for our first unit of study in this course. So, you’re going to decide what we what we learn about. And we want you to write this one-minute pitch.” And then we say so, “How do you think you should go about writing that? How would you be able to learn more in order to…? What else do you need to know in order to write a one minute pitch?” And, we get them started a little bit in class and then they work on it for homework and come back in. They’re really excited on the next day when they come here to pitch. They’re all revising their pitch and trying to figure it out. And it’s really fun to see because they pitched whatever the topic is. And some of them are really nervous because they have to get up and do this one-minute talk for the class. So, they pitch to the class, the whole class votes on which topics are of the most interest. And we sort the students based on their preferences into usually about four teams of four roughly for the topics that they’re going to be exploring in that unit. And that topics range and, you know, and it varies from semester to semester, it depends on what catches kid’s interest. So, you know, often times there’s one especially in the sort of first unit where there’s something related to ISIS. These kids hear about it in the news, especially I would say, a couple of years ago when we were starting with this and it was like it was in the news all the time and just in the weeks leading up to the course, you know, ISIS was blowing up world heritage sites some things like that, but often there’s something, so there’s something that’s sort of ISIS or terrorism related. Doris: Yeah. Julia: But then there are other things like, there would be one that’s about, you know, gender equality or there was one a couple years ago, it was really interesting about a trash crisis in Lebanon. So, that…and then it turned out that as they were these piles of trash, that was an artifact that had, there was just these pictures of trash piling up in the streets of Beirut. And, they wanted to figure out why. So, there are a whole range of topics, they pitch, they have these teams and then, as they get into their teams they have a couple of tasks, right? So, one of them is to figure out how they’re going to work together as a team and what that means. And then, another piece is, how do we start to try to figure out what this problem is? Or what this…what the situation is that’s happening in the Middle East right now and how it got to be that way.   So, we try to establish some team norms and have them reflect on themselves, what they themselves are like and what kind of skills they bring to a team setting. And then, we say, “Okay and, you know, a week and a half, your job is to present back to this class and to me about the history of this problem, where did this come from and how did it get to be a problem and what is it? What is most important for us to know about that?” So, the big task for them at that point is to figure out, how do we learn and what we need to know in order to be able to present this back to an audience together in a way that makes sense. Doris: So, let me ask you something, you now used the word problem and I want to ask what the students were…so it’s one thing to say, “Okay, this is what I want to study. And we voted for it and now we’re all going to study it.” Julia: Yes. Doris: But it’s more than that. These teams when they choose the trash, they’re choosing problems that they want to not only understand but they want to be able to address and present something… Julia: Yes. Doris: …with their own, you know, maybe not the end all solution but as a solution to the problem. Correct? Julia: Yes. Exactly. And because that problem formulation and I would say we wrestle with this. Because we’ve…there’s a trap here, right? With 14-year old if you’re saying like, “Oh, you’re going to go solve the problems of the Middle East” like there’s a cultural imperialism piece there and there’s a… Doris: Sure. Absolutely. Julia: “Oh, we can solve all the problems of this region, we fixed it. Good. Now we can go out to soccer practice.” Doris: Yeah, exactly. Julia: Cause a danger there. But there’s nothing that gets students to engage or that has the kind of teeth that we needed to have. If there isn’t a problem, you know what I mean? Doris: Yeah. Julia: It is just…it’s like, here’s our book report on the topic. It just doesn’t work. It isn’t nearly as engaging. Doris: Well, and I think this is really important though, for the listeners to understand. So, if I’m a Humanities teacher, this isn’t about simply saying, all right, students are choosing what they want to study which by itself is pretty interesting. Julia: Right. Doris: It’s literally, this is a problem in the Middle East that I’m really… Julia: Yes. Doris: …really interested in. And so, is everybody on my team. We are really jazzed about it and we’re going to take on understanding this problem. And, while, you’re right, you’re not telling them, “We are tasking you 14-year olds with solving the ISIS problem in three weeks.” They’re working on a really tough problem that is not solved and they’re going to present as a team about it in a way that invites their version of solutions.   Julia: Exactly. So one of the questions that we ask is, “Why hasn’t this problem been solved yet?” Doris: Yeah. Julia: That’s huge, right? So students tackling ISIS, the first thing students will come up with when they’re trying to say like, “What should be done to solve this problem?” is… some student in the group will say, “Well, you know, we just need to bomb the ISIS headquarters.” Like, you know, it’s a tough job but somebody has to do it right? So, some are going to say, “Okay. Well, if it were that simple then why hasn’t someone done that, right?” Do you think no one else was thinking about this? Probably there are some other people trying to solve these problems like…so, the first five solutions you come up with, that you need to then really then dig into why haven’t those solutions worked… Doris: Well, and… Julia: …because if it was that easily, right? Like someone would have figured that out. Doris: Well, and this reminds me of our very earliest conversations when we were first talking about creating the China pilot. Also, where I remember saying, “If you go to Hawken school for your entire K-12 school experience, this is only three weeks that we at Hawken teach Chinese history.” Is a student going to come out of the three weeks no matter how we teach it… You know, even if they successfully memorize everything a teacher puts in front of them… are they going to come out of that well educated on Chinese history and the answer is well, of course not. Julia: No Doris: No. So, the question is if in three weeks, in one three week unit, you can get kids to come out to that three weeks going, “Oh wow! Chinese history, even really distant Chinese history is not only interesting to me, it’s actually really relevant as well. And when they are working on addressing a contemporary Chinese problem, can you get them to go deep in the way that they’re solving that or addressing it in order for it to be a quality job, in order for them to be successful at what they come up with in three weeks. They will have had, it has to be based in the cultural and historical context that the contemporary problem has emerged from. And the answers of course you can. Well, that’s what you’re talking about. Julia: Exactly. Doris: So they come in and they’re 14 years old and they can tell you in about two minutes, “Yeah, we can solve this, let’s just bomb them”. Julia: Right. Doris: And where the…the secret sauce in engaging them in caring about all this is everything you just described and how you’re setting it up. But they’re learning, that the learning that you’re getting them to do comes from the questions, and the prodding, and the guidance that you’re doing as you teach them so that they have to go deeper and deeper in order to come up with well put together and analyzed arguments. Julia: Absolutely. And that’s also why we have an earlier presentation like a sort of a first checkpoint point, that one is really all about defining what the problem is and how it got to be that way. And the second presentation is all about the solutions because the other thing is that students are very quick to jump to the solutions. Doris: Always. Every time. Julia: And then… Doris: So are adults by the way, everybody is. Julia: It’s true, we all are, right? Doris: Yeah. Julia: And so, if we’re not careful like 17 seconds after they’ve pitched and formed their teams, some kid has opened up PowerPoint and is already trying to like make a slides for the final presentation and you’re like, “Whoa! We are so not there.” Right. So… Doris: That’s brilliant. So the first one, they’re not even allowed to go there. They have a presentation to do and it doesn’t even you’re not even asking them to come up with any solution. They just have to present the problem. Julia: Right. Exactly. It’s like you have to actually deeply understand the problem and where the problem comes from, right? So if we go back to the stinking trash in the streets of Lebanon for a minute, which by the way, like, I think if you’re 14 you’re like, “Huh, there’s all this trash in the street.” and at that moment, like literally there’s this big social media campaign “#youstink” that was designed to try to get to raise awareness for this. So there’s a problem there clearly and it’s interesting. So they were trying to figure it out and we had this great moment where they’re in class and then they were looking, and they were looking at social media and they’re like “Oh, there’s a protest happening right now.” And someone was, you know, live streaming it, and it was happening right now. So it couldn’t be any more immediate than that. But then, they tried to get into it. They’re like, “Why didn’t somebody just pick up the trash?” Well, it turns out there’s no president of Lebanon right now. Like, they have an office for the president but they don’t have a president. “Well, why don’t they have a president?” “Well, the last president was sent to jail for corruption charges and they haven’t been able to elect a new one.” And they’re like. And I said, “Why haven’t they been able to elect a new one? Like, how hard is it?” And they’re like, “Hmm,” you know, and they’re looking there, looking in everything and then one of them says, “Well, there’s something about, like there’s a religious requirement, like the president has to be of a particular religion.” I’m like, “Really? Interesting. Interestingly weird. We don’t have that in this country, do we? No. Okay. So tell me more about that.” So they’re trying to figure it out and then it turns out they get into all these details about the Lebanese political system, which by the way, I had only read about the day before. Like, I’m not an expert in Lebanese politics but I had tried to get into it the day before when I knew this was going to be a topic. Doris: Yeah. We say that this is all about, as a teacher you have to stay one step ahead of them. That’s it. Julia: Exactly. So it turned out that there are these quotas hit for the many political offices in Lebanon that are designed to sort of maintain balance between different religious groups. But then through…as I continued to ask them questions, like, they had read an article about that but they didn’t really get it or they didn’t really get why it mattered. But then, as you start to look at this and you’re like, “Oh okay, so the president needs to be of this religious backgrounds, but are there any eligible candidates or suitable candidates who are of that religious background.” Like, they still be kept going further into it and then they started to see the ways in which the, you know, legislative body was deadlocked and they had to have 40% of this and 40% of that in terms of the composition of the group. And that they started to figure all of that out and then I said, “Well, huh. Why is there that kind of religious diversity, you know, in Lebanon? Like, where does that come from?” You know, and then they start to try to figure out, like, “Well, how long has Lebanon been a country?” I mean, like, “Hugh.” And we start looking and they realized “Since when Lebanon has been, whatever, the 1940, 1950s?” And they start…as they go, they start to figure out like the colonial legacy and they start to get into all these really interesting questions about religious dynamics of that region, and of Lebanon particularly. And so then, all of a sudden, they’re really interested because somehow all of this leads back to why no one has been able to clean up the trash. Doris: Exactly. But here’s what you did. So you set them up, they’ve got an unsolved problem that they’ve chosen, that they care a lot about and it’s real. Julia: Right. Doris: They’re going to be presenting to a real audience and you’ll get to that in a minute, a solution, but you as a teacher you’re keeping them where they need to be by staying one step ahead and asking good why questions, right? They just keep asking good why questions. Coming out the other end, I bet the students at least in my experience, the students barely remember you were there. It all came from them. But you’re getting them to go deep into the areas that they need to go so that they can come up with something in there in the meantime. That’s great. So keep going. So then what? Julia: Right. So they do this presentation that’s defining the problem. Then there’s a moment where they sort of split to go a little bit more individually into a kind of deep dive into what they think a good solution could be. So after they, you know, do the first presentation, they get feedback, they reflect on that. Then they spend a couple of days researching individually and writing a position paper about what they think the best solution would be. They come back to their team. They share their papers. They share their solutions and their ideas and then they have this really great moment of kind of negotiating it out and talking as a team and sort of sorting through and arguing through you know pros and cons and elements. Almost always they end up bringing in elements of different people solutions. It’s not that you know one person’s solution somehow magically was just right. So they are sharing sources that they found at this point and then running into sources that disagree with each other and trying to navigate that and what do they do with that. And ultimately then, putting together a final presentation, which is going to recap the sort of history and definition of a problem briefly but move into the solution. And for that presentation then, we bring in whoever else we can find. We’ll bring in other faculty or, you know, if and when we can get them other sort of parents or community members who are interested in the topic… Doris: And why is this important. Why is it it’s so important. But why do you think it’s important that you bring in people that’s not just teachers and parents that they’re going to present their final solution to? Julia: Well, because it raises the stakes so much, right, for students, especially if they think there are people who know more than they do about the topic. Doris: Yeah? Exactly. Julia: Right. People who, like, someone who really knows their stuff that clarifies the mind wonderfully right around like they need to work on this task because, you know, like your parents are going to say that it was great no matter what you do. But the idea that there is this, there is somebody who has some expertise in the field and might ask you a really tricky question. And, you know, you’re going to look silly if you don’t really have a good solution. Doris: Yeah. You have to do your homework. You have to have some research and facts to back up where you came up with. You can’t just blow through it, right? Julia: Exactly. Doris: That’s great. So coming out of the reason all this is happening is, what did you experience? What did the students experience coming out of this, and what did the teachers see as the results of this? Why is it spreading at Hawken so much? Julia: Yeah. So 2015 and 16 was the first year of Humanities 9, right? Doris: Yeah. Julia: So then, those ninth graders then were in 10th grade this past year, and members of the Humanities 10 team started to come up to us in the halls and say, “Oh my gosh.” We had this research project and they blew it out of the water like they did such a good job, they asked these great questions, like, they knew how to try to find sources and find answers…or they’re going to be like, “Oh my goodness the public speaking was so much better out of the gate right away, we didn’t even know what to do with ourselves.”   So they clearly…other teachers who didn’t even necessarily know a lot about what was going on in Hum. 9 Lab got interest because they saw the impact for students. And so that, within our department, is really where the conversation has moved to, is, “Okay, how can we do some more of this kind of work with kids? And then, you know, as you know, there are other pockets where this work is starting to happen across the upper school. Doris: Yeah, talk about what you’re doing in the upper school in your new role where you’re not only leading the Humanities department but now our entire upper school curriculum… Julia: Yeah. So, I mean, it’s really exciting. It’s been great for me to get to expand my view of the school beyond the Humanities department, and to get to start to partner with teachers in different departments.  So, I’m continuing to get to have conversations with people who are really eager and excited to try something different and to really try to focus on, like, you know, what happens when you’re really focused on the sort of, the individual needs of a student, and how can you give them feedback that helps them do the learning that they need to do. And the Korda Method approach is just honestly the best way that I have found to be able to give students that opportunity to grow. And so, that’s really what I’m trying to do is in working with teachers and to get them to find a way. Doris: And isn’t it… Yeah, it used to be and it’s still transitioning from this, but being a good teacher meant being a good master of your domain and the domain was some content area. And the definition of good teaching and what it is to teach is changing. And I’m so glad that it is because, look at the things you’ve done with your Humanities team, look at their kinds of things all these teachers at Hawken are building together with other teachers, together with you, it’s fantastic. Julia: Well, it’s incredibly exciting because it continually reminds us that it’s not about us? It’s not about me and how much I love this Wordsworth poem or this Charlotte Perkins Gilman short story or the state like, “I used to wonder as a teacher why it was that sometimes I felt like I was the worst teacher when I was teaching something that I myself really loved.” Like, I used to have this problem with, like with Thoreau and Emerson, I would go in and I would be like so off the charts excited and the students be like, “Meh,” right? But that was in those moments it was about me, right? It was about like my love of Thoreau. And that is why it wasn’t working. Doris: Yeah, exactly. And the line that, you know, I’m going to use even though people who’ve been working closely with me, like you, Alison and Tim, a lot of others who would probably throw up in their mouth because you’ve heard it so much. It’s not about what you teach. It’s about what they learn. And the interesting thing to me was that that idea for many years was actually a profound idea. It sounds so, like matter of fact well, “Duh” of course that’s true. But it’s actually kind of embodies this shift that we’re talking about. Julia: It does. Doris: And it’s really exciting. Julia, it was phenomenal to talk to you. Your work is brilliant and I’m so… Julia: Oh my goodness. Thank you. Thank you so much for all of your help. Doris: Well, I love working with you and I look forward to the work we’re going to continue to do together. Julia: Me too. Doris: Yay. Julia: Yay. Thank you. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode, Doris speaks with Mel McGee, Founder and CEO of We Can Code IT.  Mel shares how she applied Korda Method in Coding Bootcamps that are making the tech industry more diverse and inclusive by preparing unemployed and underemployed adults to be skilled software developers. She explains how the innovative curriculum is directly impacting student’s employability after graduation. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Doris: Hi, Mel. Mel: Hey, Doris, how are you? Doris: I am great. I’m talking to you. I’m so excited. So, Mel, what you do is a little different from the normal teacher, and I’d love for you to share who you are, what you do, and why you decided to do it. And what you’re doing, what the results are, what’s happening with it? Mel: I’d love to. So I have been in the software industry for a little over 20 years now. I started off as a developer and I’ve had different roles in IT, but I’ve always had my hands in code. I’ve always loved the creative side of problem-solving. A few years back, I would go on speaking engagements. And I found a lot of women, especially, were coming up to me saying, “Can you teach me how to code?” And I learned quickly that they felt intimidated asking my male peers and they felt more comfortable with my style and my approach. So I started saying yes. After a while, enough people were asking that I decided to create a class. So, We Can Code IT started very organically from this need, from this need in the community. So we started as a women’s group. But the more I thought about it, I thought, you know, diversity isn’t just women, it’s not just race, gender, it’s not just age, it’s experience. There are so many different aspects of diversity. And this was extremely important to me because I as a woman in tech have found myself feeling very alone there. I’m one of the few women in tech unfortunately. And women, people of color, are very underrepresented in technology, and I want to change that. And I want to change that not only because it helps those individuals get really great paying careers that are really satisfying, but it also helps our society in the sense that we need a ton of computer professionals out there. We need programmers to fill the million expected unfilled U.S. jobs by 2020. So I found myself really wanting to do more with diversity in technology. And I started getting requests. So this happened very organically. I started getting requests for coding bootcamps, fast track coding programs. Now, you have to remember, I have my own software development company going on at the same time so this was a big shift for me. But I decided this is where my passion was, and I was seeing some amazing results in some very, very happy women coming out of my classes. So, March of 2015, we launched our very first coding bootcamp focused on diversity and inclusion in technology. So our students go through are either daytime or evening program. We wanted to leave evenings open for folks who have to work, but it’s still a very fast-paced, intense program. And our focus is on craft, community, social consciousness, and it’s also very much on employability. So we’ve seen some amazing results from our bootcamp helping folks start great new careers as software developers, which happens to pay a great deal of money and has a lot of great fun, creative things you can do with it, problem solving, respect, all of these great rewards that go along with it. Doris: Well, then you and I met and started working together before your first bootcamp. And I think it would help a lot if you gave a couple examples of who the students were, and, even if you remember. I mean you’ve taught so many since, but even in that very first class or anybody, just who is it that we’re talking about? Mel: Right. Our first few cohorts, we had… Doris: And you can use code names, right? Mel: Yes. Doris: If you want. Mel: Thank you. Debbie is a great example of a successful student who has come out of We Can Code IT, and using the Korda Method, how she has really been successful in her life when she started with us. She was a single mom. She had a college degree, but she was very underemployed. So she was making what would be considered poverty, under the poverty level. So she was very underemployed. She had a child to take care of. She didn’t have much time. She was very bright. And she was stuck in a very dead-end situation. She found out about We Can Code IT, she came in. We used problem and project-based learning in a very collaborative, community, team approach to solving problems, and she just rocked it out. I mean she just did phenomenally in the program. She really got very excited and motivated about it. And at the end of the program, she ended up making five times as much with one of our employers than she had made prior to the program. So I mean you can just imagine… Doris: So she got a full-time job in IT and software development. Mel: Correct. Yup. Doris: In software development. That’s incredible. That’s incredible. And you have story after story like that, yes? Mel: Story after story. Most of our students come in, again, unemployed or underemployed or very unhappy in a dead-end career. For example, we have another student, Liz, who went through our program. Now she was a college major in marketing. So she went through college, but she ended up, like so many folks who go into very saturated careers, she ended up with a job in a cubicle, I think, you know, doing telemarketing or something like that. And she was not happy, so unhappy in that job that she said that she was going to become a waiter at a nice restaurant because at least she’d be able to get out of her cubicle and probably make a little bit more money. So when she came to us, she was sort of at the end of her rope there. And, you know, her father was a software developer so she thought early on, and this is the kicker for women or anyone who doesn’t feel invited to the tech table, is early on, college does not attract women, people of color, into programs. They’re attracting the same folks over and over again so… Doris: Yeah, into tech programs. Right. Mel: Yeah, into tech programs. And so they’re so, you know… So she saw We Can Code IT. Her dad told her about We Can Code IT. So she came to us, and again, she just put the effort forth. She was really working. We work on not only, you know, programming and solving problems using programming, using software development, but we also help them work on careers. We have a very heavy career focus as well. So they’re doing things, they’re creating networks, they’re going to events and meetups, and groups, and stuff like that throughout the progress. She got a job immediately after her graduating in the program. One of those, four times the salary she was making before. She’s super happy. She’s a software developer. And she’s very proud and very… And again, we have story after story like that. Another one was a mother-daughter team, which I loved, because the mom used to be an engineer. And then she decided to home-school her children so she stayed at home. Now, her daughter went to college and she majored in English. And she was working as an educator, as a teacher, a K12 teacher. And she was sort of burnt out from that, and she found out about us, and then she convinced her mom, “Hey, mom. Why don’t you do this with me?” Doris: Oh, wow. Mel: So they both went to the program together. Doris: That’s wonderful. That’s fantastic. Mel: Yeah. It was perfect. Yeah, and again, hired with job offers before they even graduated. Tremendous story. Doris: So I’ve been watching your…you’ve been hitting it out of the park. Cohort after cohort, you’ve kept up in the, what I’ll call the diversity part of your mission, the cohort after cohort of very, very diverse students, adults who are unemployed and underemployed. And in a few intense weeks, you teach them to code, and you teach them the kinds of skills that they need that make them hugely employable. And they’re having success. They’re having not only financial success, but career success, and life success. So, Mel, give an example. Give an example of one of the problems that a team worked to solve, and what they did, and then what kinds of things they learned by doing that? Mel: Absolutely. I’m excited to. We have a ton of projects. But first, let me step back a little bit and explain how our program works. So we use the Korda Method, and we start with skill building and methodology prior to…in a problem, project-based way prior to allowing students to get together and come up with their own final project ideas, right? So the students get together and pitch out project ideas to their classmates, and the classmates vote on them. And the top four or five depending on the number of students in a class end up getting selected. And the thing I’m really proud about is our students make these wonderful, socially-minded, community-oriented applications for their final projects. So they work on their final projects prior to presenting them during our career day, and they present them to employers and other community members. And we’ve had some amazing, cool projects. A lot of projects about urban farming, keeping your kids safe with QR codes, and fun stuff like that, and really helpful stuff like that. One that sticks out to me though, a lot was a street harassment reporting app done by one of our students who was robbed and assaulted at a bus stop. So after this assault… Doris: Wow. Mel: Yeah, exactly. And, you know, what really bothered her about this, not that that is an awful on its own, but to add insult to injury, she learned that additional assaults happened right there at that same bus stop that very same day. Doris: Wow. Mel: But she wasn’t made aware, right? Right? Doris: Yeah. Mel: I mean that’s good. Yeah. So she was, yeah. Doris: So she pitched that idea coming from her personal experience…and created an app that would… What did this… So I assume the app gives you information on where you are relative to safety? Mel: Yeah. It’s an app, and people can look on it on their mobile phone or on their desktop, but it’s a mapping app and it helps others who are waiting for a bus so they can…whoever’s waiting for a bus can look on it and see real-time crime activity. So before they even decide to use a bus stop, they can look on this app and figure out, “Wait a second. There’s crime going on around here. I might just go to this other bus stop or find another way to work,” right? Doris: Wow. Mel: And so she’s really helped a lot of people. So these are the kind of beautiful projects that come out of our students. And they’re learning. And they’re putting it all together. And they’re giving back. They are giving back to the community. And I think that’s special. Doris: Well, and again, so if you think about the students you have coming in are not your usual suspects for becoming programmers, right? Mel: Right. Doris: These are people… And they don’t know any coding when they come in the door. Mel: But they’re not… Doris: And the last time…for the most part. And a few weeks later, they’re presenting to prospective employers products that they’ve created to solve a problem. Mel: Yeah. Doris: So during that three, four, or five weeks when they’re working as a team to build a product that is a solution to the problem that they all have a shared passion for solving, what are the kinds of things that the folks on that team have to do and learn as they race to have a successful product to present by the end? Mel: I love that to use the word “race.” Exactly. Doris: Yeah. Mel: So we teach strong programming languages in Cleveland and Columbus. And in Cleveland we focus on C# because it’s what most employers around Cleveland use. We want to give employable skills to students. However, in Columbus, we teach Java. Java and C# are pretty much sister languages. They’re very similar. But we teach them based on the student’s location and what the employers in the area are looking for, for the most part. We also… Doris: That’s good. Mel: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think it’s necessary. If our job is to help our students become successfully employed as software developers and in other roles in the IT industry, we need to be providing them with the languages that are most prevalent in their areas. Doris: So their solution in Cleveland has to be created in that language versus a different language in Columbus because that’s what you want…that’s what they need to learn in order to be highly employable in their markets. Yeah? Mel: Yes. Doris: Gotcha. Mel: Yeah. Students also learn front-end as well. So C# and Java are back…called back-end languages. There’s front-end languages as well that students really love to really dive into. So HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which are front-end web-based languages. And pretty fun, by the way. I mean they’re pretty exciting and creative. So they get…they really get in…a lot of them get into being creative through these languages. Doris: So is it safe to say the front-end languages are what they use to develop the parts of programs that we users see? Mel: You got it. You got it. Doris: Back-end is the engine. Mel: Amen. Yup. Doris: Gotcha. Mel: Yeah. And then, they, you know, and it’s very exciting to see them grow and navigate through all of the programming languages out there. And in the project phase of their experience, they end up working a lot with APIs, they’re called, Application Programming Interfaces. So they work with all the programs. A lot of the students end up pulling in Google Maps to make custom maps for example. The student I was talking about before who did the street harassment app, she integrated with Google Maps. She took the Google Maps API, integrated it with data from a database that was updated regarding crime rates, and that’s how she came up with this wonderful visual to display to others who needed, who wanted to utilize her application. Other skills students really need to grasp include some basic design patterns. So we facilitate their learning of something called MVC, which stands for model-view-controller. It’s simply a pattern, a framework for students to sort of hold on to while they’re creating web applications. And the beauty about this is, not only does it make students life easier because things are really organized…well, for them they learn this organized approach, but employers love it because employers, more and more employers are utilizing those patterns. They also learn something that they would never learn in college called GitHub, or I haven’t seen it taught. Yeah, let me put it that way. GitHub is used by almost every programmer. We’re all using these repositories to share our code, and to store our code, and to save our code, and to make sure everybody on our team has the latest and greatest updated code elements, right? So… Doris: Yeah. Mel: You know, but they don’t use it. The employers are like using this all over the place, but it’s not taught, you know. It’s not taught because it’s more of a skill, more of an application, but it’s something that is really important and a little difficult to grasp on your own. So I’m really happy that they end up being so well-versed in it by the time the program is over. On top of that, you know, our students are very different, right? And they are learning something that I can’t say most programmers are learning, and that is the importance of communication and teamwork. Because of the Korda Method, and because of the teamwork involved, the community involved, the full, holistic approach of it, it is understanding this complete picture of what it is to be on a team, working with others that you just don’t get in college. And it ends up, students end up walking out with a confidence and maturity that I have rarely seen from other schools of thought, so to say. Doris: Yeah, and you’ve been in the industry, so you’ve been in the trenches and, you know that you can have the most brilliant coder in the world, and if they can’t work with others or on a team, it’s done. Mel: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And nobody else wants to work with them, and things get stalled, and it’s awful. So that is so important. It is important to employers, too. It’s very important. I mean emotional intelligence is really the strong, I mean, indicator of success at a company, right? And the Korda Method really embeds that, right? Doris: Well, yeah. It’s all it’s all about building those skills, and the collaborative skills, and creative problem-solving. And so you very bravely, I mean, from the first time we met…You knew coding, you knew software development, you knew the technology part, and you were very brave in seeking out the curricular and instructional practice methods that you could use to incorporate so that the learning would be powerful. Talk about how the learning has happened. What are your takeaways about the value of this method as you’ve seen it play out in We Can Code IT? Mel: Absolutely. So using your method has really, wow, really helped us hit it out of the park like we have. And really helped us differentiate ourselves and continue to have 80% of our students are women or minorities. Now compare that with the traditional computer science classroom in college campuses as well as in the industry. It’s the reverse. I mean, most you’re going to have 20% women and minorities in those classes. So, attracting those who usually don’t feel invited to the table, or are just downright repulsed, right, by this, you know, computer science class where they see a bunch of people lined up, you know, hearing a lecture that you want to fall asleep and, “Oh, my gosh, when is this going to end? And how is this going to affect my GPA?” and all of these crazy concerns, you know. First of all, your method eliminates that. It eliminates that. I mean it’s not…this is not about professing. This is not about the teacher. This is not…this is all student-centered. It’s about how to deliver to the student. And to do it on terms that are best for them, not best for the administration of education, right? And by that, I mean, you know, some kind of industrial revolution sense of we have to get a student from class to class at this time to make it most efficient. Now this is about learning and engagement. Doris: Yeah. Mel: And I think that’s the biggest part because it really did help us attract a different audience, the audience we want to attract, the audience that needs to be in tech that don’t feel invited. So that was, I mean, first and foremost, just the community aspect, the team building, the teamwork, the creative problem-solving, not just, “Hey, type this stuff and geek out.” Right? Staring at your shoes. But, no, working together in agile collaborative fashion. Doris: Right. Mel: It’s what software is about. So your method also fit perfectly in with, you know, how more innovative software teams are working together in agile approaches. It fits perfectly with computer science education. The ideas of learning by experimenting and the ability to look problems up holistically, it is so important, especially as we progress here in the 21st century. So being able to see the impacts of different solutions, and understanding there’s not just a single solution has been a great value to the students. Another huge part of the Korda Method that is a pillar of We Can Code IT is that it teaches students how to teach themselves, right? So they’re not…you’re not force feeding them or…you’re teaching them how to fish, not giving them the fish. And we very strongly believe in that, especially in the software development industry, and pretty much any industry honestly in the 21st century, right, and beyond. You have to change. You have to be adaptable. You have to figure out how to look things up, how to search for things. And we take that very seriously in our classroom. We have them…if they have a question, you know, instead of saying, “Hey, teacher, please give me the answer to this so I can fill it in.” No, we’re going to push back a little. We’re going to say, “Hey, have you look this up? How about talking to a classmate? How about talking to other people in your group? Then if you’re still struggling, let me help you out.” And it’s not…you know, it’s self-reliance in a sense, right? Doris: Right. But there’s real meat that they have to learn. There’s content. There are skills and there’s also…they have to learn how to code to actually have things, technology that they need to master and mechanics. I have seen, you know, I’ve been to your career day, and I have seen the quality of the presentations and of the systems that your students have built and I’ve been blown away. And you can see, you had a packed room of employers, and I was thrilled to hear afterwards that everybody got, you know, everybody got a job coming out of these workshops. Talk about how this is growing. Like, so you started, I mean, you started with one workshop in March in Cleveland, I remember. What’s happened? Mel: March 9th, 2015 we began in Cleveland with a handful of students, a handful. It was our pilot group, right? Doris: Yeah. Mel: And guess what? I made a lot of mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes. Doris: Yeah. Mel: And I learned. And students, you know, and the program, we are very interested in continuous learning, continuous feedback loops, and getting…tweaking and getting better each and every time. One thing that really stuck in my head from going through your workshop was the importance of reflection. So, from the very beginning, we ensured that not only were we, the students going through this problem project-based learning, but then they were reflecting on it, and sort of integrating it into their whole lives, right? And so, by that small group… We even started it there. We had daily stand-ups. So we’d get circle… And that helps them also with scrum, which they’ll see in a business environment if the business is using agile methodology, they do daily stand-ups, communication. So we had a constant feedback loop going on from students because of that, and one-on-ones that the students as well. From that, we have grown from that little, tiny cohort to graduating 150 students per campus annually. Doris: Wow. Mel: And we have two campuses now, and we plan to open a couple more next year. Doris: Wow. Well you know, the work you are doing is exactly what has t happen to start changing really an entire industry. Mel: Amen. Amen. Doris: Yeah. Well, Mel, thank you. Keep doing what you’re doing. I am just so honored to know you and watch what you’re doing. It’s powerfully important. Mel: The feeling is mutual, Doris. And honestly, I am forever indebted to you for really getting us started because you really helped us avoid a lot of mistakes, you know, and avoid a lot of issues and problems, and instead create a very successful program, which actually helps people, and, you know, helps the whole community. So, thank you. Doris: Thank you. Thank you, Mel, for this conversation.

In this episode, Doris speaks with Paul Chiment and Blake Dorfman of Laguna Blanca School in Santa Barbara, California. Paul is a veteran high school Math and Economics teacher and Blake an early career middle school English and Digital Art teacher who created an innovative Entrepreneurship program. Learn how their journey to teach entrepreneurship led to deeper student learning, changed teaching methods and workshops for other educators. Doris: Hello, Paul and Blake. Blake: Hello. Paul: Hi. Doris: What an extraordinary workshop we just finished together. It was really inspiring. I’d like to start. You’ve built this extraordinary program, the two of you, at Laguna Blanca, and if I have you start by talking about the program as it is now, I think we’re going to intimidate everybody. And instead, I think it’d be helpful if you started by talking about why you came to that very first workshop that you guys attended, and then what you did coming out of it. And then we’ll talk about how you went from there over the last two years to get to the extraordinary program you have now. So, Paul, maybe you could start by talking about where you were when you came into the workshop and what you did with what you got out of it. And then, Blake, I’ll ask you to do the same. Paul: Yeah, well, it’s been an incredible journey over the last two years. So, I guess it was summer of 2015, I’ve been teaching advanced high school math and AP statistics and AP economics for many years, and I was really questioning what I was doing for the students. My idea of success for the kids was, you know, a four or five on the AP exam, and maybe, if they were very prepared for their next math class. But it was actually the students that came to me and said, “You know, we’d really prefer to have something more real world.” So, I started investigating this, and I saw that you were doing some incredible work in Cleveland, and you had this workshop, and I attended. And it just blossomed from there. It’s only been two years, but it seems like it’s been 20 years in how we just started with a pilot, a single class in entrepreneurship, where I really didn’t know what I was doing at first, and it’s blossomed. I’m just so excited about it. Doris: That’s wonderful. And what about you, Blake? Where were you coming into that workshop, and what came out of that? Blake: Well, I think Paul was definitely the leader on all of this. This was something that he pushed for as a nearly quarter-century teacher at our school and really sold it. And then I was lucky enough to be thought of as, “Okay, this is someone who could do it in the middle school.” And going into it, I had prepared some background materials, but I really, as a much newer teacher than Paul, I was really in the mindset of, “I need to know exactly what I’m supposed to do, exactly what I need, and what exactly am I doing on the first day and the fifth day and the 12th day of class next year.” So, that workshop, I actually came in very nervous and apprehensive in that workshop because I didn’t know what I was going to be doing the next year. So, that’s really where I started on day one at that workshop. Doris: So, you, as Paul mentioned, he’s been teaching Math courses and economics courses, when you came into the workshop, you had been teaching what? Blake: So, my first two years at our school, I was actually in charge of our newly renovated library. I had my teaching credential in English, but that year, I just finished my first year of teaching seventh grade English, and it was a great year, and I just finished my first year of teaching our yearbook class. So, I was pretty new and green, as far as the classroom. I had done my credential program, but I was coming off of, you know, you’d said in that workshop, you need three years to make a class your own. Well, I had just done my first year of seventh grade English and my first year of yearbook. So, I was still making those my own, and I actually, heading into the next year, I had English, I had yearbook, and then I was taking on another new class in digital arts and then doing our entrepreneurship class. So, I was really nervous because I was probably in a little over my head. And with Paul’s ambition and drive towards this, I wanted to make sure that it was perfect, but what I’ve learned is that, you know, it’s not going to be perfect. But getting this kind of philosophy into a classroom is really, it’s not perfect at the start, and it’s never gonna be perfect, but it really can have an impact right away however you are able to introduce it. Doris: And I wanna point out that with Paul driving all of this, two years later, you’re still on speaking terms with him. So, that’s pretty… I’m very impressed with that.   Blake: Yeah, and I mean I’m surprised because he taught me algebra 20 years ago, and I wasn’t the best math student. So, he still put his faith in me despite… Paul: Absolutely, Blake. Blake: …my struggle with the quadratic formula. Doris: Nice. Maybe that’s why you’re still on speaking terms because he’s still teaching you all these years later, right? Blake: Exactly. Paul: That’s maybe it. Doris: That’s got to be it. So, you came out of this workshop, the two of you, and both did your pilots, one in high school and one in middle school. And as you take yourself back to what that first year of piloting, what you experienced, what you saw out of that, talk to us about what came out of that first year. And Blake, this time you could start, and then we’ll talk to, we’ll ask Paul the same. Blake: Yeah. I was focused so much on content in the summer leading up to, in the weeks and the days leading up to the start of my class. I was worried so much about, you know, whether every project was going to be perfect, and that in our case, it’s an entrepreneurship class, was it going to be perfectly suited for, you know, young entrepreneurs. But I think what I realized pretty early on was that there are more basic peripheral skills that are learned or acquired in this class, that even if you have a project in, say, an entrepreneurship related project that maybe falls a little flat, you still have students communicating in ways they haven’t, and you still have students getting out of their comfort zone, where, in traditional schooling, what we’re doing better here is, in traditional schooling, they can sit in the back corner and hide in their notebook and take good notes, and maybe a test or maybe not, but as soon as you entered that room, whether or not the project was perfect, or some aspects just needed to be scrapped, there was, from the start, professionalism and people skills and kids really doing something differently in the room. And so, that was a big comfort to me, a big comfort definitely. Doris: That’s really interesting. And what about you, Paul, that first year?   Paul: Yeah, the first year, especially the first few months, I was very nervous because having taught for many years and have taught courses that are very content driven, I am the expert, I am the guy that you go to for the answer, and now I was walking into a classroom where I didn’t have the answer, in fact I didn’t even have really the questions. The workshop at Steve Blank’s house at least gave me some structure. I could build around this and structure it in a certain way so that the problems and the solutions could emerge. So, that really helped. My first project involved J7 Surf shop in Santa Barbara. And so, I know surfing, I’ve been in that shop a million times, so it just made it very comfortable for me to work with some entrepreneurs and then get the students involved and get them problem-solving for that surf shop. And it just went so wonderfully. I don’t know if the solutions they produced were that wonderful, I don’t know if my teaching was that wonderful, but the experience was wonderful. And I was just so excited to see it happen and see it work. I went on to do one with H4O, which is Hands4Others, and that is a nonprofit that gets students to raise money so that they can build water treatment facilities all over the world for villages that need water treatment. So, the kids learn so many different things about business and about the world, and that’s what was hard for me is that I was no longer in control of the content. The content came from the real world, it came from the entrepreneur, and I had to be more of a coach than a teacher. Doris: Yeah, but it’s, you know, I say this often, the reason that I think it’s so important that we give you guys the structures and the methods to use to start out is that I actually think this is very much teaching, it’s just a different kind of teaching. And sometimes, the words that we use in this industry, like you know, guide on the side or coach, people have certain baggage they associate with that, and the biggest one is, “Oh, this isn’t rigorous, and it’s not really academic.” And I think it’s entirely different. I think we’re redefining what academics is and what learning looks like. Paul: Well, what I see is, as old school academics, when I look at what teaching has been, teaching, if you see it as a way to get students ready for the next level, when you look at high school education and university education, it’s almost as if we’re trying to produce university professors. Teachers teach as if the job of the future is to be a university professor and success is to get them their students closer to be a professor at whatever subject they’re teaching. And so that, when I see academics in that light, I worry that we’re actually doing tremendous harm to these kids because maybe only 1% will be university professors, the other 99%, we say, “Well, sorry, you don’t remember your algebra anymore,” or, “Sorry, you cannot write this kind of thesis,” but most of our students in public and private schools don’t need that. Blake: I think the paradigm shift, if you will, the difference between this and the traditional methods that Paul was talking about is, “Who are the students trying to please?” In my English 7 class, they are trying to please me as their teacher so that they receive good feedback and a good grade, which will please their parents, and ultimately, they’re working towards college, perhaps at the upper school level. But when you, and this is, you know, kind of a buzzword, but when you have a real world aspect to it, you are trying to please someone outside of teacher and parent, you are trying to solve a problem, or you’re interacting, you’re putting yourself on the line for someone outside of that teacher and parent triangle that you have with them. So, I think that that’s really a big difference. Paul: That’s something I really make a point with my students is I have a very different type of relationship to my students when we’re doing entrepreneurial activities than when I’m in a traditional algebra or pre-calculus course. In those courses, like Blake said, in many ways, they’re trying to please me because I am the god of points. I mean I could create a quiz worth eight points, and then I’ll say, “No, it’s worth 10 points,” and then, where did those two points come from? I just pulled them from the universe, I am the god of points, and that’s understood in the traditional academic fields. But my relationship with the kids is very different in this sense because most of their grade doesn’t come from me, it comes from how well they present themselves and come up with creative and innovative solutions for the entrepreneurs. And so, when I say I’m a coach, I’m very much a teacher, but the traditional word “teacher” is kind of the god of points, you try to please me, and that, it’s a very different relationship in this type of class. Doris: Yeah, because you’re teaching them not what to think but how to think. Paul: Exactly. Doris: It’s still teaching, but you’re teaching something different. Paul: Right. I see a parallel here with parenting. We see tremendous amounts of overparenting now, helicopter parenting, the notion that more is better when it comes to being a parent, and I see that in teaching as well, where we tend to overteach. If they didn’t get it, we’ll just give them more of the same thing instead of stepping back and letting them learn self-reliance, letting them learn how to learn and how to solve problems on their own. And this is the perfect vehicle for that. Blake: I think… Doris: Yeah, it’s not about what you teach, it’s about what they learn, right? Paul: What they learn, right, exactly. Blake: And I know the doors, a lot of, you know, a lot of listeners might not have an entrepreneurship class like we do. So, they’re implementing this in a science class or whatever. I see this, I saw it bleed over into my digital arts class, believe it or not, which is just an elective where we’re introducing kids to Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign. And as I was teaching entrepreneurship at the same time and thinking about what I learned at the workshop, I took the problem-solving mentality and the self-reliance, and I put it into that class because my initial thought was, “Okay, I have 20 kids, all on computers, trying to produce something on Adobe Photoshop,” in an art setting. And it was difficult, and I would make it difficult. They would raise their hands, and I would run and help them put out that fire and show them what they need to do on the next step. But as I taught entrepreneurship, at the same time, I realized that most of these kids, hopefully a good amount, will use Photoshop in their future, but the most important thing is for them to get frustrated to run into an issue. And when they raise their hand, I say, “First, what can you do to figure this out on your own? Who can you reach out to besides me, the savior, who’s going to come and solve the problem for you and show you exactly what to do and show you exactly how to finish that math problem? Instead, you need to be resourceful and figure out either a way around it or figure out a way to address the problem.” So, that self-reliance is more important than anything, I think, in this age of…especially if you’re dealing with overparenting, right? I love the figure it out. Doris: Yeah, that’s great. Blake: FIO, figure it out, is a great term I think. Doris: Figure it out. And we all know what the difference in our own lives, no matter how old you are, between things that were given to you and told to you by someone else and things we struggled with ourselves to produce. So, this year, we just finished a workshop together. You went from coming into a workshop two years ago, in your case, Paul, driving the train, and Blake, you’re coming along a little nervous, to two years later saying, “Hey, we want to do a workshop here at Laguna Blanca. Now you’ve been developing your programs at this school for two years, they’re phenomenal. Where are you, starting…let’s start, Paul, with you, and then Blake, where are you now? Why did you do a workshop? What do you think about all of this? Paul: Well, I was just excited. I had gone to the workshop in 2015, I had spoken at the workshop in 2016, and I know, I’m just the type of person who like to challenge myself, and I thought, you know, I would love for people to come here and see what we’re doing and see our campus and get excited about something that can really make a change in these kids’ lives. So, that’s where I was coming from. Doris: What about you, Blake?   Blake: I think the same. I share the excitement, and thinking about the setting up in northern California, at Steve’s house the last two years, how beautiful that is, I thought that our campus was a great setting for that, and I also felt like I had something to offer. With that said, I felt extremely, it was tough for me to act like an expert after two years. I was getting all these questions in the one-on-one sessions, kind of coaching sessions about, “Well, how should I do this, and how should I do that?” And for me, having taught four semesters of this, it was really hard to… You know, it’s still always a work in progress, and I said, “I’m not, I’m no expert in this. I’m not Doris.” But I think that… Doris: No, it’s for everybody, right? It’s a work in progress. Blake: Right, and I think that just after two years, just even after one year, I could have, speaking at Steve’s last summer, I felt like I had something to offer because I was in these shoes of these people who are starting a pilot two years ago. And even doing it for one year is enough to share your experiences and make it meaningful. Paul: And I just like to add that it made me more authentic to myself actually because I’m not an entrepreneur. I’ve been a teacher for many years, but I see myself more as an intrapreneur within the school system trying to promote change. And I see my class and this program at our school as my way of effecting change and making a difference within the school. So, I needed to do something, I can’t just tell my students, “Hey, go out there, take chances, don’t fear failure, take risks.” I’m not an authentic educator unless I’m actually doing that myself, and I’m not in the position right now to go start my own business, but I could do something within the school that gives me a similar experience that I’m giving to the students. Doris: Well, you were both incredibly expert at what you gave…in what you gave to the people who came to the workshop because as a many-many-year teacher who comes into this and says, and, Paul, honestly, you’re a rare kind of teacher who’s been teaching in traditional classes for decades and says, “Yeah, I’m going to put myself in a uncomfortable zone and try something radically different,” and does it with a kind of energy and open-mindedness and smarts that you did. And Blake, for you, as a brand new teacher, to say, “Okay, I’m not even yet comfortable in my skin as a day-to-day regular teacher, and I’m going to put myself way out there.” We talk so much about the need to be innovative and to do things creatively and to change. And it’s one thing to talk about it, and it’s an entirely different thing to do it. It’s really uncomfortable. And as teachers and educators, we’re used to asking our students constantly to put themselves in uncomfortable places, but we rarely do it ourselves. And the way that the two of you not only dove in, but have absolutely embraced the challenge and ambiguity and risk of being creative, innovative designers of completely different forms of teaching and learning, I’m blown away by both of you, and I think you’re a real inspiration. And I’d like to ask one other thing for both of you, and that is, because you just did these workshops, and you spent so much energy giving to these teachers from other schools and educators from other schools, as somebody who’s, you’re giving your life’s work to kids and to education, how does all of this relate to your purpose as a person, as an individual, when you think about, “Okay, I’m gonna be a teacher?” How does all of this work you’ve done over the last couple years affect your thinking about your purpose? Blake: We’re getting existential here, Doris. This is… Doris: Yes, we are. I’m sorry, I can’t help it. Blake: Well, when, you know, to zoom out, I think that educators, and that’s the vast majority of people listening to this podcast, we’re obviously not in it for the paycheck, you know. You don’t get rich doing what we do, but you want to… It’s being a person of service. And I know for me, I sort of have these existential moments where I’m like, “Okay, what is my life gonna be about here?” You know, and having family is one thing, but also, we want to…I think it’s important to have an impact on as many lives as possible, and then that branches out exponentially, right? So, if I have, you know, by the time I’m done, 800 kids coming through my classroom in the first decade, and I haven’t done the math on that, if I can have an impact on a good amount of them and steer them towards success, you know, then they’d do something important, and it keeps growing outwards and outwards. And that’s how we make our one life significant. What I really like about, you know, leading this workshop is I hope that maybe one or two of the educators, who I was able to share my experience with, is able to go and start a pilot program, and my counsel or experience then positively affects the program they set up, that positively affects the kids they’re working with in their part of the world, and it grows out exponentially from there. So, we’re trying to… It’s really nice to give kids, to go back to my students, a life skill and say, “I’m not just making them better at whatever is in the textbook, I’m making them better communicators, better teammates, better critical thinkers, better problem-solvers.” That impact becomes greater in my opinion. So, that really, I mean, it helps give me meaning, the more I can influence students in the short time I have them in my class. Doris: That’s beautiful, and I have no doubt that you have had that impact on more than two of the people who came to that workshop because I watched it. What about you, Paul? Paul: When I look back on my career, I’ve had now 30 years in the classroom, and I think my purpose has evolved. In my first couple of years as a teacher, I think really what I wanted was probably just to get through the textbook and be liked, and that got me through the first two years. As I evolved, I’ve taught middle school and high school classes. I went through a phase where I wanted to be the expert in mathematics education. I was the go-to person, whether it was curriculum, whether it was methods. Whatever a student or teacher or parent or administrator needed to know, I was there for them with the right answer. As I’ve gotten into 20 plus years of teaching, it’s evolving again where I want to help students be better adults. I want them to have a meaningful life. I think part of it was having a son and sending him off to college a few years ago, and he had a wonderful, very academic education, and he’s doing well in college. But am I having an impact on the actual lives of these kids, or am I just helping them find solutions to math problems? And I think over the years, I have had an impact on the lives of these kids, but I needed another way to do it that transcended simply being able to find solutions or solve word problems or be confident about things. I needed a deeper purpose. And in my opinion, working with entrepreneurship as a vehicle for that, really helping kids become adults, helping them be confident when working with other adults, help them even just simple things like planning and organizing, professional communication, but probably the biggest one is helping them understand that finding the problem is the problem. When they get out in the adult world, people aren’t going to hand them worksheets, and then they’re gonna turn them in and see how well they did. They need to actually be proactive in finding problems, developing solutions, testing those solutions, and seeing if that “solution” actually solved anything. So, it’s a little bit of a scientific method, but it’s a lot more just being an effective adult, whether it’s on the job, or in a family, whatever, that’s what I want the kids to come away with. Doris: Well, Laguna Blanca is incredibly, incredibly blessed to have the two of you building the program, the culture, the teaching, and we are very, very lucky to partner with you. I can’t thank you enough for what I know is going to inspire people all over the world. Thank you. Paul: Thank you. Blake: Thanks, it was a pleasure.

In this special episode, educators who recently attended the Workshops for Entrepreneurial Studies share their inspiring plans for courses and programs in entrepreneurship, history, economics, math, science and more. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Alison Tanker: Hey, Doris! Doris Korda: Hey, Alison. Alison Tanker: Just came off a couple of our workshops! Doris Korda: Yes, we did! Alison Tanker: How’re you feeling? Doris Korda: I feel fantastic. I’m completely energized by seeing what these guys are going to do. We have educators from all over coming to build programs, we make sure that people coming are coming because they want to build things, and they want to build things in K12 schools, academic programs. And it’s impossible to go through this without being completely optimistic and hopeful about education. Alison Tanker: That’s the truth. Doris Korda: Maria Montessori said that education is the path to lasting peace, I believe that. And if the people who came to these workshops are representative of what we’ve got out there, which I believe they are, then we have reason to be hopeful. When we talk about what’s wrong with education, it isn’t the teachers. It’s the system. And we saw that. So, I’m very hopeful. How did you feel about it? Alison Tanker: Great. It is, it’s inspiring to be around this group of people who are ready to make change, who are stepping forward and taking a risk and wanting to try something new. It’s energizing to be around, watching them connect and collaborate and design these new pilots for what they’re gonna implement in their schools. It was fantastic. And, overall, I think it was about 53 people we trained, from… Doris Korda: In the last two, yeah. Alison Tanker: Yep, in the last couple here, that were from 15 states and 4 countries, which is pretty cool. The breakdown across as well was about 51% were working with public school students and 49% are working with the independent schools. Doris Korda: Yeah, so we go into these, and we have…we keep ’em small, so that the people who are there can really get what they need to come out and implement programs. So that they get what they need, the tools, the methods, the practices, everything. And the time to design their programs. And the designing part of the workshops is the most exciting for me. Working with teachers, with administrators, who are themselves doing crazy amounts of work to recreate and redesign and new design programs that are going to transform the lives of their students. It’s impossible not to come out really inspired. I love what we’re going to do in this episode, because we’re just going to hear from the folks who came to our most recent workshops about what they’re doing and what they’re building. Alison Tanker: Yeah, so first up we’re going to hear from Kesha Conway and Lisa Raffa of Leadership Ashtabula and Lakeside High School, then Dee Mecham from The Bishop’s School, after that is Joseph Taylor of Deerfield High School, Gara Field from Moses Brown School, lastly is Deairra Hobson from Mount Vernon Presbyterian School.   Kesha Conway: We’re going to pilot, we’re going use the first three weeks of her government class, which is a tested class, meaning that it’s a requirement for all Ohio students in public schools for their diploma, to go through government. And so we’re going use the first three weeks of the class and we are going to do, we’re going to present the kids with an unsolved problem that has to do with local government… Lisa Raffa: And then take an idea, problem-solving based, a problem within our community, and really excited about the beginning stages because we think we know our community, right? We’ve lived there, I’ve lived there forever, Kesha’s lived there for a very long time, and it’s going to be so cool to find out what the kids see as the problem. And then, I feel like that is going to engage them into their community, into a problem, solve the problem, present the problem, and in the interim, we’re going to guide the kids to some solutions in their own community, while learning about local government: the organization, the structure, the impact that they might have as citizens in the community. And still get those learning contents in, still get those curriculums, ideas, and the content that has to be given. Dee Mecham: I think one of the reasons I see so many people being successful with what they’ve done from this workshop is that Doris says, “Start with just one project. Start with a pilot.” Because I think too many times people go to workshops in the summer, and they think they have to redesign their entire course. And sometimes that’s the way the conferences pitch it. You know? And she’s like, “No, just take one little piece.” And that appeals to me as an economist because it’s all marginal…marginal analysis. Everything starts one step at a time, and you start with that project and see how that works, and add another one, and so, like I said, my long vision’s there. We’re going to start with a couple projects this year, AP Econ, AP Micro with entrepreneurship the following year. Maybe each year after that roll out another one of these interdisciplinary ideas. Joseph Taylor: So, the water project that I described before, I’m really excited about, and I’ve got a bunch of kids that are excited about it, too. It’s really not about the water project. It’s about providing an opportunity for kids, of course, but it’s really about coming back and showing our teachers that this can be done and that this can be powerful and taking what we’re going to do with the project, and then putting that in the classroom and giving them some examples. I think one of the things that really crystallized for us here was that we have to go back and teach this, right? But I think in spending some time here and discussing and talking to Doris, what we’ve decided is that we’re going to go back and we’re going to run the interdisciplinary project very much the way that she’s run her class, and then use that to propose an ongoing class. We’re not sure what we’re going to call that yet. Maybe it’s STEAM, maybe for the first year maybe it is just the water project, right? But it’s a class where we’ve actually built time into the academic calendar for kids and teachers to come together in an interdisciplinary way and solve real problems. Gara Field: One thing that is going to help us shape the freshman experience in a way that will be transformative in terms of social innovation and entrepreneurship. That’s big picture for us, and this kind of helped us crystallize and clarify what we know we want to do, and give us tools for how to do it. And so, it’s going to be transformative pedagogically, but helping us build out systems that impact a lot of kids. Deairra Hobson: So when I came, I was thinking just design a course that for the students was more operation. Now it’s a lot bigger. When I spoke to Doris about my ideas, we were able to build something that would be great for the school in terms of allowing the students to solve other people problems and then using that entrepreneurial mindset to then run a business. I think it’s going to be really, really good for them. And then I was thinking about some of the PBL projects in my class that have nothing to do with entrepreneurship but using this model. So one of the projects that I’m really pleased with is this social justice project where students use math to analyze the prison system and determine if there are injustices based off race or gender. So now what I’m thinking is, I’m thinking two different things, either just for building empathy purposes, you start with these nonprofits that are telling their story and I’m thinking either they do their research and now purpose something to solve whatever problem these nonprofits might be facing or they still come up with their own and purpose some sort of social reform that could negate the trend or turn it the other way. Alison Tanker: In this next section we’ll hear from Daniel de Leon of Sandia Preparatory School, Sarah Rhoads of Columbus City Preparatory School for Girls, Donielle Albrecht from John Cooper School, Jennie Becker and Julia Hodges of Hawken School, and finally Jacquelyn Clemens from Open Doors Academy Daniel de Leon: The plan has been to offer this particular course as…we’re calling it a capstone for our senior students. We want this course to provide kind of the bridge to the real world, experience for our seniors, to really just get them in that senior year working with and dealing with and interacting with people in their community. Sarah Rhoads: And then, between the two of us, we came up with Impact and Inquiry, and we had…well, Pam did an amazing job of turning the Business Model Canvas into a social problem canvas, and looking at the impact, and them having to do the inquiry on the…we teach American History in eighth grade…so, them having to look at the impact of the different wars, and the different documents that were happening, and how that impacted not just that time period, but how it then relates back to today. Pam Reed: Yeah, keeping history not just static but dynamic, so that they can see that it’s a contemporary issue, it all had to start somewhere. But using that methodology to get to that place. Donielle Albrecht: I think it validates what I’m already doing in my econ classes, but it gives me a framework to pitch an entrepreneurship class moving forward. That the four-project idea, the value add from that would be outstanding for our students who need that problem-solving opportunity, the teamwork opportunity, some interdisciplinary activities as well, so I think that with that framework, that’s what I’ve been working on as my pilot, moving forward as I think I could pitch it and it would be well-received at our school. Jennie Becker: Yeah, so one thing also that we’re going to try to include is a lot of the team element, a lot of the intentional design of teams and having students talk openly about their role on the team and their strengths and their weaknesses and pulling equal weight and those kind of things, because most core science classes at high schools across America have a lab partner component to it, and they do work in labs. And it varies, I’m sure, wildly, if they get to pick their partner and how much time the teacher spends talking to them about working with someone else and do they turn in work together or separately or all of that will vary for us, too, but we’re really excited to put more intention into what it’s like to work with a lab partner and what you can get out of that, because if they end up working in a science career, they’re not going to be in some isolated hole. They’ll work on a team in a lab or if they are going to go into medicine, like if they’re going to be an ER nurse, there’s like an army of them on the same shift, so it’s pretty much a part of science. We’ve sort of just always been like, “Yeah, you have a lab partner,” but we, at least, I’m sure many teachers spend more time on it than I do, but we’re excited to make it like that team component of the class. Julia Hodges: I loved the Business Model Canvas, and so I was really excited to have sort of the “A-ha” moment of figuring out a way to transform mapping business onto the Business Model C anvas into mapping an engineering innovation onto the engineering design process, as sort of a great introduction on day one, because I’ve taught the engineering design process before and it’s just…it’s painful because it’s so boring. You’re just, like, “Here it is. Here are the steps and let’s talk about why that is,” and it’s just so much more meaningful, I think, and engaging to have kids pick, like, all right, the airplane. How did the Wright brothers follow the engineering design process? And map out what went where, and what their process was and how many iterations they went through to get to their final project. Jacquelyn Clemens: So, I love the idea of entrepreneurship. I love the idea of kids, you know, learning through entrepreneurship and the creativity that comes with that. So, I’m here because I’m hoping to follow this model and kind of enhance the entrepreneurship experience beyond, you know, lemonade and business and kind of into more like social awareness and change like within their community. Alison Tanker: Isn’t it amazing to hear the variety of programs they are designing? I can’t wait to follow up and see how they implement. Doris Korda: Absolutely, and as important as designing the curriculum is, at least as important if not more important is how you actually teach it and the mindset shift that happens with the educators in this workshop is necessary. And the way we do that is I teach the teachers the way I teach my students, and they go through experiences that their students will go through, and then we reflect on what did you just experience? Why did I have you do it that way, etc.? And it’s really interesting also, every time we do these workshops, I learn from seeing how they’ve experienced it, what they’ve come out of that with, how well or not that equips them to implement themselves. And so, I think it’s interesting to hear as teachers are thinking about implementing entirely different types of academic programs, they’re thinking about how they need to approach the actual practice of teaching differently. Alison Tanker: Yeah, so in this section we’ll hear from Adam Colombo of St. Anne’s Belfield School, Surin Kim from University of Nebraska Lincoln, Sean Wheeler from Design Lab Early College High School, and then Annette Lesak from Francis W. Parker School, lastly we have Pam Reed from Columbus City Preparatory School for Girls, Adam Colombo: Oh, unbelievable amounts of resources in addition to just kind of the confidence to change what it is that I’ve been doing for the last decade. I told Doris this last night, that I have no doubt that I’ll be able to go back and do some of the entrepreneurship things that she’s done here in my pilot program, and that’s no longer part of my concern. Now, I’m having a hard time also teaching my math and economics courses with an older methodology, that I feel like I might be doing those students a disservice when I’m using a completely different set of ideals to teach my entrepreneurship program. And so, now my mind is going into, what is it that I want to change about my math and my economics courses that would start to institute a lot of the same kind of dynamic that I hope I can build in the entrepreneurship program. Surin Kim: I think second, really, kind of amazing thing about this workshop for me, was that you guys have a real kind of philosophy like behind backing this program, and it’s really not about just entrepreneurship, but it’s really about youth empowerment, it’s about the different process and how we are going to change the educational system to really empower youth for the future of the society. Sean Wheeler: I like the idea of descriptive teaching rather than prescriptive, almost everything we do in education is prescriptive. We have the standards, we have everything else, but really what happens in, from what I can tell in the videos I’ve seen, I’ve discussed this with educators who have gone through this before, is the idea that we’re describing to the students their learning. Right, so at the center of the learning isn’t some standard or objective, at the center of the learning is the experience of learning. You know learning is the most rarely used word in education. Right? You can go to any opening night of any school, in the upcoming months, and if you listen for the word learning, you won’t hear it. You’ll hear rules, social media and texting, cyberbullying, and a million things, tests and work, the word learning never comes up. And so, I really appreciate, during this conference, during these sessions, the absolute focus on the learning experience of the kid, unrelated to this very false prescriptive way of doing things. Annette Lesak: I honestly think it was my one-to-one with Doris, I think, that if I’m hearing that somebody else has the confidence in me to do what I need to do to prepare for this class, one of the things she said to me was that, like, “You are the artist, this is your canvas, you have the ability to customize this class,” in a way that pertains to my strengths and my goals for my students, so I think that was really empowering to hear that. Pam Reed: I think it’s the power of possibility. It’s not that you need permission in a public or urban school to do innovative things, but you kind of do. Like, you see the possibility of what works, like, it’s almost this tantalizing thing. It works in these other places, these private schools or these suburban schools or these other places, but how could it possibly work in our school? But the power of possibility is, absolutely. I mean, it is a mind shift, I think that’s the biggest thing, it is. But it’s almost like saying yes to something that like, this is who I am as a teacher. And saying yes, you have the permission to do this, number one, but these are all the amazing things that can happen once you do it, and seeing it, and getting a space to explore it is pretty amazing, so. Alison Tanker: Next up we have Julie Michael Smith from Youngstown State University, Beth Donavon from Falmouth High School, Lisa Raffa of Lakeside High School, Brent Powell of Derryfield School. Julie Michael Smith: And it’s really a treat to learn more, because I think there’s a lot of really compelling elements that particularly the districts and educators in my community can benefit from. So, this has been a great opportunity to learn about this teaching methodology, and I love that it’s the Korda Method, because I now I can finally give a name to it and call it something… Beth Donavon: You know, I’m very excited. I woke up in the middle of the night last night and I said, “This is not just a class, this is a way of teaching,” and if you can incorporate a little bit, I mean, I don’t mean to be repeating what Doris said, but you can incorporate a little into each class, and then a little bit more, you get more comfortable with it and the kids do, and they’re getting so much more out of your class. Lisa Raffa: Honestly, I came in and I thought to myself, “I’m getting old, I’ve been doing this for a long time, I really need a new spark.” I think it was energizing for me to meet all these people and this new methodology. I mean, throughout the years, I’ve learned a lot of different strategies, a lot of different instructional techniques. And I can say that I really do think that this is going to be very beneficial for me and for my building and for my community, which is one of the other reasons why I originally said I want to do something to better my community. Brent Powell: I’m so energized by this method. It’s the first, kind of, I don’t want to use a term that you all would use, but it’s the first kind of curriculum design kind of method and organization, like, understanding by design, when I first encountered it, was equally compelling, but this is more meaningful with student engagement, you know. Alison Tanker: In this final section you’ll hear from Jodie Woodruff of The Met School, Hollis Liggon, Christine Saunders and Kim Ware of Hutchison School, then Emily Macleish from Design Lab Early College High School and finally we will hear from Oscar Gomez and Julian Martinez of Suricata Labs Jodie Woodruff: So, we do a lot of individualized work with our students, but I’m really looking at how do I do group work in a more productive way that can benefit, like a mutual benefit between business and kids. And so, this is a really nice model that fits that, but I think we just take our foundation and build on it. I think these are the tools, that we really need to do that. Christine Saunders: For me, it’s the fact that you modeled a lot of possible ways to approach lessons, problems, even frameworks for coursework, activities, and what I’ve appreciated most is there are multiple inroads, so it doesn’t matter, our school’s resources vary greatly from some of the people we’ve met, but our school…and I say resources as time, money, space, site of students, teacher leaders, all of that, agency access, but there’s something for everybody to take away and even for our different grade levels I feel like I’m walking away with not just possibilities but manageable possibilities. Some that are three years out, some that are…we’re able to implement right now, this fall. I hope so. Hollis Liggon: Right. One of the most surprising takeaways for me, she labelled de-schooling, the idea that homework assignment, in advance we were given a homework assignment. It said, “Well, you can wait and do it that first night,” and I thought, well, I’m going to wait because clearly they’re going teach me what all these things mean and then I can go home and do my homework, it’ll be easy and fine, but you didn’t. And so I really had to struggle through it, and go back and look at my notes, and reread, and try and figure it out, and then I slept on it, there was that incubation period, and then I could kind of organize it, and while I still didn’t get it all perfectly, that whole exercise, and it didn’t take a ton of time, and it was scary to do. But it was so much more interesting, and we have a tendency as teachers, I think, to spoon-feed a lot of information, and by that I might even just mean, “Read these articles,” or, “Here are your questions and here’s where you can find the answer, now go do it,” but this felt more like I had to dig in and just maybe fail, which I don’t like doing. So, it was hard, but meaningful and rewarding and kind of energizing, and I like the thought of doing that with kids. One of them is the ability to question and to research something, not on the surface level but really dig down into research, and figure out what you need to know, and how you can find that out, and the problem-solving skills that they will learn. And then, the empowerment and confidence that comes from having done that successfully. Christine Saunders: Yeah, and for me, all of that, driven by putting yourself in a client’s shoes, or another’s shoes so that the empathy part of it, which we talked about and I think we do successfully in schools, but this is gonna be deeper and richer. And you can tell that because they’re, those questions that we want them to generate, are all going to have to come from another person’s needs, or another organization’s needs or whoever, or our school’s needs, when we’re doing in-house projects. Kim Ware: The students being here was really a plus to hear from them and to hear their experience just really kind of help me hone in on I should continue doing some things this way or mix it up and do it this way. I think that you did a really good job of actually giving us real and explicit and usable tools to help us go back and actually execute on what you doing. Emily Macleish: I would say I came into this thinking like entrepreneur meant one thing, and I think myself, like I got a brand new view of what this word means and what it can look like in a classroom, which was really exciting because I think, having taught a lot of the ninth graders last year, who had this like one-track mind, but also realizing that they could take off those blinders and explore the world around them to the extent that they’d never been allowed to before. I constantly was telling them last year “I don’t have to tell you what you have to do next. You can figure it out.” And they’re like “No, no, no, what do I do next? Where are the directions? I need a rubric.” But this kind of like, supported me and gave me the confidence to say, okay, they don’t need it, they can figure it out. But also that gave me the ability to have those tools, to like lift them up and guide them in the right direction. Oscar Gomez: It’s been amazing. I mean, to be completely honest, you totally changed our mind regarding what we could do and how we can impact the people we work with. We just came from Colombia, South America, so… Julian Martinez: Even though our expectations were high, I think, like it accomplishes…like 10 more of what we were expecting really. Because what we found, it was like, starting to do the things way differently. It’s not just about teaching entrepreneurship, it’s about developing skills for people and kids. And it’s at a totally different level that can also become just a new way of being in school. Just like any new system. Oscar Gomez: On top of that, it’s amazing to meet people who are thinking the same things. I mean, because sometimes you feel isolated, like am I crazy trying to change this? But to have, you know, the opportunity to meet other people which is inspiring as well, I mean, it’s not just you guys, it’s everyone who comes around, everyone has an idea, everyone is trying something different. And it just, it feels, a sense of community. And that’s amazing. I mean, it’s just not only the content, it’s also sharing and seeing and, you know, I’m feeling that you are not alone.   If you are interested in learning more about our training, visit our workshop page to learn more. 

In this episode, Doris speaks with Rachel Mullen, Upper School Spanish Teacher at Hawken School. Rachel shares how her students advanced their Spanish communications, cultural awareness, and collaboration skills by working on a creative project for a multicultural marketing agency. Doris: Hi, Rachel. Rachel: Hi, Doris. Doris: How are you? Rachel: I’m doing very well. How are you? Doris: I’m great. Excited to talk to you. So Rachel, tell everybody a little bit about yourself. Rachel: Well, great. My name is Rachel and I teach Spanish at Hawken Upper School and I’ve been teaching for 12 years and in my Spanish 4 Honors class, we study a unit on media and television. Before I started teaching Spanish at Hawken, I spent a year in the business world working at National City Bank in the Multicultural Marketing Department and so I wanted to incorporate my experiences in multicultural marketing into my classroom. I came to the workshop last summer because I wanted to find out ways to incorporate the principles that Doris and her team use in the entrepreneurship program into my classes. Doris: Yeah, so you wanted to learn how to use real world problems and all those methods along with it so… Rachel: Absolutely. Doris: So you…like everybody…you know, what I…what my goal is at the workshop is for everybody to get what they need to be able to implement a pilot of these methods and you’re a Spanish teacher in a high school class and before you get into the details, so you said and I remember. I remember you were struggling and the question was…all right, if…what I want them to do is…if I had these learning objectives, how can I set up a real problem that they’ll care about that will result in their learning this? And what…can you talk a little bit about what your learning objectives were for the students before you even get into the details of how you did it? Rachel: Yes. So my major learning objectives for this pilot was…so for students to be able to watch television commercials in Spanish that were produced for the Spanish speaking audiences and really be able to pick out the cultural values that were important to the Hispanic community, especially the Hispanic communities in the United States and how marketing…multicultural marketing agencies try to incorporate these core cultural values to market products and services to Hispanics in the United States. And then be able to apply their knowledge of the Spanish language and also the cultural knowledge that they deduced from watching the television commercials to create their own television commercial for the Spanish speaking people in the United States. Doris: And so you…as you have wanted for years, I’m sure, in this class, you wanted your students to learn, kind of deeply learn the norms and cultures of the Hispanic community, yes? Rachel: Yes, that’s correct. Doris: Talk about your pilot, what  you were trying to do, how you set it up and it went. Rachel: So I asked students to choose a product or service that they would like to advertise to the Hispanic communities in the United States and each student had a choice of what product or service that he or she thought was important and thought was worthy to make a television commercial for. And these products or services could have been products or services that they or their families used or it could be a product or a service that they thought would be worthy to advertise to Spanish speakers in the United States. And so at first they had to research the product or service and really be able to give details to convince their classmates that why this product or service was so important and so good that they wanted to make a television commercial in Spanish to advertise it to reach a larger population. And so my students came to class the first day prepared to give a one minute product pitch to their classmates in order to convince the other people in the class that why it would be worthwhile to advertise their product or service with the Spanish television commercial. Doris: And were these pitches in English or Spanish? Rachel: These pitches were in Spanish. Doris: That’s so cool. And then they voted and then what? Rachel: So my students voted on the products… my classes are small so we got to choose four products. And so after they voted, we started studying how to go about making a television commercial in Spanish and we saw many examples of television commercials in Spanish and also in English and one of the campaigns that we studied very well was the Got Milk? Campaign which is one of the longest and most successful marketing campaigns in the United States that has run in both Spanish and English. And this campaign began in English to the wide market in the United States and then Grupo Gallegos which is the multi culture marketing agency that took over the campaign in Spanish started producing television commercials and print ads and radio ads in Spanish a few years later. Doris: Oh, that’s interesting. So they studied this and they and what was the learning? What did it…what was it like when they were studying that? What did you see? Rachel: Well, this campaign was interesting to study because it was…everyone has seen a Got Milk? print ad or has seen a Got…you know, the famous mustache. So it was something that this advertising campaign was a campaign that was just so familiar to the students that they had seen it and they had seen many, many examples in English but they probably…I knew they probably hadn’t seen how multicultural marketing agency chose to market milk to Spanish speakers all across the United States. And so what we did was we first analyzed the messaging and the cultural values, the tone of the ad, the strategy that the advertisers were using in English and then I gave them a few minutes to say, “Okay. Now you are Grupo Gallegos. You are this multicultural marketing agency in California. The California Milk Processor Board has now hired you, the class, to market milk to Spanish speakers in the United States.” And I gave them a few minutes. Like who are the…to think about who are the celebrities that they’re gonna use. Are they gonna use celebrities like the Got Milk? Campaign did…does in English? What is the messaging? Who are the audience, you know? What is the slogan? What are you gonna do with that…the campaign slogan Got Milk? Are you going to keep, you know, translate it directly or are you going to transcreate the idea and keep the same messaging? And so they and to figure out how they would transcreate the message or how they would change the message, if at all. And so then, after we got their ideas flowing, we actually…we saw what Grupo Gallegos produced in Spanish to market milk. Doris: Oh, that’s really interesting. Rachel: And we saw print ads and also television commercials. And so the students really got to see, “Wow. There is…the messaging is different. In some ways, in some ways.” Doris: Yeah, yeah. Rachel: And comical, actually. Doris: Yeah. I was just gonna say so you’ve been teaching, for years you’ve been teaching in these Spanish courses. Rachel: Yes. Doris: Culture. And how was this interesting? I mean, it…I can tell from what you’re saying that they didn’t just straight up translate the English Got Milk? ads into Spanish. There was more to it than that and I think it’s really clever that you had them…before you showed them what was actually implemented, you had them think about themselves, what they would do and what they would consider. So how was that experience of the students engaging in a discussion or a thought process about culture…was that effective, was it different? Rachel: I found that it was very effective because instead of me lecturing and telling them, “These are the cultural values that you find in commercials across the board,” they really had to observe what they saw and what they heard and the language and the messaging that they were hearing in these commercials and deduce what exactly…and infer what they thought the cultural values and the cultural values were really important because if you don’t have that cultural connection, if that cultural connection is off, then you’re not going to be able to sell the product or service from an advertising perspective. Doris: And they already at this point…so they’ve…they already know that they’re going to be creating their own commercial after this? Rachel: Yes. Doris: And they’re gonna be showing it to an audience that includes people who really know their stuff and you’ll get to that later? Rachel: Yes. Doris: So they’re motivated in a big way to learn from this because they know they’re gonna have to apply it themselves? Rachel: Absolutely. So the students got to see a lot of different examples. Not only from the Got Milk? Campaign but I also carefully chose television commercials in Spanish and English from a bunch of different companies. For example, Home Depot, MasterCard, McDonald’s and a number of other companies that advertise in the United States to both English speaking population and the Spanish speaking population. Doris: And again, they were totally engaged through all of that? Rachel: Yes, yes. And they had to analyze the differences that they saw and also present in front of the class what is the messaging, what is the tone, who is the audience, what is the slogan and how…and then…in English and then also in Spanish how did that messaging change or how did the audience change or how did the tone change and also what are the cultural values. What do we value in the United States versus…and how do advertisers connect with their audience versus how do advertisers in marketing agencies connect with their audience in Spanish. And so they really got to see a lot of examples as a way to prepare them for making their own commercial. Doris: Oh, that’s fantastic. And then when they had voted for the top products and you formed teams? Rachel: Yes. So my students voted for the top four or five products or services that they wanted to make television commercials for and I asked them to rank on a piece of paper the top three products that they would like to help make a commercial for. And so I gave all students either their first or second choice for the product or service that they wanted to make their commercial for. And I think every student was happy with the team that they were on as far as their interests in the product or service. Doris: Wow. So then what? Rachel: So then…that was watching many examples and analyzing examples and the Got Milk? Campaign and the other…the other different companies that advertise in both Spanish and English. After that, we got to speak with a multicultural marketing executive who works for a multicultural marketing agency in Denver, Colorado. And my students got to speak with her and also one of her creative team members who’s a native Spanish speaker and my students got to ask all types of questions to these multi cultural marketing gurus about making TV commercials or how to go about it and they got to speak in Spanish with these two women and got to receive all types of advice about how to get started, what to look for, what type of messaging they think they should have and so my students really got to ask the experts. They only had about 20 – 25 minutes to ask their questions and receive advice about how to go about making a television commercial. So that was our next step. Doris: And I know…our teachers are finding they’re…some of them surprised that they…people out in the industry are really, really happy to give a half hour of phone call to a bunch of high school kids. And why is…talk about what that half hour or 20 minute call did for your students. In terms of their engagement? Rachel: So that half an hour call really gave them I think motivation, number one, to create a worthwhile product knowing that experts were going to be viewing their television commercial when they were…when it was completed. I think it also gave the projects its own type of autonomy and really, really let the students know that, “Wow. There are people in the world that use Spanish in a real life setting and create television commercials and create messages and these messages are very, very, very important in how they reflect cultural values and give information to Spanish speakers in the United States.” Doris: Yeah, I think it’s so important that you did that.  think bringing the real world in and having the students go out and experience…wow, this really…this is real stuff. I agree…a huge motivator. So then they leave that 20 minute call and they’re really motivated and then what did you do? Rachel: So that night my students had a journal entry that they had to work on and in this journal entry I gave them many different questions, many different reflection questions about how they were going to approach writing the television scripts. And so this journal entry…it wasn’t long. Not a long reflection but I wanted them to come to the table with some ideas so that they could use their work time well. A couple of the questions that I included in their pre-group work journal entry was, who is the target audience? What is the tone? What do you think the tone of the commercial should be? What are the cultural values that you’re gonna try to include? What is the messaging gonna be like? What do you want the audience to think, feel and do with the information that you’re gonna give them about your product or service? And so there was a lot to think about. Also, what is the product or service? What are some adjectives in Spanish that you would use to describe your product or service. And so the students really had to come prepared to use their work time well and I think that’s super, super, super important. And I also wanted to give credit to everyone for coming prepared to work together so that they not only were using their work time well but that they came to the table with some valuable ideas that they wanted the group to think about. Doris: Yeah. I mean, you heard me say this a bunch in the workshop but what you just said is so important that in order to learn things in such a way that you can really apply them in a lot of context… you have to not only apply it but you have to reflect. You have to have that time to reflect on what you’ve learned and make those connections and think about the why. So I love the assignment that you gave them and what…and when you placed it. Really important. So then they…as a team in whatever class time you had and this is a single class. They’re working as a team to produce their commercial. What was that like? Rachel: It was interesting to watch the students come in with their ideas and the work is all going on in Spanish. So they’re negotiating…they’re accomplishing a real life task in Spanish. Number one, they’re practicing the language and number two, they’re really learning how to negotiate ideas and put together moving…different moving pieces to try to create a coherent interesting, engaging, one minute television spot. So it was interesting to watch them figure all that out in one class period and that was an 80-minute class period. So they had to work efficiently and whatever they didn’t finish for homework was for homework. So they had to figure out how to work outside of class if they needed extra time. Doris: So along the way, these teams are working and they’re creating this and then what’s their deadline look like? What do they know they were up against? Rachel: I gave them a class period to work together and then after that they had to…the next…the following class period they had to turn in a rough draft of a script, of their television script to me. And it’s not long. It’s only a minute but they really had to incorporate a lot of different details into a one minute television commercial. And I told them that was gonna be the hardest part, to be able to get the good stuff in there and your messaging and your audience and your tone in there in that short amount of time. And that’s really I think was the hardest part for the students to pick and choose what was important and also to eliminate what was not important. And some of the groups did really well with writing a rough draft of their television script and other students really missed the ball. Other groups really missed the ball and it was hard too to give them that feedback. Like, “Oh, I think you really need to begin over.” But that was a great lesson I think for some of the students because in marketing, there are tight deadlines with advertising especially and so it was kind of a taste of the real world. Like, “I don’t think this is going to work. I think we need to rework some things.” And so…but they did it and they came back with it. They came back and took my feedback into consideration and they did it. Doris: So they had the iterations and they had to refine and they got feedback and they had to revise and refine and recreate and so what…ultimately, when all was said and done and they were finished with their commercials, what did that look like? What did they…were these written commercials? Did they produce videos? Rachel: Yeah, they produced the videos and the students were given also one day to film in class. And they could also have filmed outside of class but I gave them an entire 80-minute block to film and I told them that I would help them with whatever they needed to film, if they needed someone to hold the camera or whatever they needed that I would be able to help them with that. So they had one block to film. Doris: And when they were done, they had a deadline and they sent those to be reviewed and evaluated by the same women they had spoken to at the beginning of this. Rachel: The multicultural marketers were able to view these videos ahead of time but the students didn’t know that. And so when we came to class, we…you know, once the videos were submitted, I set up another Skype call with the two women out of the multicultural marketing firm in Denver and the students got to present their videos or their TV commercials to the marketers and received real live feedback from experts. And, you know, and they were very honest which was really, really, really good. And the honest feedback was just incredible because the students were able to I think receive the feedback a little bit, I don’t know, easier but it was more valued because these are experts in the field. It’s not me, just the Spanish teacher, giving them feedback. It’s real experts. If they were really to air these commercials, these are some of the critiques or things that they would have taken into consideration before airing or even producing the commercial. Doris: Oh wow. And this is all being done in Spanish?   Rachel: Yes, absolutely. All the feedback was being given in Spanish.   Doris: And so…and so tell me like what do you think what happened there with the whole thing? Was it a good experience as a teacher? What did you experience? Rachel: I thought it was great. The students got to interact with experts in the marketing field and so the pilot was I think given a lot of credibility in that respect because they were getting feedback from people who do this for a living and breathe it in day in and day out and know what’s good and what’s not as far as creating television spots. And I also thought it was really interesting to see how the groups worked through issues and if there was a problem that arose, who kinda brought the team together to figure out how to fix the problem. Doris: So what are the things your students learned? They definitely learned that creating a television spot is a messy process. I think that it’s not cut and dry and sometimes the first idea, the first iteration of a television script might not be the one that you should go with to produce a TV spot and that’s okay. And that’s okay. It’s okay not to have a great idea the first time. I think that’s a really important message. Great ideas don’t come about the first time most of the time, you know, and it takes a group of people to really sit around the table and give and take and really try to collaborate together and respect one another’s ideas at the same time. I also hope that my students learned a little bit about the process of creating a TV spot as well, especially some of the main points, the takeaways that they learned from speaking with the two women in the multicultural marketing firm in Denver as well. Doris: So if I, you know, if I’m a parent, a Hawken parent and I say, “Hey, but Rachel, you know, you’re this incredible Spanish teacher and you’re teaching at this college prep school and you’re teaching honor’s level Spanish classes etc. Great but I’m not sure I really care that my kid knows how to create a commercial. This was Spanish class.” What did they learn academically in this? Like is this academic to you? Is this school? Rachel: Absolutely, first of all, I think they learned that they can apply…there are careers out there that they can apply their knowledge of the Spanish language and then their knowledge of the Hispanic culture, the different Hispanic cultures to the business field and that what they’re learning is a very specific skill that they can apply to and actually expand their knowledge in other career fields that they might not know have existed. That’s the first thing. Doris: So it’s relevant. It’s absolutely relevant and especially how the Spanish…the Hispanic population is growing in the United States. Having the specific skill and the skill set especially of speaking another language and being able to understand, begin to understand different cultures is huge. Doris: Wow. That’s massive. So were they engaged? Was it…how do you feel about it? How is it different for you and how was it for you as a teacher? Rachel: So I really enjoyed this project and I hope to do it again in years to come and I really think that giving the students choice is really, really, really important because once you give them choice, I relinquished control of the classroom in a way and because I was able to give up some of this control and give them, give my students choice in what they were going to make a commercial for, that was meaningful and I think that they really enjoyed having say in the process. Doris: Well, and it…from what I’ve heard about how your pilot went, it sounds like all your students were really, really engaged and that’s all of us as teachers hope for and it’s hard to get. Rachel: Yes, they were. They were engaged and I think they were able to apply what they…their background knowledge of the language to really use their creativity and teamwork to create something original, which is very special. Doris: Yeah. So you…I remember very clearly at the workshop that at the beginning you were really struggling with, “I don’t know these methods. How can I apply them in a Spanish class?” And how do you feel about that now? Rachel: I hope to do it more. And I hope to think of ways to include problems that are real and matter to the students and to use authentic audiences as much as possible in other ways. Doris: And all these methods that you’ve employed and executed so well. Rachel, I’m very excited and I think your pilot was a phenomenal success and I’m really excited to see what you do in the rest of your courses. Rachel: And thank you. Thank you for this. Thank you for talking with me. Doris: Yay. Thanks for talking with me.

In this episode, Doris Korda speaks with Janez Gorenc, an English teacher at Gimnazija Novo Mesto in Slovenia. Janez shares his journey to teach entrepreneurship in order to change education for his students so that they develop practical, essential skills and knowledge. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Doris: Hi, Janez. Janez: Hi, Doris. Doris: How are you? It’s great to talk to you. Janez: Oh, I’m very fine thanks. I’ve been spending the week in Oswego, upstate New York, with a couple of students. Doris: Nice, Janez. If you could start by talking about yourself, what you do. And why you think entrepreneurship education, why you’ve been so passionate about this kind of education in Slovenia and with your students?   Janez: So, as you said I come from Slovenia. I’ve taught English for 21 years at the Novo Mesto Gymnasium. The Novo Mesto is my town. And about seven years ago or eight years ago, I came up with the idea that… because my school is sort of like a general education school, I came up with the idea that we needed to implement entrepreneurship into education because, students, I thought or I believed, were not getting enough practical knowledge, practical skills. So, I started implementing certain programs that I thought were entrepreneurship programs into my English classes. It was, of course, all about business plans and selling soap and or lemonade stands. Then, later on, I joined a program which was international and it was a multi-schools. So I learned about different methodologies. I learned about doing it the startup way, doing it the lean startup way. Later on, when I started connecting with the ecosystem, you know, the startup ecosystem, I learned also design thinking, the Google-Sprint. Basically, what I started doing was connecting to people outside of education, reading blogs about stuff that is outside of education. And yet, I found how much education there is in there. Because basically, startup as Steve Blank says, of course, you’re learning about your scalable and repeatable business model. So you have to learn, you have to go out, get out of the building, test your hypothesis. And I said, “Wait a minute, but this is education. It’s just education in the real world.” So I started implementing it in my afterschool to some entrepreneurship as such is afterschool activities now. I started implementing this in my afterschool activities. I saw that it was headed for a dead end because I cannot lecture Lean Startup, I cannot lecture “Get out of the building.” And then I heard about this Doris Korda from Hawken, and I thought, “Okay, what is this all about?” And I read about you in the Steve Blank blog. Here’s someone who finally is doing entrepreneurship the right way and not the “lemonade stand” way. And I read about, you know, how you do it with authentic challenges. So, of course, I got very, very enthusiastic. We connected over LinkedIn. You invited me over to, you know, “Do you want to come to the workshop?” I said, “Yeah, maybe some other time. I can do it on my own.” And I tried with the challenges and of course, it didn’t work. But slowly, slowly, slowly, I was trying out new things. And then, finally, when I did come to Cleveland which was last year. Even though I’d read about it, for me, it was an epiphany, in a way. When I heard what your curriculum is all about. And it’s interdisciplinary. And it is, you know, teamwork all through the semester. And it isn’t, you know, your regular testing but it is basically…I don’t even remember how you give them grades, sorry. But… Doris: That’s okay, that’s great. I’m glad you don’t remember that. It’s so not important. Janez: No, it’s not, because it’s the process that’s important. And I saw some of your students what they became. I also picked up on the de-schooling process, which is so important. And it has, you know, “If you don’t do that it will always backfire.” And I heard other teachers also, from other American schools, private schools, some public schools. I met Australian teachers and they were all coming up against the same…let’s call them challenges. And I thought, “Okay, schools are very, very similar to one another everywhere.” And I sort of felt, “Okay, so in Slovenia, we’re not that bad. Actually, we’re pretty good in this.” And when I came back, I was determined to start things completely differently. I said, “Okay, I’m going to implement great changes. I’m going to do a revolution, both in my English class as well as my entrepreneurship class. And in my English class, I reset my classroom. In some classes, from where I stand, they were doing wonderful jobs. I gave them a challenge…like for instance, they were taking a mountain trip and I gave them a challenge of “Okay, you’re going to the mountains. So, what are you going to take in your backpacks? What food are you going to pack? What clothes are you going to pack?” This is all vocabulary in English. “What’s the weather going to be? So how are you going to prepare? What’s the terrain going to be like?” And they had to look. They had to look at the weather forecast, they had to look at the terrain, you know, on Google Earth or and I don’t know Wikipedia and present reports. “This is what we’re going to wear, this is what we’re going to take with us because so and so and so.” I didn’t write anything on the board, first hand. Of course, they did all the research and then they made the presentations. Then I wrote a lot on the board. But somehow, this didn’t work for them. I still haven’t figured out why. Basically, what it did was in like four or five months it…I’m going to use some wordplay here… it wildly backfired. And then I had to revert to traditional teaching, which I hate, which I really hate. But at that point there was no other way, I just had to write everything on the board and they copied it in their notebooks and then reproduced it on the test, and then it was okay. I was appalled by this, by my own failure. But sometimes, it just doesn’t work. In other classes, it works wonderfully. Doris: This is so interesting, why do you think that it backfired? What do you think happened?   Janez: What I think happened…this is my perspective, so it’s assumptions, right? But my assumptions, and based on some research, at the end of the school year, we have our Matura tests, which is like SATs in America or A Levels in Britain. And they get points. The kids get points on these Matura tests. And these points then are open doors to different colleges. And some colleges, like medical, for instance, is very, very hard to get in, and you need lots of points. And you also need lots of points on your regular grades, which we give. Like in English, in two semesters, every student gets at least six grades. Which means four written tests and two oral tests in English alone. And they’re under a lot of pressure. And I think, I believe that the main reason why they come to our school or any school is to get good or as many points as possible, as easily as possible, to get into their desired college. And knowledge or skills that they get is secondary, in most cases. This is what I believe. And I know that kids are getting stressed out about this Matura earlier and earlier. And they literally believe that if they fail in June, if they don’t get enough points, they’re going to become, I don’t know, rubbish collectors. But if they do well then, you know, Golden Highway to Heaven is open for them. And nothing else can go wrong. Doris: So what you’re saying…. this is so interesting. So, they’re learning English by doing research, creating a presentation and a solution. to this. What would you take with you? What do you need? But it doesn’t…and probably, I base this on my own 21 years of teaching. They actually would end up learning English more deeply and better, and would probably perform better on those standard English tests. But they don’t know that, and they’re getting worried because you’re not feeding them the vocab words in the usual way and they’re thinking, “Oh, my gosh, I’m not getting prepared for the test.” Is that…? Janez: Exactly. Doris: Yeah, so you just kind of summed up the state of education globally, and what we’re all fighting against. You know, when I was teaching math, and as you know I taught math for 14 years and developed these different methods. As a math teacher, I experienced what you’re talking about in a huge way. That was the de-schooling that I had to do as a math teacher. And the other math teachers teaching the same courses that I was teaching, we were all supposed to cover…I’m making this up but let’s say chapters 1 through 12 in a textbook, and in the first several weeks, sometimes months of the class, the other teachers teaching the same class could point to their progression. “Oh, I’m on section 2.1, then tomorrow is 2.2, then tomorrow is 2.3.” And in the beginning of the class, I wanted to make sure students had the deep foundational knowledge of the concepts and really deep understanding. So I wasn’t following along in the textbook. And the other teachers would look at where I was and they were worried about me and my students. But then, in the second part, after we got through that, the students in my classes not only completed all those chapters worth of content much more quickly than in the other classes, but they ended up with much higher test scores. And the reason wasn’t that the difference in the students or the difference in teachers, it was the different in the methodology. But in the beginning, you know, the parents and students looking at my class versus the other classes, if they had done that comparison, may also have been worried. Does that sound similar to what you’re talking about? Janez: It does sound similar when you said they were worried about you, that is exactly what is sometimes happening to me. I’m not saying any teachers are worried about me, but some students, I get the feeling, are worried because they cannot compare the way I teach with how other teachers teach, and they don’t know whether they’re doing anything at all. This is how I feel, that they are feeling. And I tried to…I don’t know, calm them down. Individual conversations. You know, “Why do you worry so much.” And try to present the rationale about why I teach the way I teach, and because this is the only way I believe teaching or learning can be done. I mean, that is the best way learning can be done. But still, sometimes, I struggled with this myself. So, “Am I doing the right thing?” You know, “Am I… sorry, screwing everything up for them?” I just don’t know. I feel I’m doing the right thing, but I just don’t know. Doris: Well it’s hard when you’re alone, right? Janez: Yeah, I mean alone. Okay, so obviously, things are catching up. I’m very, very happy to say. Things are catching up. Like I said, in Slovenia, we are getting to the entrepreneurship things. The startup methodology, which you use, and we use here, have caught on really, really fast. And the teachers who are doing this…except, and even in business schools. Even though their curriculum does not use this. They still use, as far as I know, the business plan stuff. The teachers there are catching on very quickly because they can see that it doesn’t work. And many, many of them are using the startup methodology, Lean Startup Methodology. Many of them don’t even know what it’s called, but they just use it because they’ve heard about it somewhere. The ecosystem that I mentioned also is very strong. I’m part of that ecosystem so I help whenever I can. For teachers, for instance, every fall we have startup weekends for teachers that are not meant so much to produce new companies but are meant to give teachers or allow teachers to get to know new methodologies and use them in practice while they are there. And this is great. Not 40,000 teachers, of course, have done this but several hundred have, and they’re the ones that are trying to implement new methodologies…I will say more realistic and better ones. It is also very, very important to have absolute support and trust from the school’s leadership. I have a headmistress who supports what I do, I think, anyway 100%. Doris: It seems like it, it sure seems like she does. I mean, it’s really exciting, yeah. Janez: Yeah, I mean, if I may just in a story. So, these two girls that are here on the entrepreneurship competition. We won the national competition amongst 64 teams, they came out the best. They qualified for Oswego. And of course, they needed this and that papers. And then there’s another team which has been invited to our best startup accelerator in Lubiana, that’s in the capital city. Doris: Another one of your teams? Janez: Another one of my teams, yes. It’s more like a satellite team because they were in the club on and off. But they didn’t need to be because they are so driven. And they needed to skip the last month of school, they needed some money that they got as a donation transferred to the accelerator from the schools, they needed to buy a web domain, they needed to buy some logo stuff. And the headmistress needed to approve this. You know, I’ve heard of headmasters around in different schools complicating. You wouldn’t believe, but our headmistress, she just said, “What do you need? Yeah sure, just give me the papers.” She signed them, no questions asked. And I mean, I must…I hope she isn’t listening. But it’s such a relief to have someone on the other side who is listening to you, and she just understands what you want and no complications. “Yes sure, let’s do it.” Doris: Janez, I don’t think it’s just a relief. I think it actually essential. I think for these things…it’s one thing to do startup weekends, pitch competitions. And those are good things. But what you’re trying to do, which is very difficult work. You’re an in-school teacher trying to change the way academics are delivered and done in school. And to have the support of the leadership of your school is essential. You can’t do it otherwise. Janez: Yeah, yeah, definitely. These are the key players and if they’re not in on it then you can do anything. You struggle. Doris: So tell me about what this has been for these two girls that are your students that are with you? Talk about what has this done for them. What have you seen? What has the learning been like for them? Janez: Well, okay. So, I admire them all the more because they’re final years. While everybody else or all of their schoolmates have been preparing for Matura in the last three months, they have literally…I mean, they came to me in the end of February and they said, “Okay, you know, we have honey production at home, and we’d like to make some money. You know, we have made some lip balm, we would like to sell it. Can you help us out?” And I said, “Okay, so let’s be a bit more ambitious than this. Let’s try to you know, make a business model. And then there’s this competition, by the way, probably not interested, but let’s try to get in there. And you know, just write a business model.” And they had to do the Doris Korda authentic challenge methodology that you do or is normally done in one semester, in like two weeks. And I said, “Okay, right.” And fortunately, the boyfriend of one of them is also on the team that is in the accelerator now. So he helped them out. But you know, when they sent me their first business model about their lip balm, what I did…and they took it against me at the time, I know, they were very angry. Then they would have killed me. But what I did was I didn’t go and correct it in the tests. “No, no, no, no, no, I’ll correct. I’ll write it instead of you.” You know, like some sometimes it’s done. But I just wrote…it was in Google Docs obviously, and I just wrote comments. I just said, “No, this doesn’t work. Write it the other way.” “Do you really think so?” You know, I asked them questions that I gave them like, “Honey. Look into the honey market. Look into the honey cosmetics market.” And I just gave them like 100 links. “Look into this.” And they only had like five days to come up with a viable business model. I’m lucky I wasn’t there when this was going on at home because I heard several stories. And you know, Doris, I have no hair left, almost. So I mean, it was agonizing. Doris: Well, because if I may say…and this is why when you try to do this as an afterschool club and you get kids excited to do it because they think they’re going to do fun pitches and then they find it’s really hard work, this is why so many drop out. Because what you did is you forced these girls to do the research, to do the homework, to validate, to have evidence-based, data-backed solutions. And they don’t want to, they want to just say, “Here’s what I think we should do. Isn’t this great?” Pat pat. Janez: Yeah exactly, but they persisted. They persisted, they worked like you know, deadline is midnight, Monday midnight. They worked, I think, till 11:45 p.m. and then they sent it. Not expecting anything, they said, “Ah, we’re newcomers, this is a waste of time.” But then they got into the finals, they were among the top 10. And while the other teams, I think, were pretty complacent. “Ah what we did, we’ll just pitch.” They worked for the whole 10 days like crazy. Improving, improving, improving on their business model. And when they went and they pitched, they blew everybody away. And as I said, I mean, I have to consider, while their schoolmates were studying for the Matura, preparing for the Matura, they were doing this. And I must say I was shocked when I saw some of their photos that they were selling their lip balm. You know, inside the Junior Achievement Program. You can do this. They looked so young and fresh, and rested. And if I saw them like two months later, Doris, I was shocked. I said, “Jesus, you know, what have I done? What have I done?” They looked like 10 years older. But they studied so hard for their exams. Even now, when we’re here on campus, they were preparing for the exams. When we get back…by the way, I get back home tomorrow on Sunday. On Monday morning, at 6:00 a.m. I’m in school, in my suit and tie, getting ready for the oral examinations. But so are they. Doris: So they’re studying now for the Matura. But Janez, I have a question? Janez: Yes. Doris: Think about these two girls at the very, very beginning when you first met them, and then now. And talk about what have they learned, what is their growth been? What do you think has come out of all this? It’s really exciting that they won and that out of 64 teams they’re brought to the U.S. for this competition. But what do you think the learning has been for these two girls? Janez: Well, that’s the more exciting part. I mean, yeah, coming to the United States is always exciting, but in the end, as teachers, “Okay, what did they learn?” Well, I will say that they have grown immensely as people. They have learned that…just yesterday, when we were coming home from the Niagara trip, we went to the Niagara Falls. We had a good conversation on the bus. And they said, “You know what, three months ago, before I started this, everything I started was, ‘Ah I can’t do this, I can’t do this. It’s too hard, it’s too hard.’” They said, “But now, look, I mean, anything I do, it is hard but I know I can do it.” So this is maybe…they don’t share everything with me, you know, they’ve had enough of me. But they’re frank and they’re open about this. They’re very, very open in their conversation with me what they liked, what they didn’t like about my methodology. As I said, they held it against me that I didn’t write the pitch instead of them. But now, you know, they’re here now. Doris: Now they’re proud. Now they know they can do anything. Janez: Exactly, and also when, you know, they did interviews for admissions, there’s another team from Slovenia and they got invitations to these interviews, and the two girls just tagged along, they came along. And you know, they asked questions…this guy, I didn’t wanna ask any questions for them. I said, “Okay well, you know, if you wanna get in, you’ll ask questions. I’m not doing anything for you. I’m not going to study in the United States.” And they asked very, very relevant questions. And they got enthusiastic about it and they said, “You know what, I could actually come and work here.” Well, you know it costs money, but then, of course, you can get the grant and you can do this and that, and you have to do the SATs.” And “Yeah, no problem.” I mean, if I compare their mindset to the mindset of your let’s say, average regular high school kid. They’re talking about what would be for some of them, insurmountable challenges, for them, it’s, “You know, we’ll do this in April. We’ll do this in February. In the meantime, we’ll try to sell some stuff and you know, earn money. And then, “Oh yeah, there’s these girls we’ve connected with from Cambodia, let’s you know, maybe try to start a collaboration with them and go there, you know, just on holiday, yada yada…” And I said, “Wow.” I didn’t know them before. I don’t teach them otherwise. I don’t teach them English and they were not in the entrepreneurship class. But I feel that they have grown and gotten aged too, I’m afraid. But they’ve grown so much. They’ve grown so much. Doris: Well, so you here’s my question, Janez. I’ve watched you. I’ve seen you. You have been absolutely devoted tirelessly to being a pioneer in these things and as you’ve done a very good job of describing this, it’s really hard. What do you believe this can mean for Slovenia? Why are you continuing to push this so much with Slovenian educators and education? Janez: Okay, so usually, I’m not a sports fan, okay? I don’t have my favorite football team. I don’t have my favorite basketball team or any kind of team. I do some jogging and that’s it. But when asked about favorite teams I say, “Well, you know, my favorite team has 2 million players. And I wanna see them win. And I’ll do anything I can to help. And that’s Slovenia.” I am very, you know, proud of my country. And it’s very difficult to define “proud.” I think, you know, when you’re proud of your country then you see everything that’s wrong with it, and you are…I don’t watch the news, by the way, I feel sick when I watch the news. Doris: Yes, me too. Janez: But still, you know, personally, I’ve turned from a guy who…20 years ago when I see myself. A guy who complained about things, a guy who doesn’t do anything because it cannot be done, into a person who now…and I’m quite proud of this. Every person…even maybe I don’t get that well along with them, you know, some teachers some…but I try to find what’s best in them. And I try to find, “Okay, what can we do together?” And you have a school full of teachers who will not do project work, who will not do authentic challenges. Okay, a whole school of teachers that’s a bit over generalizing. How many can, for instance. And I will go and I will find them. And I will try to work with them or they will try to work with me. Not very easy, I must say. I’m not an easy person to work with. But no, difficult to admit but I do have… Doris: Hey, I was with you. I don’t see that. I think you’re delightful to work with. I loved working with you. But keep going. Janez: Yeah, and my vision…right now, for instance, entrepreneurship in schools has been done mostly by dedicated and devoted teachers, like myself. That’s why I said the start of methodology has been implemented so widely otherwise, it would not have been. And the government institutions that supported this were mostly coming from different sectors, other sectors than the education sector. Now, the education sector has…okay, I’ll use a term “woken up a little bit” in this respect or there are some determined people there, and they’re determined to catch up because they also see. And they’re in the ministry, top positions. But they see that this type of education isn’t going anywhere. Of course, we also… Doris: Meaning the current type of education isn’t going anywhere. Janez: Current type of education. And just like me, seven years ago, “Okay, we need good entrepreneurs, so let’s do entrepreneurship in school.” Yeah, I still think we need great entrepreneurs and I’m doing everything in this field. But as you also say very often, entrepreneurship teaching can be used as a vessel for anything, any kind of teaching, right? Because in the end, if you’re learning something, well, why not learn how to do something for other people and make it usable for them? So that is the essence of entrepreneurship. And I see, like the Ministry of Education has a plan or I don’t know whether it’s a plan or a dream. But to implement entrepreneurship into all schools primary, secondary, and university within six years. Now, this is a challenge…I don’t see how it how it will be done. I’m trying to…okay, this is a bit ambitious, but I’m trying to get into the team that is going to do this because I feel, of course, I have the competencies. And I feel that this is the right way forward done properly because I believe that if you do this, maybe you start by saying, “Okay, we need great entrepreneurship and we need the subject of entrepreneurship.” But as you look into the ecosystem and how it’s done and the interdisciplinary stuff you come to realize…and that’s why I’m so happy that we’re having a workshop in the fall… Doris: Yes, I’m excited to come to it. I really am. So excited. Janez: So, well, you know, I’ll try to bring as many key people there responsible because I feel that, you know, in order to get from, “Okay, we need entrepreneurship” to “We can do it this way.” You have to walk a certain path. I did, and many people will have to also, in order to be able to see that you cannot teach about entrepreneurship you have to do this and do it in the Wildfire way. Meaning authentic challenges, interdisciplinary. And I’m really excited about this. Doris: Well, Janez, I am too and I’m very excited about your team. And you’re a phenomenal team leader, I have to say. Thank you so much for talking to me today. Janez: Thank you, also Doris, for having me on this podcast. It was a great privilege and great honor for me. And I must say I look forward to collaborating with you, and Wildfire in any way possible in the future… Doris: Well, we’ll put on a great workshop in October. Janez: Yeah, definitely. And using your methodology in school or anything I might be doing. Because in the end, just like some people say, “entrepreneurship is everywhere, entrepreneurs are everywhere.” Well, education is also. Doris: That’s right. Thank you, Janez. Janez: Thank you, very much Doris. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode, Doris speaks with Ben Leslie-Bole, environmental science educator at Athenian School in Danville, California. He discusses how his student’s work on a water retention project led to collaborative skill-building, meaningful discoveries about science, and informed solutions for their school’s CFO. Doris: Thanks for talking to me, Ben. I’m very excited to talk to you. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself? Ben: I’d be happy to, Doris. So I’m a geologist by training and had a 30-year career as an environmental consultant, and I realized that one of the things that I’ve always wanted to do is to teach high school. Doris: Wow. Ben: So, last year I retired from environmental consulting and picked up a new career of teaching high school students. I had just finished my first semester as a teacher, and I was fortunate enough to start working at an independent school here in the San Francisco Bay area that has been enthusiastically embracing experiential education. Doris: That’s so exciting. And so why did you come to the workshop? Ben: Well, I was in the middle of the transition from my old career to the new career and I really wanted something that would get me thinking along the lines of experiential education and update my thinking about teaching. I attended the workshop because it looked like an exciting opportunity to incorporate something new and a little edgy, perhaps, into experiential education. And I was certainly stimulated by attending the workshop. Doris: That’s great. Well, and you were taking on being a high school teacher. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So, coming out of the workshop, you’ve had a year now of doing these courses. Tell us about what you did this past year, what you taught. Ben: Well, I taught two classes in which I used what I learned from the workshop. The first is a class called California Water. It was a team taught class with two other teachers. We had a photography component, a literature component, and a science component, I’m the science teacher. And the class looked at all issues around the water in California, especially interesting this year with a record-setting wet year on the tail of a record-setting four years of drought. So, very interesting time. Doris: How many students, what age? Ben: The California Water class with all seniors, we had six students this year, so a very small class, and I provided some really wonderful one-on-one time to explore different ways of teaching and different ways of learning. Doris: Well, and it’s a great thing with a pilot, right, to have…your pilot year, to have a smaller group that you can work with. Ben: It was fortuitous to have a small group. It happened to be the second year of offering the class, so it was in some ways both piloting the class and piloting the teaching methodology. So those two pieces work together well. Doris: That’s wonderful. And what was the other class? Ben: The other class is a class that’s been offered at the school for a number of years. It’s an environmental science class, and I stepped in as a substitute teacher when the teacher who was there had to leave for medical reasons. And as a result, I had a new class for me of all seniors and most of the spring semester in which to work with them around the projects and using some of the methodologies that I learned from the workshop. Doris: Can you talk about that class, and what you wanted the students to learn, what were the objectives, and how you set it up, and what happened?   Ben: I went into that class with the idea of making the entire class a project. So rather than the conventional lecture time, classroom time, and that kind of thing, I started right in the beginning using the concept of experiential education, and field trips, and outside work, and outside resources. So I told them right from the beginning that they were going learn two things. One of them was the natural history of the campus and the area surrounding the campus and the second thing was to learn effective presentation skills. And they were a little reluctant at the beginning, but I think I had a lot of passion for both of those components. And I think it motivated them, and I saw amazing growth, and enthusiasm, and a wonderful sense of a rapport, and ultimately a group project that really brought the class together well. Doris: Wow. So what were they actually working on? What were they tasked with? Ben: They were tasked with developing components, actually, individual pages for a guidebook to the natural history of the campus. Our campus is located at the foot of Mt. Diablo. It’s a beautiful campus adjacent to a beautiful state park, and we had the resources of the park and the campus to draw from. They put together…each of them had an assignment to prepare a page for several different species of birds, several different species of trees in addition to the different habitats present both on campus and in the Mt. Diablo area. And they studied each of those components, each of those species, and made a two-minute presentation every day on what they learned the day before. Doris: Oh, interesting. You said you were amazed by the growth. What made them care about doing it? And well, let me start with that, why did they care about what they were doing? Ben: I think there are two reasons that they cared about what they’re doing. The first reason was that they took the class around environmental science to learn something about the natural world, the environment that they live in. So there was an inherent level of interest, I think, in the topic, to start with. When I introduced the notion of a guidebook, I think what sparked them was the idea of actually leaving a legacy, there are seniors who are about to graduate. And I think they had an enthusiasm for their campus and their broader community and they wanted to leave a record, they wanted to leave a tool, something that they can give back to the community and to the school, and they were really excited about leaving a guidebook that would help others after them understand what grows on campus, what animals are on campus, what trees, what grasses, what habitats. Doris: Yeah, so it was something they would actually be a real…used leave-behind by others. So you said that you brought in other people and other resources, how did you do that? Ben: I contacted the park service, the state park system, and their Docent program, and was able to arrange a number of docents from the park to either join us on field trips within the park or to come on to campus with their insights and their knowledge to help us learn more about what was going on around us. I also drew from a local wildlife museum who brought…who had docents that brought in live animals, for example, and gave the students a chance to actually see some of the creatures that live in the environment around them. Doris: Wow, that’s crazy. You are teaching in a magical place and at a magical school that you can do these things. Most people can’t, that’s terrific. So what about the other class? I’d love to hear more about that one as well. Ben: I want to respond to what you just said, though, because we did not pay for any of the resources that either met with us or that we went to. It was all volunteers, and they were more than enthusiastic to bring what they had to us and for us to join them. So, other than physically moving our students to the trip locations which was fairly minor, we didn’t incur costs for doing this work. Doris: That’s awesome. Well, let’s talk about this a little more. Because one of the things that a lot of teachers coming into these, you know, whether it’s a workshop or anything else we do that they’re worried about is how are they going to get people from outside the school to volunteer time for their classes and their students? And you just said is what every teacher I’ve worked with what has discovered. You send an email to somebody in a business or the park service or whomever, and they are so excited to be helpful in an educational experience where the students they’re working with actually care about their work. So you experienced that as well? Ben: You know, I find that it’s the same thing, Doris, is that if you go to somebody, especially somebody who provides information to the general public, such as a park or wildlife museum or something like that, they are really excited about having somebody take interest in what they’re doing, and it gives them reason to do what they do, to be able to share what they know and to share it with a class, you know, an educational setting that is doing something a little bit different. There were so many people who said, “What you guys are doing is really cool. Your students are so lucky. It’s really great that you’re getting out. It’s really great that you’re bringing the students here.” They were all really enthusiastic about being able to share and being able to do what they did. So it was certainly a collaborative experience, and they brought a lot of their energy and knowledge to make this meaningful. Doris: And how did that enhance the students? What was the impact on the students of having these other people, not just you as a teacher, involved in what they were doing? Ben: I think there’re two pieces to that. One of them is that seeing somebody with passion is motivating to a student, whether it’s my passion or the passion of the outside resources. Just encountering passion, I think, is something that kind of wakes up the students and brings them a little bit into more greater presence. I think the other thing is that somebody who is outside the classroom is less familiar. And for most students, that installs a bit more respect, and a bit more patience, and a bit more desire to engage, and perhaps even desire to please that person that they don’t know very well, and it puts learning in a slightly different context. I think kids pay attention a little bit more. I think they’re a little bit more serious and I think they’re a little bit more interested in what’s being put in front of them when it’s a new person. Doris: Yeah. Now, I think this is where you’re having taught one year is kind of interesting. I’ve been teaching 21 years, and I would say that actually what I’ve experienced in my own classes and in the classes of teachers I’ve worked with is the fact that there are real people with real jobs outside of school. Engaging in this work and passionate about science or the environment or animals or whatever it is they’re working on in the classroom makes the learning so much more relevant and meaningful to the students. And when you’ve been teaching for 10 years, not 1 year, you will become, I hate to say it, kind of, “Oh yeah, you’re just the teacher.” And maybe not, but I think the fact that there’s somebody else other than the teacher who’s deep in the subject as their life’s work is…I’ve seen that students react really powerfully to that. It is a big deal. Ben: And you know, it may be, Doris, that I came from 30 years of doing something other than teaching that puts me in a little bit of a different position in that way as well. Doris: I’m betting so. That’s what I’m betting. I bet that’s true. So tell me now about the other class. Ben: So I just told you about the environmental science class. And the California Water is a class that has now been offered for two years. All the students are seniors. We had six students this year. And the purpose of the class was to look at water from its origin in the Sierras to its meeting the ocean and all the things that happens to water in between. And we looked at everything from measuring snow thickness in the Sierras with avalanche probes and calculating how much water sits in a watershed, all the way to generating electricity with hydropower, to fish hatcheries, to dams, to how water is managed, to the California and the federal state water project, the federal and state water projects that allocate water from the rainy spots in the north to where the water is needed in the south. We talked to farmers, we talked to fish hatchery folks, we talked to many people around many different sides of water in California, and we used a lot of field time and a lot of outside resources. Again, people who are passionate about what they’re doing, who are committed to what they’re doing, and people who brought some really different perspectives on how California uses and manages its water. Doris: Wow, that sounds amazing. Now, did you do anything…did they have a task with the deadline, what were they tasked with? Ben: One of the things that we did was set up rain gauges on campus, and we measured over a couple months of the wet spring that we had. We measured rainfall and we calculated how much water, in terms of gallons, actually falls the property that the school operates from that actually falls on campus. And we built on that to use that, number one, as a way of sort of gauging, what does it mean when you get an inch of rain? What does that mean when you get 30 inches of rain in a year? What does that look like? And then to the question of, does this become a resource that the school could use? Is there a way that rather than letting this water run down through the ditch down the stream? Is there a way that the school could use this water? And if so, what would it take to make it useful? So, that triggered an exploration into some very real considerations of what happens on campus. We looked at how much water the campus buys every year, we looked at when during a 12-month period the water usage peaks, and when during the 12-month period the precipitation peaks. And as you can imagine in water-thirsty, hot, dry California, water precipitation, water falling on us peaks in the January, February, March time frame, and water usage peaks in the July, August, September, October time frame. And so that there’s a whole disharmony in there between when it’s available and when it’s needed. We looked at how much of our total water usage goes to irrigation versus domestic consumption. And they learned a lot about, you know, the balance there and where water saving measures really make a difference. But then I put to them this question, and I worked with our CFO, our financial manager of the school to come up with this question and this problem for them to solve. And the problem that I asked them to solve was this. Knowing how much water falls on campus in a typical year and knowing how much water the campus uses in a typical year, I asked them to figure out whether it would be cost-effective and meaningful for the school to find a way of retaining water on campus to meet its annual water needs. As it turns out, a lot more water falls on campus than we need in the year. So having enough was not part of the problem, the problem was figuring out how to do it and does it make sense? So what I asked them to conduct essentially was a feasibility study, and the feasibility study would be presented to the CFO and a couple other members of the school community as a way of determining whether or not there was a feasible and viable way to retain water on campus. And the kids were really excited about it. Doris: That’s awesome because they were working on something that was completely meaningful and they had a deadline where they were going to present to somebody real, who’s actually going to decide whether to do their proposal or not. How cool is that? Ben: I think it worked really well. And I think that because the CFO was not part of the faculty, she was removed, and I think they revered her a little bit, I think it added to the importance of the assignment that they had. We had a couple of the teachers come in to be part of both the evaluation process and then the presentation process. So there were outside faces that it gave the work that there were doing some credibility and some gravitas. And one of the other things that motivated them was they realized how much water is used to put on the ground to grow plants after having been treated to drinking water standards, and how little water actually goes into domestic consumption. So they were very concerned about the fact that we treat a whole lot of water in California to drinking water standards and then we put it on the ground. So they were motivated to find some way to avoid that, perpetuating that problem. Doris: Oh my gosh. So did the students work on teams for this or did they work alone? How did that look? Ben: The students worked in teams. And there were six students, so I split them into two teams, and I worked with each of them to come up with their concept for what they would evaluate in this feasibility analysis. I worked with them about different methods of retaining water and bit different costing structures around how to retain water. And basically it boiled down to one team chose to look at building big tanks, concrete tanks to hold water, and the other team looked at building a reservoir. And so we looked at how much does it cost to do earthwork, to build a dam? How much does it cost to build a concrete tank? How much does it cost to capture the water? Where are you gonna capture it? And then build that into a financial model that basically answered the question of whether or not it’s feasible, and ultimately the feasibility was compared to what we actually pay for water in a given year. And so they sort of had that in the background as the guidepost against which they were evaluating the feasibility. Doris: Wow. Ben: So interestingly, what they added to this was, once they got to the financial analysis, they started looking at a lot of other…what might be considered secondary considerations, like environmental impact, how the neighbors view it, how long does it take to do the construction? And they were able, at the end, to come up with a thorough evaluation and a recommendation for what to do next. Doris: Oh my gosh. And so how did the presentations go, the solutions? Ben: Well, this was really interesting. Both teams were really committed to their evaluations and really committed to some of the conclusions that they made. As it turns out, the cost of retaining water on campus far exceeds the cost of paying for water every year to the point where they were almost a little bit horrified. And it touched on one of the other lessons that I wanted them to learn about water in California is that we don’t pay for water what it is really worth to us. Water is undervalued, and they learned that. They learned that, you know, as a really bright lesson. Through this exercise, they discovered that the cost of retaining water far exceeds the cost of paying for it. And so their recommendation became not about ways to save water, not ways to retain water on site, but their recommendations then evolved into how do we reduce the amount of water that we need for the non-domestic purposes? How do we get around this problem of treating all this beautiful water out of the Sierras to drinking water standards and then pouring it on the ground? So that’s where their focus shifted to. Doris: Oh my gosh. That’s so really amazing. Ben: Now, having said that, the big takeaway lesson for these guys was that they didn’t practice enough, and they didn’t dig deeply enough into the issues to be able to answer some of the questions that were posed to them during the presentation. And so the lesson, another sort of a secondary lesson that they learned in there was, “We actually didn’t think broadly enough about the implications or the details to be able to really answer these questions.” And so in their, took for lack of a better word, lack of success, you know, in the portions that they feel like didn’t go that well, it was a very powerful teaching tool. Doris: So here are these students who come into this class, and I imagine based on what the class is, and that they are seniors, and it’s elective, and it’s a science class, that these are probably students who perform very well in traditional classes, is that right? Ben: I think… Yeah, they were, you know, high performing students, they’re bright kids, they’re really interested in what they were learning. And it may have been the first time for most of them that they stepped out of the conventional classroom structure to learn something and to solve a problem in a way that they had never been faced with before. Doris: And they had to do a lot of different things that aren’t traditional in a science course. You didn’t lecture, give tests. So coming out of it, what are the kinds of things your students learned? What do you think they got out of this experience? Ben: You know, I would just broadly say there’s three things that they learned. One of them is they learned more about giving presentations. So that was a skill, I think, that carries with them for the rest of their lives, and I think will make a big difference in college. So I think that’s important. I think they learned how important it is to solve real world problems, and I know a couple of the students are interested in solving real-world problems, either in medicine or engineering. So I know that that’s going to stay with them. And I think the other thing was that none of them came into the class thinking about the value of water or how important water is to us. So many of us just have water every time we need to turn on…we need it, we turn on the tap and there it is. And I think the big, really, powerful takeaway message here was, “Wow, how we use water really does make a difference, and it’s not the way we thought it was going to make a difference.” You know, it’s not in whether I drink eight cups of water a day or whether have a waterless toilet. It’s really more about the bigger picture of how we use the resource of water and how we use it to keep our desert, basically our desert area community green. Doris: And how powerful that they learned that, and I can’t imagine that no matter how fabulous a lecturer you may be or no matter what brilliantly written articles you would find for them that they could ever have gotten that out of a traditional kind of class, lecture-based class, the way they did with what you described, which is a really, really interesting and brilliantly set up problem that they had this grapple with and how interesting that they ended up in very different places than they expected. Ben: They did. And you’re right, I could have told them that water is undervalued and they would have said, “Uh-huh.” And that’s the end of it. Doris: Yeah. But they discovered it themselves, right? Ben: Yeah, they discovered it themselves. Doris: So as you think about teaching this again, as you go into your second year of teaching, all these methods that you use in this whole approach, are you going to continue with this kind of approach, and why? Ben: I absolutely am going to continue it. I think this is a great learning year. It is a great practice year. It’s a…understand what’s effective, what’s not effective. I think the power of learning through self-motivated solving problems for outside, unfamiliar parties and doing it in a compressed time frame is a powerful combination. And I’m going to look for other ways of applying that same approach throughout the class, and particularly throughout the water class, to find different ways of solving problems and different types of problems to solve. Doris: That’s awesome. So they will have a deadline where they’re presenting their solution to a problem to somebody real. And what about having them work on teams? Was that useful? Ben: I think working on teams was really useful. And the reason I say that is that, number one, they each brought different skill sets to the team, and number two, it was very easy for some of the folks to believe that their ideas were the best ones and that they should stand. And I think having other voices brought different perspectives and asked questions in a way that allowed them to think together. And in many cases, several cases for both teams, I watched them go through the process of chasing a strong voice, chasing a solution proposed by a strong voice and discovering that one maybe wasn’t the best one to pursue. And coming back to the beginning and sort of talking more collaboratively about how they’re going to expend their resources in a limited amount of time. Doris: Yeah, which is an amazingly important kind of learning, how to collaborate well and not necessarily get everything you want your way, especially with what sounds like some pretty strong, academically strong students who can often come in thinking they know what’s best. And what about, you know, when you talk about they learned presenting, can you talk a little more about that? Because…how did they start? And talk a little bit about why you think learning to present…beyond the fact that, you know, you’re going to present in your life, what is that…why are you glad they learned to present? Why was that worth it? Ben: You know, here’s…to answer your question, I’m gonna draw off from both classes because there are important lessons in both classes that I taught around that. And to me, at the beginning, what I saw was a group of students who were successful in high school, who were comfortable with their peers, and generally had some degree of comfort standing up in front of their peers and talking. What they didn’t have was a sense of organizing their thoughts or a sense for answering questions that their peers or that their audience would be interested in hearing the answers to. So, identifying questions that were meaningful. And what this process was about, for me, was helping them focus their research, focus what they found to be important, and sort through a big pile of information to pick out the stuff that’s interesting, find a way to personalize it so that there’s rapport with the audience, and then present it in a very succinct manner. And in the environmental science class, every day had a presentation that was two minutes long by each student, almost every day. And their homework assignment was to take the species, take this habitat, go explore, go learn, go figure out about it, take pictures and come back, and in two minutes or less, tell us what we need to know. And at one point, I pulled out one of the articles that was written about the way that Steve Jobs makes presentations, made presentations, and there are 7 or 11 points that someone extracted about Steve Jobs. And we found ways to incorporate, most, if not all of them, into the presentations that we made, and it gave them some structure and some focus for presenting. And during the final presentations, they got a couple of comments that said, “Well, guys, this was really great in content but your presentation skills are terrific.” And it’s practice, it’s comfort, it’s practice, it’s having a reason, it’s having structure, and it makes a big difference. Doris: And a last question, Ben. Did they learn, actually second to last, did they learn science? Ben: They absolutely learned science. Yes, they absolutely learned science. They learned the material that was appropriate for the class, and it was science and natural history-based information. Yes, they learned it. Doris: And they probably will remember it beyond the test, I would bet? Ben: I’d like to think that this is the kind of learning that becomes lifelong, Doris, the lifelong skill and lifelong content, and I think it sticks with people much longer than studying for a test and then walking onto the next class. Doris: I think so too because they care. So are you glad you left your career to become a teacher, high school teacher? Ben: I am so happy teaching high school. I am thrilled to bits. Doris: Well, I’m thrilled to bits for your students that you are teaching high school. And it was absolutely wonderful to hear about the phenomenal work that you’re doing for your students. Thank you, Ben. Ben: Thank you, Doris. It’s a pleasure talking with you.

In this episode, Doris speaks with Alethea Tyner Paradis, history professor at Santa Barbara City College and Director / CEO of Peace Works Travel, a socially conscious study abroad program where students learn through meaningful local problem-solving designed to foster critical thinking, empathy, and innovative solutions for a more peaceful world. Doris: Hello, Alethea. Alethea: Hi, Doris, thanks so much for having me on. Doris: Oh my gosh. That’s for me to say. I’m so excited to be talking to you, and I would love it if you could please tell our listeners a little bit about you, who you are and what you do. Alethea: Well, my name’s Alethea Paradis. I am a lawyer-turned-history-teacher-turned-entrepreneur, and I still teach history at Santa Barbara City College, and now I am the director and CEO of Peace Works Travel which is a socially conscious study abroad program. And I learned our differentiating magic from Doris and the Wildfire group. Doris: Thank you. That’s very sweet. I think I loved when I first met you, and you came to the very first workshop in Steve Blank’s living room, when I had no idea that four years later or three years later, whatever it’s been, I’d be actually creating a nonprofit and this would have grown so much. But you were very brave to come to that first one. But when I first met you, I loved hearing about why you decided to create your new business, and can you tell us a little bit about why you decided to do it and what your mission is? Alethea: Well, thank you for asking. It was really 9/11 that inspired me to start Peace Works. And as a high school social studies teacher, I was hearing my students repeat these calls to war they were hearing on the news as the answer to our national grief following the 9/11 tragedy. And I thought, “You know, let’s go to Vietnam and check out how war solves anything.” Right? Yeah, I think I’m a good history teacher and really passionate about it because I hated it so much in high school. I was really alienated by this kind of 19th-century model of memorization and having to assume everything in a textbook was the full story or the full capacity of what actually took place. And so I found that experiential learning outside the classroom and then, more specifically, service learning abroad, just sincerely met the needs of engaging students to care about their citizenship, get engaged in their democracy. And once they realized their own power to generate solutions to things, they really turned on to caring about what the adults around them were doing. And I found that taking students to places that were recovering from history was the best way to get them engaged in our own citizenship here at home. Doris: Oh my gosh. I love that, and so, three years ago, you came to the workshop, and tell us what happened. What did you build?   Alethea: Yeah, so, originally, of course, when you take kids to places where things have occurred, the sort of rationalization behind it is that you need to do something. So you want to…voluntourism has become a thing, right. Like, people wanna travel for good and go abroad, and I came to your workshop looking for a new way of making a difference. There’s all kinds of problems around the world that need to be solved, and the goal of service learning is to harness the students’ natural curiosity and concern for social problems, convert that compassion into positive action and then ensure that their desire to help is, in fact, sustainable. Your workshop helped me formulate a model that is so brilliant that it took me out of this kind of colonial voluntourism mindset, where you have, say, well-meaning westerners go to some developing country and dig a hole or paint a wall and then therefore kind of satisfy that need to feel like you’ve done something meaningful in the world. Your framework allowed me to see that there’s a better method, a better practical road map for customizing solutions-based action into a service learning framework that frankly, you don’t need to leave the country to do. I do it with my students here in the community locally, but it was a way of harnessing that desire to do something that was really much more about solidarity and sustainability rather than charity. Doris: That’s really interesting. So, you talk about the program that you’ve built, what you have students do and how that works as a teacher. Alethea: So, as a teacher, your kids are naturally compassionate, but you have to give them a reason to grab on and engage. So when you want them to own a project, say you want them to get interested in the foreign policy, or history, or democracy or, you know, something related to your core content, you have to find a way of stimulating thier hearts, right, to get them to care. And the authentic, really dig in can’t be about a grade, and kids are smart. They know that in the real world, it’s not about that anyway. So without speaking in abstractions too much, what I loved about your program is that you really gave practical exercises using this kind of core business philosophy, this proven model canvas methodology and applied into very specific channels and activities that you can do with students to have them start thinking in a solutions-based entrepreneurial mindset. And I know that’s a high level jargon, but I can give you some practical examples. Doris: No, I get it. Alethea: So, for example, when our students go abroad to Vietnam, we are partnered with the Peace Village in Hanoi, and they are a home and rehabilitative facility for young children with Agent-Orange-related complications. And rather than this just being an exercise in voyeurism, right, where we bring a bunch of healthy Western kids over to volunteer play for the day and marvel at their good fortune for not being afflicted with Agent Orange problems, we instead look at this as an opportunity. Say, “Hey, listen, you can now learn science. You can learn about what dioxins are. You can now learn history, right? Why did the United States use this toxic defoliant? And what was the strategy and the meaning behind it? And what were the policymakers thinking? So there’s that whole inquisitive piece. And then we have the students pen-paling in advance with local Vietnamese high school students. Together, they go to the Peace Village. They hear from the directors. They interview the stakeholders, the parents and the nurses and some of the residents there, and then they collectively, using the methods I learned from you guys, go back to the conference room. And they’re doing all the fun stuff. I love your lessons. It’s very practical how you’ve been able to digest this seemingly complex process into… Doris: Systems. Alethea: Yeah, these activities that…and it’s really clear. “Oh, this’ll take 20 minutes.” Or, “That’ll take, you know, whatever portion of what is normally a class period.” We do this with the students in conference room. They empathy map. They design think, and they come up with what they believe are solutions, and then they go back to the Peace Village the next day and are very passionate. And now they’re pitching these ideas to help solve whatever issues the stakeholders have, so obviously, in most cases it’s money. Everyone needs more money to run their nonprofit or to fulfill their mission, but the process that our students are going through actually inspire them to think more creatively about possible revenue-generating solutions that aren’t just based on, you know, short term band-aids but are about longer-term solutions between people previously divided. So, we also do this, I mean, here in our own community. We don’t have to go abroad to do it. I use the same kind of methodology with my Vietnam War students when we’re talking about veterans’ issues here in town. Yeah, it’s the same method, so you can do it anywhere, but I love that the service learning can elevate itself above such kind of short-term ego gratification. And I don’t mean to… Doris: Sure, it’s richer. It’s richer because they’re problem solving in a much broader way and a deeper way. Alethea: Right, they’re taking those skills. They’re taking those skills and then applying it to other things, so you can see the arc of their evolution, right. The goal of doing…I mean, the goal of education, ultimately, is that the individual would be transformed and then make a change in their communities, in their societies. And I see our students doing that, because they may go through the exercise in this one case. But their minds are so blown from seeing that, “Oh, wait a minute. Something that we’ve call the problem isn’t really a problem but might be an opportunity.” And how can you look at a failure as not a win-lose situation but that you’re actually peeling back the layers of revealing your assumptions that might be false. That’s a beautiful thing. Doris: That is a beautiful thing, and when you’re guiding them through a problem-solving process, and I assume they’re working as teams to do this. Do they interview people there? Do they have a different kind of dialogue with the people that they’re meeting locally when you do travel with them? Alethea: I love that you asked that, because that’s the extra layer, of course, right. So it compels you to have a cross-cultural vernacular that you take that to a step higher so that it really compels the students to understand the process. Because they may have to, through a translator, explain it to someone of a different culture who doesn’t necessarily automatically get those principles. So, for example, our work in Cuba, right, they’re just emerging into…they’re extremely innovative people. I mean, they have been navigating, you know, beneath this behemoth of a…yeah, it’s a very arcane system. They’re very innovative. They’re very solutions-based. They’re on an island, and so they have to be very resourceful, and they’re constantly looking for creative ways of solving problems. Although, they may not have our Western sense of urgency, you know, that time is money, and everything needs to be done like this. So… Doris: They have a healthier mindset and attitude and lifestyle is what you’re saying. Alethea: Maybe, I mean, we have something to learn there for sure, you know, the anxiety we cause ourselves by insisting that things be done immediately, you know. Our students have a lot to learn when they map through this process as they’re…it’s very dynamic, because the role of teacher and learner becomes inverted and that the students are then compelled as they’re asking questions, as they’re trying to distill down through the empathy mapping process. They’re trying to distill down on what is this person’s exact desire? What’s that’s thing that’s going to unlock that previously inaccessible thing? And what I love about doing that this with kids too is they’re not rigid thinkers like adults. Our brains get calcified, right. We’re not as elastic in our thinking, and so when you take kids through this process, and you’re not telling them what the answer is because you don’t even know what the answer is yourself. You’re telling them, “Hey, I trust this method. Here’s the core beliefs. I trust this method to lead us to a place where we will harness our best human ingenuity to come up with a solution.” Doris: Yeah, and you’re full of questions along the way just as they are, and you’re actively in it with them, learning as they are. Alethea: It’s so great, because then you find that it’s a short leap from there to them starting to question things and say, “Well, wait a minute. I’ve been hearing in the news that this or that about such and such country. Might it be that they feel this way about it?” And so it inspires this whole empathic intuition on creatively putting oneself in someone else’s shoes and saying, “Well, hey, if I were them, what would my problems be day to day? How is it that I would see this issue from a different perspective? And how might I value such and such over thus and so.” And, again, I know I’m speaking in abstractions, but the kind of consciousness we need to facilitate in our students is to prepare them. We’re trying to prepare them for jobs that don’t exist yet. So they have to be the drivers of this kind of inquiry. And then they have to see, well, what can be monetized along the way? And then how do you do that ethically? Doris: So you’re teaching them…they’re learning all their skills there. They’re learning how to develop processes, and problem solve, and collaborate, and research and question. And all the while you’re learning objective which service learning, to learn service. It sounds really powerful what you’re getting these students to internalize through this. Alethea: It’s brilliant, your program, actually… Doris: Well, you’re doing it. Alethea: Yes, it’s true. I should say that, thank you, we are doing it, and I’m not gonna lie. It was an effort to pivot away from…voluntourism’s easy. It’s simple, just like handing out worksheets in a classroom’s easy and simple. It’s very passive, but I know that the engine of America’s future is really the teachers of this great nation, and there are so many awesome teachers who are looking at the framework that they…you know, we all have compliance, right. We all have to do what we have to do within the framework we’ve been given in our individual institutions. But within that, the gold of that 45-minute class period, how are you gonna use that time? There are so many teachers that want to really transcend the ordinary and to take the gift of being in audience with these gorgeous minds for that period of time and leave them with something that will ultimately make this world a better place. And your methodology taught me how to do this, and, girl, I have to say it’s working. Doris: Well, you’re working it, and I love that, really, in a way you’re taking what you wanted so badly to see happen as a classroom teacher out into the world, that what you’re saying is really that whether you’re taking them out in the world, or you’re teaching your class locally, it’s really about how you’re teaching and not where you’re teaching.   Alethea: Absolutely, it’s a different way of building your network of academic partnerships. You know, it’s cliche to say… Doris: Oh, that’s interesting. Alethea: Yeah, the cliche is, well, the world is your classroom. Well, okay, if you are a teacher who for whatever reason is not going to take their students out of the country, you’re going to just try and integrate the teachable elements within your community into your classroom. Your methodology is perfect for this, because basically, you’re empowering…like, homework has never been so amazing for these kids. What they do is they work in teams in the classroom, and then you very clearly give them questions that they are hungry to answer, and they will dig and dig and dig until they answer them, and that means research skills. It means public speaking skills. It means self-assertion skills. It’s leadership skills. It’s them getting out there and saying, “I am going to find the answer to this little nugget, and as soon as I understand that piece of data, I can report back to the group and say, ‘Hey, guess what? We don’t wanna go down this road, and here’s why.’” Doris: Yeah. So, what have you taken away from it personally when you think about yourself as a teacher over the years? Alethea: I’m very proud. I’m in contact with students that I have led abroad and used this methodology with, and I am very proud of how they are…you know, this is why we do this work, right, how they are now applying this into their own passions in myriad applications. Whether they’re studying software engineering, or science or poetry, it doesn’t matter. They now see themselves as powerful agents of change that can just because they care. Really all that’s needed is the concern, which I sincerely believe that as human beings, we’re born with this innate ability to have compassion for one another. And if you care about something, and you’re curious about it, well, the information age has now made every piece of data point available to you. And I’m very proud, personally, for how some of these students have exceeded my wildest conceptions of the ways in which they’d apply this knowledge. Doris: That’s awesome Alethea: Yeah it’s great. Sorry, we history teachers talk too much. Doris: No, you don’t talk too much. It’s beautiful. Look, it’s why we do what we do, right? I mean, I’ve often said… I worked for many years in business, and now I’ve been in education for 21 years. And the biggest difference is that educators choose kids as their life’s work which is the one thing they kind of all have in common, and so you’re not talking too much. You’re talking from the heart. And there’s nothing more exciting than seeing your students years later and seeing that they’re empowered in their own abilities, through their own abilities, I should say, and their recognition of those and applying them to the things they care about. It’s exciting, so how has it changed you? What’s changed? If you think about yourself when you were, I don’t know, 10 years ago teaching history in a classroom only…not in these ways, how is this program that you’ve built, how has it changed you personally as a teacher? Alethea: The number one takeaway I’ve had from using your method is that it gives genuine, authentic hope. And that might sound a little cliche, but hear me out a sec. Hope is really born of having an awareness of better possibilities and having a confidence that there are individuals, there are systems, there are forces that ultimately will transcend current challenges. And as every teacher has seen a student despairing over something and perseverating over a grade, or a problem, or an assignment or whatever challenge, as an adult, we look at them, and we say, “Oh my goodness. Bless your heart. You want to just let them in on the little secret, like, ‘Hey, this doesn’t really matter.’” You know. Doris: Absolutely, anybody who’s been teaching more than three months, especially in a high school, where every kid thinks the stakes are so crazy high about every single little quiz and test. Anybody who’s been teaching more than three months knows exactly what you’re talking about. Alethea: Exactly, and my joy in using your method is that it’s a hope engine. Because it provides a very clear and reliable mechanism for analyzing problems, working creatively and collaboratively with other people and seeing information that you might not like. It might not be the answer you want, and that can be really frustrating when you don’t get the answer you want. And you really were attached to it, but there’s a confidence on the other side of that, well, you know at least that wasn’t the answer and the path is now clear. You need to keep searching. You need to go back to your team. You need to be creative, or work another opportunity, or think outside of your confines, and once you rub up against your emotional angst of, like, “I thought I had The answer, capital T,” and your method reveals that it’s actually coming to that negative place is actually a good thing. It’s an okay thing, and that’s the hope that we need to be instilling in our children, not to get so hung up on the grade or the emotional disequilibrium of the ups and downs of being a human being but that, you know, the negative inputs are interesting. And they’re just information, and we’re gonna work with that information to ultimately come up with a solution collectively. Because facts matter, and the data will show us, will nurture us in the right way, and so long as we’re open to listening and genuinely care about the outcome, it’s like, success is guaranteed. Doris: Well, and you know, I’ll bridge, I’ll make the parallel between that and teachers. You know, the kids…everybody who tried this kind of teaching, finds with…you know, I talk about deschooling, which I’m so sad, because I thought I made that term up. And there’s a man who actually wrote a book about deschooling in, like, 1940, so I didn’t make it up. But anyway there’s this period at the beginning where the students really, really want you to give them the answer. They want you to give them the instructions. They want you to tell them exactly step by step what they’re supposed to do, and when they get further into it, and they start really internalizing that, okay, this is honestly a real problem. It’s a real problem with someone else. It wasn’t manufactured by the teacher or by a textbook. It hasn’t been solved before, and there isn’t a single right answer, but there are answers that are not right. And there are things that don’t work. And the best I can do is, with these other people I have working on it with me, figure out a process by which we can all of us together come up with the best possible solutions by doing a whole lot of work that takes us into research, and quantitative analysis, and science, and communications, and frustration and all those things. And it’s kind of messy, but they start really embracing, “Oh my gosh. I can learn, and I can do this stuff, and look what I just did. That’s crazy. I never thought I could’ve done it”. And as teachers, it’s so wildly different to teach like this than to teach the traditional way. And when you’re thinking about, Alethea, you’ve now been doing this for a while. When you imagine a teacher who is like you were in a school teaching, I’ll make it up, five sections of a history class every day in a high school. And they’re thinking, “Okay, this is all really inspiring, and she’s now off doing this all over the world. And that’s really cool, and it all sounds really great, but I don’t even have a clue how to begin or if I can begin.” What advice do you have for those teachers? Alethea: I would say just start small, and you’ll get hooked on the magic of it, and then it will naturally evolve into something that will occupy greater real estate in your lesson planning. Doris: That’s great.   Alethea: Yeah, and I would happily, by the way, if anybody needs a mentor or someone, a sounding board, to say, “Hey, here’s what I’m thinking of doing. How did you do this?” Anybody can call me. I love to talking to teachers, because they’re so inspiring, and teachers are always finishing up their lessons thinking we’re naturally sort of self-critical. We finish our lessons, and we’re like, “Oh, I could have done this, or I should’ve done that.” Or, you know, “All right, that was first period. I’m going to get it better next period,” and, you know, so we iterate naturally. I know it’s just sort of what we do, and I think too that teachers don’t realize that they’re already really expert at this modality of thinking. Doris: Yeah, I agree, and I think your advice is exactly right. You’ve now had many iterations. The first time was probably very, very different than what you’re doing now, and you built it over iterations. And it’s about starting small. I could not agree more. I think that’s great advice. Alethea: Yeah, I just wanna say that, you know, what you’re speaking earlier about, you know, looking at unsolvable problems, you know I’d say beyond seeing the satisfaction of student transcending their own…you know, when you see a student excelling, and, of course, you take personal pride and a little credit for that, but I’d have to say that the number one thing that your methodology has helped me with is to break down this sort of inevitability thinking that, “Oh, humans…” I think sometimes when the students…they watch the news. They hear about the Holocaust or the atrocities that they’re required to learn about or that they’re confronted with, and there’s this sort of fatalism that, “Oh, well, those problems will always be there. Oh, well, humans have always been at war. Oh, well, we’re always going to end in violence.” And my long term macrovision is to instill a sense of consciousness that we can use a different method to come up with solutions to problems that don’t end in violence, and your method does that. Doris: Well, Alethea, I want to end on that note about solving problems in ways that don’t have to involve violence. Every time I talk to you, it fills my heart to know you’re out there teaching, and you have now shared that with a whole bunch of people who feel the same way, I know. Thank you so much for sharing your phenomenal work with us. Alethea: Aw, thank you. Doris: Bye bye. Alethea: Bye. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode, Doris speaks with Jay Scheurle, Head of School and Entrepreneurship teacher at Miami Valley School. Jay describes how he modeled a radical new method of teaching and learning for his school by implementing a high school entrepreneurship course. Doris: Hey, Jay. Jay: Hi, Doris. Doris: How are you today? Wait, what is today? Jay: Today is commencement tonight. So, other than this podcast, I have a busy evening. Doris: Oh, my gosh. Okay, wow. Well thank you for having a conversation on graduation day. Wow. Jay: Yeah, thank you for inviting me. Doris: Yeah, no, I’d love to. And Jay, if you could tell the listeners a little bit of who you are and what you’re doing, that would be fantastic. Jay: Sure. I’m the Head of School at the Miami Valley School in Dayton, Ohio. And we’re an independent early childhood through 12th grade school with about 500 students. And we’re looking at lots of ways to innovate and are teaching practice. And teaching this class on entrepreneurship has been a great opportunity for me to have to practice the ideas that we’ve been talking about. Doris: Yeah I have to say that you, as a head of school, coming to the workshop and saying, “I wanna build a program and teach it at my school. This is the best way I can practice myself what I’m trying to get my teachers to do.” I was really impressed with that. That’s a very rare thing. Jay: Well yeah, I’ve enjoyed it. And I don’t know how, as a head of school, I can talk about ideas with teachers without saying that “Look, I’m going to get into the trenches with you and try this, and admit how difficult and hard it is, as well as celebrating the victories.” So, I think it’s important for heads of school to not just talk about innovation, but have to do it as well. Doris: Yeah, I agree with that. That’s what we’re doing. We’re practicing something completely new. So, when you came to the workshop, you had decided to create an entrepreneurship program, and you implemented after this past year. You implemented your pilot year of the entrepreneurship class. Can you talk a little bit about what you implemented, and what this class was, and what you did? Jay: Right. Well, first of all, I came to the workshop thinking that I was just going to learn about entrepreneurship, and then I would have to go back and integrate that content into creating an innovative program. And I discovered in the summer workshop was something so different and so wonderful. Doris, you made my life so much easier because you’d already done a lot of the innovation. And one of the ideas you shared from the beginning is that students need to be de-schooled, and the traditional education is broken. And this workshop helped me to see how a different concept of teaching and learning, put into the context of entrepreneurship could be so powerful. So, I think that’s actually one of the most important premises of what I learned over the summer is that we’re trying to rebuild education. We’re trying to re-conceive teaching and learning in a way that’s student-centric and puts the emphasis on what the students are learning, and creating opportunities for students to take ownership of their own learning, and to connect it to their own passions and to connect it to the real world around them. And that in an entrepreneurship, that the deep content knowledge that we’re providing which really is at a college equivalent level, ask them to demonstrate this, not through tests and quizzes, but through application in solving real business problems. And that was transformative for me to see that I wasn’t just going to learn about entrepreneurship, but the whole approach to this was absolutely what I was hoping to create myself. And you created a lot of the framework for me and made it so much easier.   Doris: Oh, I’m so glad. And you know, it’s funny. Literally every time I do one of these, during the first break on the first day, I have one, two, or five people come up to me and say, “Oh, wow. I thought I was coming to an entrepreneurship workshop. This is about a new way of doing education, of doing school.” And that’s right. I mean, we’re all talking with all these big words. Innovation, entrepreneurship, guide on the side, and teaching students skills in addition to deep learning of stuff, we have to figure out how to do that well. How do you actually implement that well in school, in academic courses? And it’s an entirely different thing, yeah. Jay: Right, and that’s not to minimize the entrepreneurship side of this because I do believe that the skillset of an entrepreneur, the willingness to take risks, and to try things and to fail, and to iterate and pivot, those…the design thinking that’s behind all of this, those skills as an entrepreneur are incredibly valuable to students. But I think you’re right, that this class goes well beyond that because we’re really putting in place a model that could be equally transformative, whether you’re teaching calculus, or biology, or statistics. There’s ways of taking the opinions about teaching and learning and applying it in their discipline. We just have this wonderful opportunity to do it in the field of entrepreneurship which is an exciting field in itself. Doris: Yeah, it is an exciting field. And I agree with you in what transcends all these classes that teachers I work with and schools I work with are doing, whether it’s a science class or an entrepreneurship, are those entrepreneurial skills. Those that you mentioned, that’s really the most important element of all this, I think. That entrepreneurship, it’s not the subject matter itself. While the subject matter itself is really worthwhile, and very rich, and very important as an academic subject, I believe that and I’m excited to see all over the world that entrepreneurship is being added to high school and even some middle school requirements by governments even. I just talked to somebody in Singapore before this call, and they talked about the Ministry of Education coming out with an edict that they’re now adding open-ended entrepreneurship questions to their standardized test, which is kind of funny. But if you think about it, it’s like a mix of things that is kind of funny. But anyway, these skills you mentioned, those entrepreneurial skills, that’s really the powerful part. And that’s, whether it’s a science class, history class, or an entrepreneurship class, having students develop and master those skills, we’ve got to do that. We’ve got to do that in schools. Jay: Right, I agree. On the entrepreneurial side, I found it extremely helpful that you had already made this connection with Steve Blanks’ work and the Lean LaunchPad, and I had not been aware of that. So, that was just a wonderful world to be opened up to me. And also, as I talked to businesses in my community and told them what I was doing and talked about the lean startup methodology and working with Steve Blanks’ videos, that was an immediate connection because many entrepreneurs and business people know about this sort of shift in practice. And so, I felt like that was an incredibly valuable resource for me to have access to. We also used the Lean LaunchPad system as well this year which made it…it was easy. It’s an easy way. It’s a little more expensive, but it’s an easy way to deliver the video lessons and to have the students do the custom development work and be able to track those interviews and see how it affects their iteration of value proposition, customer segments, and other parts of the canvas. So, those tools are incredibly deep. And I also found it very helpful to have all of the access to some of the TEDx talks that your class has worked with, the book lists that you’ve worked with. So, the students in my class came to this class with incredibly rich, deep, practical, relevant, cutting edge content that was useful. And what I also, and this then goes sort of beyond the entrepreneurship approach, is you were able to design this in a way that was a flipped classroom. So, all this content delivery, all the content, it’s not teacher-driven, standing in front of the room lecturing the class and providing all the content. All these contents available to students outside of class, and so they watch all these videos and they do the TEDx reviews, and they read the books outside of class, and we spend the entire class period. We we’re fortunate to have an 85-minute block, classroom block of time, where the students just worked in teams and they’re problem-solving, and they’re working together and they’re trying to figure out how to ask the right questions when they talk to customers, and they’re starting to do prototyping of the product. And the class itself is a fun, dynamic, noisy, active, constructing type of place. And to me that’s what I think classrooms should look like. And this flipped classroom is I think a wonderful model to try to practice here an entrepreneurship, but I think it has other applications. Doris: Well, yeah it’s powerful. So, Lean LaunchPad which I refer to as really, contemporary scientific method, right? All these stuff, we have students as I’m sure you do, who teach themselves to code, who go deep into human-centered design. That content exists in all kinds of different forms, that students find themselves and ingest themselves, and it’s using that class time for students to learn by doing, is really powerful. And whether you have 85 minutes, 3 hours, or 45 minutes, preserving that time for them to do that is great. Can you touch… You’re talking about something really powerful. Please talk about what did you experience and learn about the practice of teaching during this pilot this year. Jay: Well, the model of teaching that we’re talking about here, this is different than what I used to do in the past where I really was the person standing in the front of the room delivering content and then hoping the students were listening and understanding that. And this approach is, we say it’s student-centric, but to get beyond just sort of the words of that, this has been an opportunity for me to really observe students, sit-in conversations that they’re having where they’re trying to solve problems, and to help ask them the right questions, and help to try to steer them in the right direction. I’ve been able to get to know students on a very personal level because I’ve been right in that mix of them working through these issues, as well as working through the issues of what it’s like to work on a team. So, there’s a dimension to this that’s just amazing as a teacher that you really feel that the reason you’re there, it’s really about the student growth and that’s the only thing you’re focusing on. You’re not thinking about, “Am I delivering my content right? Am I getting all of this right? Am I…” You’re 100% focused on the students and their understanding and their growth, and helping them try to figure this out on their own. And that is a…that’s actually for me been the most fulfilling part of this whole experience, is that it’s enabled me to be so connected to the students in a way that I don’t think, as a traditional teacher, I was. Doris: And do you…when you think about the impact on the students… Okay, this was an academic course that these students took. As a teacher, as a head of school, as an educator, how would you describe the impact on students, the learning impact on students? Jay: Yeah, it’s amazing. I think, again, the way this class is structured where there’s a lot of videotaping, creating YouTubes of their own experience, a lot of personal reflection, the transformation that they can see in themselves from the very first day when they have to stand in front of the class and, using the Business Model Canvas, start with having to explain a business that they admire and how it fits into this model canvas, and they were so nervous getting up in front of their classmates and they were fidgeting, and they were pacing, and they really didn’t know a whole lot about business or entrepreneurship. And then to see that evolve over time, every time they had to be in front of the camera, every time they had to make a presentation, they got better and better. They picked up all these skills of research and interviewing customers and finding facts to back-up all of their hypotheses and their conclusions and their solutions to the problems. And I think now for the students to look back as they’re working on their capstone, just their opportunity to reflect on all of their learning, they can’t even believe…and the parents have told me this too, because students can’t believe where they’ve come to. The poise, the confidence, the depth of their research. Their ability to stand in front of… We had a shark tank experience and they stood in front of four incredibly impressive and scary CEOs and entrepreneurs, and they made fantastic presentations. And I heard both from the sharks, as well as from the parents, how impressed they were with the students and their thinking, their hard work, and their ability to present in such a confident way. And that didn’t…that wasn’t there on those first few days of class. That all has been developed through this class experience. Doris: And part of what’s impressive is not only the way in which the students present but what they’re presenting, and the depth, the quality of the data, the research, the communications, the qualitative and quantitative evidence and persuasive arguments to back-up their proposals. And one of the things I’d love for you to talk about as a private school, your parents are sending their students to you in the hopes that they’ll be, you know, it’s still a college preparatory game we’re all playing, right? Jay: Right, right. Doris: And we…there’s this wording historically that educators use about rigorous academics. Talk about how that term, rigorous academics, hits you in the context of this course that you taught this year. Jay: Right. I think that’s a great question and it’s something we are thinking quite a bit about at our school, as we do think that delivering a rigorous academic experience is a critical part of who we are, and being the best college preparatory school in the region is something that’s important to every single one of our parents. But I think that there is a shift that’s occurring in the educational world, and I think this shift is happening with teachers, and I think it’s starting to happen with parents, and we’re helping it to happen with parents, to realize that rigor is not just the ability of a student to memorize a lot of content and be able to put that back accurately on a piece of paper or on a computer. That there’s a depth of rigor that involves thinking, and analyzing, and synthesizing, and developing skills that also go with that. Because learning to really do good research, and learning to ask the right kinds of questions, and learning to be organized and work with a team, there’s deep rigor that actually, it exists to all that. So, I think that there…this class…we could not deliver this class unless we could convince parents that there’s a rigor to this. Now, having all of the content coming from the Lean LaunchPad methodology helped, because when parents hear about what we’re doing, and know that this is college-level course work, they realize that their students are getting an understanding that fully covers the full spectrum of what it’s like to get a business started all the way from all of the value propositions, and the customer segments, and everything that produces revenue, as well as all of the aspects of building the cost side of business. And that is incredibly complex and the students are wrestling with all of those aspects in a pretty amazing way in a first-year class. I think the students see this. And I think even the CEOs who were part of this presentation were actually very amazed that the students were grappling with so much on a content side of this. In some ways, I think more than if you watch the TV show “Shark Tank,” what our students are working with is much more comprehensive than, and much deeper, and much more content-based. Doris: Yeah, it’s interesting. In the early years of this, I also found it helpful in my own community when I was creating this class to begin with, to be able to point to Lean LaunchPad as a, you know, Stanford, Berkeley, National Science Foundation resource. We’ve evolved…our communities have evolved past that. So, they understand and recognize that this is far more than…that the methods and the model and the learning is far beyond what you can explain by saying Lean LaunchPad. But what I like very much about what you said is that we’re trying to help everyone redefine what academic rigor means. And that developing in our students the ability to think really well, that’s kind of gruesome way to say it. But, you know, how you think and how you process, as opposed to what to think. The process more than the product. The process is what’s important. We have to, all of us, we have to redefine what rigorous academic learning means. And that’s I think the part of what’s happening here. So, Jay, what’s next? You’re the head of the school, you personally took on this challenge and dove in while continuing to lead your school, you taught the pilot. You took on this crazy, new kind of course, and did it incredibly well. And your blog is really interesting. People should read about your experience. But what’s next? Jay: Well, in this class has provided me an opportunity as head of school because I took… I do write a blog that a lot of parents read. It’s given me an opportunity to really use this class to talk about education and teaching and learning in a much bigger way. And I love the fact that this, what I may say now is not just words, it’s rooted in what I actually see in students doing at school. So, I plan to keep doing this. Now, my class is just a one semester class, and realistically that’s all I could possibly do. Doris: Yeah, I’m sure. Jay: So, I won’t be teaching in the fall. And in some ways, I’m gonna probably utilize the fall a little bit more effectively to get ready again for this class in the winter and spring term. But I’m gonna keep teaching this class. And I have others that are working with me. It’s been very helpful. My assistant head of school for finance and operations is a co-teacher with me in this class. My technology and innovation director has been a part of this, especially in the prototyping side of this class. Our librarian’s been involved in some of the research sides. So, I got other people involved with me, so I’m not doing it all on my own. And that’s been actually a big help for me to not feel that I’m doing it by myself, but also just to have all those colleagues who can have input and ideas to share, and we’re working together as a team, and that’s a great feeling as a teacher. You feel like we’re teaching this as a team. Doris: Yeah, well I also have been an administrator full-on while teaching the class and creating it, and you literally can’t do it without co-instructors. But I agree that even if you could do it alone, doing this as a team is powerful for the students and also for the teachers. Jay: Right. I would recommend if a teacher…there’s a way you can get somebody, that even if it’s not all the others step-in to help during different parts of the class, having that input, and having others that can share perspective with you, other adults, is great. And I think you’re right, it’s great for the students too. Doris: And finally as you think about what impact you’re hoping this has on, you know, you have an entire faculty there, your entire school community. Do you see this having any impact over the next stretch beyond this class and the specific teachers that you’re working with? Jay: Absolutely. I remember a couple of years ago as we were rolling out new ideas for our philosophy of teaching and learning in our school, which we call the immersion method. And it’s a very innovative, student-centric approach, and that we provide students with immersive experiences. And the teachers said to me, “Well, Jay, what do you want us to do? How should we build our classes?” And my thought at the time was, “Well, I’m not gonna tell you how to design a class.” Because we have these ideas, but each teacher really has to figure out how to take these ideas and integrate it into a particular discipline, and integrate it into a particular group of students. And what this is gonna look like in each class may be very different. There may be some aspects of this that are gonna be similar, which is moving away from lecturing and more student engagement. But I think what this looks like has to also have the room for teachers to take ownership of this themselves and be motivated to wanna make this work in their own class. And so, for me, this was an opportunity to say, “For Jay Scheurle, and for entrepreneurship, for this particular group of students, this is what we did.” And this was clearly exciting. And I’m gonna put this out in front of you, not to say you should do this, but this is an opportunity to just say, “Wow, this is what one teacher and one discipline could do with this. I wonder what I might do taking this in a way that relates to my discipline, and my kids, and my background, and my passions. And where would I go with this?” And that’s I think what we’re trying to do. And I’m hoping this class is a way to illustrate what I did, not so much as a head of school, but what I did as an instructor in this class, in a way that it engaged with the kids so that teachers had the opportunity and the freedom to innovate and come up with their own ideas to do this. Doris: Yeah. That’s beautiful. The people think about specific curriculum, like Lean LaunchPad or whatever else. And actually, what we’re talking about is every teacher is a designer. They’re designing the learning experience for their students. Every one of them. We’re giving them some methods, some examples, some experiences for teachers to go through so that they can themselves be equipped with a toolkit that they draw from. A palette. But they’re designing the experiences themselves. And that’s, you know, in the same way that having students’ learning path be individualized and personalized as we talk about, and seeing how empowering it is for students to learn about their own strengths and develop those. The same is true with teachers. Empowering teachers to design the learning experiences that they provide for their students. I love that. Jay, I am so excited to see where you take your school with your incredible leadership, and that you are leading and also doing is, says everything about the way you run your school and the way you do your work. And I’m really honored to be able to work with you, I have to say. Jay: Doris, thank you. And thank you so much for everything you helped provide to make this possible. I can’t even imagine having to try to create all of this. All of the research that you provided, all of the rule books that you shared, all of that was so helpful especially for a first year. And I’m sure that I’ll iterate and adjust and find ways to move forward, but having that framework that I learned at the workshop was so helpful. So, I’d encourage anybody that is interested in teaching and learning in this way, or entrepreneurship, to take the workshop because the tools you’re gonna get will be so incredibly valuable. Doris: Well, that’s great. And thank you, Jay, and good luck with graduation tonight. Jay: Good. Thank you very much, Doris.

 Can a group of independent schools get colleges to accept a new kind of transcript without grades? In this episode, Scott Looney, Founder of the Mastery Transcript Consortium and Head of Hawken School discusses an initiative to bring important change to the college admissions process. Do School Better: A Podcast for People Who Want to Transform Education - Listen to more episodes here Doris: Hi Scott! Scott: Hey Doris. Doris: I’m so excited about this podcast because you and I have been partners in crime for six years. And just for the listeners to hear, I usually say, can you tell us about yourself. I’m going to be obnoxious and tell everybody about you. Scott Looney is the Head of Hawken School which is a phenomenal progressive preschool through 12, day school in Cleveland, Ohio that I have had the great privilege to be part of for these last six years and Scott has been Head of Hawken School for 11 years and came into this school . Hawken was the really first progressive private school in Cleveland, Ohio starting in 1915. And over the course of its hundred year history, in the 70’s and 80’s and 90’s it kind of lost its way a little bit. Actually, a lot and really became a bit of a slave to AP’s and standardized tests and lost its way. And the board had the courage and bravery and foresight to bring Scott Looney into Hawken to bring it back to its progressive roots and take it into the future. Scott had been leading the school and had created the new vision for the school and had been here for five years when he had the courage or maybe stupidity, I don’t know. It depends on the day. To bring me in as the associate head of the school and partner with him to make the vision real. I had been here about a month as associate head running the academic side of Hawken and partnering with Scott when…and some of you may have heard me talk about this earlier…when Scott you asked me, “Hey with your background, do you want to also create an Entrepreneurship program?” Six years later, of course, all this has happened and what we’re here to talk about today is a really exciting thing that actually, Scott, I’d love to talk a little bit about where it came from before we get into discussing this extraordinary brave new mission that you’re leading and that is becoming not only a national movement but I think is soon going to become an international movement. Anyways, enough of me. Scott: Thanks, Doris. I’m excited to talk about the Mastery Transcript Consortium, and we’ve picked up schools not just in the US but kind of all over the world at this point. Doris: Look where we are. From where we started. Let’s talk about how this even started, where you came up with it. Scott: Sure. Well as you know, we six years ago, started trying to deconstruct school and replace it with learning at Hawken and it became pretty clear that there were a number of obstacles in the way and we’ve spent time over the last few years trying to clear those out of the way. At one point… Doris: We look at us, we’re both 32 years old and look at us, what we’ve been through together. Scott: Well, your maths not great but what we’re really trying to figure out is what are the things in the way of learning and some of the constructs of school are those things. So it became clear that to try to incrementally change a 100-year-old prep school was going to take too long for either of our levels of patience. So about four years ago, we got permission from the board of trustees and really the faculty to create a school within a school, an alternative high school track that was based on premises that made more sense to us like no grades, no grade levels, all interdisciplinary learning, all real-world applied learning and the entrepreneurship program was the genesis of all that and really the best exemplar of what it ought to look like. But as you found out teaching Entrepreneurship, and we found out as we thought about what would a whole high school track look like, grades and the traditional transcript were a huge impediment. Doris: It’s one thing to create it, it’s another thing to teach it. And having done both… Scott: Right, and as you said many times to me, issuing grades at the back end of a completely team based experiential portfolio based is completely counter to the whole idea. So we thought we needed a new transcript for our little lab school and we just figured we would go find one. We figured there are 37 thousand high schools in the United States, there has to be somebody out there who’s got one similar to what we want. Doris: We actually really did believe that. We’re not that special. Scott: Hey no, we don’t want to reinvent the wheel. If there’s a good example out there, we’ll just borrow it, adjust and modify it, and move on our way. Doris: So we don’t have to have the grade transcript.   Scott: Then we ran into two big problems. One, the transcript we were looking for doesn’t exist. We hired Hanover research to do a national survey of transcripting practices and they came back and said, “Yeah, there are a handful, only about one percent, of all the high schools in the United States don’t have grades but even those high schools mostly issue transcripts with content labeled courses and Carnegie units, a time stamp for how long a kid sat somewhere.” We didn’t believe them, we made them do it again. They went back out, looked around and said, “No really, what your modeling doesn’t exist.” So we were the little engine that could and we figured, gosh darn it we will just create our own. So we started creating transcript models. I’m fortunate because of my background I know a lot of college admission deans. So I started running them by deans of admission at pretty selective colleges and they all had the exact same reaction, which is, they understood why we were doing it, they thought it was a neat model. They said, ” Wow, you’d really produce interesting kids if you did this. We said thank you, that’s the goal. And then they said, “Would you be the only high school with this type of transcript?” Yeah, we created it so yeah we would be using it. They said, “Yeah we’re going to hate it then”. I said, “Do tell, can you tell me why you’re going to hate it?” Well Scott, if your transcript is unique, if you have a one of a kind transcript, we have thousands of applications we have to read, we have very little time to read them. I don’t have time to stop and train my admission people in real time. And so we kind of gave up for a little while and thought okay, I guess we can’t create our own transcript. Doris: You and I were still going ahead, here’s how our lab schools going to work and it’s going to be based on all the methods in Entre class and the portfolio based assessment and all of this great stuff and we’re gonna slap a grade on it. Scott: Yeah, because we figured that was our only choice. Then I had a conversation with one of the same deans who I had shown this to before and I said, “By chance, what if I brought 25 other prep schools with me and it wasn’t just Hawken having a unique transcript?” And that person said the same thing that five or six other deans told me which was, “Oh, that would be completely different. If you were doing this as a group. If there was a group of schools doing it, well then I would take the time to train my readers on how to read these transcripts assuming the format wasn’t too nontraditional.” I said, okay I’ll be back, and that was the genesis of the Mastery Transcript. I spent about six months making phone calls to prep school administrators I knew who were friends talking them into coming to Cleveland for two days to have a conversation about what would it look like to create a group? We talked 30 schools into coming to Cleveland for a two-day kind of seminar workshop and we very intentionally showed them what was happening in the Entrepreneurship program. Doris: Yes, they could see a model of what this could look like. Scott: And they could hear from the kids what it felt like. Then we very strategically took them over to the Cleveland Clinic Case Western Reserve University Medical School, the Lerner Medical College, to meet with med students who were not getting grades, who were going through a completely project and problem-based medical school with no grades attached. And this is a very selective med school. Doris: And no lectures. Scott: No lectures. Very much what we were trying to build. And these were all kids who came out because Lerner is a pretty selective med school, these are all kids who went to the most selective universities with straight A averages. Listening to them talk about the difference of what it felt like to learn to ask for feedback from your supervisor position because you wanted to grow versus trying to figure out how to get an A was so compelling. Literally, it brought some of the people in the audience to tears. We had hoped that if we could get maybe 15 of the 30 schools that visited to join, we might have something, and 26 of the 30 joined immediately. Doris: Which was crazy, and by the way, it was 29, 26 out of 29. Not that I’m counting or anything. Scott: No, and ultimately 3 more joined so we got up to 29 out of 30. That was a sign that not only was this not a crazy idea but it was an idea whose time had come. You and I talk about this all the time, we go to all these conferences on innovation and learning. And it’s fun, and we always hear these wonderful keynote speakers who are on one hand inspiring because they’re usually brilliant but on the other hand they’re kind of depressing because more often than not they tell you about how messed up the system is. Doris: Brilliantly tell you how messed up it is. Scott: I came to this conference cause I knew that. They rarely ever given really concrete ways to fix the system. They might give you little tools you might do something back at your school but they don’t give you the how. We all know that the fundamental construct of school deserves being challenged right now but there aren’t vehicles by which we can challenge the whole system. The beauty of the Mastery Transcript Consortium is when you get 100 diverse and impressive prep schools to join forces and decide we want to do it this way, our partners will listen. They’ll say, “Oh, wow, these are pretty significant schools, schools with high academic standards. If they want to do this, there must be something to this.” So the idea can’t be dismissed out of hand when you have a group of schools that are renowned for their kind academic standards deciding they want to do something together. Doris: We never ever thought of this as something for private schools or private schools kids. You and I from the first minute we met, we talked about wanting to use independent schools because we don’t have the restrictions public schools have. Not because we’re better but just we don’t have the restrictions so we feel a responsibility to serve as a laboratory. Really what you were talking about is we decided that we want to find a way to get the colleges to accept a non-grade transcript because that is the lever that has to open up. Scott: In addition to a non-graded transcript, a transcript that actually shows the full shape of the child. It gives them institutional credit for things beyond content knowledge. 99% of the transcripts in the United States are content labeled courses with letter grades after them. But how do you give a kid credit for persistence, resilience, integrity, teamwork, leadership, or even what would be considered academic skills? Creative thinking, critical thinking, complex systems thinking, how do you give them a credit? We don’t currently do that.   Doris: Yeah, and just for a second. Think about what I always say to people when I’m talking to people about this. One of the hard things about being an educator is everybody’s been themselves through school. So everybody has their own notion, well this is what school should look and feel like. When you say to somebody, think about what it tells you about a kid if you look at a transcript. It has a list and you said it but just to really get your head into that, before you go further in describing the model for the Mastery Transcript, you get a…right now these kids work so hard in high school, they’re all different, they’re all doing very different things. If you and I are graduating from the same high school at the same time, we might have even taken mostly the same courses. Scott: Same GPA, same courses. Doris: Or even if it’s a different GPA. You have a list of courses that said you sat your butt in the seat for a semester in this class and that class and that class and that class. I maybe sat in the same classes. The classes titles are all listed there. And maybe you got a 3.8 and I got a 3.2. But what do you know beyond that? Scott: Back to this idea of wanting to be inclusive. It became clear to us that what we were trying to do is create a movement to change the paradigm. That’s not exactly a small undertaking, and it’s strategically wise if you’re going to take on something big, you break it into digestible pieces and your start with the most simple version first. In the educational construct, independent schools have the most latitude, the most freedom to do things differently. We also have a seldom talked about a characteristic that is potentially useful in this scenario, which is our students are disproportionally represented in the most selective colleges in the United States. We are nine times over-represented in the ivy leagues. Those colleges trust our academic standards, they’re used to having our students and they would still like to get more of them. So it gives us a little … Doris: Even though it’s totally unfair and we could do a whole another podcast on that. Scott: It is what it is, right? And it’s not fair. You and I both talked about this. If I had my way, schools like ours shouldn’t have to exist. Every kid should have an education that is comparable to the one that we’re… Doris: And there should be a school blind application process. Scott: But our society does not invest the resources anyway. We want whatever we build to be accessible by all sectors, however, trying to take on all of the various state requirements as an opening effort was a little bit tricky. So we started with the universe that we know. What I would also say about our effort, which is important for people to know, is that we’re not trying to game the system. This will be actually a much more transparent way of showing kids because our model is not just … your transcript is no longer a single piece of paper. Your transcript is now electronic, everything on it is clickable. You click on a credit, it takes you to the standard underneath that credit. It shows you, what is the standard that institution held this child to? You click on the standard and it actually takes you to the portfolio which is full of both work product, things the kids actually produced, and feedback from teachers and other sources that give a sense of what did this child learn? Doris: So right now, I’m working in an admissions office in a college. I get thousands of applicants. I look at their GPA, I look at their list of courses, were they honors or not honors. Because grades have been inflated so much there’s very little difference between…the numbers we found out in our research are crazy in terms of the number of kids graduating with straight A’s. The only thing I have to look at then is the results on a standardized test that we already know don’t correlate to success in life. Scott: Colleges need three things from us which we think we can deliver for them. Doris: This is what you learned? Scott: Yeah, right. And one of them is super pragmatic, they need a one-page transcript that can be written under two minutes. They need to know the difference between the kids at the top of our class and the middle of our class. Lastly, they want to know the shape of the child. Our system will be much more effective in showing the shape of the child and it will provide them a whole new universe of tools for assessing kids. For example, right now if you and I took the same writing class, creative writing class, and we both got A minus’s in that. Doris: That’s all they know. Scott: That’s all they know, that we took the same class and got A minus’s. What if it turned out you were extraordinary at poetry, writing poetry and that’s why I got the minus is that when we got to the poetry part I really struggled with that. But there were other things that I was really good at. Here’s another example, right now if I’m a student who loves math and science and took a lot of classes that were math and science related and I applied to a college and my essay is brilliant. It’s the best-written essay they’ve seen come along. Chances are they might question that, they may go, “Wait, this is a math/science kid”. The beauty of our system is they can click on that writing credit and they can look at the actual writing I submitted in class and they compare it against the essay. If it turns out the essay is so much better they’ll realize my mom probably wrote it. Oh yeah, his mom’s a college English professor, that makes sense. Maybe he didn’t write this essay by himself. On the other hand, they can click on the essay and see that they wrote at school and go, “Wow, this is as good as the essay they submitted, this kid’s also a good writer”. Not only is this child obviously good at science and math, this kid’s also a really good writer. They can verify it. Right now they can’t verify anything we send them. They don’t know why. Imagine, and this happens all the time, so a school hires a brand new teacher. Brand new teacher is super enthusiastic but brand new teacher doesn’t have any sense of the standards and misgrades a whole section of kids either too hard or too easily. How does the college know that that kid got an A that really should have been a B? They don’t know that because a grade is not an institutional measure, a grade is an instructor level measure. Doris: What we’ve been seeing, to make it specific, in Entre as a model for all this, these student have been using portfolios and they’ve been taking their work, their best work. They’re taking the best examples that they decide are their best examples of work to get credits in certain things. Creative problem solving, critical thinking… Scott: Well, you just said something really important. They’re looking at their own work, they’re assessing their own work. In a mastery based system, it requires the students to actively and regularly judge their own performance. In a teacher based grading system, you just turn it in and you cross your fingers and you wait for judgment. All you’re getting is judged, constantly. In a mastery based system, you’re supposed to be your own judge. Doris: It’s about growth. Scott: You’re supposed to say, “How am I doing in order to try to achieve this goal?” Achieving a goal, a hard goal, something that looked impossible is one of the most valuable things we teach kids. Is how to work and persist through hard things to achieve something. If you’re measuring your own growth, your learning about your own learning. The metacognition built into a mastery based system is significant, it’s one of its greatest features. When you have a teacher graded system, there is very little metacognition. Maybe some teachers are savvy enough to build ways to do it but in the absence of that, it’s basically a call and respond. I get an assignment, I do the assignment, I turn the assignment in, I get judged, I move on. If I get a bad judgment I don’t internalize it, I don’t say, oh gosh, I really need to grow, what kids usually say is, “That teacher hates me”. Right, because they’re feeling judged. I use this example. If I said to the faculty at Hawken, “Would you like it if I judged you all the time”? They get really quiet. How about if I just handed out letter grades at the end of every year, how would that feel? And the answer is it would feel crappy because basically instead what I’m saying is here’s some professional development. Now go be the best teacher you can be. Keep growing, keep growing, that’s the message. But in a graded system, I wouldn’t say keep growing, I would say you had a B minus year, Doris. Now you’re leaving for the summer feeling judged, it doesn’t feel any better when you’re 16 by the way. Doris: It doesn’t and we were talking here. There is not yet a master transcript, we haven’t designed it yet. We’re collecting a bunch of schools and educators that want to design it. Scott: Design it together. Doris: We’re going to design it together. The tech platform obviously doesn’t exist yet either. But what happened is that as you and I together started developing the models of education, the methods, and saw these kinds of courses with this kind of assessment and this kind of mastery-based model are powerful, and the students learning is crazy. And by the way, it is more rigorous and the kids all say coming out of these programs, it’s harder, they work harder, they learn more. It isn’t just about soft skills, which people talk about. It’s about all kinds of skills, and it’s about deep learning. Scott: We’re responding actually to what the colleges are telling us they want from us. If you listen to the rhetoric of any college president right now, what they’re saying they want is the same thing, by the way, CEO’s of corporations that are doing hiring say they want. They want team players who are critical and creative and who can manage ambiguity with agency and can handle new things thrown at them, are facile of technology and understand how to do research, that’s who they’re asking for. But in the old system, which was designed in 1894 by the committee of 10, where we’d break everything up into content based disciplines. Doris: The goal is everybody learns this specific content. Scott: And that content is important, but that content’s not the whole ball game and that content is now less useful than it used to be. Doris: Absolutely. Scott: That’s a fundamental truth, and it’s one of the reasons there’s this disconnect between employers. Employers are seeing these incredibly well-educated people and they have to retrain them almost upon arrival. They spent 16 years getting the most excellent education available to them and basically they have to train them up from ground one. Yes, they have some basic skills, they can read and they can write and their numeric. Pretty much everything else they have to train them. Doris: They’ve been taught, we’ve been teaching them what to think and we haven’t been teaching them how to think. With technology what it is, with easy access to any data you want, what matters most is that students are equipped to solve these hard complicated problems that don’t even exist yet. Scott: Along the way, they should also develop personality characteristics and habits that will carry them in lives, and we don’t give credit for any personality characteristics. Here’s a personality characteristic, resilience. Everybody says they want resilient kids but we have a system that tells kids they aren’t allowed to get an A minus. Tell me how we’re supposed to produce resilient kids in a system where you’re never allowed to fail. It’s completely backward, we should have kids celebrating failure as learning opportunities. We should teach kids that every time they fall down is an opportunity to figure out how not to trip the next time. No, we are telling them please don’t trip because if you slap a B minus on your transcript, your whole college list goes in the toilet. That’s not okay, so we can’t produce persistent and resilient kids without building into the system intentional failure. We’re not allowed to do that because if kids fail, it goes on their record. That’s just wrong, and I don’t know of any apprentice model, any mastery based apprentice model in the real world. If you go, for example, and you’re hired by McKenzie as a consultant right. You probably go into a training program of some kind. In that training program, you’re not graded. Maybe at the end, you are in terms of summative like you learned a lot. But, typically you’re given feedback on progress and asked to keep working and you’re allowed to make some mistakes, and in those mistakes, you grow. If you make a lot of mistakes all the time and you’re still making as many at the end as the beginning, I suspect that’s a failure. But this idea that in real time we’re supposed to grade every piece and part and judge it and judge it and judge it and judge it and then expect to have kids who are not neurotic at the end. You get exactly what you would expect right? Doris: And we tried this out. We’ve been building models where apprentice based education models, personalized learning, all the things that you’d hope for and then beating our heads against this grade thing. Scott: We’re all beating our heads collectively. My friends in public schools, parochial schools, other schools are all running into the same problems which is that yeah, we want to teach our kids teamwork, we want to teach our kids how to deal with ambiguous problems. But we can’t because, and the because is because of the state standards or because we have X amount of content we have to cover in the AP period. Doris: Or at the end of the day my school and me as a teacher, I’m assessed on how well my students do on those standards tests, that’s it. So we can have all the great aspirations we want. Scott: Here’s the problem, I don’t have any problem with holding kids to high standards. In fact, I don’t think people grow unless there’s a standard that hopefully, they hold themselves to that pushes them forward. But if we believe that character matters and skills beyond the basic academic skills are useful in the world. Whether you call those skills habits of mind or personality characteristics, then we should assess them and we should try to get kids to master them while they’re in high school. While they’re fully impressionable. And, they’ll be more resilient, more persistent, have greater empathy and integrity when they get to colleges which will mean their capacity to persist in college, to succeed in college, be successful beyond college will go exponential. Because if you ask employers what determines an employee’s success, it’s not content knowledge and it’s not basic academic skills. It’s rarely their writing skills or their reading skills, it’s usually their interpersonal skills. It’s usually their capacity to deal with challenge and work with other people. We ought to be assessing that in high school. Why not? And we ought to be asking kids to master some real basic human relational skills before they go off to college. And we should be proud enough of that work to put it on our transcript. Doris: Yes, and I want to take you back to the transcript for a minute. So there are all over the world now, schools and educators experimenting and developing phenomenal new models of learning. We’re not the only ones developing portfolio based skills and all this stuff. We’ve been experimenting, so have others. I want to take you back to something because you went kind of quickly. When you said, “Doris, I’m going to go ask my friends in the college admissions office”, and we were trying to build this lab school and you came back and you said, I literally remember you saying, “They said, ‘if its just Hawken, forget about it.’” And you also said, “And Doris, here’s what I’ve learned. There are three things they want out of this.” One of the things they said that you went over kind of quickly was the two minutes. As you think about what the Mastery Transcript brings, talk a minute about that. Scott: Sure. The transcript now is a one-page piece of paper. So at the end of the day, the beginning of our transcript has to be on one page, we have to get everything on one page. Now it’s all live so if you want to click on it and dive into it like I described earlier you can. But on that one page, the content will be specific to the institution. If one school wants to give a credit for persistence and another school decides it’s not a credit they want to issue, that’s fine. If two schools want to give credits for persistence but they want to define it differently at their schools, that’s okay too. Because remember with the credit comes the definition, those colleges will see the definition if there is a difference. But, what can’t be different is the format of the transcript has to be the same so if its called a mastery transcript, we have a copyright of that, if it’s called a mastery transcript it will have a common format because we don’t want to make our friends in college admissions crazy. Doris: Well, they won’t even do it right? Scott: Right, if every mastery transcript has a unique layout. So we don’t have the layout created, we are going to create multiple models and we’re going to test them. But once we’re ready to go live, we’ll have a limited set if even a set of formats so that the college admissions officers will know that if they see a mastery transcript the format will look the same as every other master transcript. The content will be specific to the student and the school but the format will be the same and we think that we can hit that two minutes read mark. Doris: Which isn’t our idea, the two minutes. Scott: No, that’s the college admissions officers have said they give between 60 and 90 seconds to read. And I said, “Well, hey, for us would you give us an extra 30 seconds.” They’re like, “Sure, you’ve got two minutes.” But what’s also important is that a lot of admissions work that’s really tricky is done in the margins. The clearly admissible kids and the kids who are not admissible, those are done quickly at the front end of the process. The vast majority, I did admissions in my background, the vast majority of admission committee meetings are the kids in the middle. The kids that are are right on the acceptable/not acceptable line. Right between should we take this kid or should we wait list this kid? In those conversations you do want more information, you do want more evidence, you do want someone saying… Doris: And they spend more time. Scott: Someone saying, “You know what, we need more kids, we need better RA’s, our RA’s have been really disappointing. Well, then we need kids who got incredible social and emotional intelligence. Here’s a kid with a Mastery Transcript, look at their SEL’s, they’ve got all this stuff on the character side. That kid trumps this kid even though they have also comparable traditional academics.” Doris: And we can look at if the kids mastered whatever it is, we can look at what they produced. Scott: The other thing that happens too is that there’s usually someone in an admissions office who’s responsible for a region or for a group of kids. They’re usually one of the first readers. Those people fall in love with certain kids, they really want them to do well in the process. This gives them tools to advocate for their kids. If you’ve got a Mastery Transcript, if you and I are both admissions officers and I’ve got my 20 kids I really hope to get in and you’ve got your 20 kids you want to get in, there are only five seats. If my kids are all Mastery Transcript kids and yours are traditional transcripts, I’m going to win most of those overlaps because I can say, “Oh, look at 30 seconds of this kids video of the debate, this kid’s extraordinary.” And you’ve just got transcripts with letter grades and test scores. Doris: I’ve got test scores and I’ve got probably for the wealthier kids, essays that somebody helped them write. Scott: Exactly. And here’s the other advantage of the Mastery Transcript which we hope will happen. There are extraordinary kids who produce extraordinary work in schools that are not extraordinary. Those kids are trapped, and in this systems theoretically, they could submit their work to be assessed no only by their own school but by other assessing organizations that issues Mastery Transcripts including Hawken. Hawken could assess kids who don’t go to Hawken. And you wouldn’t necessarily get a diploma but you could get a transcript. It would allow kids in schools that have 600 kids for one councilor who don’t get highlighted very well to produce a transcript that not only shows what credits they earned but shows the work underneath it so that if a college admissions officer wants to say, “Hey, here’s a kid I really want to advocate for,” they’ve now got this whole set of data to go with it. Doris: And from the kids perspective, if there’s a student from school X that a college maybe isn’t familiar with and another kid from school Y that a college is familiar with, some private school or who knows what, they’re able to see the work that the students produce. Scott: That’s really critical because and it’s assessed work, it’s not just something that someone helped them write, right? So a lot of times when kids come from schools where the academic standards in school are questionable to the college, they see an A in English but for whatever reason, that college doesn’t think much of that A, they don’t think the school has high standards. They can now click on the kid’s essays and realize, wow, this kid really does write beautifully. Even though I wasn’t sure that A was legitimate, it doesn’t’ really matter because I can look right at the student work product and go this kid can write. That’s a really beautifully written essay. And it wasn’t the essay that they turned in that maybe someone helped him write, it was the thing that was turned in in his class. Doris: For a kid who is for example, a kid who is an artist, maybe they’re a performance artist. Maybe they don’t show up well on any standard kind of test or even write essays well but now a college admissions officer can look at the video of them performing and see the kid. Scott: And you use the word can, but they won’t have to. If they trust the transcript if they trust the credits, which we believe that they will over time, they can read it in under two minutes and move on. And so they kid may be automatically in or automatically out based on that alone but if they end up being one of those kids on the margins where they really have to think harder, they’re going to have this incredible set of evidence that they can use. And we will build into our software platform auditing tools so that they can say, show me every teacher comment about writing from this kid and it generates a report. Or show me everything about quantitative reasoning for this child and it pulls it out of the portfolio and presents it to them. This is not us trying to hide anything, quite the contrary, this is completely transparent. We’re showing you the whole child. But the most important part is we’re showing you the whole child, not just the narrowly academically defined child, we’re showing you the student character, we’re showing you the students skills not just their content knowledge. Doris: And there are schools and even districts and networks of schools all over the world now that have actually for many years been developing these kinds of academic programs and have gone pretty far with portfolios and all these things. The Mastery Transcript doesn’t exist yet but together with all these folks we are going to design something that gives a vehicle to these guys. Scott: I’m a big fan of Jim Caan’s work and one his premises is first two then what. The first thing you want to do is put a great team together and so bringing these schools together to start the conversation and then broadening it to our friends in parochial and public schools, that’s what you do first, you build your team first. And then the team will collectively with the guidance and hopefully resources of the MTC create a new paradigm, a new system. My favorite quote is a quote from Buckminster Fuller which is, “You can’t change reality, in order to change something you have to create a new reality. It makes the old reality obsolete”. Our current paradigm isn’t serving children well so we need to build a new paradigm. And the only way we can do that is to have smart people on the same team. So that’s what the MTC’s doing, is putting smart people on the same team. Doris: Can you believe there are so many people wanting to do this? Scott: Yeah. In fact, we’re over a hundred schools and climbing rapidly, we’ll be several hundred schools soon which will be pretty cool. Doris: It’s exciting, thank you, Scott. Scott: This is great, thanks, Doris. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode Doris speaks with Kesha Conway, Program Director at Ashtabula Leadership County. She describes her course where students gained skills in collaboration and problem solving by working on a real business challenge from their local community in rural, Ohio. Doris: Hey, Kesha.   Boy, you just had a whole pilot. How’d it go? Kesha: All in all it was absolutely fantastic. Doris: Wow. Kesha: I can’t wait to do it again. Doris: So, talk about it. What happened? Kesha: Well, I have my students for one day out of the month. So, I met with them September, October, November, December, only four times. And in that time… Doris: But then each time it’s very long. Kesha: Yes. The whole darn day. And so, in those four days, we have gone through so many emotional roller coasters. And in the end when they presented, Doris, these kids totally knocked their own socks off. Doris: That’s a great way to put it. You knocked their… That’s perfect. Kesha: There were like life lessons in every single thing that we were doing. Even the three minutes before they went and presented. I had one girl in one of my groups, she really wasn’t plugged in the whole time. Right? If she did come, she just kind of sat there and pretended that, “Because I missed last time, I don’t really know what’s going on and I’m not going to ask for help.” That type of thing. When they would assign each other things to do, like interview people, she would just blame it on her phone, like she didn’t get the message. That type of thing, right? However, it was an expectation, even though this wasn’t a graded thing, that all four of them on the team had to make their pitch. No notes, all the same things that you encouraged me to do. Two minutes before it was go time, she comes up to me just totally pale, shaking and crying. She said, “I’m totally scared to do this.” And I said, “Why?” And she came to the conclusion that she dropped the ball, and she felt like she didn’t know what she was saying up there and more importantly, that she had totally let her other teammates down. Because that morning, papers are flying, people are screaming, everyone is getting all worked up for the presentation, and she didn’t really…she wasn’t like… Doris: Contributing. She didn’t have anything. Kesha: Yes. Yes. And so, she was crying. And then I pulled her team out with her and said, “You guys, you need to solve this.” And they did. They were great teammates. They said, “Thank you for acknowledging that because when you weren’t contributing, it made us feel like…” fill in the blank. And then they said, “Okay. Moving on. We got to present, so we’re going to take this and this off of your plate, but you still have to do this.” Doris: Nice. Kesha: And they asked her to practice with them and then they gave her some feedback. Doris: How great is that? Kesha: And at the end of it, she was nervous up there, but she did it and she didn’t cry. And the other three in her team just were looking at her like, “You got this.” It was so cool. Doris: Oh, wow. Keesha: You know what I mean? Doris: Yeah. Yeah. So think about… So, instead of having a science project, and we’ve all had this. Where you’re doing all of the work and there’s somebody that’s doing none of the work and it goes unsaid and you just leave with this icky feeling and the conclusion, “I never want to do a group project.” They didn’t say, “Oh don’t worry, you didn’t blow it.” Kesha: Right. Doris: They didn’t say that because that wouldn’t have been true. But she was able to contribute something and learn from that and probably she’ll never do that again. Kesha: Most definitely. Because when we reflected on it, because you made me and I really needed to and it was so worth it, that’s exactly what she said. Exactly. Word for word. So, I didn’t really give them enough credit in terms of learning content. Right? More so because I’m not an entrepreneur and I didn’t really know what I was doing going into this. Right? Doris: Sure. Kesha: So I didn’t expect a lot out of them. But obviously they knocked that out of the park. But even when they were totally absorbing entrepreneurial content they were learning these awesome strategies on how to be effective teammates. Doris: Yeah. Because it’s central to being successful as an entrepreneur. Kesha: So my other group…I only had two groups. My other group was a group of three, and one of them wasn’t there for…I think it was in November, so it was a really important day. The two of them were comparing their last interviews, and they were coming to the conclusion that they had to revise some assumptions and their solution. It was a lot more bold than they had originally thought. They came to me that day. They said, “Oh my gosh, Kesha, our original idea isn’t what we think we should go with, but it’s so and so’s baby. We’re really scared that she’s not going to like this idea, and she’s going to get mad at us,” and, you know, all those feelings. Doris: All those teenage feelings. Kesha: Well, I mean, I would probably feel that way, too. Doris: Yeah. That’s true. Kesha: So, they basically asked me, “What should we do?” And instead of telling them what to do, I asked them questions and they came up with their own solution. They ended up… The girl that wasn’t there, but, you know, her original idea that was her baby, she got it. And she was still fully…She felt like she was still involved and she still had input. I mean there was just those little instances that really turned into the big “aha’s.”   Doris: And here’s what’s interesting about that because we found that as well, and what’s so funny about it is we could be having the students work on a challenge where the content is really tough. I’m thinking like Genomoncology where they had to learn a bunch of genetics and biology or EveryKey where there was a portion where they had to do a bunch of statistical analysis, or whatever it is. But the interesting thing is it’s those kinds of things like what you’re recounting, those are the big learning moments. Kesha: That was fantastic. The other thing that I just wasn’t ready for was the…So, we worked with an ice cream shop so it was a very easily identifiable business. Doris: It wasn’t a complicated business. Yeah. Right. Kesha: It was for me. Doris: Which is okay. That’s great if it works well. Kesha: It did. Doris: Actually, it doesn’t matter. Kesha: It doesn’t matter. So, we went to the place and on the way back to our little headquarters, everyone had their own opinion. Right? “Oh, she should just do this. She should change the aesthetic. She should, she should, she should, she should.” And as they went through the process of interviewing and researching and all the really hard stuff, it was really interesting to see them struggle with letting go of their own idea… Doris: Sure. In the face of research to the contrary. Right? Kesha: Right. Doris: Yeah. Kesha: Yeah. If they did the right research. It was perfect. It was great. I loved it. Doris: That’s fantastic. Kesha: I can’t wait to do it again, Doris. Doris: Can you talk about the students at Ashtabula, what this kind of very different sort of problem solving education means for these kids? Kesha: So, I had seven students this semester and they were from one, two, three public schools in Ashtabula County, which is the largest county in Ohio but one of the most rural. When we were reflecting on what they had done so far, one, they had said they’ve never done anything like this before. Two, they’ve never been treated like they were capable of something like this. And they never thought…Before they presented, the session before they presented, they watched some of the Hawken students. Doris: Yes. One of those videos. Kesha: Yes. Well before they saw them and I told them about the Hawken students and they were like…You could just tell, they were like, “Well, we’re not like them.” You know? Doris: Yeah. Yeah. They’re private school kids. Kesha: Private school kids and almost city kids. And after they saw the Hawken students do that, they looked at me and said, “Oh, we can do this. We can do this.” And it was… Doris: Yes. Nice. Nice. It’s empowering. Kesha: Yes. They were very empowered because of this. And now they expect so much out of themselves. Doris: What can be better than that? They’ve learned that they can learn. Keesha: Yes. And I learned the same thing. I really did. Doris: What do you mean? Kesha: I came away with more confidence in myself. First of all, I now can be a little bit more uncomfortable and know that I can still do good work. Doris: That’s awesome. Kesha: Do you know what I mean? Doris: Yes. I totally know what you mean. Kesha: I don’t have to know everything in order to… Doris: Feel comfortable teaching it. Kesha: Yeah. Most definitely. And that’s what I came away with at your workshop. You know, the day after your workshop I sat down, started planning, feeling really good, and then I realized you’re not with me anymore. I want all the answers, Doris. And that’s exactly what I was trying to help these kids learn is, like you say, the answers aren’t in the back of the book. Doris: Yeah. Kesha: You’re going to have to figure it out. So you have to get after it. Doris: Yeah. Well that’s it. Alison found some brilliant statistics that basically supported what I understand and kind of know but I never thought of explicitly, which is in order for a teacher to really substantively change their practice they have to have experienced teaching the other way before they will adopt it. And the reason that we do what we do at these workshops is so that you can leave with what you need hopefully to implement a pilot. Just try it, and feel like you have enough to go with to try it. And once you’ve done it, hopefully having experienced it, you feel like you do. Kesha: Without a doubt. Without a doubt. And there’s something to be said though of feeling really kind of uncomfortable the first time. Doris: Yeah. Kesha: I mean, leaving your workshop, So I had all the tools. It’s like Christmas. Right? Doris: Yeah. Kesha: Seriously. You give us a lot of tools, but you don’t… Doris: You still have to put it together. Yeah. Kesha: You don’t tell me exactly how to do it. In it, I was totally uncomfortable. And I did I wanted to call you every day and just be like, “Please tell me how to do this.” But just like my kids got so much confidence in themselves… It’s like me looking back at me at the very beginning, and looking at myself being like, “I don’t know if I can do this.” And now I’m like, “I can do this. It’s not perfect, but it’s working.” Doris: It works. I love that. That’s wonderful. That’s what you hope for. Kesha: Another thing I learned, I figured out, is…You in the workshop, you told us be prepared to always ask questions when students ask for your help. Doris: Yes, answer questions with questions. Kesha: Right. Doris: Yep. Kesha: And I did that a lot and then sometimes I got lazy and I wouldn’t. And I could tell the difference in how the students received my information. Doris: Describe that. That’s really interesting. Kesha: I can’t think of a specific situation, but it was just this feeling. You can just feel them dial you out when you tell them… Doris: “Here’s what you should do.” Kesha: “This is what you should do.” And you don’t even have to phrase it like that. Even when I would say, “Have you read the book such and such?” Doris: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kesha: You know what I mean? That’s a question, Doris. Doris: Yeah. Kesha: It’s not a question. Doris: Not really, but, yes. Kesha: So, when I would basically tell them what to do next, I know they respect me, you know what I mean? Doris: Sure. Kesha: I know that they trust me. Doris: Sure. Instead of their thinking, it’s yours. One of the things… This doesn’t sound very profound, but I think it’s our job in education to teach students how to think, not what to think. Kesha: Right. Doris: And that’s really the essence of the difference between teaching what to think and how to think. If you say actually, “Have you read this book,” or, “Have you thought about doing this, this, this, or this,” you’re giving them what they should think. Kesha: But they’re not even very receptive to it. Doris: No. Because you’ve got them in this mode. They want it to be theirs. Kesha: Right. Doris: They want the creative problem solving. Kesha: Yeah. Doris: They want it to be there. Kesha: So, it’s like a double negative or like… Doris: Exactly. Kesha: You know what I mean? Doris: Yes. I do. Kesha: If you tell me that this is what I should do, particularly as a teenager… Doris: You take my motivation away. Keesha: Yeah. No thanks. Doris: Yeah. I’m not that into it. Kesha: So, it’s like you steer them away from what you wanted to steer them towards. Doris: Exactly. Exactly. Because it feels more like what happens in school, where they’re just consumers. Kesha: Yeah. And sometimes probably as a child in the household, as well. Doris: Of course. You’re the mom and you tell the kids, “I need you to eat peas.” Kesha: Yeah, I think it can be like dealing with toddlers. Doris: Yeah. You killed it. Yep. Right. Kesha: So, that is something that was… It helped me when I did get lazy and I wanted to give them the answer, it helped me not do that because I knew it wasn’t effective anyway. Doris: Yeah. Yeah. And you develop that completely different approach to the conversations and the guiding and the teaching. Keesha: Oh, and the kids totally dig it. They live for it. Doris: Yeah. It’s really interesting, isn’t it? Keesha: Once they buy it. Doris: Yeah. And talk about in terms of sort of the expectations they had for themselves about the quality of what they did. Kesha: Initially, they had no idea what to expect. But the very first day, I recorded everything they did. You probably suggested that. But I recorded everything they did. They didn’t know that the first day.  I think the first day is when they did their first business model share out. And they were all just kind of laughing about it and just kind of real casual. And the minute I started recording, man, it got real. Doris: That’s right. Yeah. Kesha: And they started expecting a lot more out of themselves. Doris: Absolutely. Kesha: Just doing that… Doris: Alone. Kesha: Totally stepped their game up. And then in terms of expecting things out of themselves, it really helped knowing that the business owner and her team were gonna be here in three hours. Doris: Yeah. Yeah. It’s huge. Kesha: Or here next month. Doris: Right. Right. It’s huge. Kesha: “Can we reschedule? Please, please, please. We just need one more week.” Nope. Doris: Right. That gives the sense of urgency and that’s why when we talk about it, people get initially really intimidated by the idea of having to find a business. Or if it’s an engineering class, if they’re doing an energy related project, making sure that there’s some kind of performance, that they’re dealing with some kind of authentic audience.”How am I gonna find somebody? I don’t know anyone.” Or, “How am I going to find a business?” And the reality is it’s easy. Kesha: If I can do it in rural Ashtabula, everyone can do it. There are no excuses Doris: And this sounds awful, and I hope no future students here this podcast, but it’s the truth. What really matters is it’s someone real who’s not a teacher and not a parent. And the minute it’s someone like that, as a teacher, you use that as the thing that gives them pressure because you say, “Well, it’s not about whether or not I think this is good enough. Do you think this is good enough to get up and actually present to somebody who’s going to be coming in and knows their stuff? Kesha: This was not for credit. This was just totally just an extracurricular activity, and they were meeting on Sundays and early mornings before school in November to December because… Doris: Because they wanted to do a good job. And you’re going to hopefully get this into other Ashtabula schools as academic courses. Yes? Kesha: Yes. It’s happening a lot more faster than I anticipated. Doris: Quicker than you though. Yeah? Kesha: Yes. Not only did these poor kids have to present to the business owner, they were presenting to superintendents and whatnot in the audience. Doris: Yeah. Kesha: So, it’s gonna spread very quickly through an area that needs something like this. And it’s really… Doris, I can’t thank you enough. I really can’t. I’ve learned so much about myself, and this is the most fun and challenging thing I’ve ever done, and you have given me all the tools and all the support. Doris: Well, you did it. You did it. You rocked it and you’ve discovered you’re a born teacher, and you love it. Right? Kesha: I do. I can’t go back now. Doris: Yeah. And that’s great. You know, one of the things that probably makes me happiest in these last few years is… I’ve been in schools now for 20, 21 years, and in just the last couple three years it’s becoming so much more mainstream in education to collaborate with other teachers. That wasn’t the case in the first many, many years in schools, and I missed that. You know? I was in business before, and in high tech and we’d build stuff in software, and it was very, very team-based and collaborative. I love that that’s happening now in education, too. As we all get together to try to… We’re doing this together. How do we do this differently? How can we make school what it needs to be for our kids and for our country and our world? Kesha: And it’s not complicated. Doris: It’s not complicated. Kesha: It’s super simple. It’s hard work, but it’s one, it’s worth it, and it’s simple. Doris: It’s simple, but it’s very different. Kesha, you rocked it. I’m excited to see this spread across Ashtabula under your incredibly deft direction and see what happens. Kesha: Watch out, here I come. Doris: Watch out, here we come. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode Doris speaks with Anna Delia. She is the Middle School Asst. Director and Science Teacher at Hawken School, a K12 independent school in Cleveland, Ohio. Anna shares how her middle school science students gain skills and knowledge by creating Biomimcry solutions to real problems. She also shares how her students are developing character and leadership skills by solving problems in their school community.  Doris: Hey, Anna. Anna: Hey, Doris. How are you? Doris: I’m great. How are you doing? Anna: I’m doing well. Wrapping up the end of the school year here. It’s been a lot of fun. It’s been a great year, and May is busy and wonderful. Doris: The race to the finish, right? Anna: I love it. Doris: Yeah. It’s crazy. So, Anna, tell everybody a little bit about what you do and what you’ve done. Anna: Sure, so, going back a little while, I previously taught high school science, and then at Hawken I’ve taught 7th grade science for five years. And I taught a semester of environmental science and a semester of physics and worked really hard with our math teacher in 7th grade and our other teachers in our other subject areas to do several integrated projects where possible. And then now, in this year, I have taken on the role of assistant director of the middle school, and some of my priorities are on growing experiential programs for students, trying to build some integrated curricular models where we teach several subjects together at the same time to give students a real-world experience, our service learning programs and initiatives and getting the students out into the community and interfacing with real people and real jobs as much as possible. So those are kind of the priorities that I work on now.   Doris: How fun is that? Anna: I know. It’s a great job. Doris: It’s great. So you came to the workshop, and why? And what did you do with it? And what happened? Anna: Sure. So I have long been a fan of seeing something or hearing of something, and if I feel in my mind it sparks a little interest, or, like, that sounds like something I could be interested in, or that sounds like something that I would learn a lot from, or that sounds like something new and innovative that I should probably be aware of, I love to sign up. I usually, you know, well, check in with the workshop coordinators or people who’ve been before us, like, “Is this something that, you know, you think I could benefit from?” And in this case it really was. I met some teachers who’d been to your workshop. I obviously knew you, and Alison, and Tim, and I thought, you know, “Why not try this new approach that I’m hearing about and get more information?” So I was thrilled to kind of put through the request and have the time and spend a couple of days here in Cleveland, getting to know what you have been doing in the entrepreneurship program at my own school a little better and beyond that, the curriculum model that is the approach to your method of teaching and how would that play out across any classroom, in any school, in any student environment. So that was really a hopeful takeaway and definitely what I walked away from the workshop with. Doris: That’s great. And talk about…I think your biomimicry program is so exciting. Seeing what you’ve done with it, seeing what the students are doing with it, can you talk about it? Tell us what that’s all about. Anna: Sure, I would love to tell you a little more. A few years ago I went with a group of colleagues to see a woman named Janine Benyus, and she is the mother of the biomimicry movement, and she was coming to The University of Akron. So we put together a little professional learning group and went down to hear her talk, and we were very much abuzz afterward. We had a little dinner that we went to and kind of chatted about our takeaways. And then met as teacher several times and thought, “How can we bring this truly emerging area of science but bioengineering mostly in design to our students?” And, you know, the art teacher here, Erin Thomas, and I worked over summer to build a project, and we just approached her with, you know, “What are other teachers doing out there?” And, as we found out, there really aren’t any middle school projects for biomimicry. We really haven’t been able to find a curriculum model that we could even follow. So we had to start asking some questions of ourselves, things like, “What do we want the students to walk away with? What do we want them to gain this week, this month, and this year and then stick with them beyond for their future work in engineering, design, science, their future careers?” So, in doing so, we came up with a model where students identify a problem with something in their everyday life. So this could be, for example, every time I open my cereal box, the lid reaps off, and it can never close again, and the cereal gets stale. That’s a problem, and when you’re 12 years old, that truly may be, like, a problem that you identify that you really wanna work on. Doris: Yeah. Where we call the problem that’s real and matters to them, right? Anna: Exactly, and we encouraged them at this age to look for a product, so not necessarily a process. You know, I’m thinking a real problem for me is traffic, and that’s more of a systems process than a product process. So we encourage them to look for a product. They’d bring in their item. They talk with their group. They come up with an idea together. Usually, they’d pick one that the group members decided on. And then we spend a series of days and in science class going and looking for inspiration. So we might do some internet research, but I really encourage them to get outside. So we go on some nature hikes, some focused walks, and we’re looking in nature for places that design exists. And I’m not talking about some sort of far thought out design. I guess I should just say I’m not talking about intelligent design here. I’m talking about, you know, a nature facet, a nature feature, a nature anatomy that could lend itself to a human design that we are not yet using. So we might stop at a plant and look at the seed pod and notice how there is a lot of mechanisms going on there on that seed pod to keep that seed protected, to keep it safe from environmental factors, to help that seed travel to a new location and imprint a new offspring into a new environment. And so the students are encouraged to look and then say, you know, what physical features of this seed pod could we be using for something in human need. Could we be using these features for defense mechanisms, for travel, for attachment, for protection, for home insulation, for jacket wear, for materials that need to stick together? And then that’s when the ideas explode. That’s when they’re thinking of everything. You know, everything in nature could be used for better design. So they go back to their problem, and they are encouraged to what we call “biologize” the problem. Is nature overcoming this exact problem in a way that the organisms would die? Their species would die off if they could not overcome it. So that’s the sort of science approach and research, and then they dive deep into that organism, and they look up all about, you know, its natural history, its anatomy, its lifestyle, its habitat, its culture. And in Art class they are learning at the same time about design in general, everything from architecture, industrial design, and fashion design, engineering design. They’re coming up with a sculpture that symbolizes their new idea, so rather than prototyping, which there is a little bit of prototyping in this process, but we found those aren’t really the most effective art pieces. They come up with a symbolic sculpture that shows their ideas. So one of my favorite projects we did with this was a group that determined that infant car seats are an issue. They don’t easily snap into cars. It doesn’t seem like cars in general are keeping children safe just on their own. It’s a real onerous process. They’re very heavy. Is this even the best design to keep the baby safe? And then when we asked them, you know, where in nature does an organ have to carry its fully formed offspring through a lot of motion and keep it safe, they, you know, instantly went to kangaroos. What’s going on there? We have got kangaroo mothers that are traveling, you know, 35 miles per hour. How do they impact jumping up to 12 feet at a time landing and the baby stays totally safe, and it’s never harmed? The species would die if the child was harmed, if the offspring was harmed. And they learned all about the kangaroo anatomy. There are some amazing features that are going on there in that marsupial pocket and how it keeps the baby safe. And then their new engineered design was a car seat inspired by the leg anatomy and the pouch anatomy of a kangaroo that they believed would keep that baby in a motion rocking feel within a car contained and safe at high speeds. Of course, you know, we can’t create that item here in a middle school, but that’s their idea, and they could see it through, and they have a process in place to think through an alternative design to a problem that we feel is truly innovative in the next step of design work. You know, when this age group is in college and graduate school, we hope that they’re able to be truly designing those kinds of products to meet human needs over just going with traditional models and tweaking the paint color, for example. Doris: Yeah, so here you have some, I’ll call it content or the objectives. You want students to learn science, and you want students to learn some various aspects and skills within art and design. And so each student is working on a problem that they’ve identified matters to them to solve, and they’re creating a solution. Whether it’s an entrepreneurship class, or biomimicry, or whatever, they’re creating in teams, a solution, and they have to learn a ton about the science, and the design, and the biology in order to be able to be generative, and innovative, and creative. Anna: Exactly. This project lends itself to an easy individualization of science learning, because one group or one student might be really interested in anatomy of an organism that enables it to live its life in a way that will be successful for its offspring. Another group might be really interested in the chemistry of this color of different plants, and they’re doing a deep dive in chemistry. So we have the ability in middle school to spread out those subjects in such a way we’re just calling it science. And as your group needs it, they can go and access some of those finer pieces. And then, of course, they all present to each other, so everyone gets exposure. But myself as a group might really get into an area that I’m personally finding very interesting in science. Doris: And, of course, we humans created this construct called academic disciplines. The world doesn’t work like that. Great the world is inherently interdisciplinary. But coming out of this work, you’ve got kids who are on fire about science, and I’ve seen them the day that you have them present, and they’re so proud when you do the showcase and they present what they’ve done. I’d like to hear your answer of this, but I would bet a lot of money that these kids many of them continue to work on their projects in some way after that. Anna: First, I should say one of my favorite sort of secret weapons in the teaching tool box is, “Your parents are coming, and it needs to be done.” I love to use that phrase, you know, “An authentic audience is arriving at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, and they are going to be here to hear what you did.” At that point, I may not even be in the picture. I could be, you know, writing copies in the coffee room, which obviously I wouldn’t do. But that’s the message to them, is, “You’re not creating this for Mrs. Delia and Mrs. Thomas to review. You are creating this for another audience who will come in on a performance day and see all that you have learned. And we’d like for you to be able to talk about it. We’d like for you to be able to show them what this is all about.” And one of my most empowering things in doing that is to give the child a sense that my teacher is my teammate in this and my teacher is not some other entity that’s accessing me. You know, I’m there with them, putting the tape on the table, and setting their poster up, and making sure that the sculptures align just so, and giving them a place to stand and say like, “This is where you’re gonna make your presentation sing to these people that are coming. Like, let’s make this amazing for them together.” And I’m not, you know, writing on a piece of paper my analysis of how they did. They’re getting that feedback in person from the visitor that is there looking at them. And some of these people in this particular project are Ph.D. fellows in biomimicry at The University of Akron, or they are the coordinator of Great Lakes Biomimicry who send a monthly newsletter out to all these organizations across Northeast Ohio about work that is going on, including their projects. I mean, these are real people… Doris: They’re not just parents, and they’re not just teachers. Anna: Right. And they are not writing something on a piece of paper that then goes into another location and they get back a week later from a teacher. They’re watching a human react to what they’re saying, and at the middle school level, particularly, you really can’t put a value on presenting a child with opportunities to get in-moment feedback on who they are becoming as a learner and who they are becoming as a person. And so to have an expert they’ve never met show up and also have their parents show up, which, you know, of course, is very scary sometimes or sometimes very good depending on the child, to have the support of people show up, and look at them, and listen to them, and keep their eyes open and stare and wonder at the work that they’ve created, I think, does start a little fire inside of them. Like, I had a vision and I had an idea of how something could be solved, and there are people here to listen to me, and my ideas, and my solutions, and I find that very powerful. So they are incredibly proud on that day. You can see it on their faces. You can feel the energy in the entire building as they share what they’ve done, and for me as a teacher, I feel a sense of pride in the empowerment I’ve given to students more than, you know, you learned 100% of the content, and I’m very proud of you. I literally just had hairs stand up on the back of my neck just saying that. It feels so uncomfortable. Doris: Wow, and it’s so brilliant the projects you’ve created in terms of the learning that happens on so many levels. So, first of all, it’s a big challenge, it’s real. There are problems that the students care about that are not yet solved, and they are discovering the magic of nature, and by using it; it’s perfect. Anna: You know, in environmental science, we talk about kind of having that nature eye. Like, if you’re a data collector in environmental science, you spend a lot of time looking around outside for the fine details, and that’s not something that anyone is born with, it’s developed over time. And if you’re gonna spend a career doing any kind of work in the environment, you know, you need to spend time in the environment, right? Just like if you want to do anything. I’m not trying to shape everybody into a future environmentalist, but I would hope that every student who goes through this project, or my classroom, or our science program is a better designer, and is better at looking at solutions to problems that are more real-world, and is more empowered to be a public speaker and a presenter around what they’ve learned and their ideas. And the avenue we’ve chosen to do that is through building in these other things, like walking outside and looking in the real world, both in nature and in, you know, the human experts that they might meet along the way. So let me share one other new project I’ve been working on this year coming out of the workshop that I went to last summer to kind of reboost, you know, my educational philosophy and think on that a little more. I wanted to share with you how I enact a project at the school this year. When I went to the workshop, I knew I had a new group of 8th graders that had an extra study hall, and my big task was we need to find something for these students to do that grows them into better leaders. So that was sort of my reason or my rationale for going in kind of building the curriculum in a new way. What I walked away with was this model that I need to consistently give them real problems from real people in real time, and they have to present back a solution after a set amount of time when they’ve done some real research on the topic. Doris: Which is actually similar to or the same thing with biomimicry really, right? Anna: Right, right, and I was kind of doing it before, and this sort of clarified for me, you know, what that looks like. And getting so many examples at your workshop of how you’ve done this with your students in entrepreneurship made me see and gave me some confidence in pulling it off with a group of 30 8th graders. Doris: You needed the methods, right? Anna: Right, exactly. So one tool…you can’t really teach leadership, you know, as I learned. You can’t just sit down and read about leaders. You really gotta do things that empower students to be leaders or show them along the way techniques that might be needed to be a leader in the community. So the first problem that we gave them at our school was that we don’t have any connection between grades, and we’re a K-8 campus. We actually have three-year-olds here, and we don’t have that much connection. Once you get to 8th grade, you’re just doing 8th grade things. They met with the school administrators and heard very clearly that this was something that we needed to work on as a community. And then we encouraged them to go out and do research with our younger grades, with the students and the teachers, and find out what are the needs, what are the places that had been missing 8th grade engagement all these years or in recent history. One tool we gave them actually was the Business Model Canvas although I slightly revised it to be called the community model canvas, and we looked at communities in general. What are the values this community is adding? What are the costs associated with being a member of this particular grade level or student population? What are the needs? What are the resources that are out there? Who are the key partners? So I’d have the students pick an area of the school and dive deep into learning about that as a small community. Therefore understanding what it might take to be what we call a steward of that community. So, in research, they might have spent some time in a lower school classroom looking at times of the day that were challenging for a teacher to give the so necessary individualized one-to-one support that a young child really needs. And they looked at that in sort of a model formula. Who are the partners? What are the needs? Who are the resources? What are the resources? And that sort of thing. And then after about six weeks of their own independent research, they had to come back and present back to that initial group and give real solutions. You know, we need more people on the ground during pack up time. When 2 teachers have to do it, it takes 15 minutes and 35 seconds. When five people are in the room helping, it cut the time way down to four minutes. And these are the things that the students said they would want to do with the extra 11 minutes of time they could have each day or these are the things that teachers could achieve with an extra 11 minutes of time. That’s an extra book that gets read. That’s an extra nature walk. That’s an extra free play time space. They gave this convincing kind of database evidence for their new idea that 8th graders should have 15 minutes at the end of every day to go and help this particular kindergarten group pack their backpacks, and that’s just one example. And so through that, they enacted a peer stewardship program where we now have 30 students that 1 to 3 times a week go to a classroom in the lower school, and they don’t just assist the teacher. They’re truly on the ground doing partnership work with a younger student and obviously creating more of a connection. A beautiful outcome of this that I particularly loved was that one of our 8th grade students asked if he could invite his peer classroom to his final 8th grade chapel talk, the speech he was going to give to the community, and he set all that up. I didn’t do it for him. He went down. He talked to the teacher. He got them to come, and the whole class came and applauded him on that very special day, and I thought that was just sort of a lovely recursive benefit of building more student ownership over needs in the community. You know, that really showed a deepening connection. So that was their first project. Doris: That’s phenomenal, so let me say this back to you in these ways, and you tell me if this is right. So the primary learning objective you had was actually character, right? Leadership, I’m gonna define as more character than it is skill, right? Anna: Exactly, yes. Doris: And yet you use these methods and structures to create… they were given a problem to work on, and you created structure analytical problem-solving to make the learning happen. And the results were that in, addition to experiencing leadership, they also had to do all sorts of quantitative analysis, and research, and communications, and… Anna: Exactly. They had to poll students. They had to find a way to take all those comments and data and put some numbers behind it. They had to come up with a convincing statistic. They had to give a beautiful PowerPoint presentation that couldn’t be marbled up with words, or texts, or mambo jambo. It needed to be clear and quick and to the point and needed to be convincing, and then by doing so, it placed them in a situation now. For weekly, they are building those character traits, they’re building those leadership skills, and they are becoming more of a leader in the community, as well as a recognizable face but also in terms of model behavior. You know, they’ve heard from the horse’s mouth what’s needed, and they have to do it.   Doris: And they have complete agency in what they’re doing, because they’re, again, creating their own solutions instead of, you know, reading a book and talking to you about what the books say to them. That’s phenomenal. So, Anna, you’ve been teaching science for many years, and Erin has been teaching art for many years. I taught math for years. I wanna hear what your thoughts are about the trade-off that people often bring up between the engagement and excitement students have in doing a project like this versus academic rigor and depth. Okay, and I’m obviously very opinionated about this… Anna: You know I am, too. Doris: Yeah, you’ve heard me talk…the conversation I have with a lot of subject matter teachers I had, and yet again yesterday I had a lot of time. They said, “Well, that’s great. I mean, that’s cool that you guys can do that at Hawken and it’s a private school. Oh, that’s really cool. You can do it in my entrepreneurship course, but, of course, I’m evaluated how well my kids do on their tests, and I’m teaching, you know, 8th grade math.” And talk about that. Anna: Okay. Well, all of this started for me truly just prior to launching full-time in the classroom. I did go to graduate school for education, and you’re reading all the time, and you’re reading books and research papers and such. And I remember coming across this story about a one-room school house in Montana that was hosting children, kindergarten through 12th grade, still in the ’90s, and there was one teacher teaching all the students at once, right? And what we think of is a very archaic version of American education, and in this particular profile of the school, the students, their one task was to fix a tractor until it worked again. They had to get this tractor working. You’re so excited to hear that, right? But at the time, I was very daunted by thinking about that. I was thinking there is a teacher out here that is getting 1st graders to fix a tractor. What am I doing? How am I ever going to be able to pull this off? What does education even mean? And I will never forgot that feeling, because it really drove me to think, you know, “In all aspects of learning, where is the real task? Where is this going?” If the students are learning the parts of a cell, and I’ve certainly taught cell biology before as a subject in science that, “Hey, here is this information we should all know as humans,” but where is this going? Are we just having a vocabulary lesson, or are the students needing to know the terms associated with different physiology and anatomy of cells in order to more truly understand human nutrition, in order to more truly understand biological disease, in order to understand mutations and their effect on a human population, or an animal population, or an insect population, or a virus? You know, and so, for me as a teacher, I think back on that story I read, and I think, “Where is the real task that’s going to come out of all of this content?” And if I can’t identify that, they’re not deep to me, and it’s not rich learning. Then it’s just, you know, a basics quiz, and we’re fortunate at this time that we have the internet and we have the entire knowledge of the whole human race available for any student that knows how to open an internet browser and type. So my role as a teacher, you know, giving them a list of terminology and having them shoot back to me what those are isn’t meaningful to either for us. I can look that up, and they can look that up, and I really do truly believe this. I know there are traditionalists out there that believe in kind of this content acquisition on the human brain, but if it’s not going to further a task that’s really going to have an impact in the world, I don’t think that the learning is gonna be meaningful for the students, and I also don’t think it’s going to stick, right? Doris: I was just going to say we have research that it doesn’t stick. We have a lot of research that, if it isn’t meaningful to the individual student, it doesn’t stick. You know, if somebody is listening to this who teaches science right now somewhere, so one of the things that I think about having taught kids for many years is if I give up for a little bit, if I give up a little bit of specific content real estate, in order to engage the interest and imagination of each individual kid, and they come out of a project like yours really excited about science, and nature, and the world and also having experienced what they’re able to learn, how deep they’re able to go. Even if during the project each individual kid learned something different in a very specific thing, they went deeper, they got more engaged, and coming out of something like that, if they have to then perform on some test they’re gonna be better able to… Actually, I mean, I really have seen this. They’re better able to perform on those tests coming out of that, because they actually care about it. Anna: You’re exactly right. That’s certainly been my experience as well having taught at this middle school level and having taught at the upper school, high school, AP level. You still get an outcome that shows that the students do obtain content knowledge where necessary, but the skills are the things that are going to stay with them much further, and I remember talking with our director at the time of bringing this project forward. I’d worked on it over the summer, as I mentioned, with our  Art teacher, and our director said, you know, “What is this whole thing? You know, what’s kind of going off the table in order to put in a three to five-week biomimicry sculpture project in science?” And I came back to that saying, you know, “Look, we want them to walk away understanding experimentation. We want them to walk away understanding how to read and interpret and write a good research paper. We want them to walk away with an understanding of nature, both anatomy, physiology, amazing features that are out there, unique features.” And I said, “I can teach them that. We can do a little research project where they all research on an endangered species, and they make stuff, and, you know, they’ve all had a research skill, and they’ve all looked deeply at one organism, but this is going to be a whole new level. This is gonna give us a whole new era.”  Now there is no stopping that once it got started, because we could see how much it meant to our students. After the first year of piloting it, then now it’s like, okay, we got to do more stuff like this. We need to find more projects. Doris: Exactly. So say it’s next year and you’re teaching an AP biology class in high school. You have a terrific amount of pressure with a prescribed curriculum that is still with all the changes, very content-focused. And there’s a deadline, and there’s a test, and there’s a pretty rigid curriculum. Would you consider doing your biomimicry project for three weeks at the beginning of that year with those students knowing that you’re giving up three weeks of content and the students will have to make that learning app afterwards? Would you still consider doing something like this? Anna: Wow, that’s a great question, you know. And I think our season teachers will know that building in a skills-based project that gets your students to act on to scientific thinking, and scientific ways of writing, and finding a specific story in science that can stay with you is gonna be far more beneficial on that final exam that comes in May than just content drilling over, and over, and over again. One, there is the engagement piece, but, two, there is a real reality to those tests that is around skills of writing in the free response section. If I were a newer teacher, and I was a younger teacher when I was teaching an AP science course at high school level, and I was feeling the pressure, I might not feel intuitively that I could still pull it off, but I know you can. You’re building in a powerhouse of engagement with your students that will translate to them and their written skills coming out of that. And as someone who used to grade AP free response questions, you know when you’re reading an essay a student wrote in some far off place, that came back to you for that grading that was in the hands of a student who was led by a teacher who taught them how to think beyond just words and beyond just the facts. They have this minutiae of knowledge that came into play with some hyper-specific examples guided by their teacher, of course, but came out in their written section of that exam, which accounts for a lot of their grades. Doris: That’s a great example. I think even you’re getting a lot of extra stuff. I think… Anna: The easy answer is yes. Doris: Yeah, I mean, in my experience over, and over, and over again, kids coming out of these programs and these units improve in a dramatic way their performance in traditional classes, because they’re engaged. And so, you know, in my line, it’s not about what you teach, it’s about what they learn. You know, the students in your biomimicry, they come out as middle schoolers. They come out of your program excited about science and their ability to be excited by science. How cool is that? Anna: Right. It’s so cool. And they see it at home, you know, their parents bring that up as well. We poll their families at the final presentations, “Did you know about biomimicry before coming today?” And I actually had a parent write in one time, “I did not know about biomimicry until my 7th grader came home and told me about it.” And, for me, it’s like, “Oh, yes, we’re innovating, building this new group of students into a brand new kind of engineer that’s really going to be able to design for a way the world needs.” Doris: Well, Anna, you inspire the heck out of me. Anna: Thank you, Doris. Doris: And I hope you’re ready, because I’m betting that you’re gonna have people reaching out to you who are science teachers out there and art teachers out there asking if you’ll share what you do with them. Anna: Sure, I would love to be helpful and a resource, and I’m willing to share and chat with anybody about their next steps in their own educational journey. Doris: Well, thank you for sharing with everybody in this conversation, and I’m just one huge fan and wildly excited about what you’re doing. Anna: Thank you, Doris, I really appreciate it. Have a great rest of your day. Doris: You, too.

In this episode Doris speaks with Dr. Danielle Bomar. She is the Supervisor at Options For Success, a K12 Alternative School Program in the Columbus City School District for students who have been suspended or expelled from their home school. Hear about the entrepreneurship course Danielle and her teachers piloted in this school. Doris: Hey, Danielle. Danielle: Hello. Doris: How are you? How are you doing? Danielle: I am really fantastic. How are you today? Doris: I am great, and I am especially great because I am talking to you. So, Danielle, tell everybody a little bit about you and your school. Danielle: Okay. My name is Danielle E. Bomar and I am the administrator for the Options for Success program with Columbus City Schools. Columbus City Schools this year decided to make a new initiative in order to reduce the number of suspensions and expulsions that we have throughout our school district, the ideology is that kids can’t learn unless they are in school. And so we wanted to provide different alternatives for students to be able to still do their school work while be redirected for their bad behaviors. So my school is a place for students to be able to come to in order to do just that, receive redirection for the unwanted behavior, but also to re-energize students about education and get them excited about education so that when they go back to their regular school house, they’ll be more focused on that versus the unwanted behavior. So, my school, we run K-12. We have students here from as short as 3 days for up to as long as 45 to 50 days. And the reasons why they are directed to my school could be from various reasons, from anger management, to bullying, to just making poor choices in the school house that would have resulted in suspensions and expulsions. So, this year, we are focusing, again, not just on the bad behaviors but being able to redirect those academic changes in students. And, so, we were looking for different ways in order to, like I said before, excite students about education. So that’s where you came in. Doris: Yeah. So, you bravely decided to do a pilot and, you know, I came in and I trained your faculty and worked with you guys to do a pilot. Talk about what happened. Danielle: Well, I think we maybe should start a little bit just before that about how I came up to Cleveland to see you and your students at your school. Doris: Sure. Danielle: Because that’s nearly where all the magic started. Dr. Kline and Dr. Harris who are educators here with Columbus City Schools, they work in our accountability department. They said that we again wanna focus on not just changing the unwanted behaviors but being able to excite the kids about school. So, we were looking for something in order to do that. And so they invited me up to meet you and we got in our cars and drove up to Cleveland. And initially when I saw the website, I thought, “Oh, no, here’s another one of those PDs where we go and hear about something that can never happen in our school district. Yes, they don’t look like my kids and, you know. I have to admit that when I went, I wasn’t 100% on board on the drive up. Doris: I am not surprised. I understand. Yup. Danielle: Just to be honest. Doris: Yeah, I understand. Hawken School looks a little different from your school. Danielle: Just a tad. Doris: Just a little different, right. Danielle: What I can tell you, though, is that your kids didn’t look different than mine. Kids are kids. Doris: Yeah. Kids are kids. I use that line all the time. It’s absolutely true. Danielle: So when I went up to look at this experience, that’s what I was looking at. I was listening more to what the kids were saying probably than what you were telling me. And what I saw those kids, what they were able to do with their object class, it was crystal clear to me that I could do that same thing with my kids. I might not be able to change the facility but everyone knows that education is person to person, it’s relationships. It’s understanding what it is I’m trying to teach you, not necessarily what the room looks like that you are in. Doris: Yeah, it’s about the kid. Danielle: Exactly. And the teacher, which is the biggest changes that has happened here. We get to talk about what has happened here with this program, with our school. That’s really the biggest change that’s happened is with my staff… Doris: That’s exciting. Danielle: I am a firm believer that teachers…good at leaders are good teachers. So, when I was sitting here, I was learning everything that I could and talking to you about your program and about the kids in order to bring it back to excite my teachers about changing how they practice education here at our school. And came back and that’s when we were starting this question about how you came down and you trained my teachers. You taught my teachers. You taught my teachers a different way in order to look at their lesson delivery that I don’t think that they’d ever taught about it before. You know, we, as educators, we don’t tend to teach one another the same way that we teach kids, which means that we do a lot of seminars and people kind of gloss over and then go to the next session. But that’s not what happened. You really worked with my staff. You got to know them. You got to know me. You got to know what our parameters were, and our relationship to schedule, and relationship to the strength of teachers. And also what my… You know, I’m on a non-traditional school kind of calendar so I have students, like I said, coming in and out for short periods of time and long periods of time. And you worked with me for a pilot in order to decide which kids were the best kids. Best kids, meaning period of time that they were here, not academically, the period of time in which they were here which would be the best in order to run out a pilot. And then how to also embed it into my school because we looked at my teachers and whom are my strength teachers and who were my teachers that, you know, maybe needed to actually see it before they believed it, who needed to have that extra time in order to go over the materials and have their other peers be able to help them after they’ve gone through the pilot the first time. And so I think that the strategy on how we rolled out the whole program to my teachers was what was instrumental as having the success that we have. So, that’s kind of how we got started. Doris: Yeah. And, you know, you bring up a really important point. Every school is unique. Doing something like this, and even when it’s really successful, if it doesn’t, if it isn’t something that really comes from the teachers and is embraced by the teachers, then it’s not going to have any lasting impact. And what you just described is a really important part of this. We’re talking we’re talking about systems change. We are talking about changing the way we do school. And that means you have to think about all of this stuff. You have to understand how teachers work, how schools work. And the teachers that you refer to who were the first ones to do the pilot, those pioneers are the ones who are excited about giving it a try. And it doesn’t mean they’re better or different as teachers. It just means their game for trying it and doing something very different with their students, which I think is really exciting. It’s exciting when you work with teachers who are excited like that. Danielle: And I think, really, it’s the administrators. So with my school district, we’re a large school district, and we get the opportunity to have a lot of initiatives and a lot of grants come by our way. And the administrator, sometimes, when they get these charges, I’ll call them charges because they’re directives in order to roll out these programs, if the administrator doesn’t believe in it, then they’re going to present it that way to the staff and they’re going to present it that way to the kids. So I think the first step when thinking about doing this program, is to get the right administrator that believes in the program, that believes in change, and them having that attitude to take towards their teacher. I’ve been reflecting upon me and you just got that great email from our superintendent, from my superintendent, and I read it very carefully. And what he had said in that email, he had spoke to, “Now we need to go and find other great leaders in our district in order to put your program through.” He didn’t say we need to find great schools or we need to find great kids. He said we need to find great leaders in order to be able to be just as excited and just as dedicated and they can excite teachers. Doris: That’s exactly right. So then what happened? So you came up to Cleveland. You decided, “Okay, it could work with my kids and my teachers…” Danielle: Yes. So I brought it back to my team, and honestly the next thing that we did before I even contacted you, I sat down with them and I said, “Let me know what you guys wanna do. Do you wanna do something different, or do you wanna continue to do what you’ve always done and get the same results that you’ve always had?” And, you know, a lot of the things that we did in order to implement the program was, you know, outside of contract. When it came to time, and training, etc., and I said, “You know what, we don’t have to do this, but this is what it’s going to require in order for us to get better.” And every single one of them when I put it to them that way, that, “This is a choice, and we’re either going to go into this or we’re going to make it a success, or we’re not going to start it at all because we’re not going to cut off these beautiful edges off of this program to make it fit in a watered down version to fit into what we’re doing like a lot of other mandates, we’re going to follow the formula and get the success,” they all said yes. And so, right after that, I called you up and you were a super rock star, and you drove down here and trained the team up. And then, you know, I did what I said I was going to do. They asked for support, you gave them support. They asked for time, I built time into the schedule. They asked for reflection afterwards, being able to have the time in order to do more than the one pilot, so we actually committed to two when we committed to one because we realized the first one would be a rough draft and we weren’t…even if it wasn’t successful, we committed to saying, “You know what, we’re going to study what we did and we’re going to give this at least two roll-outs before we decide whether we’re going to do it yes or no.” And so they committed and we moved forward immediately. And actually, I came up in October and we committed in October. So it was pretty quick. Doris: Yeah. Danielle: There was about the teacher. They wanted to change. They wanted something different. Doris: And what I was blown away by, obviously by you, to begin with, by your administration in Columbus City, and also by your teachers, win, win, win. Everybody was all in and very excited. And then the way all of you embraced with vigor the pilot itself, which is a really tricky thing and requires…it’s a completely different way of teaching and it requires a lot of work to do it first, early on, because it’s new. So maybe can you talk a little about what it took for the teachers to do it, what kinds of things, these methods mean for a teacher? Danielle: So the funny thing about, and my experience as an educator, is that being a teacher, the first day you start school, you’ve already had at least 15 years on the job training from you sitting and being a student. And so when they have that idea, and that idea that how they were taught, is what’s very different than the program that you presented to them. So then, do you take that plus what they learned in college and what they learned in college, how to be teachers with the straight lines and “I’m the giver of all knowledge,” so I had to break that idea, so I had to pretty much chisel down for even my rookie teachers about 15 to 20 ways of doing something wrong. Doris: Yeah. No, it’s all of that way. Their training is, as you said earlier, that’s why what I do is I’m teaching them by having them experience this kind of learning themselves. Danielle: Exactly. And that I did, they are students too. When they leave a classroom, they should learn just as much from their kids as their kids are learning from them. And so it’s a totally different mindset on how to teach. And I have to tell you, even though the pilot is over, it has changed how we assess our learning here at the school. We had just did a PD here on the difference between tests and assessments of learning. And we went through… Doris: Oh, I love it. Danielle: Yes, yes. We went through different examples and we had a conversation on what is that. For example, your state driving test, is that a test or is that an assessment of learning? Why or why not? And then we had those conversations. And about , if you were the teacher or giving someone their state driving test, would you be testing them or do you wanna assess their knowledge? You know, what do they look like? You know, we never had those conversations before. Our school is broken up into pretty much two half academically. We do micro-education and macro. So with our micro, we study a lot of the students’ test scores when they come here from their various schools. And that could be anything from math testing to OGT testing, to whichever format and whichever school district you’re from, you know, you have your test scores. And so we take that. And then we work on gap closing. So we look for incidents or if there is some kind of component or a curriculum standard that they’re missing, during their time here from the 3 to 45 days, we nail in on that and try to close as many gaps as possible during that time. So that’s how it goes. But our macro focus is the whole why. And that’s why a lot of the students end up in my program is because they don’t understand the why. They just go and they follow the rules because the teacher says so but they’re not excited about what…they don’t understand the connection how this is all going to come together. And so this program really was now a part of our why. So when the students, every time now in my classroom now that the pilot is over, my teachers understand the importance of telling the students why. Why are you learning polynomials? Not just because I’m telling you so, but how in real life or how when we get our next business challenge will you be able to use this information. That’s what the conversations are happening now after our first pilot. When they’re teaching them new things, my teachers are saying, “Well, next time when we get our next problem, you’ll be able to do X, Y, and Z because you’re leaning this now.” And so now, they understand that, “Oh, my goodness, okay, I now know why,” and that why is what’s been so important. So it’s change how just how our standard order of business, how we do things around here, has changed. Doris: It’s interesting that you’re saying so, I got as you were talking, I remember one of the earliest days of the pilot. I was there for the morning and I was with one of the students. It may have been the second day. And he needed…he had some questions and it was very clear that he had never done any research before, I mean, any. And  back to your why. First, he was…he knew that he had a goal, which is that he wanted to solve the problem that this business had given him. He’d never been given a real problem to work on by a real person outside the school. He wanted to and he had none of these skills to do it. And I remember that very first time when I asked him things while sitting next to him as he looked at his Google search box and tentatively thought about, “How would I even find this out.” And then three and a half weeks later, watching him present with statistics and charts to back up his proposals and talking about all of the things that he knew because he’d done the research. Pretty powerful stuff. Danielle: Did he look just like a Hawken’s kid, did he? Doris: Yes, he did. Absolutely, why wouldn’t he? Kids are kids, right? Danielle: Exactly, exactly. And what you’re speaking to is exactly what I need to happen. The thing that I was concerned about and I shared this with you after we had committed, you know, I was trying to do an assessment and trying to cover all the possible fires that might come up. I was concerned that my students, since they’re only here for that short period of time, 3 to 45 days, I thought that that was going to be a challenge because they are required to work in these groups that you’re talking about. And so I was concerned two-fold. One, will there be enough time for them to do that type of bonding in order to have this group formation, in order to work together and feel that they’re a member of a team? And then secondly, my students, like I said before, are here because of anger issues and trust issues, etc., and are they going to be able to bond with another student that has those same type of issues from a small setting, and have that whole team responsibility feeling towards people that, you know, or are in the same kind of situation they are with emotional issues. And I was shocked. I remember that first video, I thought that…if you look back on the first video, the first meeting where we have, I’m explaining to the students about, “This is what we’re going to do and this is going to be great and you’re going to love it. And they’re just kind of like looking at me like, nah. And one of the kids are like, “Am I going to get a grade for this?” You know? Doris: Yeah, completely. They couldn’t have been less interested or engaged. Danielle: Oh, my goodness. And then last day, they didn’t wanna leave. They’re like, “We’ve never done anything like this. This is so great,” you know. It’s like, I wish I could have shown them that at that first day. Like, “You won’t believe how excited you’ll be about this,” you know. But then I had to think too, you know, maybe their attitude was just similar to mine when I was driving up to Cleveland. Like, “Here we go again. Here’s another lady that’s going to tell me it’s fun,” you know? It’s fun for real. Doris: Let me ask you this. So here are these students who’ve been through this experience where they had…they were taught in a completely different way, and had to do a bunch of research, had to do quantitative analysis, did a lot of communications, etc. Do you believe that having gone through that kind of education, that that will impact their performance on the tests that you were talking about earlier? Danielle: Absolutely. Interestingly enough, each one of the students that come through the program, we have these counseling sessions with them and we ask them why, you know. And a lot of students, you’d be surprised that aren’t doing that well academically are not because of choices, because they don’t care about the teacher, they don’t like the teacher so therefore they’re going to punish the teacher by not doing the work. You know, “It was a test. I didn’t feel like taking the test that day so I just didn’t show up,” or, “I showed up late,” you know, or, “I just went and filled the Cs down the Scantron because I just wanted to get out of there,” you know. And so, once they find something that they like and they understand the why behind it, the performance is right following it. You know, them being able to like, for example, that student you were talking about, the young lad that was asking the questions, he said that he’s never been asked to do anything academically before, to be a leader. And, you know, he plays sports at his school. I mean, he was good at sports, but before, when we he was at his homeschool, he was never seen as an academic leader. He wasn’t someone that would have been chosen to be a part of the special program. Even the smallest things like the field trips, you know, we went and we took four field trips for this activity for the pilot and chose the traditional get-in-trouble-at-schools aren’t the ones that get to go on field trips. Doris: Well, and the important thing about those field trips is that this curriculum and these methods have students working with real people outside the classroom, whether they physically leave the classroom or they’re, you know, emailing and Skyping from the classroom, they’re getting out and connecting in the real world and it gives them a type of substantive confidence, I think. Danielle: Yes. And I would say, you know, the business partner field trips that we did when went to see our business partner for his business, powerful. But also, they’ll be going out. We did two field trips where they interviewed people in their community and people that were around, and them being able to walk up to an adult and present themselves and ask questions, that built a whole another level of confidence. Doris: Yeah, and they had to, before they went out, they had to think about, “Why are we going to do interviews? What kind of research do we need that this will help?” And they had to plan it. And they had to wrap their heads around what it means to interview well, and do some research even before they went out. Okay, so this, you’re doing this, you’re piloting this crazy, radically weird sort of method and program and you’re in a public school. Is this something that public schools can do or is it so weird that you think it’s only someone as brave as you and it’s a one-off? What do you think? Is this something as people who are listening and they’re in public schools and thinking, “Yeah, but we can’t do that here. We’re too worried about the test and we have too many standards.” What do you think this says for public schools? Danielle: Well, I know because I’ve been an administrator, I was a high school principal and a middle school principal for many years, and what I know is that running this pilot under the conditions that I ran this pilot was probably the worst case scenario. Doris: Yeah. It was basically the biggest challenge I’ve ever taken on, and I’ve done other public schools. Danielle: Yeah. Because think about the variables. Most public schools, students aren’t there for just 45 days. Kids are transient in public schools, but they’re there for longer periods than that. Doris: Yeah, absolutely. Danielle: So we knew that we were dealing with kids without the best attendance. Also, I don’t know if I spoke to the fact that we didn’t take kids out of the pilot based off of grades or ability level. So we grouped into these pilots students on various grade levels. So that like there was kids there that probably were on the eighth grade level. And then we had a couple of really bright kids that were in the senior level, you know, but they were all together in one group. And anybody that’s a public school teacher knows that that’s very challenging in order to have that many different grade levels and ability levels in one group. And then also, most times in a classroom, to get a student that’s expelled from a classroom, that’s an outlier. And so it’s not something, you know, that’s happening every day, you know, unlike what you may see on TV. You don’t usually get three or four kids that are doing expellable incidents in your room in one day. But our entire group was built off of students that they did something within, you know, not a long time ago, just like maybe the week prior or two weeks prior all of those incidents. Doris: Yeah, all of those kids, your entire school is those kids, right? Danielle: Exactly. And so, you’re dealing with bad attendance, you’re dealing with, like, kids that are on various academic levels, and you’re dealing with discipline issues. Doris: Yeah, and kids too are completely and totally disenfranchised about school and learning. These are not kids who like school. Danielle: No, they don’t like school and they just had been uprooted from all their friend base, that’s the other thing. You know, they don’t know… When they started this pilot, they were only in this building for maybe a day or two prior. And so they’re in a completely new environment. So they don’t have their friends around. They don’t have their families close. You know, they were bus in to this environment from, you know, their home school. And the administrator, you know, I’m not their home school principal, so they’re dealing with somebody that has authority over them that they just met. So all of those challenges, you know, those aren’t typical of a regular public school. You may be dealing with some of…one or two of those things on various levels, but for this pilot that was wildly successful, we had all of those variables happening simultaneously. And the staff too, they hadn’t felt success in a long time. We didn’t really talk about that but my staff, they just got me. I was a new administrator to this building at that time. I had only been with them for like a month or two and they had had a tough time with the previous administration. So we have…that’s another variable that happens a lot in public schools, you know. So it was not like, even though, you know, I really appreciate you saying that I’m fabulous, but they didn’t know I was that at the time. They just met me. Doris: Yeah, yeah. So there you have these teachers who are learning a completely different way of teaching and doing it. Danielle: Right. From a completely new person. Doris: Yeah, from a completely… White woman, by the way, from, you know, a fancy school in Cleveland, right? Danielle: Right. So if someone were to tell you and if someone is listening to this right now but just thinking, “You know, I’m in a public school and I can’t do that,” I’m telling you, I did that under all of those variables compounding together and we were successful. So I just think it’s a matter of going into it, again, from the very beginning, going into it with the idea that you want to change, you want to do something different, and rolling it out in the way that fits your school. Like how we did it, we didn’t do it like you did it in Cleveland. We did it to fit our school. You know, so, you know, we changed our schedule, we did it for the pilot in a shorter period of time than your students did it there. We did it again all the way down to ninth graders. And yours was in the twelfth grade class, correct? Doris: Yeah. Danielle: So we did it to make it fit how we wanted it to fit. Doris: Right. And that’s really important because this isn’t about, “Oh, this is this class. Can we do the class elsewhere?” It’s about a complete set of academic systems, methods for doing academic completely differently. So it can be an entrepreneurship class, or it can be an entire high school with interdisciplinary courses of all types. Danielle: Absolutely. Doris: You’ve told me that you’re spreading this across the rest of your school and…talk about that, and the district wants to spread this, talk a little bit about that. Danielle: So the really cool thing about this program is that kids come to this program from all over the district, right? And so at any given time, I could have a representation of 30 school houses here in my program if I have 30 kids because they’re all from different school houses. So when the kids left the program, even the ones that weren’t directly participating in it, when they went back and talked to their other kids and their teachers about the program, the word spread like wildfire. It was so funny. I had a parent calling, saying they wanted their kids to come and participate in the entrepreneur program, and I was like, “Your kid hasn’t been suspended or expelled from school.” Doris: That’s funny. That’s funny. “Can I get expelled so that I can learn something?” That’s funny. Danielle: Right, right. So the principals… So those parents, you know, they went back and they’ve been talking to the principals and the principals have been talking to me about, you know, “I want this for my school.” Doris: That’s great. Danielle: And definitely, what I was tell you about those variables, you know, our top performing schools, they don’t have those variables. Doris: Yeah. It’s going to be a little easier for them. Danielle: Oh, yeah. Doris: That’s right. Danielle: They can control their environment and their student population and their teaching population a lot more than I can. And then there’s also that trust. You know, even though I’m part of this program, like I said, in this district, I’ve been with this district for over 18 years, and so people know me and they trust me and they know that if I said something, you know, that it works and give it a try and I’ll help you, then they’re willing to listen because I’ve sat in their shoes and I know what it feels like having just another program, like I said, come through your doors that I have to do that I don’t necessarily agree with. So I think that that’s really key. And I would say that for anybody that’s thinking about doing this program, you should really start with the building administrator who is going to be deciding those features, who is going to be rolling this out. I mean, if that person is open to change and having…I mean, you had those conversations about my teachers, when we were talking about who’ll be best, you know, to be the best person in order to try the pilot, you know, we really spent a lot of time listening to them talk about it. And I listened at the water cooler what they were saying about it and how they felt about it, and being strategic about whom you pick in order to do it. Because it doesn’t matter if, you know, do you have the best program ever, if that building administrator doesn’t wanna do it, you know, it’s not going to get done. And it is a change. It’s a change. And sometimes I know, like, top performing public schools, you know, they have a formula and they’ve been doing things that way for a long period of time and they can get set in their way, so that might not be the best place in order to try something new because the administrator might not be on board on change. So I think that that’s where it starts, finding an administrator that really wants to do it, them talking to their staff and looking at their program to see how can we tailor this and make it fit into our program. Doris: Yup. And you’re that person, that’s for sure. And now… Danielle: I said that I told you I wanted to do it, I was going to do it. Doris: Well, yeah. And you did it, and you’re doing it. And now the rest of your…you’re bringing the rest of your teachers and your program in, which is really exciting. Danielle: Yeah, it’s really awesome. Like I said, it’s awesome watching the teachers how they’ve changed and how they talk about just their regular class and instruction, it has changed how we view education here. Doris: That’s awesome and that’s a great note to stop. We could go on forever. Danielle, keep on doing what you’re doing, and I can’t wait to see what your teachers and you do next. Danielle: Thank you. I appreciate all the… Doris: You got it, Danielle, anytime. Bye. Danielle: Bye-bye. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode, Doris talks to Anne Love of Concordia International School in Shanghai, China. Anne is the High School Academic Innovation Coordinator as well as a teacher of science and social entrepreneurship at her school. They discuss how Anne has changed her social entrepreneurship course using the Korda Method. She shares the shift in her instructional practice, which has changed the way she is teaching skills in the classroom. Doris: So, hello, Anne. Anne: Hello, Doris. Doris: Can you tell me a little bit…the folks listening, about you and where you teach and what you teach? Anne: Yeah, so I teach at Concordia International School in Shanghai, China. I’ve been there now… This is my fifth year at the school. And I’m a science teacher, originally, I was science teacher for most of my teaching career. Three years ago, had the opportunity to teach Social Entrepreneurship. Kind of developed this Social Entrepreneurship class at Concordia, and jumped in and started doing that. So now my life is split between Social Entrepreneurship, AP Environmental Science, and then I do a little bit of… I’m considered the Academic Innovation Coordinator as well, so I also work with teachers, supporting learning in that capacity also. Doris: Oh, that’s awesome. And you came to the workshop, tell me what’s been happening with that, what did that do, and what are you doing with it? Anne: Yeah. So like I said, you know, three years ago, when I started this class, it just came out of this crazy idea and I’ve talked to you about it briefly before, like, how can we get students involved in a really cool project? So we started getting coffee that you source in Southern China, and having the students roast the coffee on campus to kinda create the social enterprise. So the money that they make from roasting and selling the coffee goes back out to the farmers in Hunan, and at the same time, they are learning about social entrepreneurship. They are learning all these really cool skills. And we’re like, “That’s great.” And so I didn’t know anyone who was doing this three years ago. And so I was searching the universities and planning my course off of a university class. You know, just trying any resource that I could find that was out there. And I guess last spring, I was continuing the search for someone else was doing this. I came across your workshop, I’m like, “Wow, this is exactly what I’m looking for. People who have this mindset. And who think schools should be different than what it is now.” And so I was super excited for that opportunity. And I think everyone there at the workshop was just in the same mindset like there’s something magical about this type of teaching. And we all had pieces of it. But how can we kind of harness our collective knowledge, and how can we learn together, and what are strategies other people out there are doing? And so it was a great opportunity for that. So I went to the workshop, and it was amazing. I learned so much, oh, my goodness, over those… You know, you said I was drinking from the fire hose, right, over two days. So learning just great stuff, and just being connected with people of the similar mindset, who also just want to, as you say, do school right, just do school differently. Like, how can we really just change our education as right now? So that just so exciting. And after that time, I went back to my class, because before, it’d been really… It was very traditional, it was social entrepreneurship. So we were doing something very different. And the students had an applied piece to the course, where they were doing this real work, and there weren’t answers to the problems that they were trying to solve. But, I didn’t know how to do it any different than normal school, right? So I would have, unit one, social entrepreneurship, unit two, business models, unit three, design thinking. Right? So I had these units because that’s just what I knew how to do. And in those units, then I’d weave in the social enterprise with students we’re running. And then after your workshop, I was like, “Oh, wow, like, this is a whole different way to do things.” Like, it totally shifted my thinking from the idea of three units to, “That doesn’t matter.” What matters, like, the business challenges that you have the students go through, they learn so much just going through one of those challenges. You don’t have to really necessarily have a specific unit for design thinking because it’s so much more powerful when you have a piece of it that they need right then. But they learn, and then they try it again to a different business challenge later on. So I’ve really shifted my whole course as a result of that workshop, where You would do business challenges where you have them work with outside businesses all the time. And, for me, my first one was with our own social enterprise. They had to solve a problem for that business. And then we shifted to an outside business. And then now we’re shifting back to kind of a business challenge for our business. But I’m still using that same model, and just I’ve really found in this process the work that I’m getting from the students is incredible. You know, it’s been hard. It’s a lot of work. And you were gracious enough to have that Skype call with me half way through the year. I’m like, “How do I do this? Like, you know, I need some help.” And that was just so nice that you offered that support, and that has really just helped keep me going this semester and plowing through. And yeah, they are validating the hypotheses so well. I mean, they’re really getting out there and doing great research, and they’re really applying these pieces of information I’m giving them, or they’re able to get out there and find that information. So it’s so much richer experience for them. And the focus on the skills is also very incredible. I didn’t know how to focus on skills before, I honestly didn’t… Like, how do you even do that? Like you do it… but how do you articulate that you do it? And so through the workshop, I got a lot of tools. I thought this is how you talk about these skills, how do you develop these skills. Like, in your point that you brought up at one time, you just have to have a really real conversation with them about this is why I’m doing this. You know, this is why this is important. And they buy in, big time. And they see the value to the learning that they’re doing. Doris: That’s awesome. Anne: Sorry, it was a long explanation. Doris: No, it’s great. I mean, I think, you know… There are so many things you said that are interesting to me. As somebody who is also a science teacher, you can appreciate that, whether it’s a business or a social enterprise, or if you’re teaching a science course, it’s some kind of challenge or problem. It’s entirely different because the students are… Their objective, their primary objective is not to learn what the teacher is feeding them in that unit so that at the end of the unit they can show they’ve learned it, but it’s to problem solve, explore, discover, create with something that’s real and complicated and… Anne: Right. Doris: You did a great job of describing your shift in approach and how to teach skills. So it’s entirely different thing as a teacher to acknowledge, and understand, and accept, that we need to need to, in addition to students gaining knowledge of different things, they also need to develop these skills. It’s entirely different to accept that we need to do that and to be able to know day-to-day, with five classes a day, 35 kids for 45 minutes… how do you actually do it? And the how, you know, the how is really important. And I’d be interested in hearing more examples of things that you’ve experienced as a teacher, that you’ve done as a teacher this year that are different and have either worked or not worked, or… It is hard. Anne: Yeah. I mean, I guess one example, so as I mentioned, the first business challenge that we did was… Our coffee roasting social enterprise, it’s called “Third Culture Coffee Roasters.” And it’s challenging because the students I have come in new every year. So I have to get them up to speed. And it’s new every year as well, so it’s not like I’ve forgotten how to do this. And so I said, “Well, how about if I just throw them in?” And I give them this business challenge, and I say, “Okay, like, through this business challenge, you’re going to, like, learn about our coffee business.” And the business challenge was… I don’t remember the exact wording I gave them actually anymore, but it was something around, “We have a loan we have to pay off, so how can we increase sales and pay off our loan for Culture Coffee Roasters?” something to that extent. You know, and they knew nothing about us having loan. “What does that mean? Like, “Where are our finances located?” You know, “Who’s our customer segment?” And so instead of me going through and saying, “All right, open up Google Docs. Let’s look at our finance documents. You are the marketing team, you know this is what you should be doing. You’re the coffee production team, this is what you should be doing.” Instead, it was like, “All hands on deck. All right, let’s look at this problem and figure out the business yourself.” And then, they presented it, the very first presentation to our principal, assistant principal, and there were a couple of other people there as well. So I was standing there like wow. And weren’t the best presentation, right? And I didn’t expect them to be the best presentation. Doris: I mean, I always say this, you know, the first ones are horrible, usually. Anne: Yeah. And we found that, but reflecting on that, and then moving forward there, they learned so much about the business without me telling them about the business. And they were able to take ownership as well, you know, and reference things. Like later on, we’d have conversations about something financial that we’re trying to figure out, and they’re like, “Oh, yeah. You know, in this folder its document as I was looking through, you know, for the business challenge.” And so the learning was definitely there, and that did work. I found that worked really well. Doris: That’s great. Anne: So that’s like one specific example of just… Again, and that is from day one. Like, just try. Like, let’s just try this. Doris: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. When you think about… You know, you had the same… You came up against the same challenge that I have, that so many of the teachers I’ve worked with had. We still have to give grades. That this is hard, all of it. It’s a completely different way of, not only teaching but of learning. And if you really, really prioritize skills development and mastery, how you assess that, we’re talking about a model where the assessments are in performance and portfolios, and not in a unit tests. You’re at the beginning of figuring how to navigate that. Anne: Correct. Doris: You know, very interested not only how was that difficult at first, but then, where is that now and where do you see it going over time? Anne: Yeah. You know we talked about this in December, and that’s been a tough shift, going into this as a teacher who is used to teaching, that this is worth 10 points, and you get 8 out of 10 points, and that goes into grade book, and you get a grade at the end. I learned pretty quickly that that did not work in this system. I was doing that at the beginning of the school year, and what I kept having students come and talk to me about was about their grade and not about their learning, it was so frustrating. Because I kept saying the grade doesn’t matter, why are we focusing on this grade? It’s like, “Have you learned this material?” But, you know, in a school where academics are really important and these students feel a lot of pressure, it is important for them. And I really realized, getting into that first semester, that that was really being in the way of good learning that could be happening. And so I reached out to you, and we had a great conversation. And I wouldn’t say I have any answers, at this point either, but I think I’m making more progress, just really shifting… I kind of got rid of points. I went to descriptors, like categories, and so they now get descriptors for the work instead of a score for work. And, you know, it’s communicating on this rubric, “Hey, you’re exemplary, you’re capable, you’re developing. This is how you can get better.” And just the shift in getting rid of points, has been huge for learning. I don’t have those conversations anymore, to be honest, and that’s really great. Now, it’s always tricky in this systems that we’re in. How do you even convert that to a letter grade at the end? And so I’m still trying to figure out that system, and I don’t have a perfect one yet. But, you know, it works for now. And as we get more people who are doing this together and we learn from each other, I think there’s cool stuff that could be done. Doris: Well, and I don’t know if I’ve talked to you about the Mastery Transcript Consortiumthat we started?   Anne: Yeah. Doris: But, it’ll make sense to you that when we decided… Scott Looney, he’s the head of Hawken School and my partner of crime in all this, when we decided we were gonna built, a few years ago, a lab school at Hawken, where we were gonna take the model and methods I’ve developed in this entrepreneurship class and create an entire high school program using this method and these models. We decided immediately that this was going to be the whole lab school with a portfolio and performance space assessment model just with rubrics, just like what we do in the entrepreneurship class. And grades don’t work for that. And we wanted to create a mastery transcript. And when we found out that, great idea, but if only Hawken is doing it, the colleges won’t accept it, which is an obvious thing. We decided, and it was Scott’s idea, to create a consortium of schools to create a mastery transcript as an alternative to a grade transcript, to allow this entirely different model of academics and education that we were talking about. So the reason I say all that is this something that… and it’s really global, that all kinds of people are realizing that we need to entirely change the assessments in this way, that grades don’t work for the kind of education we’re developing where students are being prepared for this world and the world they are going into. And so hopefully, you, me, others, we won’t have to figure out how to make grades work with this. There will come a time when we’ll have a much richer model for assessing students, skills and knowledge and habits with micro-credits and all that stuff. So I know very well how difficult it is to do this and have the crazy, exciting learning happen in the classroom and still have to give grades and, hopefully, we gonna evolve to a completely different and better model for that. Anne: Yeah, that would be great. And I hear it from so many people, you hear it, right? But the people just don’t know how to do it right now. Doris: Exactly. Anne: Like, do we actually make this work for everybody? You know, I don’t necessarily think every single class, this would work for, and I don’t think it’s appropriate for every single class. But for classes like we’re talking about, it’s super important to have a different way of communicating what the students are learning.   Doris: Yeah. So I wanna ask you about that. So I wanna ask about the… If you think about this kind of teaching and go up a step from using a business, always having a business challenge, but just think about the kind of work that the students are doing and the instructional practices as a teacher. Do you find that by implementing this stuff in your Social Entrepreneurship class, this method, that it’s splashing over at all into the way you teach your science courses? Anne: Yeah, I was just thinking as you were asking the question, like, “Yeah, that’s totally true.” It is. It’s interesting. And as we think about assessment, especially in small ways. So I teach AP Environmental Science right now, so I don’t have a lot… Doris: Flexibility. Anne: Flexibility in the curriculum. And we had this conversation at summer. I said, “I would love to change my AP Environmental Science completely in this direction. And as I’ve gone through this year, I’ve tried to think, but I’m like, “I don’t know how I can do that.” I still hope it’s possible somehow, but right now, I haven’t figured out the way to do that. But, what I have been thinking about more and more are what the skills the students are developing even as I’m going through a traditional unit in the AP Environmental Science class, and how can I really work to develop those skills more? And I’m just more mindful of that I think now in my AP Environmental Science course. I’m also looking, as I do a lot of, even the lab grading, I’m thinking more about, “Okay, is it the points, or is it the descriptors here that I’m really getting at?” So I’ve shifted a little bit also how I do grade, and the rubrics that I’m using for that class as well to make it, again, more about the learning and less about the number of points that they got in the assignments. And I have noticed that, yeah, I have more meaningful conversations about learning as opposed to, “No, I got 28.5 out of 30 points on this assignment.” Doris: Right. So one… if it’s an AP class, you have very little flexibility. And many of the teachers that I’ve worked with who applied the method in a traditional academic class, had a science course, a history course, honors, whatever course, enough course, and have experimented by trying a unit. I think it would be really interesting. And you and I should have this conversation, a work conversation, where we roll up our sleeves and just for fun, let me see if you’d be interested in this, just for fun. Have an hour long call where you send me your course syllabus for your AP Environmental Science Class, and we look where you could do a little mini-unit experiment in your AP course. Anne: Yeah. That’d be awesome. Doris: Because I believe that if you take this method, and you start, as always, with what are the learning objectives? Those learning objectives can, and should, include not only skills development, but also concepts and knowledge sets, and how we structure this method around content goals in addition to skills goals, is something that I love to play around with. So as an example, I worked with one of our physics teachers, and we tried this. We said, “Okay, show me your syllabus, show me what you do,” and, of course, it’s all content, right? And we picked an area, in this case it was a unit that he said isn’t particularly effective or successful, year after year. And he’s gonna create a unit where the learning goals include, generally, that content area, as well as skills. And he’s gonna find a real problem for the students to solve and… Anyway, we’re playing around with it. And I think that if it is done well, which doesn’t mean you take the entire AP class and say I’m gonna convert the whole year and class this way. But I think what’s gonna evolve over time is methods and models that of education that will prioritize skills development, but doesn’t eliminate knowledge goals, content goals. I don’t like that often the conversation around this is…well, the in classes like this, this works. Or for students who don’t thrive in traditional academics, this works. Or if you don’t care about content, then you can do this and worry about skills. And worse yet, when people talk about different types of skills, soft skills, hard skills… I think this is about an entirely different method where as teachers, we’re truly creating an educational model for our students, where they’re learning all the above. Anne: I agree. And I would love to see that in classes in any of the AP classes, or these other traditional classes that we teach. Like, even if we can’t transform the whole thing, because of constraints, like how can we add more of it? Because that’s what’s really important. And I think you just have to figure how to do it. I think it’s possible. And it’s exciting, to me, to think, “Wow, like, could I take what’s happening in the social entrepreneurship and have a piece of it, even in that AP Environmental Class?” Like, that’s sound really exciting to me. It feels really daunting on how to do that right now and, you know, you’re by yourself, I’m like, “Okay, I have this AP exam. I’ve to get through this stuff.” Like, you really need a team of people around you to support you in that work. And I think that’s really important. By I think it’s exciting. And I think it can be done, for sure. Doris: Yeah. Well, I started all this, you know, many years ago as a math teacher. And I had a prescribed total content list curriculum that I was required to teach. That’s how I started. And I learned by developing this stuff that if you really engaged the students in why what they’re doing matters and you give them agency in what they are doing, and they start to discover, and the focus is on skills, and there is a very high expectation that’s created a culture where the expectation for depth of learning is really high, not by the teacher alone but the students, they will end up being able to learn heavy-duty content. And they will be eager to do it in a way that is much more powerful than if you just start the year, start the course, “Okay, unit one. Here is the content, learn it, then I’m gonna test you.” And so I’ve experimented with this for, like, 20 years. I’m very excited about having you experiment with this in your AP class. I’d love to help you. Anne: Yeah, hey! I think it’s great. You know, once we started small pieces in different classes and then, you know, who knows from there? Like, once people see it’s doable, then you can definitely grow and expand from there, for sure. Yeah, it’s exciting. Doris: Yeah. And then when you think about students who are not AP kind of students, they are students who are in classes and having trouble performing in a conventional math class, really low performing in any traditional class. Either way, an entirely different method like this, I really believe results in students who are… You know, we’re teaching them what to think but how to think. And when you do that, and when they get why this matters, and they see their own ability to learn things, they’ll go crazy hard after the learning and have achievement and success even at conventional things. So, Anne, we’re gonna see each other soon. Anne: Yes, we are! Doris: And I’m really excited about it. And when we do, I’m going to be very interested to hear more about what your plans are going forward with this. Last thing I’d like to ask you here in this conversation is when you think about a teacher who is excited about trying something different but is intimidated by the idea of doing something this hard, what would you say to them? Because it is hard. Anne: You know, I would say it’s hard, but I think it’s so worth just trying. And you can start small. Like this year, I’ll probably try all business challenges this year. But I didn’t know for sure and I didn’t necessarily communicate that to the students that they whole year was gonna be transformed. I just started with the first project, the first business challenge, and just tried it, right? And that way it wasn’t quite as scary because I knew that I could pull out if I need to go back to it. But I found it really successful. And I found it really exciting. And so I think, you know it’s worth just trying in some small capacity. I know you’re a big fan of piloting things, and I think that’s a great way to do it. And just trying to and see what happens. See how the students are learning, see how you’re learning. As an educator, I’ve learned so much. It’s incredible. And I just feel like I’ve grown a lot this year. I think teachers who try this are gonna get a lot out of it professionally, and their students are gonna get a lot out of it as well. It’s worth the work that goes into it, for sure. Doris: That’s awesome. Anne: And I know what the future… You know, for me, if things are still changing, and always on my mind, as you know, as you saw along this path. Like, you’re always thinking how are things gonna be different, how can I change things? And that’s the exciting thing that happens from teaching this way. It’s an ambiguous path, but exciting path, I guess, that you journey on going forward. Doris: That’s wonderful. It is wonderful to talk to you, Anne. Anne: Great to talk to you, too. Doris: I’ll see you soon. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode, Doris talks to David Peden. David is the Chair of the Entrepreneurship Leadership program at Battle Ground Academy, a K12 independent school near Nashville, TN. They discuss the entrepreneurship education program he has built after attending an Educators Workshop for Entrepreneurial Studies.    Doris: Hi, David. David: How are you? Doris: I’m great. How are you? David: I’m doing well. Doris: Well, I’m really excited to hear about the program that you’re building and tell me all about it. So you came to the workshop. Which one was it? David: It was California… Doris: That’s right. David: …at Steve’s ranch two, three years ago. Doris: That’s right. David: And we really, at the time, we were dipping our toe in entrepreneurship. And I was teaching an elective, “History of Entrepreneurship,” and that’s really where our program started. And it has really just…it has blossomed and grown, really, into something that…what we first thought was going to happen, it was nowhere near as powerful of a program as we currently have. Doris: Oh, gosh. Well, I want to hear all about it. I actually think it would be interesting if you started with coming out of the worship. Sort of going from the start to now. David: Sure. And we really had…we sit in Franklin, Tennessee just about 20 minutes south of Nashville. And it’s really…it’s a booming city in many ways. Growth is coming, but new business as well. We’ve had healthcare for a long time, obviously the music industry as well. But we have a lot of entrepreneurs. And so, there were a few forces coming together at, really, the right time to say, “We need to offer in some form or fashion entrepreneurship.” We had some parents who were outside the building who said, “We have this desire.” I was looking for a way to really, to start to teach more true business courses. That was my background and I have an MBA and had been in business before education. Then our head of school who was relatively new, he was in his second year. He also had a vision for doing more in entrepreneurship. And so, we came together and said, “How can we do this and how we can do this well?” And really, as we looked the workshop was really…and the Lean LaunchPad Method was we said, “Hey, we think they’re doing it really well. Let’s go see what they’re doing.” And came back…at the time, we taught one class, which was “History of Entrepreneurship,” a history elective. And as we came back, we said, “Let’s tear this apart and really see what we can do.” And so, really, that vision said, “We can’t do exactly the same way that Hawken does,” which was one of the great things of the workshop. And that you said, you know, “Find a way to make this fit at your place and at your school.” And so, that’s what we really sought out to do. And so, we’ve created this four year program in entrepreneurial leadership, and one of the impacts…and we may talk more about it later, but of the workshop was, really, the power of leadership and communication as a piece of this. And so, we poured in that leadership component, and we really…we look at it as “We’re going to fill their toolbox early, early on.” Our traditional speech class that all freshmen took, we revamped it and made it a speech leadership class. Doris: Oh, interesting. David: And so, all of our students are required to take that for graduation. They have been and continue to be. But that is now part of our EL department and program. And then from that point on, it’s really an elective track over the course of the next four years…next three years after their freshman year. So they have the opportunity to take the next courses, really, are intro to Lean LaunchPad which that’s where we…and it is still probably more traditional in its…somewhat in its delivery. But that’s where they learn the Lean LaunchPad method. That’s where they learn the Business Model Canvas. That’s where they’re watching the Steve Blank videos on Udacity in a flipped classroom environment. The classroom experience is not traditional, I can say that. And that’s what’s really been exciting, is we really said, “Okay, how can we really approach this in a more ambitious teaching and learning style?” But they have that class. And then there’s some electives they could choose from. And really, they have to take two electives from a variety of course offerings, from micro and macroeconomics to the “History of Entrepreneurship” course that I mentioned, and a civic partnerships course which is “How does local government work?” right? If you want to accomplish something and get something through at the local level, how do you do that? And really, in a completely nonprofit way. And we try to balance the nonprofit and for-profit world in all we do, and really deliver with a sense of “How can this also tie into purpose and mission within that?” And that course is really geared towards the nonprofit world. This is the only one that’s really completely dedicated to that. Doris: That’s interesting. David: But then, if they choose to do that, they can then take our Capstone course, which is the only full year course, which is the senior year. And that is where they’re meeting the real business problems, meeting with the founders and CEOs, and working just like you do there in the Hawken course. And we do that again three times, and then they create have their own startup, have the Founders Day and all that. So really, we took what we saw there at Hawken really stretched it out and put in some electives. And it is really powerful. And the students…this is the first year for us to have the full Capstone course and the students are just continuing to blow us away with what they can do and what they’re learning, and what they’re doing through this method, and through this approach. Doris: Wow, that’s really impressive, David. So the students in that Capstone course now, they are juniors? David: They are seniors. Doris: Seniors. David: So the Capstone course, we…this year, with it being the first kind of beta test, if you will, the Capstone, there is a junior in there. But we really want that to be a senior-level course… Doris: That’s fantastic. David: …with not just with the getting off campus and getting out of the building, but we really want that toolbox to be filled before we get to that point. Doris: That’s really impressive. So as you take a step back from all of that, how would you describe the impact on, first, the students, and then I’d like to ask you to think about the impact on teachers and the school community. David: Sure. You know, for students, it’s the empowerment, and that’s one of the big takeaways I came away from the workshop as well, but the empowerment of the students. And it’s this transition from a world where there’s one right answer and “How do I find that?” and “Give it to me.” “I need the parameters to tell me what I’m finding and I’ll go get it, and I’ll regurgitate it back to you.” But it really is that move from that learning environment to one where it is, “I’m really discovering this myself.” And the skills of “Okay, my teacher says…they may not even have this answer for this question that I’ve posed. How do I go find it? And then how do I validate what I believe? And what I’m holding is my hypothesis, or my theory of what I think is right. How can I validate that?” And really, watching them learn and grow, and the confidence that that builds within them to really be able to tackle anything that comes their way. Doris: That’s phenomenal. David: Absolutely. Doris: And what, when you think about the impact this has had on teachers… David: Well, for teachers first, I can speak for myself and those in the department. This has been a change for us as well. In teaching, I’ve been primarily economics and history in the classroom. And there was so much just content delivery. And the impact on me is seeing how if I can break away from that as well and really help set the parameters and give them problems and let them go rather than forcing my own thoughts and injecting myself into that many times, they can come back with far more powerful results than I ever could have imagined. And really watching that happen, it’s transformed how I teach. Even in that intro course, you go from within that flipped environment of them learning this stuff through the videos…the method through the videos. Now when they come back into my classroom, the first semester, I wasn’t a very good teacher of it, and I regurgitated the lesson that Steve had to make sure that they got it. That was kind of my check And now, it is, “How can I engage them in such a way that they’re using this information? And really owning, taking ownership of the material and internalizing it themselves so they truly understand it. Not just that regurgitation? So we as a department…first, I was really the lead teacher within that, but then also our whole department as we’ve added members of the teaching faculty to it, it’s had an impact on us. And the conversations we have with each other at the lunch table, in-between classes, before school, after school, it really has been some of the most rewarding…or some of the most rewarding moments of my teaching career of really saying, “Hey, let’s see how we can do this better, and how we can really be impactful.” But I can tell you also that teachers outside the program…for the first year or so, they heard about it and there was this push. “Okay, how can we sprinkle some ‘entrepreneurship’ in there? Because that word is used so much and has so many different meanings.” And for a long time, you would see them say, “Hey, I’m doing this where we’re teaching them this about business, and this,” and it’s bigger than just business. And it’s really the skills in how they can do that. And now, as our Capstone students are really reaching out across departments and they’re using much of the information they’ve had in other classes and going back to those teachers and they’re seeing the impact, I think it is having an effect on this campus. One of the terms we like to use with what we’re doing in entrepreneurship is, really, “applied liberal arts.” Because it is. It’s using many of the skills they’re learning in other classes. And so, when we say, “Okay, how can you validate your thoughts here? Your design, your prototype, now, let’s get out of the building and go test it.” Well, that’s very similar to if you’re writing an English paper, right? Doris: Right. David: “What is the supporting information of how you’re going support your thesis?” And so, there is a lot of carryover, and I think it is having an impact on how they’re approaching the “How to” in other facets on campus as well. Doris: That’s wonderful. I think school should be teaching students how to think, not what to think. David: Right. Doris: And what you described is teaching and learning about…that gives students the skills when you talk about empowerment and giving them agency, the skills to learn and think about things critically. I wanted to…a couple of things you said triggered something for me that I want to ask you about. So we’ve learned a lot in the last couple years of working with a lot of teachers and educators from all over as they’ve implemented their programs. And a few of the things…there’s a lot of excitement in what I’ll call “innovative education” around innovative education right now. And a lot of things being thrown out there: entrepreneurship, experiential education, PBL, all kinds of things. And what you’re talking about, I love that you’re using the word “teaching” still. When I hear people in this space talk about being more a facilitator and a guide, I really don’t react well to that. Because I think this is immersive teaching. It’s just very different. David: Right. Doris: A very different experience. And what you said about what’s happening in your department, it just…in your experience, when I taught in more traditional classes, I never was a traditional teacher. But when I taught in more traditional classes, there was very little room in schools to collaborate as a teacher. And you brought up the collaborative piece. And I think that’s enormous. And I’d like you to, if you could, give a couple examples of how that’s making an impact at your school. How you see that collaboration. David: Sure. One great example…and I may not illustrate as well if you saw it on a daily basis, but our other…the other teacher who teaches the “Intro to Lean LaunchPad” course, he and I both have graduate degrees in business and have both spent time in that world. And so, when we started teaching, I came back from the workshop, and again, just dove into the material and looking at the method, and really, “How can we make this the best thing?” I saw the difference between…where he and I were more similarly aligned in terms of our teaching styles, right? We both had…and he’s a great educator and has our students’ interest first and always has done that. But then I saw the difference between where I had gone and, really, where he still was in terms of hammering that content. And the more that we were able to look and share…and he sat in on my classes, I sat on his classes and really began those discussions, it opened up this world of where he then was running with new ideas, and “What if we tried this?” “Hey, I did this today in class. It didn’t work well.” Or “I did this in class and it worked incredibly well.” And he just had a project that he brought into the classroom, which was really a lesson in leadership and leadership styles. And it was…he involved different roles within a group setting and really gave them some prompts to build a small structure out of Legos, and then they had to solve some problem with it. But using, injecting different leadership styles through prompts and so forth. And it was one of the best things I’ve seen in the classroom ever. And I’ve now taught for nearly 15 years, and it was maybe one of the best lessons I’ve ever seen. Doris: Oh, wow. David: And he, from where he came before, which was more this traditional, content-driven where he wanted to go over sales figures and cost structures, and analyze that, and how can you value a startup and then go forward and get venture capital? He was so ingrained in the weeds of that to where now, it’s really this bigger and more ambitious style that really teaches them those skills and the “How to” without getting in the way. Doris: That’s great. David: Yeah and I’ll say this, too. We both with the Capstone students, because he is in there some as well just as another set of eyes and ears as we’re teaching this, he and I have both thought, and it’s not been easy to inject ourselves in what where we think the group should go with a given business, you know? It’s easy for us to sit there and say, “Hey, we think we have the answer. We can see this and the students aren’t…they may not have the business background to see that maybe we can help.” And really, we’ve had to fight, but it’s been good and we’ve seen the reward of it of stepping back and saying, “No, they really have to do this on their own.” And they may go a different direction, but we need to let them do that, and we need to allow them the room to fail if it fails or succeed if it succeeds, and then pivot to a different direction on their own rather than cutting that off at the pass… if that makes sense. Doris: Yeah, it makes total sense. You know, having taught content-driven courses and now teaching like this… When somebody says to you, “But wait. They’re learning skills, but they’re not really learning any content. How we can do that in a school?” I’d love to hear your answer to that. David: Sure. And early on, you know, that was one of the big concerns of our school, which is…we’re in our 127th year as a school, and it has stood for a long time, and this community is really this pillar of great education. And when our students graduate, it’s this. And for a long time, it was rigor, rigor, rigor, and it still is, but in a more rich and truer way rather than maybe just loading with work. Doris: It’s a different kind of rigor, right? David: Absolutely. Doris: I would say it’s at least as rigorous. It’s just different rigor. David: I would say it’s much, much more rigorous. It’s rigorous… Doris: I would agree. David: …at a more in-depth level. And that’s the thing that I think people have started to see. And one example I use in the Capstone course…one of the businesses which was a custom tailoring business, they were just starting out. They were two lifelong friends. One had been somewhat in this business, another one had been in a family business, very successful in the Nashville business community. They left to go start their own custom tailoring business and were taking on a couple in that area. And one of their needs that was really going early on was they needed a website. They were pretty young into this and they needed a website for a lot of reasons. Well, our students in the Capstone course jumped on that as one of the solutions that they needed. And on one of our check-ins on a Friday, they had said, “Okay, we’ve said they need a website, and here’s the website we’ve started building for them.” And one of the students in the course asked, “How did you come about in actually…in building this website?” And he said, “Well, I taught myself coding.” I’m like, “What?” And so within two weeks, he saw the need to teach himself coding. I could have never taught him coding. But he did that to the point where he could create this beautiful and very functioning website for this company. And so, I was able to share that with the faculty members that if we had a class in coding, that may have taken maybe a full semester or a full year to get him to the level that he got in two weeks because he had this deadline looming and really was bought in and had ownership of this problem and wanted to solve this for them. And so, that was something that he learned some content, some pretty heavy content in just one example of him going and doing that on his own rather than me sitting there and lecturing him on “This is how you code. Now, click this and that.” And he was able to do that himself. Doris: Yeah, I think this is…what you’re talking about is enormous. A lot of people who aren’t close to this immediately think about this as “Oh, this is about business and its skills.” But this isn’t for the students who want to go the heavy-duty academic route and need to take the AP classes, etc. We’ve worked with tons of teachers who are using these methods in science classes and humanities classes, and math classes. And I think that as you and others get iteration after iteration of practice, experimenting and building programs and seeing what the students can do, you’re going have students who teach themselves all kinds of content in the course of doing the work. And the coding is a great example, you’re right. You could have the kid in a year-long class, lecture-based class, and they probably wouldn’t learn as much. David: Absolutely and it has. It’s had that impact already. Doris: Do you see in the school…you mentioned some of the other teachers. Do you see other teachers in the school who are more single discipline-based teachers getting more open to the idea of trying these kinds of methods in their classes? David: I do. One of the things…and I mentioned our new head of school. We also…we revamped our strategic plan within this same…in this same cycle, and actually just EL Program was added as one of the key components of that late in the game just because, already, people were seeing the power within it. But one of the things we’ve gone to as a school is really saying, “Okay, let’s have an inquiry-based philosophy of learning and teaching within the school, and really unpacking what that means,” and obviously, that’s one teaching and learning style, can it can be. But I’m thankful that, really, our head of school and also our division head in the upper school have really embraced “Let’s go out and let’s try some different things.” And so, while, yes, we’re inserting this program to the life of the school, this isn’t the only place where that’s happening. And so, we as teachers, and across the board, not just within our department, that really started a lot of the discussions between us as those teachers of “How could we do this and do this better?” And so, we have a lesson plan fair, if you will, where teachers will go in in some of our professional development time set aside, and we’re actually teaching them and going through the lessons. And we’ve been fortunate to present two of…in two of those, and really, the feedback from other teachers has been that. “I can use this element in my classroom. I can use that element in my classroom.” How can I engage them within what we’re doing and partner with you? And really doing some projects. In the history department, we’ve done so. Also, in the art department. And really, that was the bigger win because as Steve says, “Entrepreneurship should be taught more as an art class than even a business class.” And so, I think that’s when people’s eyes really started opening up. Doris: That’s exciting. David: We’re working with them. Absolutely. Doris: I don’t know if you know, this has become…teaching this method has exploded the demand for it so much that I started a nonprofit recently called Wildfire Education, and what you just described is the reason that we’re calling it “Wildfire.” Because this tends to happen when teachers see the results in the students, and they want to try it. The other thing I wanted to ask you about that because your program, David, is so impressive. And what I would love to hear your thoughts about are for the teacher who doesn’t have a business background and has been teaching for several years and doing it in a pretty traditional classroom. But what you can tell them about…it can be very intimidating to the idea of starting this and I think it’s all about experimenting and trying just like it is for the students. What would you say to a teacher like that who’s a little intimidated after hearing about your impressive program? David: Sure. I appreciate your kind words on that. Really, in some ways, I think one of the bigger blocks to both John and myself who are heavy into the business side of this, we did have the business background, and that actually I think created some hurdles for us to have to get over to kind of free our minds from “This is how we learned it in graduate school,” or this method or that method. I think we really had to step back and kind of untangle some of that ourselves before we could really go. And so, I would say in many ways, that teacher’s at an advantage because they don’t have that, that hang up to get through, right? Doris: Yeah. David: And it can be applied…it transcends business. We are working with businesses and nonprofits…any organization. But the method can be applied to many different things. And really, the thing…and this is a key to all of learning and really, I think, getting back to why most of us got in education in the beginning, because we do love lifelong learning, and that is…and we love students, it’s being free to fail. And really, free your mind of that. I think that goes with anything, any new endeavor you really try to reach out and do. If you’re constantly worried about that fear, “What if I don’t succeed?” and you don’t stretch yourself and fail, you’ll never truly learn and grow through that. And so, I think that’s the biggest hurdle to get over for anybody is really freeing your mind. And we preach it, we have the Samuel Beckett quote up on our wall in our EL, our main EL classroom of “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail better.” And we really want people to embrace…we talk about embracing failure and embracing ambiguity within our program of “We may fail, but we’re going to learn a new way to do something.” That’s the quote when he created the light bulb. Doris: That’s awesome. David: Yeah. I didn’t find one light bulb. I found however many different ways not to do a light bulb and that taught me how to do it. Doris: That’s awesome. And what I try to do in these workshops is give everybody what they need to be able to start. Have a pilot. Give them all the methods and the starting point. But everybody, after the first pilot, people create their own and build their own. And it’s just a starting point. I love the program that you’ve built and what you’re doing, and I really hope you’ll keep in touch, and I want to come down and see the program in action. David: Absolutely. We’d love to have you and likewise. It really has been exciting to be able to be a part of it. And to that point, too, this started with just a simple history class. Doris: Yeah. David: And I saw light bulbs go off with students when we were able to kind of delve in some of the nontraditional ways, which now with the support of the school around us and the leadership, it has really, like you said, taken like wildfire, and it has been exciting. Doris: That’s wonderful. Well, I can’t wait to see what you do next, David. Thank you so much. David: Awesome. Thank you. If you are interested in learning more about our training, visit our workshop page on Wildfire Education to learn more.  Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this short intro, Doris and Alison kick off Season 3 of the podcast. They share the plan for this new season, which is called The Firestarters. They also share some news about their new organization, Wildfire Education.   Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode, we talk about the final look at a semester course and how important the reflection on the entire experience is to the learning of the students. Alison: Here we are Doris. Doris: I know. Alison: We just finished up the final presentations for the semester this past week. Doris: Yeah. Alison: What were your thoughts? Doris: Well I think I’m reminded every time, I was reminded this time of the same thing I’m reminded every time, which is even though the whole idea of giving high school students an assignment to actually come up with a real business model in… Alison: Four weeks. Doris: From basically nothing to something you could…in four weeks is crazy. I’m reminded again about why the process is so powerful and having the…having real investors that they’re presenting to. Having the deadline where that moment is going to come whether they’re ready or not ready and they’re going to be presenting to people who do this day in day out, with people out in the real world, adults, it’s really important. Think about the difference. If you had everything the same as what we had them do, but they were just presenting to us and their parents. Think about…you can’t even describe it, and the same happens with the business problems. They’re presenting to the actual CEO and founder and team. This time they’re presenting to real investors. Working into, whether you’re teaching an entrepreneurship class or you decide in your science class to have a unit. We have many we’ve worked with who do just a unit to start, where they find a real problem for the students to work on that. Presenting their solution to an authentic audience is so powerful. Didn’t you feel that? Alison: It’s a great point you’re making because even into about the third week, where we really shifted from, okay you’ve defined the problems now, we’re moving into this phase of really coming up with a meaningful solution and thinking through each of these aspects. Whether it’s the revenue model, the channels you’re going through, how you’re going to reach the customers, and that there was a different fire behind their kind of work ethic. Knowing that they had to present to real investors you see real entrepreneurs day in day out and they weren’t going to go easy on them because they were high school students. And that they needed to come up with something real, and thought through, researched, all of these things that would position them well to get up in front of the investor and show them, okay, here’s my go to market strategy. Here’s what we thought through in terms of our revenue streams, and here’s what the product prototype would look like. I think it pushed them to a different level knowing they had to present to these investors. Doris: Well and every single teacher, every single educator that we’ve trained who’s done a pilot, every single one of them have come back out the other side and talked about how important it was to have that performance at the end with real people, not just the teacher. Like it doesn’t matter whether it’s a middle school science course or last night one of our English teachers Mr. Cleminshaw, tried a unit in his AP English class for the first time. Where students presented to a panel of judges including me, and I’m sure he lied about who I was so that the kids would think I was…but no, I’m kidding, but they had a presentation to a panel of judges, Mr. Looney. You could tell just like with our class, you can tell that for those students, presenting to someone who was taking what they were presenting seriously put them in a completely different place in terms of the work they did. Instead of just, here’s my teacher, she or he said I have to do this and it’s a kind of transaction between just the two of you, it changes everything. Alison: It’s really powerful throughout the whole semester that moment. The first business they work on, where they realize an adult who’s successfully working in the real world and has started up their own business, is taking their 16 or 17 year old opinion seriously, recognizing that it was more than opinion. That they had to actually do research and show evidence based solutions, and that in fact when they did their homework so to speak, that people really valued what they had to say and that these entrepreneurs, often whom we’ve chosen to work with are beyond grateful for the support that these students bring forward, and that they take interest in the work. It moves them to a different place entirely. Where these students realize, wow, at this young age I am able to contribute something that impacts an adult and possibly their business, and if it’s a social venture, the beneficiaries of their business. And that’s powerful. Doris: The people, what you’re saying is so right on. We use mentors in this last part of the class. Having people from the real world engaged with the students in the subject matter they’re working on, makes it serious, makes it real. All our students say it and interestingly enough, what so many of the teachers we’ve worked with from other schools. The two things that some of them are nervous about when we’re training them. One, the two things they’re almost…some of them are most nervous about. One is, I don’t know anybody. School, a rural school or whatever. Alison: In rural America, yeah. Doris: Or I just, I’ve been a teacher, I don’t know and we have that conversation with them about, okay, so let’s talk about whether you could get a parent of one of your students who has a job somewhere to come in for one hour. Or Rachel Mullen who’s our Spanish teacher, who got a woman she knows who works for an ad agency. She’s teaching Spanish, so she was using a real problem for the students in a Spanish class. She got somebody in an ad agency who markets to Latin Americans and to Hispanics. She got this woman to agree to do a couple Skypes with the class. Alison: Interesting. Doris: What you just said is so true, that what teachers, if you haven’t asked don’t realize is, the people are so excited to work with high school kids or middle school kids, to contribute a little time to these guys. They’re excited. We never have a problem finding people to work with our students, but neither do any of the teachers we’ve worked with. Alison: We’re clear up front as well, hey, these aren’t free leavers that are just going to consult for you for free. The purpose in working with us shouldn’t be that you want all these ideas from a bunch of young people. You should really do this because you believe in this style of learning and that matters more than anything. They say yes, because they believe in the learning. On the back end of the experience, they’re all shocked in fact that they’ve got something out of it. Doris: That they got some great ideas. Yeah, yeah. Alison: Yeah, but we clarify that up front because it’s important to help everyone understand their involvement in this from a community perspective, right? Doris: Right. Alison: And supporting the work of the next generation going out there into the world, needs to have some more reality brought into the classroom. Doris: And it’s important as a teacher to set all these things up well. That’s the most important key to success. If you’re going to have students present to some people, you have to structure it and set it up and prep the people coming in so that it matches what you’re trying to…your objectives for the students. Everybody’s different, some people do it very well. One of the things that we never really promote is that there be winners or that it’s a competitive thing. Alison: Oh, for the students, yeah. Doris: For the student teams who are presenting. So that it’s really… Alison: Actually I don’t know if you were here one day when one of the students this past week raised their hand and we were talking about the investor panel and what to expect and how they would present. And one of them said, “So when will they announce which one of us won? How do they do the winners?” Doris: Oh, that’s funny. Alison: And we said that’s not how this goes. What the investors really talk through and will give individual feedback to each of your teams is about if this business model actually has legs to move forward. And I think that’s an important point to note, because it’s not to say, okay, here’s how much we’d invest to get you into a series A funding. It’s about, all right, here’s how we perceive what you’re doing to be feasible in the marketplace and that we would potentially invest you to go into sort of feasibility study. Doris: They give real feedback and so think about when…so when here at Hawken, our humanities department chair wanted to create a lab course, because students in the humanities program weren’t developing the kind of critical thinking and writing skills and really struggling with some of it. They did a…we had the teaching team do a pilot using these same methods. The pilot was teaching Chinese history for three weeks. They set up a deadline with an authentic audience, that student teams presented to. Where the students chose a contemporary Chinese problem that they cared to solve, but the expectations, the requirements for that solution were that the students had to have the depth and the context in Chinese history that impacted. I’m not wording it well, but they had to have the socio economic, cultural, historical depth to support their solutions. So these teachers guided the Chinese history learning, but the fact that the students were presenting to an audience that they thought were authentic, would really know about Chinese history, and would be really listening for what the student…that made all the difference in terms of the depth the students went to. So it doesn’t matter whether it’s entrepreneurship or ancient Chinese history or science or whatever it is, having someone involved in the solution that the students prepare, having people they can talk to along the way, interview, do research with, who are out in the real world. This is…it brings something into the learning for these students, that makes all of it relevant and meaningful in a way that a closed classroom with teacher and student only, just can’t do. Alison: And it was actually interesting because as that day was closing out after the presentations, one of the students was talking to their mentor, I overheard her saying, “I thought this would be more of a wow moment. I thought this was going to be like the culminating experience and it just feels like it’s felt in these other day…any of the other presentations.” Doris: Which is the same. It’s a continuation, yeah. Alison: And the mentor said, “You know, you’ve just been in this day to day, taking a step back and reflecting, where you even were at the beginning of your challenge. The problem at that point you thought you were solving, to now what you actually presented on today that was really validated at the root of a meaningful problem related to girls, and their confidence levels and it wasn’t actually related to the WNBA really all.” But it was interesting how he helped position it for her, that in fact there had been a lot of growth in this final project, but what I appreciated was, just the past few days now we’ve had them finalize their capstones and talking about the reflection that now has gone on over the entire course experience is helping…was I think more of the wow moment. Yesterday I left class and was really… Doris: You mean for the students that’s when they had the wow moment when they were putting their portfolios together, their capstone portfolios? Alison: Exactly. Doris: Happens every time, yeah. Alison: It was amazing and I’d like to talk through that a little more because I know you’ve seen this semester after semester, and I know you really reinforce the power of reflection, but to have this capstone piece at the end, where they are thinking through, where did I start at day one? Doris: One of the things that happens as a teacher, when you first start very intentionally, that learn some stuff, apply it and reflect on it. When you very intentionally follow that loop all the way around with every single part of your class and your teaching, is you start to discover how vitally important the reflection part is to the learning. Like it’s crazy and we’ve worked with so many teachers who once they…I always say, just give them the playbook, let them do a pilot. Once they do, they’ll make it their own. They’ll know what works, what doesn’t and go to town after that. The reflection in every part of it is massive. And the capstone is like you said, it’s the reflection on the whole class. So we build reflection in at every part of the class and then at the end, we have them reflect on the whole thing. What that does is it gets them to process what they learned, how they grew, what mattered most and matters most, and it plants that in their heads. And then when you talk to them six months later, a year later, two years later, that planting that happens during the capstone continues to grow over time. We’ve seen this, that it is the further out our students get, the better they realize what they got out of it. Alison: It’s true. I mean whether they go off to college and are in different student groups, if they’re in Greek life, in their classrooms, trying to get internships in the summer, eventually getting jobs after college. At each of those points, they’re reflecting back on, wow. I know you sent an email recently of a student who during the course… Doris: Oh yeah, she resisted it the whole way, she thought it was stupid. She didn’t think it was stupid, she hated the lack of…she said, “I’m really good at following the instructions. If you tell me what to do, I’ll do it and I’ll get my A.” And she really struggled with having to be creative about what to do next. Never really got it actually until she… Alison: And then yeah…until she was out in an internship or is she working with that company now? I’m not sure, but… Doris: Yeah. What happened was that I told…we had one of those feedback sessions at the end and I said, “Let me tell you the growth I’ve seen and I think you’re going to someday, maybe it’ll be 10 years from now, you’re going to understand why that was really so important for you. To get the confidence, to think about things without the recipe, and carve your own path, and that even thinking like that is massive growth for you.” And she wrote an email. Yeah, she wrote an email a year out saying…no, it wasn’t a year out because she graduated last year, six months out saying, “I’m writing to let you know that I now realize and I didn’t have to wait 10 years. I totally get why that was a massively important class for me, because I have a job and they’re giving me stuff to do with absolutely no instructions, and I’m rocking it, and it’s because of that.” Alison: That’s exciting. I mean it’s exciting to work with these students day to day and for us to see the growth that they’ve gone through, but for them moving through this capstone process itself and starting to get a glimpse of how powerful this actually was for them, that we were saying, peaceful fruits in this specific semester seems like years ago, but in fact it was only a couple of months. Doris: Right, the first business, yeah. Alison: But the reason it feels so distant is because they were different people back then. To see that course of transformation in oneself over the few months I think is powerful, and I look forward to hopefully emails in the future from other students who like you say, the further out they get, the more they recognize how valuable this might be to their life. Doris: Yeah, and this generation, this generation and the ones to come, they want to work on things that are real, and they want to work on things that matter. Whether it’s a science class or a humanities class or whatever it is, having an experience in the class, in school, where they get to work on something real that they care about, that connects them to the learning, the work, the knowledge, whatever it is and realizing their own abilities to learn. That’s what’s so empowering and even if you just do one unit at the beginning of all your class that’s mostly traditional. If you do something where the students go very deep and hard into solving problems that are real and discovering the crazy exciting challenge that comes from having to do something under a deadline, that has no recipe with a bunch of other…like that is an experience that all these kids come out of having learned something powerful about themselves, whether they realize it at the time or not. Alison: That’s exciting work and I look forward to next semester with our next cohort we have coming through. It’s wild that this semester has already come to a close. I feel like it went so fast. Doris: Yeah, it did. Alison: But we’ll be taking a break here for the holidays, and we will be back with the podcast in early 2017. Yeah. Doris: Sometime in 2017. Yeah, all right. Well, have a great Thanksgiving. Alison: Thanks, yeah. Same to you.

In this episode, we talk about what happens in this class when students are working on real problems and they’re paralyzed because they don’t know what to do next.  Alison: So, we’re two weeks away from final presentations for student businesses and we just had share outs for an update about where they are. Wow, what a day it was. Doris: Yeah, what a day and actually…so I’m going to start…this is a big conversation. And I’m gonna start with the last thing I just said to a student literally two minutes ago. We just finished class. They just got on the bus. And the share outs this morning, we had four teams, two were in a good place, two were absolutely nowhere. And I’ll tell you what I said two minutes ago to that team, you were there. I said, “You know what, you’re in this weird class. And the reality is that if you want to, you can spend a whole lot of time sitting in a room with your team peddling around doing nothing. The time can pass. You’ll have a share out. You’ll get whatever reaction you get. You’ll have a presentation. You’ll get whatever reaction you’ll get. You’ll get a grade. You’ll move on. Life will go on. You’ll get your credit. You’ll go on to college. If you want, you can get through this and life will move on and you…nothing will happen.” Alison: They’ll survive it. Doris: “But here’s the deal.” And I started and I asked this, I said, “Question number one, do you think I care if any of you actually become entrepreneurs?” And all four immediately said, “No, you don’t care.” I said, “You’re right. I don’t. What do I care about?” All four answered, “That we learn.” I said, “Yeah, so here’s the deal. When I’m sitting in a room working with Alison, you know, with Ms. Tanker and we spend time on Mr. Desmond, we spend time working, it is not true that we are 100% of every minute being productive. It’s not true. It’s not human. However, if you take the time you have in this class and all you do is let it pass and you don’t take advantage of the time to do work and thinking, when you have these real things to work on and these real problems, whose loss is that?” And they said, “Ours.” And I said, “So there are two things that make me sad if you sit around and do nothing. Number one, that you’re in this crazy, privileged position, being in this weird class like this where you’re actually being given real things to work on with structures around you to be able to develop these skills,” and we’ll talk in a minute about why do you care about these skills. Then I said, “Do these skills matter? What are these skills that you might be learning?” And do you remember what Adam said, what did he say? He said, “Yeah, we…” I said, “Okay, really? Don’t tell me what you think I wanna hear. Do you think these skills that you’re learning, developing in this class matter?” He said, “Yeah.” He said, “For example, I really…” Alison: I don’t like to call people on the phone and… Doris: “I don’t like to talk to anybody.” Alison: …to need to interview them. Doris: Yeah, “I don’t ever like to talk to people. I don’t know where to initiate or whatever.” And I said, “Do you think that being forced to do that is helpful?” He said, “Yeah, I think I’m gonna need it.” “So do you think that it’s possible that if you don’t learn how to initiate conversations with people you don’t know yet, that it may be the difference between being successful at something you care about versus not?” And he nodded his head vigorous, said, “Okay.” So you have X number of hours a week in this class. Think it’s worth actually getting something out of it? And they all nod their head, “Yes.” I said, “So that’s the first reason.” And I said, “And the second thing is that if you actually put the four of your very capable brains along with some effort into this, the problem you guys are working on, which is high school dropouts and high school graduates who don’t have college degrees, finding employment, you actually might come up with something that’s real and meaningful for people in those segments. Would you feel good about finding out?” “Yes, we would.” So here’s what I’m saying. Once again, what we find in this class, when you’re having students in high school work in an academic course on things that are real, is they are very often, when it gets hard, their natural inclination is to step back because nobody’s given them the instructions on how to move forward. So they just stop and they wait for some adult to hand them the instructions. And the problem is that they’re so trained like that, that’s so natural for them that when he goes through high school, and they go through college, and they come out the other end, and they get out into the workplace, they have no ability to be generative by themselves. And we see that play out over and over again in this class. And the good news is in a class like this that they can’t get away with it. They’re forced. They’re forced to engage and take ownership for what they’re doing. Alison: What’s interesting, too, is, in my time that I’ve worked here with all of you, the different types of teams that we’ve seen and how this shows up in different ways and, from a teaching perspective, how to navigate that, right? So I’m thinking of the team last spring that had some serious interpersonal challenges that made it difficult for them to make progress. However, their ability to go deep into work and research made up for the fact that they, as a unit, weren’t functioning so…you know, holistically. Whereas what we’re dealing with now is a much different situation. Again, if you would just look at it from the progress about where they are in terms of getting to their solution and building their business, the pacing of it in terms of the class experience might look similar to that team from last spring. The challenges they’re dealing with are what you’re pointing out, they’re much more about their intrinsic motivation to lean into this work, to push beyond the obvious, and get out of this place of privilege in some ways. I mean, when they first pivoted, that’s the other reality with this team, right, they’ve pivoted now to this specific challenge, and when they did, the first thing we started questioning was, “Hey, this is obviously a population you’re interested in helping but you have no experience in dealing with. Why don’t you go do some research around that?” Doris: Talk to some people who do know, yeah. Alison: Talk to some people who know, right. And that was a week ago. And what’s really interesting, as Tim and I had discussed today and filled you in on where they were in this process, trying every day this week to have that come to Jesus conversation and that, really, they were trying their hardest to BS their way around and not have to do the work in some ways. Doris: Yeah, they didn’t wanna have to think about it. Alison: They didn’t wanna have to make those phone calls that made feel uncomfortable. And to our listeners, I would love for you to explain a bit more about how you reached them today, kind of going through the activity you took them through when you went with the stickies. Doris: Oh, the stickies, yeah. Alison: And helping them understand how they really define the problem because as we all know, if these kids don’t care about what they’re doing, none of this matters. Doris: Right. So I think it’s interesting what you’re saying. I think the first thing…there are a couple of things…so what I did…to answer that first and then I’ll go backwards and explain why. So they wanted to tell me about the effort they’d put in or what they’d been grappling with or whatever. And when I asked them, “Do you,” basic questions, the very beginning questions about that population or the problem or whatever, and they had no idea. And I said, “Guys, if you’re really thinking about this, what are the first questions?” Then because one of the things that came out of the share out thing, “Oh, we need to talk to people.” I said, “Yes, you’re gonna need to talk to people but I don’t even know what that means if you don’t…” So I got them…basically what I did is I cut off the conversation and I did with them what I would do if I were on their team. That’s what I did. And I came up…I said, “Let’s all of us…if this is what we really cared to do, what are the questions we have right now that we can actually look up in the next hour if all four of us are working hard in the next hour that help us narrow our focus so that we can come up with a hypothesis,” and of course, we have these things, these questions, with variables, etc., “So we can narrow the focus and you know who it is you’re talking to because you know what you’re trying to find out. What are the first questions we have?” And I just took them through an exercise as if I was on their team. We were all coming up with questions on Post-its individually, and then we’re each sharing what our questions would be and we’re talking about them, and I’m participating as if I’m on their team. And then I say, “Okay, what would you do with these questions? If you get these answers, what do you do next?” And they said, “Well then, we do the…” And I said, “And when are you gonna do that?” And they looked at me and I said, “If I’m on your team, I do this. I figure out who was assigned to what of these questions that you can find out really a lot about in a couple of hours of vigorous work online and you have a chat tonight from home or whatever you do as a team, and you process all that so that you can come up with a targeted focused segment of the market that you validated has this problem and etc.” Anyway, here’s what’s important, I taught…for those of our listeners who are teaching right now, I think you’ll relate to this. I taught math for many, many years. I had a conversation over and over and over again with students that went kinda like this. “Oh, I failed the test totally, didn’t know how to blah blah blah, but I really worked hard. I put a lot of hours.” And I look at them and they wanna tell me how many hours they put in. And I look at them and I say, “It’s actually not interesting. It’s not interesting whether you put in hours, you didn’t put in hours, etc. If you put in time, you didn’t put in…you didn’t do it well because for you to put that kind of time in and not have figured out ways to find out if you know it well means you’re not doing it right. And actually, the ideal would be if you didn’t have to put a lot of time in and you can…” Right? Alison: So if they’re at their home, if they’re at their kitchen table at night and they’re struggling through the same problem set for 45 minutes, to say, “Okay, I obviously need to talk to my teacher in the morning to understand why I’m struggling with this before I spend three more hours struggling with the same problem set.” Doris: Right. So as a math teacher, I was constantly doing the same things I do in this class where I start by seeking out with the student, “All right, first of all, let’s decide whether learning this thing matters. That’s always the first thing. Why does it matter that you learn it? And it can’t be because I told you so, or because you have to, or because I have a test in a week.” You have to figure out as a teacher, with the student, how is what you’re teaching relevant to each individual student in such a way that for each individual student, the learning is meaningful, they care about it. And that, you’ve got to figure that out. And that’s why everything has to be taught through the lines of why, why it matters. And you got to take time at that. Then, if you do that, then what you’re really…if you really wanna help your students, which all of us do, it is much more important that our students learn how to learn, then that they learn specific stuff to be able to spit it back a week later. Alison: And then forget it three months later. Doris: Forget it or not forget it and know well one teeny segment. If they learn how to learn, right, if you teach them how to fish, that’s what this is about. And engaging students, whether they’re 5th graders or 2nd graders or 11th graders, in an age-appropriate conversation that they can relate to, that they can take ownership of, what can I do to learn well? How do I learn best? What are things I can do? So that if I see that I’m not learning, how can I find out if I’m learning it? What can I do if I’m not figuring it out? Who do I go to? How do I go to them? When do I go to them? Like that’s the hard part about…that’s the hardest thing to learn as a child and that’s the hardest thing to teach. It’s not a once and done lecture. That’s the kind of thing that you’re…the conversation and work that’s hard that you’re having with each individual student all year, that is the hard part, and that’s the meaningful part, and that’s the lasting part. And because of the way schools set up and the way it’s been set up for so long where the single thing, the whole school system set up, all of it is designed based on specific content acquisition as the goal. And as I say all the time, it isn’t that knowledge doesn’t matter or you don’t have to learn content, of course, you do. But that can’t be the thing that we structure all of schooling around, not the world we’re in today. It can’t be. It has to be these processes, these skills. That’s what we have to care about. And what happened today with our students in this class that happens over and over and over again is in this class, like in any other class, when it gets hard and they’re not sure what to do, they, many of them, just sit back and check out. And the only way for them to really crazily learn and keep developing even though it gets really hard sometimes is, first of all, for them to think it matters. That’s the first thing, it matters to them. And second, when it matters to them, for them to take ownership of the quality of the thinking that they’re doing and they’re learning. Alison: On the parallel, that’s just really quite evident for me here, as well as from the teaching perspective. Like this is really hard right now. It’s really hard… Doris: Yeah, it’s very really hard. Alison: …from our perspective to get this team into a better position and it would be easy for us to also just sit back, just as the students are like, “We’re facing a challenge here. You know what, we’re just gonna put our hands up, whatever.” They’ll go through, they’ll have their experience, they’ll screw around in their room, they’re gonna do something shallow, and we’ll say, “Well, it should have been better to move on to the next semester of students.” But instead, that persistence that we’ve been enduring this week with this team… Doris: That’s hard. Alison: It’s hard work. I’m exhausted right now. Constantly, honestly, I mean, my head thinking through, “Okay, how can I phrase this in a way that’s gonna prompt their thinking? What kind of question can I ask that’s really gonna put them into a place that I’m…” And really, you’ve trained me well to constantly push and never… Doris: With questions. Alison: With questions, right, so that we can help students develop that skill whether they themselves are learning how to learn. And I just really appreciate, right now, the parallel that they’re going through this on their own team and here we are trying to help them through, but also struggling on the path and having to just embrace this challenges as it is and devise our own solution to help them get to the goal of really learning some skills. Doris: So we talked about extrinsic versus intrinsic rewards. You know, I don’t think grades work. They don’t. They’re not meaningful and they don’t work. And if any of you listeners doubt it, do a little research. We’ve done a lot. I’ve done a lot. Do a little research on what the average GPAs are and what you can tell from that. Just look at what’s happened. So we’re talking in this class about developing a model for doing school completely differently where the goal is mastery, deep learning of some concepts and knowledge and mastery of skills, very, very different than what we’re doing in another school. What that means is coming up with completely and totally different ways of getting these students engaged in thinking and producing and generating. They want to work on things that are authentic, okay, so we’re giving them that. You’re right. This is a very hard time in the class. This is probably the single hardest time. Because it is so hard, they really are…they’re crazily grappling with stuff there’s no recipe for. Even with all the weeks of this class these guys have been through, this last team that I was talking to, what did he want me to do? He wanted me to come up with a timeline to tell them what they needed to do, what steps they needed to take between now and their final presentation. And I said, “That would be easy. I could come in here and I can come up with a timeline, so could Miss Tanker, so could Mr. Desmond. But you don’t have anything quality at this point. So we would be coming up with a timeline for you to go through the motions to create a presentation to give in two weeks, how good would that presentation be?” He said, “I would be horrible.” I said, “Okay, this is like, look, I’m not learning at that well. What can I do to get my C so that I pass the course?” Think about how often that happens and how sad that is. It was the same…everything we’re doing here, I did the same way as a math teacher. You weren’t allowed to do that. The conversation I never ever, ever, ever let, I never let any student out of, does it matter that you learn this? And I kept having that conversation until…I’m the most stubborn one. So that student realized it mattered, and if they could convince me that what I was asking them to learn didn’t matter, then I didn’t care. They never did. Sometimes, I was convinced an assignment didn’t matter. They would take me on and I’d go, “You’re right. You’re right. I shouldn’t have assigned this.” But if something…I’m taking the time to get these guys to learn, I better know that it matters. And if I know that it matters, it is my job to make sure that they decide it matters to them. In this class, it’s really nice because we’re using real problems so we don’t have to do…so not that hard, the conversation about why it matters. When I taught math for 14, 15 years, I had to work a lot, a lot to get students to conclude authentically, realistically that what they were learning mattered because the stuff I was supposed to teach them, if all I did was teach it to them the way it was in the textbooks, holy moly. So that’s where all this came from, like how do you get students to see why learning this math thing matters? And you can’t BS them. It has to be real. And if you can’t come up, if you can’t convince them, maybe you shouldn’t be teaching it. Alison: I think it’s a great point and I think, really, this is a broader conversation about educating in that way. I mean, really. To be an educator in today’s world, this is what it takes. It’s hard work, and you have to connect with the kids where they are and the world they’re going into. And I’m encouraged, I’m really grateful that our past collided when they did and you’ve been able to help me develop meaningful strategies in this way because…the work I had done with adults prior to this and then with some youth as well was powerful in its own way but I feel like now, I have a much more sophisticated sense of how to create these transformative learning experiences for people that really cause them to go deep. And that’s something that is powerful and something that encourages me about the future of our world. If we can do this with more and more of our next generation, they can go out there and add value to the world and find some solutions to all the problems that exist and that’s exciting to me for that reason. Doris: Well, and what we are doing that others also are doing, we’re not the only ones, is we’re doing it inside the school. And we’re doing it inside of school and we’re developing…and again, it’s not just us, but what I’m very motivated to keep doing is developing the systems that teachers can implement inside academic courses to do what we’re talking about, mastery-based assessments. What are those? How do we do those in a way that others over and over in public schools, private schools, charter schools, what do those look like? Let’s try those out. Let’s band together, figure this out. We’re developing some really cool things, the rubrics that we’re testing, different ones every semester, and getting data on what works, what doesn’t, how does it work. Alison: That focus on skills and whatever. Doris: The portfolio-based assessment, what does that look like, how to do that well? What is it? How do you create curricular structures inside academic courses to support the development of these skills, the crazily, crazily deep, deep learning experiences some of these kids are having where you have a class of kids and some of them learning crazy amount about biomedicine, and someone else is learning a crazy amount about the face of poverty in the U.S., and somebody else is learning like how do you set up curriculum and assessments and all those things inside academic courses where not everybody’s learning exactly the same thing and spitting it back in the same way. And that’s why this work, anybody who wants to do with us, there’s…please join in the conversation. It’s really interesting. And we’re talking now to people in our, who we’re working with, public schools, charter schools. We’re working with people in other countries. There are people all over the world trying to do the same thing. Alison: It’s pretty encouraging. Doris: Yeah.

In this episode, Doris talks to Terry Chou, a middle school science teacher from a public school in California. Terry attended the first Workshop for Entrepreneurial Studies. in order to learn how to teach innovation and collaboration. Listen to what she has discovered about teaching at the intersection of science, business and technology. Doris: Hey, Terry. Terry: Hi. Doris: So, listen, I am really excited to hear more about your search class. And you came to the workshop, the very first one we did back at Steve Blanks house, in his living room, in the summer of 2014. And, you know, we actually communicated quite a bit before you came because you were really doing your homework, I remember, to find a place to go for what you were looking for. And I remember you’re telling me that you were a middle school science teacher at a public school in California. And you really wanted to find ways to excite your students about… Terry: Yeah, I was looking for…actually I was in the process of creating the search class. Which came about because I wanted to teach innovation en masse and I needed to find, like, ways to do that. And originally the class that I had had in mind was sort of like a science fair class, a science fair prep-class, research, pure research. But kind of thinking back and forth that entire school year and leading up to the summer I realized I really didn’t want to teach that, that what I really wanted to teach was innovation. And then learning a little bit more about what innovation meant, it’s the intersection of science, business, and technology. And so the business part, when it fell into place there, I realized I needed to sort of investigate the business perspective because I didn’t have a business background. I’m completely a science teacher, science person, studied science in college and so on. And so in looking at business perspective, my brother-in-law actually who did study business, he suggested that I look into the lean startup movement. Doris: Yup Terry: And from there, from lean startup movement, I came across Mr. Blank. And so I actually emailed him. I emailed him directly about, you know, “I’d like to learn more about this program. I’m a teacher, I have this class that I have in my head that I’d like to kind of fulfill,” and you know, did he have any suggestions for me where I can start because I had no background? And so he actually was the one who said, well I think he actually forwarded my email… Doris: To me. Terry: And you, yes. And there at that point was like, “Oh great. There’s this workshop I can go to.” As someone who didn’t have any business background or anything like that but has an idea for using entrepreneurship in a sort of a science elective class. And so it kind of fell in place perfectly timing-wise and curricularly just to be able to immerse myself in that realm of that the business sort of world that I don’t have personal experience with. And so that really just kind of kickstarted. And as I learned more about lean launch pad and the lean startup, I realized it was a perfect fit because essentially the philosophies use the scientific methods to validate all of your assumptions on nine core aspects of a startup business. And it just fell into place at that point. Doris: Yeah Terry: Very nicely Doris: Yeah, no it’s great. And then, of course, the curriculum you built around that, so that’s, you know, it’s like in a science class you may employ the scientific method but how you go about teaching science and teaching the students and getting the students to learn science is all about a whole bunch of other things. And you created a course coming out of that workshop and I remember talking to you in the fall multiple times as you were looking for how to engage the students. And it really was…It’s interesting because you came in thinking you needed to learn about business and that’s what you were looking for. But I actually think this all falls under the heading of innovation. Terry: Yeah. And I think, especially with sort of as I started in the Fall…so I basically went from workshop to actually teaching the course. Doris: Yeah, I remember. Terry: I was able to readily use…like I needed to use disparate tools and sort of, sort of come at it right away with this. And as I started in the Fall, yeah. A lot of things just kind of I realized a few things. One of the things first is that the business part is really is like a scaffold. Doris: Yup. Terry: And that scaffold allows students to formalize and they communicate ideas in their head. But the creation, sort of the process of the product design and all that, you know, using technology and trying to figure out which technology would match my students best, that we hammered out throughout the Fall. And I think probably midway, sometime by Winter, I started to realize that the innovation part was great but really this class, at least for my class, was all about learning really deeply about yourself, the students themselves: and how they interact with people, how they communicate with people. And essentially, the concept for me became, okay, you know, we’re really as a teacher my job is really is to elevate these groups of students into teams of students. Otherwise, the innovation just wouldn’t happen. Even if they had a wonderful business and they’re kind of chugging along with the product, the product won’t come to be its full potential if the team wasn’t completely on board. And so then by the Spring when I had sort of my second iteration of the class since it’s a semester long class, I was able to kind of try to focus more on that aspect. And I think since that point, I think that’s been something that I’ve kept in my head as, yes the business is important, yes the learning of science and writing, the literature review, as well as learning the tech and building the product. But ultimately, none of it will really push itself to its full potential without the team understanding they have to work together as a team. And so it’s been great actually as a teacher…because you know, I get to then consult and advise teams. And I treat each little startup company as a team from the get-go. I tell them how important it is for them to really think of each other as a team and not as a group. And I think semester after semester we’ve seen kind of like, just it’s been more amazing projects like one after another… Doris: Yup Terry: So, and it’s all from the same business structure and the same tech but it’s sort of driving home that message that you have to interact with each other as a team. There’s just, you can’t, you can have all the fancy dreams you want but if you want an actual product to be made and communicated well, it has to come from a team mentality first. Doris: Right and that’s where all of the approaches that we’ve built that have to do with teams having a real challenge that they’re…that they find meaningful… Terry: Right. Doris: …with a deadline where they have to come up with a solution and all that, all those approaches around collaborating productively, feedback, how you give each other feedback, what…how you identify your strengths, bring them to a team, identify, all that stuff that we talk about, that actually is the most powerful part of the whole thing. Terry: Right, and I would agree with that because the science, the business, the tech, at least for search class, really in order to see it through to its maximum potential that one semester can offer the students, they don’t have that much time actually. And so if they cannot coalesce together, if they cannot resolve their conflicts sooner than later–and they realize this at the very end of the experience–that you know a lot of time is wasted. But then at the end, they realize, “Oh, you know what maybe it’s better that we resolve these conflicts as soon as they show up. Maybe we do need to kind of, I personally need to contribute more when I see either myself or someone else is kind of drifting off and they’re not being productive, they’re not coming in and helping to design.” And so I think some of them definitely say in their reflection blogs that they realize that they’re better as a leader like on the side. They’ll kind of be able to be a quiet leader. Some have said they like sort of just being able to be at the forefront and sort of dictating as they go. But they realize who they are. You know, they come to a clearer understanding of, “I’m a talker, I like to actively bring people into the…I now know that I need to actively step up my game because I just I let it go. I let everything procrastinate too much.” And or, you know, “I’m better off on the side. I’m a quiet leader and I see that now.” Doris: And they see that that has just as much value, it’s just that’s who I am and that’s how I contribute. Terry: Exactly. And so I think that I would identify as the most important thing that is learned in my class. Even though they do learn business and they do learn science and they do learn all this tech, learning about themselves every semester it just comes back to that. They learn more about themselves that anything else. Doris: And I would argue that…so that is consistent with every single, you know, everybody who does this and implements in their own completely unique way in whatever class in whatever…you know whatever school with whatever aged students says the same thing. They learn crazy amounts of some particular science or they learned a new technology or they really developed their writing. But more than anything else they learned about themselves. And the, what’s the reason we use you know we overuse these words and I wish there were new ones. But the reason it’s so transformative for many of these students is because they realize the extent to which they’re able to learn, what I can do, how I can contribute. It isn’t this closed conversation between the teacher and the student. Teacher gives student an assignment… Terry: Mm-hmm Doris: …student does what he or she is told to do, hands it back to the teacher. Teacher pats on head or doesn’t pat on head, says, “Good job” and it’s done. There’s this, in addition to working on authentic problems, doing the work as a team makes it meaningful and relevant and urgent and they take ownership of what they’re doing in a way that they don’t if they’re just an individual contributor in a classroom. Terry: Right and even if they’re not, I mean I know…so like the whole project-based learning curricular design, actually I was just talking about this to someone at a conference that I had spoken at, the FabLearn conference… Doris: Yeah Terry: …at Stanford University this last, two weekends ago. And I was talking to them about project-based learning. And his…he came at it with, “You know, project-based learning is great. And these kids get into groups and they do this project for what? Two, three, four weeks? And then they’re done with the project and then it’s done. And they disband…and it’s then it’s as if you know they move on to a new project. So it’s as if they really didn’t learn as much because it somehow truncated their learning. You know, it was done, the piece was done, they got their grades, and then they move onto new projects, new groups, and so on.” And we were talking about search class actually and I appreciated his comment on, it’s interesting because when you set it up like this where the kids come up with that problem… Doris: Yeah. Terry: …and then they have to pursue the solution. And it’s almost like even after the class is done, there is still reason to move forward. Doris: Absolutely. Terry: There’s still…the project is never truly, I mean unless you’re actually going to build your business and start your company, there’s still so much more opportunity beyond just that particular project or that class. And so, you know, it…in some ways, this type of class where students define and then pursue solutions or define the problem and pursue solutions of their own, I think does more to promote life-long learners than simply sort of the traditional classroom group project. Doris: I agree. Terry: There’s no, the borders are blown wide open. This project can literally go to as far as you want it to. And so it kind of actively gets students to think about well, what’s the next step? You know, versus a lot of projects, even the project-based learning kind of projects, there’s an end point and then you have to move on. But this type of situation, it’s almost begging students well, what’s your next step? What’s your next step? Well, you know, what do you have in plan next? And there’s always a next. Doris: Yeah, because it because they’re…what they’re working on is real and it doesn’t just it’s not a, “Here’s your assignment, project or not an assignment. And when you’re finished, you’re finished.” It’s there’s this real thing and you’re building, you’re innovating. And they’re passionate about what they’re doing. We had a student we were talking to today who’s in a space where they’re actively working to define the problem that they’re working on in the music space where the four of them are very, are wildly passionate. And he is crazy excited about the opportunity to work on something he’s actually interested in in a class in school. And one of the things that I think is, this does, is that it when you say life-long learner, it redefines students’ relationships with school.   Terry: Right. Doris: Because they have this, they come into these kinds of classes before they’ve done a class like this, they come in thinking the way this school thing works and my relationship to school is somebody gives me something to do that I must learn. I then learn it well or not and I get some sort of feedback to tell me whether I learned it well enough or not. And we just kind of rinse and repeat that. And when they realize that my crazily, excitedly learning about and researching something I’m interested in, I’m genuinely passionate about also constitutes learning and can even be done within what’s considered an academic course, that that’s really really, that changes how they look at themselves, learning, and school. And I agree, that opens them up to looking at learning as something they want to do. Terry: Right, and I think that’s, that’s definitely you know something all teachers want to promote. And sort of redesigning their classrooms, or their curricula I should say, is definitely one way to think about when they want that result. And you know I think that also the, I don’t know. I guess…in some sense, I really wish that I were able to take this class and I think that I probably would have had such a different trajectory in life, as well. But I think… Doris: Oh, that’s really interesting, why? Terry: Well, I don’t know. Because I think, for me, I didn’t actually give business a chance. I mean I knew I really wanted to be an educator but that also in my head it never occurred to me to even give business a chance. Or even sort of the startup world where science and technology is pretty much integrated into the business, at least in Silicon Valley that’s where we’re at. It just never occurred to me that I would find a place for myself there. But I’m glad I didn’t. I mean I think in education there is so much to innovate, which kind of gets me to think that I think maybe one of the keys for teachers is in order to sort of help a lot of the teachers out there kind of bring them into this new perspective is that they need to think of themselves as an innovator as well. And that, you know, they may not be in a trendy, high-tech, Silicon Valley startup but that doesn’t mean that you know teachers can’t be those innovators. And we innovate on our curriculum. You know, that’s how we are able to push the boundaries and for ourselves become that lifelong learner too. You know, I just so appreciate actually having the experience now of teaching this entrepreneurship kind of aspect to my class. It’s…you know, I think it’s been a great thing for me. Doris: You said that beautifully. I couldn’t agree more. And I really will say, I don’t even think it’s about business. I think everything you’re talking about is about innovation. Terry: Right. And I think that’s where…right, I totally agree. I think innovation, the spirit of innovation, and just the pursuit of it is really critical for student and teachers alike. And…you know, I think coming away from this particular conference that just happened so it’s fresh in my head that, you know, it is a movement. I truly do believe that. It is not just some passing fad or, you know, a maker space might be a fad. The just sort of a room that people go to to drill and to laser cut and to 3D print. But the maker education movement, the sort of movement towards innovation from the teacher’s perspective as well, the… Doris: Yup. Terry: I don’t know if there’s an umbrella term for all of it. But that sort of thinking…I think it is something that once started, the ripple effects is just gonna continue. Doris: I could not agree more. And you said all of that so well. I’m gonna end that here but that was fabulous. Thank you, Terry. And I loved seeing the excitement of your students when I came to visit you. And, they were on fire. And, by they way, learning not only about innovation, and customer development, and pitching and communications but also learning a lot of science. And they were jazzed about it. Terry: Right. Yes, they can see finally how science is applicable to their lives. Doris: That’s awesome. Hey, have a great day. Thanks, Terry. Terry: All right, thank you so much. Learn more about the METHOD Discover more about our educator TRAINING

In this episode we’ll talk about these final projects where students create their own businesses and will face huge academic challenges in the process.  Alison: Final projects. Doris: Yeah. Alison: We’re off and running already today. Doris: We sure are. So this is really interesting. So they did their presentations on Tuesday for their last business challenge and now, starting today, they came in with problems they wanted to solve, pitch them to each other, vote. Top vote-getters form teams and they’re going to create businesses to solve the problems they’ve chosen and they’ve got five weeks to do it and then at the end they’ll present to investors. This part of the class feels, looks I should say, to most people the most recognizable. This is… Alison: In terms of an entrepreneurship class? Doris: Exactly. When people, for example, think of a Lean LaunchPad class, like they do in university, Steve Blank’s curriculum, like they do in graduate schools, NSF, this is the most full-on Lean LaunchPad part of the class, but it’s for high school and it’s quite different in a number of ways from what you’ll see elsewhere. And I want to start, you know, as you look a level deeper at what this is. If you took a bunch of high school kids and you gave them a class, if this were the class, if the entrepreneurship class started today, they pick problems they want to solve, they form teams, you lead them through a process to design a business, everything is completely new, but also generated from wherever that teenager is, coming out of their high school class and into an entrepreneurship course. It’s entirely different what they choose to work on, how they work on it, the level they get to, and as a result the kind of learning of skills that we can build into this because before today they learned so much by working on the business challenges of others earlier in the class. All that foundational stuff that we’ve had them go through means that when they start this they are at a very sophisticated place as compared to where they would be or where they were the first day of class. I don’t know if that makes sense, the way I said that. Alison: No, it’s a really great point you’re making and it’s something I recognized even before I joined the team here, when I had first come to see the work you were doing and stopped in for some presentations the semester before to watch those final presentations and recognize the level of depth they went to was far more sophisticated than a lot of work I had seen at the graduate and undergraduate level. Doris: And investors tell us when they’re having, not even in school, when they’re having entrepreneurs pitch startup ideas for investment. Semester after semester these investors, and they’re really credible people, successful people, say, “Woah, those were better than what I see…” Alison: Out in the actual community, yeah. Doris: Right. And it’s not magic. Alison: It’s not that these students are particularly, you know… Doris: Right. What happens is…the secret sauce, if you want to look at sort of what the projects are that we have them do in the class, from that perspective the secret sauce is the learning they do in the first part of the class when they work on one after another after another real startup problems from real businesses and they have to learn a heck of a lot during those. Alison: And it is. I think the way that you have structured this module, that sequencing of learning, I know you call it the learning terrain, is very thoughtfully designed ahead of the course, where in Biz 1 we recognize the specific challenge they’re going to be working on, what industry the entrepreneur is in, what stage of operation they’re at, who the entrepreneur is and their background experience, their motivations, which look dramatically different than Biz 2. And they dive into that and have to go to a deeper level which has a lot more complexity, generally is how we structure that. Into Biz 3 if there’s time in a semester for a third Biz, then you can go even deeper and more broad. It’s really impressive to watch you in that space designing that learning terrain, because it is the foundation for the depth of their learning but as well for all those methodologies you talk about, whether it’s customer development, design thinking, the creative problem solving problem, where they come into this, and although I’m sure we’ll see them still lean toward solutions early on, they recognize the importance of having to validate and go out there and understand a problem before they can even begin to solve it. Doris: Well, exactly. And even the language that we were using today, let alone the concept, here it is, day one, they’ve barely started, they’ve pitched problems to each other, and by the way those problems they pitch still are at a teenager level. Alison: Absolutely. Doris: Okay. So they came in with pitching things that weren’t so interesting actually, if you want to know the truth, but what we know with confidence is it doesn’t really matter what they pitched. Because it’s really the learning that’s going to happen and as they go get into it, if the problem they pitched actually isn’t that big a problem or it has already been… Alison: Solved at some point. Doris: …very beautifully solved is they are going to very, very quickly, by doing real research and asking the right questions, they’re going to get there very quickly and… Alison: And have to pivot. Doris: …and they’ll have to pivot. So they already understand today, at the very beginning of this, the importance of validating the problem and what that looks like and what that means, why that matters most first, why if you let your inclination to want to come up with the solution drive you you’re going to never end up with a successful solution. We can talk about even the way, in literally probably two minutes I talked about where does design thinking come in and human-based design and the whole discussion of the combination of desirability, viability, and feasibility and what those are and how they interact with each other. And I didn’t have to tell them. I put the thing up there, desirability, feasibility, viability, endless loop, validating these three, iterating as you have why does this matter. They got it. They answered it. Alison: Because they’ve had some exposure to that through their Peaceful Fruits journey for their Biz 1 and then into Endemic Solutions they had to think through that. And it wasn’t explicit. It wasn’t like we sat them down and said, “Okay. Today we’re going to talk about the desirability of Peaceful Fruits.” or, “Okay, today we’re talking about the feasibility of endemic solutions.” It’s very real. It’s messy. It’s not linear, but it’s applied. Everything continues to be applied in real startup settings where they can now have internalized it to a place where they can just use it for what they’re doing now. Doris: Exactly. Think about what it means when, I’m just thinking about the many, many different things that came up today that where literally what I did is ask them and they got it, they answered it. Think about what it means that you’re standing with a high school group and you say, “By the way, in a week you’re going to be sharing out and you’d better have your value hypothesis and that means you’d better have defined a target market with a problem or need and here’s how that looks, here are the variables. How do you validate?” And instantly…and I say, “Is there a place for surveying? Is there a place for interviewing?” And instantly I think it was Hannah says, “Well, yeah, they’re different. It depends on what you’re trying to validate and what you’re trying to find out. It’s the difference between qualitative and quantitative research.” And literally not only uses those terms, but others chime in about when you might interview versus when you might survey, when you go online and go deep and when you don’t. And when we throw out there, “In a week you’re going to be sharing out and there are going to be seven of us in the room. Not just the instructors you’re used to, but we’ve got mentors for you on this one. They’re all very experienced. They’re all very opinionated. You’re about to get seven adults. When you share out, here’s what we’ve got so far and here’s where we’re going. You’re going to have seven adults telling you, ‘No, no, no,’ or, ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ and it’s all going to be conflicting all over the place. And what are you going to do with that?” And they said, “We’re going to have to process. We’re going to have to figure it out on our own.” And I said, “That’s right. Because no matter how experienced and smart and opinionated we adults are, if you could Google what’s the right answer to solving this business you wouldn’t need any of us. And you can’t. It’s your business.” Alison: Right, because they’re doing the research. Doris: And the big message with all of this is that by now they have really connected with what it means to design process well, what it means to be generative as a team. Even the way they started, each team when they formed, how they decided that, and then when they started how they dove in, it’s very interesting how much they’ve learned about needing a diverse team with different skills and how you tap those and how they right away organize themselves to do the hard work. Walking in the door to this course for the first three, four weeks, they were shell-shocked. “You’re not telling us what to do next. I don’t know what to do next unless you tell me.” Now they get that the hardest, the most challenging, the most interesting part of this is designing the process. They are going to design the process. They are going to decide what to do next and that’s really interesting. Alison: I was pretty impressed with the one team that immediately jumped in. I mean they were so fired up over the problem itself, it really resonated with that specific team, which the problem was around concussions and creating some kind of headband to address that. Doris: Headband. Yeah. Uh-oh, we just gave away the…somebody’s going to steal that idea. We’d better be careful here. Alison: But that team immediately jumped in and started delegating work in a way that, you know, at the beginning of the class like you’re saying, they would have never known where to begin. And if you think about, as you were mentioning earlier, a number of other classrooms that start with this model at the beginning of their course, the work itself is so foreign that the students have to rely a rely a lot on the instructor to explain all of the elements of the business, you know, a little on the business model canvas and thinking through, “Okay, what are we talking about when we’re looking at channels, what does that mean when we’re looking at the customer segment and therefore the value prop?” And it’s just a totally different way that they move through the learning that I really appreciate watching in this moment right now. Doris: Well, it’s really exciting. In the next five weeks they are, every one of them, going to learn a crazy amount. They’re also, every individual student is going to gain deep, deep knowledge about certain things. I can’t tell you now what those things will be. I can tell you that some of them are going to come out of it learning a lot more about statistics than they can even imagine. They’re going to learn about modeling. They’re going to learn about a whole bunch of things. They’re going to become much more sophisticated when it comes to knowing how to use data well to drive decisions. But some of them are going to learn about fields and about science and about…literally I can’t even predict what they’re gonna…but… Alison: Especially because I think we’re anticipating a couple of pivots. There’s no way we can predict it. Doris: Well, sure. Sure. Absolutely. But they’re going to learn a crazy amount and they’re also going to in the next five weeks, they’re going to hone these new skills that they’ve developed to a really, really great degree. That the whole how you problem-solve when it’s really complicated, and it’s wide open. You can go about it who knows how. How they conduct as a team research, instead of just sort of researching endlessly like they did on their first one and then raising their hand and saying, “Okay, we don’t know what to do with what we found.” Look at how they started today. Every single team immediately came up with, “I think here are the questions that we have and let’s divvy up the research over the weekend.” The way they mobilized from day one is what you would see in a pretty high functioning organization when you go in and you go to a team that’s been solving some of the tough problems for that business or organization, whatever it is, these guys are…they’re ready to do a good job with us. Alison: What I love so much about, again, how you designed this in a sequential manner is that they get practice at this process over and over. The fact that they can come into this and now feel confident, now recognize, “Oh, I do have a sense of what to do to move through this messy process. I know how to take on a lot of ambiguity, how to use the team I have in front of me and leverage each other’s strengths and skills so that we can make some progress. I don’t know where we’re going to go.” But the fact that they can enter this stage with a bit more confidence is only because they went through a couple failures if we can say, where they had to recognize that learning along the way because it wasn’t obvious up front. Doris: Right. The first ones are really tough, but they build and there we pretty much contain the problem. It’s a real one of some other business that’s existing. There’s a ton to do and a ton of learning, but it’s not this wide open pick whatever you want. They really have to learn about water filtration and water purification and they have to learn about developing countries and their contaminated water-related issues versus those in the developed world. They don’t get to go wherever they want to go and they have to learn it and some go deeper than others and they know it. But what you just said, here’s what’s so important about that. So they, when they get to a place in this class where they’ve done enough of that, that, as you said, they have this confidence now, “Okay, I can do this. I have a lot to bring to the table and whatever I throw at myself, I know I can do something really great.” They are doing it on businesses and problems of their own choosing which is wildly exciting to them, but they don’t get to do that until they’ve learned a lot. And starting with that now means that this confidence that you’re talking about, as they go crazy over the next five weeks developing their business models, when I use the word “empowerment” that really honestly is what this kind of learning, that’s what it’s all about. It’s about empowerment. Because they’re already feeling it and over the next five weeks they’re going to really experience their ability to learn, their individual ability to contribute, to contribute uniquely, to go deep into things they care about, to learns things because they want to and need to and not because of some test. And they also experienced already, and they’re big time going to experience as they move ahead, that no jargon in any industry, science, anything will…what’s the word for it? They don’t’ get intimidated now. They know that, “I can figure it out. I’ve done that already.” Alison: I think it is at the crux of what I believe about experiential learning and I know that’s a term that’s thrown around a lot, but the truth of it is we learn through experience, we learn by doing. The fact that these students time and time again now have experienced this process, experienced what it feels like to be out of their depth, to not go as deep as they should have, to maybe not use their team in the best way, and then to couple it with the level of reflection that I know is so core to your methodologies. That that really reinforces their overall understanding of how to move through this and because of those experiences. I do, I think experiential learning is what empowers people, whether it’s a student or an adult. I mean a lot of the work I had done in the past before joining the team here, I saw that to be the case as well. When any person can identify a problem and feel confident moving through the process with the tools they need and the experiences and their background to help them create a solution that can impact some people around them, that’s super powerful. Doris: It is. The reason that I personally am doing this inside a school and have been 21 years starting with high school math and etc., is because this is the most powerful learning, but for us to really change school so that it serves kids so that they are prepared for the world they’re going out into, this has to be done in a completely different way and experiential learning, what I get worried about, and we’re guilty of it, we use edgy jargon all the time, we use these terms, people define these things differently. What’s happening here is that this is a really very structured curriculum and approach and whether it’s an entrepreneurship class or a science class or whatever it is, there are methods and instructional practices and principles of teaching and rigor I’ll call it that are massively important as part of this. And… Alison: I hear what you’re saying, what you’re getting at, is that it’s baked into the course overall that these experiences they’re going through, I mean this is why I resent people who use the word “experiential learning” and aren’t doing things that are based on real, well, I guess that’s arguable, I guess real experiences. If you’re just going on some trip where you’re, you know, out in the wilderness or you’re down in another country, yeah, that’s an experience to some level, but if there isn’t the level of structure around what’s happening, where you’re reflecting, you’re applying what you’re learning, you’re moving through that time after time, I mean that’s ultimately what these experiences drive forward to. Doris: Well, yeah. I guess the way I think about it is we can talk about the fact that people learn by doing and it’s absolutely true. And we can talk about experiential learning and there’s absolutely…there’s no question that there are all kinds of experiences as humans that we have that we learn a tremendous amount from. I’ve learned more from some of my travel experiences that were not part of a class or a curriculum or anything, and I’ve learned from anything else in my life. There’s no question about it. Our experiences…whatever those are. But when you’re talking about school, how are we doing school? What we have here is not to be confused with a fun startup weekend or a throw a project, even a real one, in the room, let the students work on it for a couple of weeks, come back, have them present, and wasn’t that cool? Not that they don’t learn from all of those things. They do, but this is literally about creating a completely different model of how you teach a course, an academic course, so that learning happens inside a school. And so this last part, what’s interesting about the last part of this class is they get to choose, that’s unusual, but they get to choose what they’re working on, but actually the expectations and the requirements are more defined for this than anything they’ve done so far. It’s true. Alison: It will be interesting. I’m excited about these next few weeks coming up. There’s a lot that they’re going to learn and we’ll see. Doris: We’ll see. Yeah. It’s really cool.

In this episode, we talk about what students presented today as their solutions to their second business challenge and why the learning has been transformative.  Doris: Okay, so Alison we just…students just presented their solutions to their second business to the CEO. What’d you think today? Alison: I was pretty impressed with where they ended up today. I had my doubts for the past three weeks. Doris: You and me both, yup. Alison: It was really a moment where last week we started to feel that shift had taken place that they really were clicking in, but today validated that for me. Watching their presentations and one-by-one seeing each of the teams get up there with the markets that they had explored and ones that they ruled out for specific reasons and communicate that effectively to the CEO, it was powerful knowing where they started. Being able to see where they ended today and the messy path they took to get to their solutions was an exciting moment for me. Doris: Yeah, if mean there were four teams. Two of the teams didn’t actually start doing good work until a week and a half ago. And then they’ve been working their little tails off since. And as we saw today, anything that they presented they had a lot of research to support. Some of them, the two that really only started good work a week and a half ago, didn’t get nearly as far but what they had was validated and they’d done… Alison: There was actually quite a bit of quality in there, in the amount of work that they were able to accomplish once they kicked themselves into gear. Because with the partner organizations they presented, I was actually pretty impressed that they had made up for some lost time in the past couple of weeks. Sha wasn’t confident it was going to end up as well as it did today. Really they impressed. Doris: Well, one of the…I don’t know how to articulate this well enough but when you’re taking a test in a history class and the test has, you know, you’ve been studying a unit for however long, and the test has an essay, some short answer, and some multiple choice. And you come into that test and you know you haven’t really done as much as you should. You haven’t learned it deeply, but you get through it. You get through the essay somehow citing some things. You have your short answers. Probably you missed the most on the multiple choice because…whatever it is. And you come out and you go, “Phew, okay, got it. I got my 82. I passed,” or “I got my 72,” whatever. Doris: Coming into this assessment, today was an assessment. Okay, what have you done? What do you have to show? How is it? They’re coming in with real things based on the real world. They can’t BS their way through it. So if a team actually hasn’t done very good work until the last five and a half days, the way it shows up is there’s much less that they can show because they didn’t have time to research it so that they can really stand up there and say, “No, we’ve really done our homework. This really would work. Here’s why. Let us show you the data behind it.” And what it does is it immediately eliminates any discussion about what do I need to have in this to get my A? The point is anything you present as part of your solution to the CEO about what she should do and why and how, you better have done your homework because she or we are going to say “Okay, so why did you choose that of all the things you could do across the globe? Why? What’s that based on?” If you choose Niger instead of any other country or spot in the world, on what basis did you choose it? Do you understand the needs of the people locally in terms of purified water? There’s no way to fake that stuff. And they feel the right kind of pressure. They don’t feel the pressure to get the A. They feel the pressure to have done their work well. And… Alison: Offer a meaningful solution to the CEO who needs… Doris: Yeah, meaningful and sound and based on real stuff. And so it isn’t about charming your way through it. It isn’t about personality. It isn’t about covering with a really hip slogan or cool graphics. Alison: Or a nice hashtag in student campaign or something. Doris: And yes, they learn a lot about communications. They learn a lot about design. They learn about how to present well. But you can do all those things communicate well, design your slides beautifully, have a great story and if you didn’t do the work to know that what you’re talking about makes sense, none of the rest of it matters and everybody can tell. So it really it gets the four of them working together for the cause in a way that is really powerful. And the students we have who many of them, who a week and a half ago, we basically said, “Okay, what you just shared out demonstrates you could not have done any good work given what you just presented. I don’t care how the slides look. I don’t care… you couldn’t have. And talking to us about the effort you put in or how much time is pointless.” Alison: Yeah, because it was quite shallow. Doris: “Because can’t believe that you’ve been working for two weeks on this particular challenge and you don’t know the following baseline starting facts about water purification, about physical pathogens, about what this filter does and doesn’t do. You could not have been doing a good job if you don’t know these things.” And so they scurried back, got really like a big kick in the pants, and spent the last week and a half doing everything they could do. And they were really proud of themselves today. And they should be because what they did in a week and a half while not nearly as thorough, and deep and broad as the other two teams, they came up with something that they know is quality thinking and quality work. And now those students really…I had this conversation with a few of them today. Now you know what it feels like to do good work. And they understood exactly what I meant. Alison: Well, even in the after meetings once they gave their presentations, they sit down and do the 15 minutes with the CEO one-on-one per team. So they have an opportunity to go deeper into that research. And when a couple of the students on those teams where we were worried they weren’t going deep enough started to speak up and really go back and forth with our CEO in those 15 minutes, showed how they started to internalize this at that deeper level where they understood not only what the data points were or the stats around infant mortality in that country or what types of infectious diseases are contaminating the water in x country. They understood, therefore, how to take that information, synthesize it and give her a recommendation, be able to really talk a meaningful way to say, “We are really concerned if you’re going to start in this place if the scientific limitations of your technology are actually going to fulfill that need. So, therefore, given that, we think you should start in India or in Bolivia.” I mean, each of the teams had a different specific place. But it was based in them doing the hard thinking and really go into that decision filtering. And we talked about that earlier as well and how they had to understand the need, the urgency, the demand and what that, therefore, meant for Shanice moving forward. Doris: Well, it’s interesting. So we talk about, we see that this kind of course or this kind of learning is really transformative for students and it really is. And if I had to use just one word, the word I’d use is it’s empowering. The reason it’s empowering is that every student who really engages in trying to come up with a good solution for the CEO or for themselves at the end of the class or whenever it is, every student who engages in this starts to discover their own abilities. That’s really what…they learn, “Oh my gosh I actually can do a lot here. I can learn a lot. I can be creative and I can be…I can do a lot of stuff.” Doris: And in regular school and traditional classes, there are crazy, passionate, brilliant teachers all over the world who come in and do extraordinary stuff with students. And it isn’t that anybody’s saying the problem is we don’t have good teachers, or we don’t have great teachers, or that the education system is broken because there aren’t enough people out there who are passionate or know a lot. The reason school, traditional school, isn’t working as well as it needs to is it’s not engaging students in the way that they need to be engaged to learn the skills we’re talking about. And what happens here is at one point or another, and it takes some of them a lot longer and some of them less time, at one point or another, along the way, each individual student makes this huge paradigm shift, “Whoa, this really isn’t about what do I need to do to get the A which is what I’ve been used to for all these years. This really isn’t about this. This is really about the work itself. It’s about the work itself. Do I care about the work itself? Yes, actually I do. And do I think I can actually contribute in a real way to solving this challenge that is this real thing that nobody’s figured out yet? Oh my gosh, I’m 17. I have no background in any of this. I do think I have something to say here. And by learning more and more about it, I get even more excited about what I’m able to do.” So in this crazy weird way, it actually gets every student in a perfect world, our hope is and so far, experience is, it gets every student to discover that they’re actually really interested. They’re actually really interested and that if they’re interested and they work at it, they can actually contribute a lot. And that’s really where the power comes from in this. Alison: It’s true. They have to do the work and go through that experience alongside their teammates. And I’ve really appreciated as well as in the past three weeks with these teams and how they were set up and the dynamics that were happening on those teams. It was starting to show each of the students as well what was possible when you mix the four of you together. I remember we kept trying to get that whole thing we were really constantly talking about it’s this the whole is greater than the sum of its parts or whatever that idiom is. I feel like they’re finally getting it, that they are working collaboratively in a way that they recognize “Wow, I have a lot to contribute that would not show up on this team if I weren’t here.” Doris: Yeah. Alison: That, you know, certain people might be diving deep into the science portion of this. And one team brought in a 900-page research document. They might have done more. Doris: But it was organized by category and like it was pretty impressive. It wasn’t just a 900-page…it was… I looked through that thing. Yeah, it was pretty impressive. Alison: It was a well-organized, “light reading” one of the students said for the CEO as she passed it to her. But the truth was that each of them had natural interest, I think, they were exploring whether it was the science or the market side of this or the creative portion, maybe design. But what they realized over the past few weeks was really how to contribute in a meaningful way the knowledge, and interest and skills they were developing to their specific teammates that allowed them to develop a much more sophisticated, thoughtful solution that felt dramatically different than this one. I mean… Doris: Oh, totally different. You know what’s funny, so think about it along the way when we were asking a bunch of questions from particularly the teams who really weren’t doing their work at all, it doesn’t matter if they were doing it or not. It was horrible where they were. They hadn’t gone deep. To say they hadn’t gone deep is an understatement. They hadn’t even done the really baseline. Alison: They didn’t start with the right questions is what we realized when we really started to unpack. How did you get so lost? How are you here after two weeks? And we went step by step backwards through their process and realized that instead of starting in a place where their big questions were related to contaminated water, what is contaminated water? Where is contaminated water? And therefore, we should…They just made assumptions from the beginning about contaminated water happens around natural disasters and then went really deep into that area but landed somewhere that was… Doris: I’ll disagree with you on one part of that. They didn’t ever go deep on anything. They didn’t even go deep on that. They had hoped this is a very different kind of class. They’re first-semester seniors, they’re busy applying to college, they’re busy going to homecoming. They’re… Alison: Going to college visits. Doris: Whatever they’re doing and they hoped that “Oh, this class maybe I can fudge my way through it,” which is fine. It’s normal. They’re teenagers. And what they discovered is you can’t fake this thing. And so as we asked questions, they had no answers. And one of the students after that particularly hard session where I said, “I actually don’t know what you’ve been doing for two weeks if you don’t know the following things yet. I don’t know what you could have been working on.” She actually followed me and said, “I haven’t been doing the work.” I said, “I know.” Alison: She was mad at herself about it. Doris: And she was really mad at herself. And I said, “I know.” And I said, “I’m not saying this to, you know, okay, now thou shall get an F. It’s not about that. It’s like I know and you’re not going to be able to come up with something of any usefulness. And it’s actually hard to do this. This is really difficult.” When parents today, you know, who were in the audience of the presentation, I had a number of parents come up to me individually and say something along the following lines one who said that literally in the last week and a half, it’s been the first time she’s seen her son do homework at night. Alison: Ever? Doris: Yes. Another who said, this is…that their child, I won’t even use gender so that it’s not recognizable, was so nervous and the mother said, “I’ve never seen my child nervous like this as he/she was coming into today.” And I said, “Yeah, they were nervous because they really cared about the work itself.” It wasn’t about “What you have to do to get an A? Did I fulfill the checklist the teacher gave me for the…” They’re nervous that they’re giving something that is of quality and makes sense and was good enough. Alison: Because this is Shanice’s life. This is what she’s doing. And this is her purpose right now and that these students had the opportunity to not only get up there and show everything they had researched and engage in that meaningful conversation with here after the fact. They got to hear from Shanice and it, just for our listeners to describe from Shanice’s perspective, she was very wowed by what the students did. She had, along the way when the students were emailing her questions day to day when things were coming up she was saying, “I’m pretty surprised that they’re asking these types of technical questions or science related questions.” But today she was really wowed she said, “I never expected that 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds would understand this better than a lot of adults I’ve talked to who are constantly trying to persuade me to go into domestic markets or things that they think would be best.” But she said, “These students have spent real time over the past few weeks to understand the different markets and understand my product and came in today with something that is going to keep me busy for the next six months.” Doris: Well, she also said that she’s paid businesses to do this kind of work, and they didn’t come close to what these students did. Alison: She was very much moved by all of their work and she actually acknowledged the one team, one of the two who was behind, and she had come in one day to sit down with a couple of teams. And during her sit down with that particular team, was pretty concerned about how shallow they were approaching just the questions they were asking, the questions they weren’t asking. And I know she pulled you aside and said something about her concern. And after that, you initially went to that team and filled Tim and I in and we went in the next day. And the students very appropriately today put it that they had a breakthrough that day. Doris: Yeah, they didn’t have a much of a choice but to have a breakthrough. Alison: But as Shanice was sitting there, she said when that team, in particular, was presenting and were able to go into the level of detail, and really walk-through from the scientific perspective and all of the things related to her technology all the way to the market application which markets you should go to first, whom she should partner with, the directors they had spoken to in those partner organizations, she said she was she got overwhelmed and started to tear up because she thought if this team is here where they are, I can’t wait to see where all the teams have gotten to with their research because she knew where they were coming from and that they weren’t initially doing the depths of the work they needed to. Doris: Yeah, and you know the bottom line is every single student individually…I think we’ve been in school eight weeks, and the day when I turned to you and Tim and said, “Okay today was that day this semester,” was about a week ago. And there’s a day every semester when you can tell, you can see it and feel it that okay, the entire class of students is now fully engaged in the real work and thinking. And we had that about a week ago. And the bottom line is that instead of looking for what’s the path of least resistance so I can do what I need to do to get my A, instead of that, what they’ve been thinking about is the work itself, the thinking itself. They’ve been getting more, and more and more interested in the details, into thinking in what is happening in Bolivia, what is happening in Sierra Leone, and why is that a better market than others? Who is doing what there? What are they doing well? What’s happening? What’s not happening? The statistics around infant mortality in various countries and what that’s based on. And what do we do when they get to that point a week and a half ago where they’re connecting? What we do is push them hard with questions. What are the questions? We don’t know the answers. But we can big time, big time push with the questions. And then they’re the ones who make this empowering and transformative. They are transformed because they experience, each one in a different way and at a different time, what it feels like to really, really do hard thinking and care about what you’re learning about. That’s what’s transformative here.

In this episode, learn how the feedback we give in this course goes far beyond a letter grade. Doris and Alison discuss how students shift away from extrinsic motivation through self-reflection, as well as giving and receiving feedback. Alison: Hey, Doris. Doris: Hi, Alison. Alison: How are you? Doris: I’m good. How are you today? Alison: Good. Doris: It’s a beautiful day in Cleveland, Ohio. Alison: It sure is. Doris: Yeah, it is, it’s really… Alison: Nice fall day. Yeah. What I was a little anxious to talk a bit about today was the one-to-one feedback…that you’ve been doing with the students at this point in the course. I think it’s a really interesting moment, some interesting shifts that happened, and I was hoping we could dive into a bit of that conversation. Doris: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, it’s been such a full week I forgot that I… But this first one, the first one-on-one feedback the students get, which comes after they finish their first complete…they’ve completed their first business challenge, is always a huge milestone for the students. It’s funny how we hear consistently from students afterwards that that was a huge turning point for them, having that one-on-one feedback. And I think that the reason is that they’re about four or five weeks in so they now really understand what this experience is about, what this class is about, what the work looks like, what the learning is about. And we have seen enough of them to be able to have a lot to talk about. And yet they’ve never really had anyone… What they say over and over, they’ve never had anyone talk to them about them in this way, and so it gets them, you know, in this course where part of the curriculum, a big part of their curriculum, is how to collaborate, how to team, and it isn’t just philosophy, it’s real curriculum. We have real things we have them do, we have real work they have them do, we have real… So they’ve already, for four or five weeks, been immersed in work that has them understanding and identifying their strengths, strengths they probably didn’t focus on before and now are so important in this class. We’re having them very explicitly and thoughtfully identify and consider and understand the strengths others bring to their work and to the team. They’re starting to really understand what we’re talking about when we say it’s not about the sum of the parts, it’s about the whole. By the way, I think that’s the first time I’ve said that right. I didn’t botch that in… Do you think I said it right? Alison: I don’t, actually, but I’m not the one to know that either. Doris: You don’t? Oh, okay, because I never say it right. Alison: I think it’s “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Doris: But isn’t that what I said upside-down? Alison: Yes. Doris: Okay. Anyway… Alison: We’re both terrible at idioms. Doris: We’re terrible. I mean, I have years worth of idiom dictionaries as gifts that are useless. But anyway, yeah. So they’re starting to get that. They’re starting to get it, and the way I word this, and it’s not perfect but it’s the only thing I’ve come up with so far, is that this whole thing we’re talking about, understanding your strengths, understanding how to develop them, how to apply them, how to be generative with them, how to do the same with others, etc., is really an academic discipline. I mean, we’re not approaching it as this personal, touchy-feely, let’s have group talks and cry. It’s a very…for lack of a better word, it’s a professional exercise. All right, the quality of your work and the success of your project and your team is going to depend on your ability to not just know what you have to bring but to use it really well. How do you use what you bring to the table really well and how do you use what others are bringing to the table well? So there’s nothing personal or, you know, the teenagers aren’t getting all sensitive and feeling criticized, which is a fabulous thing. So these feedbacks…I’ve been going on and on but I wanted to set the context, because then when you have these one-on-one feedback sessions with these students for the first time, what they experience in that session is there’s a ton to talk about, to talk about them, how they’ve performed well, how they need to do things differently going forward, what they’d like to improve, what is the growth they’d like to do, and they’re all in. Instead of a teacher saying, “I’m now giving you a grade of an 82 and here’s all the stuff you missed,” it’s entirely different. It’s, “Hey, let’s talk about how you did on the last one and I wanna start by asking you, student, what are you experiencing? What are you seeing? What do you think you did really well? Where do you think you need to grow? What are your goals going forward?” And it’s a very productive session. And they come out of the session realizing, “That was really helpful. I want to do more of that.” And it’s a way of interacting with students and teenagers and, as you know, I did this, whatever I teach, for 21 years. It’s a way of interacting with students that not only helps them focus on the places where they can grow, but it leaves them, every single one of them, with a total complete internalized optimism. It’s not about, “What did you miss? Oh, you blew it. I’m sorry, your grade…maybe you can pull it up to a B.” Or, “You’re doing A-level work. Keep it up, kiddo. Hope you can complete with an A.” It’s none of that. It’s about, “Okay, how cool. You’ve got another go at another project and another team. What are some things you want to develop in yourself?” They love that. Alison: It’s pretty powerful. I mean, watching you work with the students in the way that you do, I notice they move to this different level of self-awareness that’s pretty powerful for anyone, let alone someone at a very fragile point in their life where they’re trying to figure out their identity and who they are and what they stand for, what they care about in the world, and to have another figure in their life, have a meaningful conversation with them about the kind of growth they’re interested in doing. I don’t think a lot of adults think about the type of personal growth they’re interested in having, whether it’s in their professional or personal lives day-to-day. So to have a really dedicated space at 17 years old to sit there and really reflect and think about, “Wow, yes, these are the things I would like to reach,” or, “These are the things I’d like to improve upon as I’m working with my team. I’d really like to create more space for others,” or, “I’d really like to be more confident and more vocal,” or, “I’d like to show, actually, that I am very creative and I’ve been holding that back.” There’s things that come out in those sessions that allow them to reflect in the moment but also develop strategies with you. You’re very helpful, I think, in talking them through how to bring that into a team or into the work that they’re doing. Doris: And in order for it to be productive, I have to be really direct and real with them. And the other thing… So there’s no question that it’s a tough thing, this first session, for a lot of the students. Alison: Even before you start. I remember they say, “Well, how long are these gonna last?” Doris: They’re scared. People come in and say, “Okay, I heard these are really tough. I’m really scared.” I mean, I had a number of kids this time come in and say…looking really nervous, and I had said “How are you?” Like, really scared and… But here’s what happens. You have 15 minutes or so and you’ve now seen a lot of this student and you can spend the 15 minutes talking about how they did on the first one and maybe saying, “Well, you know, you didn’t really get into any depth here,” or, “You didn’t do this very well,” or, “You really didn’t show up in these ways,” and you can spend 15 minutes in this back-and-forth that we’re used to at schools, right, where the teacher says “Well, you didn’t this and you didn’t that,” and then the student defends themselves and says, “Yes, I did.” But it’s not productive. There’s nothing productive about it. So I kind of rip the Band-Aid at the beginning and I say, “All right, Alison, let’s face it. You didn’t do a whole lot on the first one. It’s a weird class, you hadn’t been through it, blah blah blah. Sometimes you did your homework, sometimes you didn’t, but let’s be real. You didn’t do a whole lot. You didn’t go very deep on it. You didn’t this.” And Alison may tear up and get upset and want to defend whatever, but we kind of dispense with that really quickly because it doesn’t matter. It’s over, it’s not productive. And then we say “Okay, let’s talk about what you’re doing now.” I very quickly get to, “Let’s talk about what you’re doing now. What are your goals?” First, I’ll say something like “How’s this class going?” And they’ll say whatever. “What are your goals for yourself? Let’s talk about this next one. What are you blah blah blah? Talk to me about it. Do you care?” Very often with some of the students, like, “Do you care about Shanice, not Shanice so much personally but her mission, what she’s trying to do, the filter that is going to filter out pathogens and allow people in perhaps developing countries who are aid workers to go to far reaches where there isn’t any fresh water?” You know, “Do you care about it? Do you think it matters?” So we have, with some of them, work like that. And then we get to the point where we’re like, “Okay, so you didn’t do so much on the first one. You get what this class is now. Here you got another one. Yes, you care about it. Let’s talk about what you can do. Let’s talk about…” Alison: How are you gonna approach this? Doris: Yeah, “How are you gonna approach this?” And I don’t actually give space, and some of them try very hard to make the conversation about them giving excuses for whatever they didn’t… I’m very quickly like, “It doesn’t matter, okay? We can argue about whether you did or you didn’t, doesn’t really matter. Let’s talk about what you’re doing next and moving forward.” And so the whole thing should and mostly does leave them in a place where it’s not about the feedback session, it’s about where they are. It leaves them in a place where they’re like, “All right. Here’s what I’m gonna do on this next one.” And interestingly, and this is really interesting given that we’re in a competitive college prep, you know, private school where the kids have a lot of pressure and they’re…interesting… And these are first semester seniors, so the grade pressure’s crazy, and interestingly enough, I did not have a single, single question or comment in any of those feedback sessions about grades, even though I was giving them their first grades in the class. I start by giving them, “Here’s the rubric, here are your grades, blah blah blah,” shove it aside and say, “Okay, let’s talk about you.” Isn’t that so funny? Alison: It’s pretty power… I mean, that moment when you slap those down and you say, “These are your grades. Moving on, this is what actually matters. Let’s talk about you.” That you shift that for them where it quickly makes it a neutral. You neutralize it in that way where they realize, “Okay, yeah, we can go on and on and I could defend myself to maybe get a couple more points in the whatever category of the rubric, or we could actually talk about me.” Doris: Right. And to be fair, what I actually do, to be very clear, I start by showing them the grades. I say “Here’s the rubric, here’s how it works,” I show them how it works, I show them their grades in the different… “These are your grades for your team, four different categories. Everybody on your team got those. These are your individual grades, dah dah dah.” I give some, “Here’s why I gave you these grades,” and then I say, “Does this make sense to you?” And they say, “Yes,” and then I shove it aside. I also say, sometimes when I remember, I say, “If you would like to discuss the grades further, we can do that, but we have so much time, so it’s up to you and we can do that if you want.” But then I say, “Does this make sense to you?” And they all, every one of them this time said, “Yes,” shoved it aside and… Alison: That’s awesome. Doris: Yeah. And this week’s interesting too because the work that they’re doing, they’re at an interesting point in this challenge. So it’s very complicated, it’s very science-heavy, it’s very world-heavy. They have to learn a lot about developing nations, about water, about natural disasters, about access to water, about… Alison: Pathogens, all types of diseases… Doris: Pathogens, various populations, well-resourced, under-resourced, various countries with economies and infrastructure. They’re learning a crazy amount and they’re at very different places, the four teams. And one of the things, you know… I worked yesterday with a young woman who’s creating a curriculum around refugees in Europe for European kids, public schoolers. And one of the things that came up with her, which is relevant in many… At one point, she suggested that at the end of the classes, the program that she’s creating for these middle school kids who are going to solve problems for Syrian refugees, she asked, “Should there be a competition? Should we have a competition?” And I said, “You know…” Alison: We’re at the end of the experience. Teams are pitching against one another or something. Doris: Right. And there are winners and all this other stuff. And I said, “I would strongly, strongly urge against it and I would urge you to never bring competition into it.” And, you know, in our case this week, one of the ways that that came up, because when the kids do their weekly share-outs, the teams to us, we used to have the teams do these share-outs in front of each other for educational reasons. And what started happening is the teams started holding back what they were sharing because they didn’t want to give away…it started to become competitive. And so we changed it to the way we have it now where each team presents to us along the way alone. At the end, they’ll all see each others’. But any competition or ranking that you build into the program as a teacher, in my experience, changes everything. Alison: And why is that? Doris: Because these are kids, and the minute it’s a competition and there’s somebody who’s best, somebody who gets the A, other people who get the Bs, “I want the A. She got a B,” then that becomes the focus, that becomes the objective, that becomes the goal, and that becomes, more importantly, the measure of success. And every student has very different growth to do in this class, in any class, in any experience, as kids, as people, and the minute you start deciding you’re going to rank order growth and you’re gonna rank order progress, you go back into the same problems that we have because of our structures in education now. It’s a deficit-based system. This is an entirely strengths-based approach, which is a very personalized approach. This is a personalized educational approach. And yes, we have to give grades, I would love not to because they actually end up not mattering, because what the students soon discover is the real meat in terms of evaluation, assessment, feedback, performance doesn’t show up in an 82 or an 86 or a 92. It shows up in the work, in the experience that the kid is showing. “Look how I problem-solved. Look how I handled this. Look what I’ve been able to develop. Let me show you my work,” which is really the evidence that has to be considered. And the minute you try to put some kind of ranking thing in, you see it. The minute you put it in there, you see the kids all change into their usual mode, which is, “Tell me what I need to do to get that award,” the A, or this. “Tell me what I need to do to get…” or the, “You’re the best team.” Alison: To win. Doris: “Your solution was better than anybody else’s and here’s why.” The minute you do that, all the wonderful things that are happening to each individual kid in this who’s got their own challenge and it’s personal and they have their own path for their learning and their growth, the minute you do that, it changes everything. Alison: Well, it really puts more importance on the product versus the process. Doris: Exactly. Alison: Like you always say. Doris: It’s about the process, not the product. And you’re exactly right. That makes it about the product. And any teacher, when they’re thinking about, “Should I give an award for this? Should I do a this for this?” Bite your lip and think hard before you do it. And if in doubt, don’t. If in doubt, don’t. Alison: Absolutely. There’s a lot of interesting things packed into where we are in this course at this moment, and it’s exciting to watch the students moving to this place of more awareness, more depth, really digging into the challenge, sinking their teeth into all the meat that’s here, but doing it in a way where they are consciously creating their learning experience. They’re starting to do that themselves. But now after these conversations they’ve had with you, they recognize, “Oh, these are moments I need to push my team a little bit harder,” or, “I need to, myself, start to synthesize in a different way than I have before.” And it’s very cool and I’m anxious to hear more from any of our listeners out there about ways that they have had opportunities to do this with their students. If, in the Facebook group, people want to drop that in, I think it would be an interesting dialogue to continue, how we can create these kinds of experiences that help students to reflect more and become more aware. Doris: That reminds me, I need to put into that Facebook group…I told you about a week ago I saw Terry Chou’s class. Alison: Oh, that’s right. Doris: Okay, her science class. Terry came to our first workshop, she’s a science teacher at a public middle school in California. She’s developed, coming out of it, a class where you walk into the room, and these students are on fire about what they’re working on and they’re learning science in a way that is crazy, crazy energized. Alison: All based on your method. Doris: Yeah, but… Yes, and Terry has taken that and she’s a fabulous teacher and what she’s doing with those kids, it’s just very, very cool. She’s won Innovative Teacher of the Year awards and all that stuff. But the reason I bring her up is that, and I’m glad you mentioned the Facebook group because I need to put it in there, the reason I bring it up is I was there for the afternoon, I was there with her students, they were showing me what they were doing, they were all excited, I saw their proposals for products they wanna build to solve a problem that blah blah blah. I didn’t see any evidence, I’m sure there are, I’m sure she has to give grades, I didn’t hear or see anything about that. I heard the excitement from… The students were showing me, “Look what we built,” and it’s what you want. Alison: That’s right. Doris: It’s what you want. Alison: That’s exciting work. Doris: Yeah, it’s exciting.

We’re a week and a half in to students’ second business challenge. And at this point in the course, things get really, really complicated. And in this episode, we share a lot of our strategies in helping guide students through a very challenging, creative problem-solving process.  Alison: So students are a week and a half in to their second business challenge working with Endemic Solutions. And the company itself is this water-purification technology that’s based off of this biomimicry design. That was influenced by the way manta rays filter feed their food in the ocean. And this technology is intended to be used, what the CEO thought, for medical-grade water. Where usually water would be contaminated whether that’s in an international country or if that’s post-natural disaster. Something like this where people would need to wash their hands or wash out wounds in order to care for those who are medically injured, to some degree, would need access to clean water. So, she has this design but has no idea where to start initially. Well, the challenge itself was how did the students help her identify the best market application for her to enter first, why and how? Doris: Yeah, right, their challenge is where should…with what application in the market should Endemic Solutions launch their product, why and how. That’s right. Alison: So given that, it’s been a lot for them to chew on over the past week and a half. And they just did their first share-outs about their status and their thinking, their process to us today. So, where do you think they are, Doris? What’s your opinion at this stage? Doris: Well, so yeah, this is a really interesting one. So, their second challenge, as always, is a huge step-up in complexity and sophistication in the problem itself from the first business challenge. In the first challenge, we always pick a business and a challenge that’s really easy for them to identify with. In this case, it was fruit snacks, a business that sells fruit snacks. Because the work they have to do in the first business challenge is to learn some very foundational skills. And we really used up almost all of the class time in the first three weeks. Having them experience applying things to learning how to research, learning how to interview well, how to do empathy maps, how to do quantitative and qualitative analyses, problem solve, etc. And it’s heavily guided. It’s still completely experiential but it’s heavily guided. They learn about teaming, etc. This one, they’ve learned those basic skills and now, they really have to develop their skills in a big way in creative problem-solving, teaming, etc. as they take on the challenge. And they have more time on this one. They have almost four weeks which is really good. And what we saw today, we saw four teams present. Two of them have made great progress, I would say, in a week and a half, and two of them, not so much. One of the interesting things about this one, like many of our second challenges, there’s a huge amount of real subject matter knowledge. They have to learn first before they can problem solve. In this case, they have to learn about not only her filter system but the difference between water filtering and water purification. The difference between potable water and water that is good for medicinal use. What is it if something filters out physical pathogens but doesn’t filter out chemicals? Like there’s a lot for them to learn. Two of the teams have gone very deep in that and two of them have not. And so, it was a very, very good day because each team shared out where they were and what they were thinking. And in two of the cases, what we helped them do with our feedback was process what they should do next. Because they’re at a very interesting crossroads given how much research they’ve done. And in the other two cases, what we’re really doing is by asking a lot of very, very basic questions that they could not answer well. Alison: Around the science side of the product. Doris: Yeah, like what the product does. You know, how do you problem solve and find a good market or application if you don’t understand what the product actually does? So, they came in with kind of BS-y things. Alison: Right, they’re able to say, “Oh well, filtration is this and purification is that” in very… You know, they looked up the definition quickly online, right? Doris: Well, they actually used only the language she provided in her initial… Alison: That’s right. Doris: That’s all they did. They didn’t even do research on it. They basically said, “Well…” in a very quick sentence or two coming straight out of the CEO’s day one… Alison: Presentation. Doris: …presentation to them. And then they start talking about, “We think it’d be really great in Bolivia and because…” And gave us whatever they gave and had nice looking slides, and that’s what they spent the bulk of their presentation on this one team’s case. And when all was said and done and they presented well and they had a lot of nice things. I asked, “What does actually the product do?” And one of the students, very articulate, very bright, very well-spoken gave back now instead of one sentence, a paragraph but straight out of the CEO’s mouth, right? And we poked further and they had no idea. And so, everything that they presented kinda fell apart. This is also a team that we know isn’t actually doing a whole lot of work and it showed in their presentation. What’s really good about this is that they’ve got this open-ended, big, hairy challenging problem. They have a week to work in teams. We’ve given them guidance along and I wanna talk about that in a minute it to help them with the process, which is the most challenging part of this whole thing. We talked about this, the two teams who didn’t fare so well really haven’t engaged yet fully with it. They’re still taking it on like they would a regular academic course and waiting for us to dole out the assignments. Alison: And they’ve been doing some research. But you can tell they’re not internalizing it in a way that they’re able to therefore synthesize and make decisions based off of that. They’re just being good students and… Doris: Doing what we tell them to do. Alison: Doing some research, but it’s really disconnected from any intentional decision making or problem solving. Doris: Yeah, that’s right. So, we don’t throw the problem in the room and leave. So we’re assigning things and we’re, at the beginning of class, in a new circle. During the classes, we pop in the teams. At the end of the day, every single day, we’re posing questions, we’re poking. We’re suggesting next steps, we’re helping them. We’re throwing out things for them to read, things for them to watch, having them write things, do reflections. The teams that didn’t do so well, they are dutifully doing everything that we’re telling them to do, but that isn’t enough. Alison: That’s right. Doris: The other two teams are doing everything we’re telling them to do but they’re internalizing this as a problem they want to solve. And so actually for those two teams, we will continue to design things but if we didn’t, they would be fine. We will continue to guide it, but it’s a really interesting thing. There’s a myth that, you know, with this kind of learning and teaching. That you just throw a problem in, put them on teams, and come back through. So it’s actually highly structured. It’s just structured in a very different way. Alison: Well, let’s actually talk about that. Because earlier this week, it was clear there was this lack of urgency with each of the teams. And Tim and I were right there as well and caught it early so we circled up as a class midday. It was very clear where they were in their teams. We said, “All right, everyone stop what you’re doing. We need an emergency team meeting” and so we all circled up. And we started to poke in, “Why does this challenge matter at all? Why does it matter to you? Why do we need to solve this?” Doris: Yeah, huge. Alison: Right? Start with why, always, like you say. And in order for, you know, each of the students to be able to express in their own way, you know, what… Doris: Why. Alison: Well some of them said, “This matters because this problem or the solution could actually help lots of people around the world that there isn’t access to clean water.” So they realized we could really help some people who need access to that. One student acknowledged the fact that she’s a black female entrepreneur and that the odds are stacked against here and he was really… Doris: Actually a black student, African-American boy who’s really excited about that. Alison: Right. And that he felt like we need to help her get the odds in her favor and do a good job on this work. And so, you know, after we debrief and really establish why this matters at all to understand where they’re stuck. Because it was very clear something was holding them back and they start to talk about it. “Well we’re really frustrated. We don’t know the process. We don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing.” And what was happening was they were just disengaging in that moment. Doris: Sure, which is not… Alison: They were just sitting back. We could see they were listening in their earphones or when we went in to their team, they were somewhat unfocused. And so, we, that night, decided to do a bit of work around setting them up for this whole week. Doris: Right and let’s talk about what we did, okay? By the way, that is really… When I say normal, it’s not just that it’s normal. That literally happens every time like clockwork. We talked to Michael Hudecek. Remember when he sent an email? “This is one of our attendees who took the playbook for how to do this from us.” Alison: From the workshop. Doris: And implement it. And he wrote an email. He sent an email right around then in the first week of one of the business challenges. Saying, “Well, you know, I have a different kind of student here. These are not independent school students. These are public school students, maybe that’s the difference. They’re sitting back and they kinda did the initial research I told them to do and now they’re like, ‘Okay, what else? I have nothing left to do.’” And I wrote back, “Don’t think for a second that this is any different with literally everybody we’ve trained to do this, comes up against the same thing.” And here’s what happens. When you’re doing a problem that a teacher gives you out of a textbook or a case study or something that had been already solved by someone else earlier, there’s a start, a middle, and an end. And you can guide students along that path in a pretty structured way. When you give students a real-world problem like we do, that has not yet been solved, there’s endless, infinite research that can be done. When you first started researching something like this, you’re hoping that as you learn more, just from doing basic research, you’re gonna start knowing how to solve the problem. And it’s not true, it doesn’t happen. So the students did what you’d expect anybody to do. They’re given this problem They don’t anything about any of it and they start by doing a lot of research. And then they get to a place where they realize the research is endless. “I could follow it endlessly. And instead of getting more clarity about how I should solve this problem or what my first step should be, I have less clarity. I’m even more overwhelmed,” so they just stop. So we did two things. The first thing we did is right then and there that night, we assigned them the following: Pick two or three applications for this product that off the top of your head or from the research you’ve done so far, seem like good applications for her filter. And come up with a profile of those applications in the markets, and do some research on all three. And we had them write something about that. Alison: It was a specific statement. Doris: Right, a statement with some questions, some specifics, they had to learn about it. And come in ready to present those to your team the next day. So the next day in class, we had a short class and told them, “Get in your teams and everybody present your application/markets for the product and what you found to each other” and they do that. And then we say, “After having shared, what are your questions? What are your questions about the product? What are your questions about the science? What are your questions about the market? What are your questions about creating a business out of…like what are your questions, come up with those.” And then third, and this is in one short period and it’s fine for them to do this in this much time. And then the third was based on this, “Come up with what you would do next.” And they come up with what they do next. And then the assignment is for them each individually to write about that to us, “Reflection on this, what I do next, this is why, here’s some example, etc.” And then after that, we know that they still don’t know what to really do next. So now what’s happened is we’ve taken them from a bit of paralysis because of all the research and all the possibilities. And we’ve gotten them to think only about two or three specific applications. They may not end up being the ones that emerged, but it takes the students to something they can put their arms around, connect with, care about. Then the next day, we introduced… We say, “Your next task…” We talk about the fact that the hardest, really the hardest academic challenge in this course is designing process. That’s actually the hardest part. Learning the science, learning how to present well, those are really important. The research skills are important. This is the most difficult thing to learn for a kid or adult. So, we talk about that and then we say, “So here’s what you need to do next. You need, as a team, to decide how you’re gonna decide what to do next. How are you gonna decide what to do?” And we’re calling it a “decision filter.” And we spend some time explaining what we meant by that. They then went off into their teams to take a crack at it. Out of the four teams, one of them…I came in the next day, remember? Alison: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Doris: The next day came in, I went to each team and they presented their decision filter. As an assignment, they had to put their decision filter. They submit it as homework. I looked at them. I saw immediately that only one team even understood what a decision filter was which is normal. It’s a sophisticated idea. And the next day, I went into each team and took what they’ve done and said, “Okay, how would you use this?” and had them try it out. And the one team who really did come up with, “Well, we would think about the…” I think the way they first put it was something like, “We’d look at the market for it” or something like that. But as they explained it, what they really… I asked a bunch of questions and they said, “Oh, this actually would be two things.” We’d look at the size of the market and then we’d also look at the urgency of need. And I said, “Yup, that’s great.” Then they had another which was cost but as they talked about cost, it wasn’t really cost. It was the ease of implementation, the cost and time and in resource and in money and then there was product fit So one team… The other three, as they tried it out, they immediately realized, it wasn’t really a decision filter. Alison: In the way that it’s set up, in that way, there’s these factors where they had to really weigh out what are the deciding factors that are going to help us come to a decision, right? Doris: About when versus another, yeah. Alison: The reality of what we see with students is they always wanna jump to solutions. That’s just their natural go-to place because in traditional school, I think that’s what they’re trained to do. Doris: Yeah, what’s the answer. Alison: What’s the answer. So they really struggled through that meta-level of thinking about the process, getting to the decision. They’re just usually so used to finding out what the solution would be or making that decisions based off of their early research. And what you really set them up to do, by talking through decision filter, coming up with these factors. Was isolating and really putting in priority of relevance to that decision. You know, does the cost matter as much as the market application? Does it matter as much as the impact that Shanice is interested in making, right? They have to wrestle with these really strategic, sophisticated decisions. And to push them through that was fantastic. However, keep going, there’s the one team got there but the others were… Doris: Yeah, it actually took a few days and it took cycles. And one of them still isn’t totally there in understanding what it is. The three, who really are there, really have a very different understanding now of what it means to problem solve. And the importance of designing process and how you design process. And here’s a couple of things that are really interesting to me about this. This, what we’re talking about is probably my whole problem with education as it is now. We worry… The whole of education is set up around product, and not around process. And everything we’re doing in here is focused on process. And as the students are de-schooled, what really is happening is we are, through experiences and through trying things and through a lot of different processes as they’re working on real problems they care about. They’re experiencing the crazy supremacy of process over product. It isn’t about which is who has the right answer, which of you has the right… It’s how are you going to decide what matters most. The why, it’s really the why. So when you talk not only about problem solving but you get them to think like this, you’re able to talk about working in a team in an academic way. As a process that needs to be developed and mastered, and learned over time. And it’s no longer this personal thing, “Oh, she’s on my team and she doesn’t do this well and da, da, da.” And everything fits in this category. It’s the reason we had our first… Yesterday, we gave our first like big-time one-on-one feedback. And it’s only now that they’re really ready to get the feedback that matters for them that they’re gonna be able to do something with. Alison: Well and to think about how they are moving through this process that is messy, is nonlinear and that we can name that for them. Because here they are, they’re overwhelmed, they’re lost in this world of access information, information overload. How to navigate that? How to, you know, challenge after challenge, learn those skills about what you do with that information, how you make decisions because of that. How you utilize your team to each individual. Doris: Which is a huge part of it. Alison: Right, balance this workload and put your heads together to come up with a decision that’s greater than the sum of its parts, is this right? Doris: Yeah, we are. We bought that every time. We bought that. Well, you know, you bring up… So here’s another thing we did just to start some specific… We do a lot of things. It’s not this fluid, “Let’s make it up as we go.” There are tons and tons and tons, as you pointed out, systems and we use the same ones every single time. This is no different than any other second biz problem we’ve done even though the business itself is different. They’re crazy, crazy focused now on, “How do we decide what to do next?” They get that that’s the hardest part of this. So now, when we talk to them about who’s on the team and what do they bring, they understand the importance of that. So… Alison: They have to be more strategic in using their teammates. Doris: Absolutely. I pointed this out three different times to three teams yesterday. I did the Post-it exercise, I can do that now. So they’re a week and a half in and I said, “All right, you still have three weeks to go. You don’t know that much about each other yet but you know enough to do this. Take Post-its and top off your head very quickly.” I think I gave them like two minutes max for the whole thing. “Top of mind, what is the single thing that comes to mind that Allison brings to the team most? That Tim brings, that Doris brings, the other three very quickly.” And you could see some of them were like still uncomfortable. I said, “Just do it. Yes, everybody has a lot of skills. No, you don’t know them well yet. Nobody’s gonna take offense, just do it.” So they do it. And then I go around, I say, “All right. Tim, what does Allison most bring? Doris, what does Allison most bring? Angela, what does Allison most bring?” They say this and this and this and then I say, “Allison, does that make sense to you?” And Allison says, “Yes.” And then we go around the do every member of the team. And the whole exercise literally takes about four minutes, the whole thing. And then I say to them, “Okay, do you remember after our first business challenge when you gave first feedback to each other about how the team did? What we’d do differently if we had to do it again, how each individual did, blah, blah, blah.” And I said, “Why is giving this feedback well and receiving it well important?” And one student said, “Because it’s important to learn how to give constructive criticism.” And then another student said, “Yes, and it’s important to know how to hear what you’re weak at or bad at, etc.” And I said, “What was my response?” And the kids all remembered, “Oh, you said something about some research. Where if somebody gives 100 points of feedback to somebody and 99 are positive and 1 is negative, and they’re kind of equal weight. That a month later, the only one the person all remember is the negative one.” And I said, “Yeah and so here’s the deal. You have the strength on this team that you just talked about. How are you gonna put this to use?” And now, they get it. Even a week and a half ago, they didn’t really get it. Do you know what I’m saying? Alison: I do. And I think we’re seeing a couple of the teams really utilizing that. And that’s why I think they were at a different place today in the share-out. Doris: Like there’s two teams? Alison: The two stronger teams who are further along are using each individual to their strongest ability, and I feel like we are gonna have to go in on Monday, like you said. And drill a lot of questions, and really keep pushing those other two teams to get there. Right? Doris: Yeah. Alison: They’re not far but they’re a little bit behind. Doris: Well and I thought it was interesting the difference. How clear it was the difference between the two and the two. Alison: It is. It’s very interesting. It’s an exciting place in the course right now and I’m continually excited about this work because you can see them growing. You can see them stretching. You can see them being challenged more intellectually than they ever have been before. Doris: Right and I like what we’re having them do over the weekend. Because they still have three weeks left and there’s a ton of scary, intimidating research they’re diving into. So we’re having them each, individually, take a possible user of this product. “Pick one that you like, a person, and design a product using Shanice’s filter and give the research and function out, etc.” And that way, they can start in a project that will have them very, very off and deep in big research. Continually giving them ways to come back to something manageable and specific that they can each individually wrap their head around is really important. And we’ll do that all along the way. Alison: It will be cool to see where they can come back with on Monday. And maybe we can share some of those in the Facebook group for others to see as well. So they can share. Doris: Yeah, I love seeing this stuff that people are sharing. Alison: Truly and I know we even had someone who said they’ve been following their class along the similar pathway to where ours is at this moment. And asked you know, “Can you share some of those articles you gave to your students to help them when they were needing to look at the market differently, and really understand product market fit?” Doris: Sarah. Yeah. Alison: And it was timely. I appreciate that this is at all relevant to any of our listeners and if there are specifics we’ve talked about today, you know, shout-out us a note in the Facebook group. Let us know if you’d like some more specifics from us. We’d be happy to help. Doris: That’s great.

In this episode we talk about what is happening in this class when the students come out of their first day of their second business challenge and are faced with a problem that is significantly more sophisticated and complicated and challenging than what they faced in the first part of the class. Doris: Big day, Alison. Alison: Yeah, it was. We went to see Biz 2 today. Doris: Yes, we did. Yes, we did. Alison: It was a big moment for the students too, I think. Doris: Well, I think this is the day I feel like saying, “Okay, welcome to the class.” Alison: Right. Doris: That’s what I feel like saying because… Alison: I love those moments and that happens when you see the light bulbs. Doris: So it makes a lot of sense. So the business that they visited today, Endemic Solutions, CEO, founder who’s a really dynamic, very smart young woman, scientist, gave up great-paying job, gave up everything to start a business where she designed a water filtration system using the technology the manta ray has for feeder filter. Is that what they call it, feeder filtration? And it’s a very exciting technology for healthcare and medical applications. And she doesn’t know which applications to focus on first, how should she launch this, lots of science, lots of technology, lots of understanding where things are and aren’t, domestically, internationally, where having pathogens in water and having to remove those when you’re mobile, when you’re out and about in the field, where might the best applications for that, that kind of thing. So really, really, really rich problem, really hard. Their heads were exploding at the end of it. So they…you know, they come out, and they say, “Whoa, this is important. This is like gonna save lives. I’m totally intimidated. This is crazy.” This one feels like a real challenge and a real big challenge, and why didn’t we have more of a problem like this for the first one, right? You heard that. Alison: Yes. Doris: And so, as usual, I ask them questions. I said, “Okay, you think about it. Why is it that the first business is always something…” I find something that’s a product they can easily relate to. It’s not complicated. And it’s a marketing kind of challenge, and it’s actually not that challenging. And they hummed and hawed and etc. But what they finally get to, which is we, of course, know, is that in the first business challenge, we find them a real problem to work on because it makes their work relevant. And it’s real and there’s no answer in the back of the book, and it’s urgent, and it’s current. And in the process, because of the way we structured the whole curriculum and everything they do in solving a problem like that, they have to learn the basics. They have to learn those basic tools and techniques and research approaches, all that stuff, and they understood that. So they come out of the first one, they’ve now experienced it. And the next thing we do is we give them a challenge where now, the challenge in the work… Alison: Is more sophisticated. Doris: Much more sophisticated. And the learning train…the first one, the learning train that we want them to cover is process-related. What is the process of problem solving about? What does the process of… Alison: Collaborating. Doris: …yeah, collaborating look like? What does it mean to do market research? What’s the difference between qualitative research and when you want that versus quantita-, all those basic, basic things, market segmentation, you know, basic things. And getting them to learn to think about the questions more than the answers, which takes the whole first three and a half weeks, right? Alison: Absolutely. Doris: To understand that the hard thing and the important thing is thinking together about what is the most important next question that we have? And they’re teenagers, and they’ve been in regular school. So it takes some three and a half weeks to get all that. And along the way, of course, they get their first experiences at presenting and communicating and… Alison: Receiving feedback. Doris: Oh, big one, right? Distilling a lot of stuff into simple…etc. So they get a lot of that. Now, what we really want, now, what we want is for them actually to start getting into the kind of learning where they’re really going deep. They’re having to gain deep knowledge about science, about the developing world, about things they know nothing about. And they’re primed out. They’re ready for that. They’re ready to go to the next level in problem-solving and designing process and anticipating. And using these tools, you know, there’s all these tools like you guys came up with, you know, the slack and how to do their project management this time. And you and Tim came up with all this stuff. They’ve now practiced with it. Using those tools well to really, really support their work is gonna be massive in this next one, right? I mean for them to accomplish something that is really, really well-researched and grounded in evidence in what is it? Three and a half weeks? Alison: Yes. Doris: Right? Alison: Well, and I think today as well as they’re, you know, sitting in this room with the CEO who’s going through all kinds of details regarding this market, the business, her technology, healthcare-associated infections, infectious disease, biomimicry. I mean there was a lot of content that was heavy and above their heads, really. Doris: Totally. Alison: And I appreciated in that moment, as always, you continue to push them deeper to ask questions and pull them together and their teams and even have them do a bit of a brainstorm of more questions because this really is their opportunity to talk to the expert in this field and ask those questions, not be afraid. There was still a little bit of hesitation… Doris: Oh, a lot, right? At the beginning, a lot. Alison: …at the beginning where they…you know, they didn’t know the difference between filtration or purification or why that mattered or how it was useful to the value prop of her technology. Doris: Of filtering out chemicals versus pathogens versus whatever. Alison: Exactly. Doris: And the standards and… Alison: I think it was really…it was eye-opening for them how much more they were being shown today and therefore knowing how much they were gonna have to step up their game in this round. Doris: Yeah, and actually, what you just said so reminded me of something else here, which is really, really important. So she’s presenting a lot. And I had told her in my most recent conversation with her before this, I talked to her about… And one of the things I had said to her is “Oh, no, no, no. Don’t dumb down how you describe things. Like literally, you describe it as you would describe it to any audience.” If there are technical terms and scientific terms and jargon that they don’t understand, one of the things they’re gonna need to learn is to ask and to figure it out and to research and to decide when is it important for me to say, “I don’t understand that. Could you explain it?” and when is it not. So she did a great job. Alison: Even at one point, when one of our students raised their hand and asked a question that was more specific, and she said, “That’s for you to determine.” Doris: That’s your job. Alison: That’s your job. I love that moment that she could determine, “Hey, I’m not gonna give you…” not that she was holding the answer back. Doris: She just doesn’t know. Alison: She doesn’t know the answer to that question, and that’s what they have to figure out. Doris: Well, and that leads…so the first part, she presents, and they’re just sitting there and kind of semi-paralyzed, right? And then we’re standing behind them, and I’m seeing what they’re writing, the notes they’re taking. And the notes are all…everybody, the notes I see are literally just taking some of her sentences and writing them down as is. And I can see on the faces, it’s going over their heads. They’re hoping that somebody else on their team understood what she’s talking about better than they did. Alison: Well, and if we can just say here too how, again, with school often working from that place of deficits, there’s this mask they wanna put on like “Oh, of course, I know what a 501(c)(3) is. Of course, I know…” Doris: A B Corp. Alison: …what a B Corp is or that purification is different than filtration, duh, who wouldn’t know that?” They all have that kind of air about them initially until you poke and say, “Hey, guys, this is the time to ask questions. Let’s talk about it.” Doris: Yeah. Exactly, because she did exactly what I asked her to do. She just talked to them about her business as if they were any audience. And I knew this would happen, right? I mean it’s a very sophisticated product that she’s got and technology. And so she’s stirring all that out there. They’re not asking. They’re not asking. And you know they’re completely missing it. So, yes, so then what I did was said, “All right, let’s put you on your teams.” I asked Shanice if she had 15 minutes more. She was very generous. I said to the teams, “You have 15 minutes to process together what your challenge is. And my bet is when the four of you get together and talk, as you think about together what your challenge is, you’re gonna come up with some questions. And let me remind you she’s a scientist. She’s been immersed in this work for years. You came in the door at 17, 18 years old, and this brand new to you. You’re not supposed to know it. You’re not supposed to even know the most basic terms. Ask anything. But we have her now. We’re not gonna have her again. And when we leave her, you’re gonna have to figure out what the heck it is you’re supposed to…” Actually, we gave them 20-some minutes. And sure enough, afterwards, they start asking the questions that they need to be asking to understand what this is and to understand what their challenge is and what the work is. And there’s a lot of learning that happens even in today. We can say until we’re blue in the face to any human, let alone a 14 or 18-year old, “Ask questions if you don’t understand. There’s no shame in that. Don’t be embarrassed.” We can say all those things all we want. But unless and until they experience something like this where they come in, this is the thing they’re gonna be working on for the next three and a half weeks in a class that has three honors credits, they don’t understand 95% of what this woman says to them. And they process together. They learn. Nobody else understood it either. Then they come out of that and they start asking very, very basic questions. And they find that it’s actually not embarrassing. It’s not a painful experience that the conversation that comes from that with her is not only really useful and rich and helpful, but she’s not in any way offended or making them feel stupid. It’s a normal thing. Alison: It is actually funny. There was a side conversation happening at one point. And today where Natalie [SP] raised her hand and she said, “Ms. Tanker, are we gonna be able to ask questions in front of the whole room or is it just in our teams?” And I looked at her kind of confused. And she said, “Well, I think it’d be really useful to all of us if we could hear each other’s questions and how she responds.” And I said, “Of course it’s useful. Absolutely. Why would we have any kind of competitiveness happening at this point? None of you know this. None of you.” Doris: Well, and what’s great about you bringing that up is this is again and it’s… We had a conversation, you and I recently, where you said this. You said you were blown away by the massive jump between Biz 1 and Biz 2. Alison: Oh yeah, the shifts that happens, yes. Doris: And that’s exactly what we’re seeing now, right? Really internalizing, for each of them to internalize, whoa, these are real. This is real. They really don’t know what the answer is or have it written somewhere or the teachers know what the answer is or Shanice know…it really is real. They took a big step today in feeling that. It felt so academic yesterday in one of our work circles. At the end of the day, I had a session with the students where I asked them questions about the last challenge they did. And I asked, “If you were Evan and you were one person, you know him, you know the important work he’s trying to do and where he is. You spent three weeks researching. If you personally were Evan, what would you do next? Talk amongst yourselves.” And then I said, “Okay, you’re Evan. You’re one person. You can only do one thing in the next two to three weeks. What would it be?” And out of the 16 students, 14 of them gave a frankly pretty lame answer about, which I told them, so I don’t mind that, you know…I’d do more social media. I’d do more of this. I’d do more of…that kind of thing. And I won’t get into it because it’s…you know, you’d have to get into the whole challenge and the business and the whatever. But I pushed and pushed and pushed, because it isn’t about doing better at social media. Anybody can do social media. That’s not the answer to the real business problem he has right now. Alison: It’s not a solution. It’s a tool. Doris: It’s a tool, right. So I pushed and pushed and pushed. And as I pushed, just by asking questions back, they got to a place… And you could see it on their faces. I didn’t have to say it. They got to a place where they realized how completely shallow and useless what they came up with was, that there was nothing in there that was actually useful in any significant way. Alison: But they presented last Friday. Doris: But they presented last Friday. And what is it? Today’s Wednesday. Yesterday was Tu-, right? And they read the book “Mindset” coming in. It’s the only book we…the only thing we assigned coming in the door. And the reason is because that book is the entire framing of this course and should be of education in school anywhere. And the idea is that if you work at something, you can get better at it. That’s it. So the fact that they did this thing for three and a half weeks, it’s their first project, they presented it in front of an audience including their parents, the business, the teachers, some administrators, and they come out the other side, and two days later, they’re realizing, “Oh, yeah, that was… Alison: Pretty shallow. Doris: “That was pretty shallow. We didn’t do much.” And it’s like “Okay, you’re right. Yeah, it wasn’t much at all.” All right, let’s do this again. And that’s a good life lesson too, right? Alison: Absolutely. And I even think Shanice touched on a number of those points today just because of who she is and naturally what she was sharing with the students about her journey. And that she even said to them at one point, “Listen, I’m the CEO, and I’m always learning. This is continued learning. You’re forever a student. It’s not just now that you’re sitting in high school. You will continue to learn your whole life.” And to share with them, therefore, that she’s open to…you know, she’s clearly the expert in the room here. Out of all of us, she knows way more about biomimicry and all of these things. And for her to be a bit humble there and say, “Hey, we’re all learning. You’re not expected to in your life always have the answers,” I think it was important. I hope they heard that along with all the other contents, stats, everything she went through today, you know? Doris: Well, and when I talked about…when I use edgy jargon and I talk about the fact that this is really not about business, this thing, it’s not even about entrepreneurship, it’s really a very, very different model for academics, for learning and teaching. And people talk about PBL, it’s the big term and it’s a very important one. But it’s really about this. This is a perfect example, this business. They have three and a half weeks to come up with the solution. And they do not know anything about filtering technology, about the physics, about the chemistry, about the health issues. They don’t know anything. So they come out of this and, you know, as Hannah said to me, “I’m totally overwhelmed.” And as I said to Josh, “You’re a teenager, and you’re human, and your impulse coming out of this once you wrap your head around the challenge, all of you, your impulse will be to start coming up with solutions. And before you can even think about what might be a good idea, you’re gonna have to learn some stuff. You’re gonna have to gain some knowledge. You’re gonna have to have a passing, working understanding of some stuff that is technical and dense,” and da da da. And you know what? They not only will learn that stuff to varying degrees, but they’ll go hard at it starting tonight. You saw them. They are gonna start looking into water filtration sys-… And we have students in this class, like any high school you go to, who think that they hate science, who think that they hate math, who think that they hate school, who think that they hate reading. But they’re gonna go and they’re gonna learn a lot of content that it’s learning on demand. And the most important thing they’re gonna learn is not the specifics of this pathogen versus that pathogen. They’re gonna learn how to learn, how they can learn and how well they can learn. And then when they start getting into the next phases, and we’re gonna guide them. We have the curriculum. We’ll guide them through it. But when they start getting into the solution mapping process, solution creation process, we’re gonna challenge them with questions. And they’re gonna have to know their stuff. It’s not gonna be “I had this idea.” And so the quality of the thinking and the thought in the work comes not from a teacher saying, “Here’s your assignment. Here’s how many points per, you know, short answer. And we’re gonna have a multiple choice, and here’s how many points those are. And you either get it right or…” The quality standard and the expectations in terms of rigor, which are crazy high in this, come from the way we guide them with questions that forces them to support their… Alison: Evidence. Doris: Yeah, like how do you know that? Where did that come from? Based on which, show me where you got that. Well, what about this? Did you think about that? Hey, look, this is contradictory with that. What do you think? Which is what happens in the real world when data and information isn’t…there’s not dearth of information. It’s… Alison: How to navigate that and apply it to come up with a real solution. Doris: Yeah, it’s what are the questions and then once I have the questions that matter most, next, how do I find the next step? When do I know that I know enough to do the next step? And they’re headed into…wildly excited, as you can tell. The first part of the class is so annoying, because they’re so in school mode. Today’s the day, the class, I feel like “Okay, now they’re there. Now, they’re really gonna be learning in a crazy way developing their skills. And they’re gonna be so hungry to learn how to collaborate well. They’re gonna be so eager to find out how do I use all four of us in a smart way?” And so all this curriculum we have around teamwork, reflection, feedback, identifying the strengths, bringing them in, focus, all that stuff, they’re gonna be crazily going after it because they care about their work, and it’s meaningful, and it’s real. And what did the one kid say to you about…? Alison: Yes, that in looking at the first challenge coming into the second, they said, you know, the first one had a lot of social missions tied to it. You know, they’re creating jobs for people in the Amazon. They’re creating jobs for people with disabilities locally in the area who are manufacturing the product. It’s a health food snack. There was positive stuff. So a lot of that. But they said, “This work where this water filter purification, this can be used in a medical environment where people can wash their hands or clean wounds with clean water.” This isn’t for drinking water. This is for medical purposes, can actually reduce the number of deaths that happen every… I mean Shanice went through all kinds of statistics with us today. And that this student said, “I realized we can really save some lives doing this work. This work will save lives.” Doris: And here’s what’s interesting about it, so people… I was just talking actually. I was just talking to one of the educators we’ve trained in one of our workshops who doesn’t… He’s a teacher. He doesn’t know anybody in business. He doesn’t know anything. And he was talking about how easy it was for him to find a business to use in that class. And I said exactly. It doesn’t matter. You could find the division of some business that has a new nut and bolt design, and you can construct a problem for the kids to solve that they will care about because of what’s that applied to and how that mat-… I mean it’s not…whether you’re teaching humanities or entrepreneurship or physics or… Alison: That’s true. I mean the secret sauce is that it’s real and urgent to that entrepreneur. I mean Shanice stood up there and her son was with her, and she told us that she left her job. I mean it was real where she said, “I need to figure this out. I don’t know which market I should be pursuing first. And it could be a real risk if I choose the wrong one.” Doris: And she’s in school, one person, right? Alison: Yeah. Doris: That’s really cool. Alison: It’s exciting. So yeah, I really look forward to these next couple of weeks and where these students get to… Doris: It’s gonna be crazy. Alison: It will be fun. Doris: It’s gonna be crazy. Okay. I had fun looking at our new Facebook group, at some of the posts from educators doing this elsewhere, like Sarah’s today, was absolutely brilliant what she did to get her students to wrap their heads around Rogers curve of innovation. I thought that was really…that was great. Alison: It was. And it was from a whole thread of the conversation where she initially asked, you know, I don’t feel like they really understand this concept of how to get to the early adopters. Is there other strategies that you use at this point in the class? And you jump in with some things. I added to a couple of things. And then she came back and shared what she actually implemented based off of your methodologies. I thought it was pretty remarkable. Doris: It’s very cool. It’s very cool. I hope people listening, if they’re interested in this stuff, they join, because the more people who engage in this conversation, the more interesting it is.

In this episode we discuss where the students are, given that they just finished their first business challenge and they’re about to undergo a major shift.  Alison: Today, the students gave their final presentation for their first business challenge. Doris: How do you think they’re doing? Alison: It’s interesting. I feel like, at this stage of the course, they still don’t get it. Doris: Of course not. Right? Of course they don’t. How could they? Alison: Right. Doris: Of course they don’t because they come in… Let’s think about this for a minute. They come in to this class. They’ve been in school which is…look like “Now, I’m in calculus class, then I go to English class, then I go to this class.” And all of which are great classes and they’re learning a lot of great stuff but it feels a certain way and then they come into this one and… In other classes, no matter how fabulous they are, they can predict a little, they can anticipate what the class is like, okay? In this class, they come in, they really don’t know what it’s going to be and day two of the class they get their first challenge and two and a half, three years later they’re going to present a solution to the CEO of a real business and they have no idea what the whole process should look like, can look like, will look like. The whole thing’s totally uncertain. Instead of what leads the journey being, “You now need to learn this. Here’s what you need to learn and so therefore this is what we’re going to do.” This is different. “Here’s the problem. How do we answer that question? How do we solve this problem? How do we solve this problem?” And the first and most difficult thing is coming up with, “Okay, what are…” We talk about what are the questions that matter most and then they do some research and then they get a zillion…you could do research endlessly, right? And they come up with all kinds of data upon data upon data and endless thread that you can follow but they realize, “Wait, we have to get to an endpoint. We have to get to some conclusions.” And they don’t have the tools to do that so it’s… Alison: And they’re frustrated by that. Doris: And they’re very frustrated and so we heavily guide, heavily guide without… And it’s a tricky dance, right, because you have to be careful about how you do it, how you stay one step ahead, guide them so that they’re progressing without knowing how to progress by themselves and yet not feeling like we’re the ones telling… Alison: And the way you do that is actually pretty specific. I’ve been impressed over the past year in trying to learn from you in the best ways to guide them and a lot of it comes down to the types of questions. You have this just innate sense and I’ve been really trying to learn how to ask better questions because you have this sense of balancing the question between it being too limiting but also specific enough, right, where you’re able to get to that point where they realize they can be creative and do some divergent thinking but also focused enough that they are really responding to the broader challenge that they’re trying to solve and I think that way in which you guide them is pretty…it’s specifically helpful to the depth they get to in this work. Doris: Yeah. The reason that the training we do is so important is because it’s specific and we give educators, “Okay, here’s exactly how to do this.” And if we’re just talking like this about it, it seems to somebody who’s listening “Okay, it all sounds fine, what they’re talking about. I have no idea how to implement it.” I was talking to somebody, Gabby, actually, the other day from one of our most recent workshops from Georgetown Academy. She’s amazing and she was saying that what we developed, what I’m giving people is what a teacher needs, to teach it. It can’t just be this open-ended, “Okay, give them a real problem. Have them present three weeks and the rest will come along the way and ask a lot of questions.” They’re actually really specific. You’re right. There are really specific strategies about how to get them through this, what they need to learn along the way during the first one, what do they need to learn along the way during the second one, how do we bring that in and what’s interesting now in terms of where the students are? So today they present it. Alison: To their first business. Doris: To their first business and as promised to Evan who was our first CEO, not much of what they gave was very useful to him and that’s the truth of it and that isn’t a criticism of the students. This is true every single semester the first time and how could it not be? These students are fabulous and smart and hardworking. They’re not equipped yet to do this. Alison: Right, they have no background in business, they have no background in entrepreneurship. Doris: That’s right and the value of… At the beginning of the class in particular, the value of having a real business for them to work with is that the work they’re doing is relevant and so they…because they’re working on something relevant for a real person and they’re going to have to present to that real person, they’re really, really eager to learn some things and it’s learning on demand. It’s like, “Okay, wow. Here are my questions. I have absolutely no idea about how to answer these questions.” “Okay, guys. Do you want us to teach you some methodologies?” “Yes, please, please because we’re in pain. We have no idea what to do.” So we guide them very, very heavily in a pretty specific curriculum in the first one and then also pretty specific although…during the second one, although it’s more tailored to the subject matter itself of the business. So the first one is always going to be a pretty simple product marketing, “How should this business…what should this business do next to blah, blah, blah?” And we take them through these steps. Coming out of today, they presented, they even had meetings afterwards and it was interesting to see, they presented a whole bunch of stuff and then they walked into the meeting and it was in the meetings with them afterwards that they said, “Okay, by the way, we just presented all this data and graphs and research and quantitative stuff.” Alison: In front of an audience, in front of a big room for eight minutes. It was… Doris: Tons of stuff, tons of charts, tons of quantitative analysis, tons of everything and they walk into the room when it’s just their group with Evan and they say “Oh, by the way…” Alison: Let’s get real. Doris: “By the way, we didn’t say this in the presentation but we want you to know that fruit roll-ups are candy and your product is actually about health and…” Alison: So they’re not actually your direct competitor… Doris: “The whole presentation we just gave about a fruit snack and what you should do, we didn’t really…we gave you a lot of information but what we really know is it’s not actually a candy or a fruit snack. It’s this other thing and because it’s this other thing, here’s what we think you really need.” So then, today at the end of the day, they’re all gathered, they’ve had a successful day of presenting, they met with it, they feel that accomplishment which is great and what do we say? We say, “Okay. You saw all the stuff that all your teams presented to Evan. Take a big step back and if you’re Evan, think about, of all the stuff that you heard today. You’re just one person. If you did just one thing, what is the one thing you would do?” And you could see on their faces, their eyes wide as they were thinking, “I have no idea.” So they’ve been working for three weeks to answer exactly that question and they have no idea, okay. And so next week, when they come back after reflecting all weekend…so we have very specific assignments over the weekend to get them to reflect. Alison: On themselves, on their team, on their peers, all of that. Doris: What did you personally do best as you look over the last three weeks? What did you learn? What did you learn about yourself? What would you do differently next time if you had it to do again? What were the strengths of Alison who was on your team? What did she bring? What do you hope for her as she joins her next team and does her next challenge? Do the same for Tim. Do the same for…what is the team? Monday, when they come back, we’re going to have them do a journey map of their last three weeks, how they got to the finish and then we’re going to have them reflect even in different ways about how could they have done their work differently for Evan and how would they do it differently so that he has actionable, useful… Alison: Solutions. Doris: …solutions? And they’ll be able to themselves uncover the lack of depth and the lack of any kind of strategic thinking in what they did today and it isn’t a criticism. How could they be? People all over the planet, graduate students, marketing firms who…so they’re…and I think about that and we’re going to talk about “Okay, so let’s really talk about this. What does it mean? What does it really mean to solve a problem like that and how do you actually present that well?” And they’ll understand that if you have eight minutes and what you do is you think mostly about what’s the best way for us to pack into that eight minutes and those slides every single thing we came up with and…that if that’s what you do, which is what we saw today, that you actually weren’t successful in solving the problem. They weren’t successful and they’re going to have to… Alison: Come into that realization. Doris: …conclude, yeah. They’re going to have to figure that out themselves. So for us to come in and say, “Okay, you weren’t successful and here’s why.” We will eventually tell them. Alison: Have those conversations, yeah. Doris: But first they have to come up with that. Alison: That’s something I really appreciate about the structure of this class, as well, that from business one to business two, it seems, in the cohorts we’ve worked with that I’ve been a part of, I’ve recognized that that shift that takes place between those two is probably the most dramatic in the semester. Biz two to biz three or biz three into their final business, there are certainly learnings that go on in those places too but having the opportunity for these students to continually practice, “All right, we just finished that one. Now we have to get our head into how we’re going to approach this differently for the next round.” It’s that sequential learning that…the opportunity to keep practicing where we frame academics in that model like, “Hey, come back on Monday. We’re going to get our heads into how we can do this differently for round two.” I think it’s pretty amazing but knowing that we have that shift coming up, that this is the moment, the biggest shift in the class for these students to realize there’s no recipe to doing this work, there’s no answer in the back of the book and that you really need to do evidence based… You have to have evidence based solutions that you’re going to present three weeks later to your CEO. How are we going to approach that? From a teaching perspective, what are we looking at next week? Doris: And this is the thing that when I see the latest fads in education and I’ve been now in education for 21 years and depending on the stretch, there are different “Edu jargon de jour”, okay. Experiential learning, PBL, innovation, Design Thinking and there’s all these. I’m not saying these aren’t great things but there is real quality work versus not quality work. So when these students do this, there’s no recipe, it’s true. There’s no answer in the back of the book, it’s a real problem but there’s such a thing as really doing quality work and thinking and there’s a lot of not quality work and thinking and so one of the things that happens also in this first one is they start to experience that working hard doesn’t necessarily…and having a lot of volume and quantity doesn’t have any connection with the quality of the result and that’s a very, very important point. When people graduate into industry and we’ve seen all the research and we’ve talked to our friends in industry who say they’re not getting people, young people in, who have the skills they need. That they get the absolutely supposed best and brightest from the top schools with the top grades, phenomenal resumes in terms of academic credentials and performance and they come into a job and there’s…what distinguishes someone who’s really productive and useful in their job from someone who isn’t is their ability to be resourceful and think outside the box about “Okay, what would I do next?” And have judgment. Make good judgment calls and things like that and to be able to know with all the busyness and all of what’s going on, to be able, on their own, to think of something good that they should do next without being told, “Here’s…” And they’re not getting that. Well, that is the learning here. They have to learn real things. They have to learn actually about what does it mean that antioxidants are good for you and what does antioxidant rich mean and what does it mean to be certified organic and what is the science around… Yeah, there’s real stuff they have to learn but their inability to distinguish on their own between what are the good questions to ask and chase answers to and what is not worth my time right now and why and how to get the process and how to get a team of people to work well together. Those are the things that they’re going to learn here and the first one which they’ve just concluded, no matter what happens, the learning in the first one comes from what they didn’t do well, actually. Alison: Where they were just really flailing. A lot of the past three weeks they were just trying to do anything with hopes that some of that spaghetti would stick on the wall and they were looking today for any indication from us like, “How did it go? What did you think? Did we do good? Are we going to get an A?” Doris: Right and you talked about how this is very specific. Well, just to throw an example of something. So we have very, very specific ways that we get them to reflect on different things at different times and the problem solving. Very specific and that is crucial to the learning. It’s critical. If all you do as a human is keep doing stuff and then going to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, maybe you’re very reflective and you’re the kind of person who takes a step up occasionally and looks back and says “Oh, wow, wait. Here’s what happened and here’s why it happened and here’s now how I’m going to do it differently.” But for most people, that is something that doesn’t come naturally, doesn’t happen naturally and in the education process, we now know that that’s absolutely critical for the learning to be internalized and owned and we built it in very specific ways into the curriculum and the instructional practice and the assessments and the assignments. That’s massively important. But anyway, so they just finished their first one. They’re going to go into the weekend feeling very good. “Oh my gosh. You did so well.” The parents are going to say, “Oh, you were great.” And then they’re going to come back on Monday and with all those very specific things we have set up for Monday and Tuesday they’re going to be forced in a way to really assess what they did, how they did it, what was quality, what was helpful and useful and what wasn’t and we’re going to really get them to think about and then communicate and process. “If I had it to do differently, how would I do it?” And we have very specific ways to get them to do to that and that’s when they’re going to come out… Like you said, the big growth is from the first one to the second one. During the course of Monday, Tuesday and then Wednesday when they get their new one, they’re going to be done with their deschooling. They’re going to say “Wow, okay, I get it.” And they’re going to head into their next one in a very different place, in a very different way, because of that. Alison: Absolutely. I almost think it’s one of my favorite moments in the class when… I mean, I think it’s because they start to take ownership over their learning in that way where they recognize, “Okay, here we have a new challenge and a new industry with a different CEO who has different challenges. We can’t waste time like we did in the first challenge. We need to hit the ground running. We have a better sense of the type of research that needs to be done.” We start, I know, from a teaching perspective, poking in even further about statistical analysis and data driven decision making and really getting them to that next level and even if, had we…it’s not a question of time. If we had six weeks for the first challenge and we threw all of this, it wouldn’t work that way. Again, it’s the way you sequence it that you allow them to go deeper each time into a more sophisticated challenge so that they really cover a lot of ground in that learning train you talk about. Doris: Right, and that’s… Actually, and that’s why I spend so much time in the training talking about, “Okay, what is the learning that you need to get to happen in the first problem they work on?” And because that’s this…very specific things. These are the things that you need to get to happen. The learning they need and because of that, the complexity of the first one has to be limited to the process. You can’t make the problem complex. You can’t make any part of what they’re working on complex. That’s why the first one…I’m summarizing. Obviously, there’s a lot more to it but that’s why the first one has to be an easy product. They can immediately relate to, “It’s a fruit snack, it’s hot chicken, it’s…” Something like that. That’s not what’s complicated. The challenge itself isn’t complicated. How to get this to scale, who are the first, the next market? That kind of thing because they are going to have to learn about the whole process of problem solving, of collaborative work. The second one, now, when we talk about more sophisticated, we talk about, “Now, the following are the things…this is the learning that has to happen in the next one.” And it includes the complexity of the subject matter itself. It’s why in this second one, like many of them there’s…it’s a much more…they’re going to have to learn some science. They’re really going to have to learn…they’re going to have to learn about biomimicry. They’re going to have to learn some science. I hope they’re not going to hear this one before… Alison: They won’t hear it before. Doris: Okay, good. Because we never tell them what they’re working on. I just realized I’m giving it away. They’re going to have to learn some science because they can’t do well unless they do and so people who say, “Oh, it’s more about skills. The content doesn’t matter.” I don’t even understand that statement. In order to do…to problem solve well, you have to learn some stuff along the way and you have to know what is it that I have to learn well and there is real stuff, okay. There’s some real properties of fabric that they’re going to find out about. There’s some real properties in water filter systems. There’s some real things they’re going to have to learn about and if they surface scan and come up with their opinions and you can tell, “Okay, they are not doing their homework at all. They have no clue what they’re talking about.” Then, before they can do any of the rest, you’ve got to learn about this. You have to learn enough about it to know what you’re talking about. So anyway, it’ll be different. It’ll be fun, the next one. Alison: It is going to be fun. I look forward to next week and starting to foster that shift. Doris: Yeah. Realize that the beginning of next week, as we’re basically getting them to realize that what they came up with for their first business challenge was really shallow and really not helpful and that the end result really wasn’t that great, which is fine, but as they realize that, they’re going to go through an angry stage as they always do and then we’re going to give them feedback and they’re going to not like it a whole not but it’s going to get them to realize that, “Okay, this isn’t just playtime. It’s not just about let’s give a little presentation and see what happens.” There is real high expectations about the quality of their work. Alison: So this is an exciting time, this semester, and I feel like those who are a part of the Facebook group have also been starting their sessions with their students as well and just to keep each other informed about where we’re at with our students and the deschooling process that’s likely happening for a number of us right now at the beginning of the year. Doris: Yeah. Alison: As we all start to transition into the next phase where we can take those students to the deeper level. Doris: Yeah, and I think it’s fun also to hear from the people we’ve trained as they do their pilots. Alison: Absolutely. Doris: They’re using all the stuff we gave them. Day one, day two, what do you assign, what you do, what you…the workshop and they’re having the same results with it. They’re going through the same phases and it’s fun for them to experience that. Alison: It’s fun for me. I mean, even knowing we have this cohort of other educators that are moving through it together. Doris: Yeah, it’s fun.

In this episode, Doris discusses her methods of instruction and how to launch students into the habit of self-guided inquiry through early assignments and activities in the class. Alison: Doris. I feel pretty privileged to have been working by your side for the past year now. Doris: That’s sweet. Do you say that when we’re not on our podcast? Alison: Mmm… Doris: No, you don’t. No. That’s sweet. Thank you. Alison: No. Well. Doris: You’re very nice about telling me that. Alison: The reason I say it is because I’ve had this opportunity to get crazy insight into the way your brain works. Doris: Weird brain works. Alison: Yes. Your crazy brain. It’s pretty incredible and I’ve known over the past year, you haven’t even recognized, how different you think really is compared to a lot of others in the world. Doris: Yeah. What a great thing that I have somebody to tell me on a daily basis, “Nobody thinks like you. You are crazy.” Alison: I feel like being able to have sort of another person or another perspective to help you recognize the systems you really have in place and the patterns and the ways that you do things day to day with the students and with the educators that you train. There really are specific ways you approach this work that are pretty powerful and because of that I, again, feel privileged that I get to have insight into that world. But I feel like we should share that with more people. And I know, again, we’ve been training a lot of people around the U.S. and now even in other countries, globally, which is very exciting. But for all of our listeners to get deeper into the head of Doris Korda… Doris: Scary. That’s not nice. I thought we were trying to do good here. Alison: Well, I know in the other podcast we had spoke about what happened in that first week of school with the students on Friday where… Doris: Oh. The BMCs. Alison: …they were doing their BMCs. But the way you came into that day, you had a frame of reference and the way that you wanted to structure that entire day from the way we started through the BMC activity into the afternoon, all the way through the homework that was happening that weekend, which was pretty specific. And that was a moment where I thought, “This is, again, a Doris Korda moment where we should give some insight into.” Doris: Okay. One of the things I say a lot when I’m training people, I use the line from your music that you need to stay one step ahead of where they are. And I think describing what I did on Friday and why is actually describing what I mean by staying one step ahead. So they really are honestly working on problems that are real, that are someone’s problem, and as I stated, the students, if I went and Googled “how should Evan and Peaceful Fruits win the U.S. market?” I’m sure there would be a whole bunch of things that came up but you wouldn’t actually get the answer to that. So they really are learning and we’re teaching them the hardest thing of all, which is not finding the answer, but figuring out the question. What’s the next question that matters most? You hear me say that a lot. That’s probably the hardest thing for them to wrap their head around coming into the class. They’re used to being asked the question and having to learn how to find the answer. Alison: The single answer. Doris: Yeah, or even if it’s in a class where there isn’t a single answer and it’s interpretive or it’s whatever, they really do not…they’re not used to a system where the gold, the thing they need to do in order to be successful is to figure out what the best next question is. That’s really hard. So we are working on…they came in day one and day two, we gave them their first challenge. Day three, we have a teeny little time and have them come up with an outline for what they’d like to present three weeks later. Day four, in the morning, I’m gonna have them do the BMCs for all the reasons I gave in that other podcast. You know, it’s their first time presenting. They all learn stuff by using it and applying it. They experience what they read about in mindset, that you actually can work at something and get better. So no matter how bad your presentation was, they actually experience that as they do it and then someone else…that they’re getting better, all that stuff. But what I also know, Thursday night. Thursday night, we give assignments and their writing things and we have workshops in class and we’re getting interaction. And I know where they are in their thinking about the challenge. I realize that they don’t really understand yet what the big problem is that they’re having to solve. And how could they? They’re in high school. They don’t get it. Alison: Right. At this point, they know their challenge to be how should Peaceful Fruits win the U.S. market. Doris: Well, and what did he say more and more? They didn’t even remember that part. Alison: Right. They were focused on how to get his product… Doris: …the message. Alison: …the message, the right message to the right ears. Doris: Right. Exactly. So it’s day three and I know that what they’re thinking about is, “Okay, what should the advertising look like?” Alison: Me and my brilliant teenage minds and all the social media techniques I can come up with. Doris: Right. “I’m gonna do social media and I’m gonna…” right. That’s totally…and they think, “Okay I’ve got this. We still have two and a half weeks. We can do this. Okay.” And I realize that in order for them to really…in order for them to learn the most powerful and important things they need to learn, they first have to understand what the challenge is, and they don’t get it. Alison: It’s complex. Doris: It’s complicated and I realize that. What I have to do the next day is, because I also know how little time this really is for what they have to do. Alison: Three weeks to solve this challenge. Doris: And this is the end of the first week already, right? And the third week, they’re just going to be figuring out how to create a presentation. I mean, they don’t know any of these things. Alison: They’re newbies. Yeah. Doris: They don’t know research. They don’t what it means to interview well. We’re gonna do workshops. This is crazy. You know how fast it goes. So I realize that the goal for the next day is that by the end of class they get what this challenge is, which is, it’s about product market fit. That’s what the challenge really is. The real challenge is, given this product, what are the markets that are most…who are the people which are the markets who most want this, why, and how do we best get to them. That’s really the challenge, but this whole notion of product market fit and that they even have to do that. They’re already at the how. It’s always we show that Simon Sinek video about why… Alison: …start with why. Doris: …but they don’t get it. So I structure the next day. I think about how am I gonna structure the day to get them to realize that. Of course I can go in and say, “By the way, you don’t get your challenge. It’s not that you have to start with product market.” I could talk ’til my eyes pop out or their eyes pop out. Alison: But you didn’t. You scaffolded the day. Doris: I totally…yeah. I figured out how. I put myself in their heads. I do. I think, “What are they thinking now and what do they have to go through to get to this?” We started with the BMCs, where they go and they present a business and it’s the normal…okay. At the end, we do the reflections. They understood what they learned there. They also learned some stuff. They also, by the end of it, they all had a really decent, decent working understanding of the business model canvas and the elements. So the next thing I do…because they don’t understand Evan’s business actually. They really don’t. So the next thing I did was have them go in their teams and do…here were the instructions. “Go into your team. Each of you have a set of Post-its and each of you needs to come up with the BMC you would present if you were presenting Peaceful Fruits.” I don’t say, “Go into a team and do it together.” In fact, I’m very specific about this. The reason I do this part is I want everyone of them coming out of the whole morning of watching everybody do the BMCs, to experience having to apply their learning to the challenge they’re doing now. I want every one of the students individually to do that. And I don’t tell them any more than that. I say, “Go do that. You have 10 minutes.” Ten minutes later…and by the way, depending on how long we have for class, you could do this in five minutes. Ten minutes later, we go into the room and randomly point to one of them and I say, “Tim, you present in three minutes Peaceful Fruit using the BMC to the rest of your team.” So now Tim’s presenting the BMC, just like this morning. He’s presenting the BMC to the team and I say…and after he presents and let him go, three minutes, pull the buzzer, “Don’t interrupt. When he’s done, you have 10 minutes to, as a team, come up with your shared BMC for Peaceful Fruit.” So Tim’s already presented. He’s showing it. He gets the experience during the day of presenting a second time, which is great. They have to distill now Evan’s business. So they’re processing Peaceful Fruits, all four of them in the 10 minutes they all spent working on it. Having to generate one together means they’re going to be arguing about what matters most, which is exactly what I wanted them to do. Because in arguing that, the things they’re gonna argue about are the value prop and the customer segment. Who cares about this the most. They’re going to be…that’s where the arguments come in. That gets them into there’s no way you can do that without thinking about and talking about who wants what: product market fit. Then we go in and we pick randomly one of them, we don’t tell them who, someone else to present the team’s BMC fruit, Peaceful Fruit, they present it to us. If we think we need to, and in most cases we didn’t, but if I think I need to, I ask a question that gets them even more into the, “Ooh, wait, ah-hah. I don’t know that that person wants that most and why.” Okay. Then I bring them all back in. So now their head’s there. They’re in it. They’re deep in it. The wheels are spinning. I haven’t given them anything. Then have them back, do a circle, and I say, “What’s the challenge that we’re working on? First of all, why do you care about it, what do we know about it, what do we not know?” Is it possible that a group of 17 and 18-year-olds, in three weeks, is gonna come up with something that is helpful for Evan? Because they care about him, which is a huge part of this thing because it’s real and there’s a real person and he really is making no money while he tries to get this business. You know…that. Okay. And as they process together — and now they’re talking. I’m barely talking. I’m just asking questions — as they’re processing, and I can throw questions in when I need to get it there, they get to the right place. They realize that whether they come up with a nice new slogan for him or not or a new social media instagram campaign, nice, but that’s not the challenge. The challenge is who are the right people for this product now and why, and how do we get them. Alison: And even more so then…because I did. At that moment, their eyes were widening. It was starting to sink in, but even still at that point you didn’t use that line. You still didn’t say at that point product market… Doris: …no, I didn’t say any of that. Alison: …because you knew going into the weekend we had set up a jigsaw. Doris: Yeah. That’s where that was gonna be. That’s right. Alison: And coming into that more, I knew we had intended to do a jigsaw that weekend, given where they were on Thursday, it was like okay. Doris: Yeah. Alison: Friday they’re gonna need to do some really deep… Doris: And remember, you weren’t sure when we’d do it and I knew we were gonna do it then. Alison: Right, at that point. Doris: Yeah. Alison: And in previous jigsaws, I remember as you’ve been training me, I thought, “Okay, usually we have some things in there about the industry, some industry trends.” So I had looked in some…I had looked into a nice, meaty article with a lot of dense, you know, statistics, data and I remember you came in and you said, “Actually…” Doris: “…that’s not at all where…” Alison: “…that’s not at all where their heads are at. That’s not what they need right now. The gap in where they are is around this issue of product market fit. We need to get their heads there.” And so we ended up pulling together a number of case studies. Doris: Yeah. Let me talk about that for sure. Yeah. So I came in that morning before I put them through the whole day. And by the way, there were other questions I asked. I don’t know if you remember this, but what I did at the end of that day is I had them do something where they generated, “Given the day you just went through, given everything, where you are right now, what are your burning questions now? Write them down and… Alison: …and put them in your Slack channel. Doris: …and have them…” right. “But have them each individually because you gotta capture it right then.” The morning before…the morning of the start of that day, what I knew was this: that I was going to get them to a place where they left the day realizing, “We need to find out who is the right market for his product now. Why? That’s the big thing we haven’t figured out.” And that’s product…the importance of that, which is product market fit. And I knew we needed to do two things in the assignment over the weekend. One, I never used the words “product market fit,” but I knew we had defined for them to read after all that over the weekend some articles that talked about product market fit. And they were chunky. You found some great ones. Alison: In this moment too, I wanna mention how you often recommend finding parallel articles, right? Doris: Well, that’s where I was gonna go next. Yeah. So, the case studies, that’s what I call the parallels, and what I’m thinking about…and it depends on the challenge and it depends on the moment. But when I’m thinking about it that morning, I’m thinking, “All right…” What I think about is that if they make a connection, if they can make a step where they learn about this, which isn’t directly about the thing, but they can connect from that, “Oh, that’s like what I’m facing in the following way.” And then they can come to their own conclusions. Then, instead of feeling like Ms. Tanker or Ms. Korda told me, “it’s a product market fit problem,” and that “the real issue is that dah dah dah dah dah…” Alison: They form that. Doris: …they form that themselves and it’s so powerful. And that’s the reason, when they come out of this, they come out of every one of these knowing that whatever they came up with as their solution, they came up with it. Alison: They have ownership over it. Doris: They have total ownership. So I look for parallel articles but very carefully. What is the parallel thing that they are going to need to think about now to make the connection? And so, in this case, because we’re talking about a fruit snack that is no added sugar, no corn syrup, does not taste like what an average American kid is used to when they get a fruit roll-up. It’s a different taste. It’s a much healthier snack. It’s a much healthier product. But that’s not yet mainstream and he wants to win the U.S. market. And for him to win the U.S. market, he has to do this in a very smart way so that it…a product that’s not mainstream. Okay. And he wants to unseat Fruit Roll-Ups. So what I talk to you about is let’s find, for example, I think the first one I threw out to you was Blockbuster/Netflix. Okay. Why, right? It’s not about food. It’s not about snacks. But what is it about? It’s about the fact that here’s Blockbuster and it’s crazy successful. Alison: Well-positioned in the market. Doris: It’s the one in the market. It’s giving people this great dah dah dah. And Netflix comes in and eats their lunch. How does that happen? And there’s so much stuff in there, okay? So that, “Ahh, okay.” And then what else did we come up with? Alison: We looked at the Uber. Doris: Uber. Alison: Airbnb. Doris: Yeah. Alison: And the ways that those are disrupting their markets and unseating the giants… Doris: …right. Alison: …in their… Doris: …right. For example, Airbnb was a really good one because who would have ever thought…I’ll use my age group, of my age and my friends. When we first heard of the Airbnb, most of us was like, “Okay.” When on Earth would I ever just go stay in some random person’s apartment? I would never do that. Forget it. Are you kidding? Just like come on, who’s gonna eat this instead of a fruit roll-up, right? But look what happened. And now Airbnb. Okay, so they’re not direct. They’re parallel. Alison: There’s a lot of learnings they can peel out of that in their own time. Doris: Right. Alison: Where in the jigsaw format, where people on each team… Doris: Describe what that is because people may not know…not everybody knows what a jigsaw is, but it’s a very important thing that we assign it as a jigsaw. I do that for a bunch of reasons. Alison: In the jigsaw assignments, we make sure there is chunky articles that are dense and that there’s multiples of them so that the team themselves has to divide out the number of articles for each teammate to read since they all cannot read the amount that and… Doris: Yeah, they divvy it up. Everybody. What I read you don’t read. I’m the only one who reads what I read. Alison: What’s brilliant about that is it puts them on the line. They have to be accountable for the information and really do some deep thinking because they know the next day in class they have to come back and present to their team their main takeaways. Why that article was relevant at all to their challenge. What sort of learnings they can pull out that’s helpful to their team in solving this challenge. Doris: Well, and the interesting thing is the way I worded it is that you need to pull out any takeaways from this article that you think could be useful to your team. So instead of…give your team a rundown of the article or what happened or why do you think we assign. It’s literally find something in there that’s useful to your work with Peaceful Fruits. If I’m on the hook and it’s not just to give an answer back to my teacher, my teammates need it, I’m gonna have to do the really crazy hard thinking about what on earth can I get out of the Uber story that is useful for Peaceful Fruits. And the reality is, even if what they get out of it isn’t that much, they always find something that the rest can use. None of them wants to come in empty-handed for their teammates. It gets them thinking that way in a more subtle way. And the other thing that happens, multiple things, they learn what it means to be generative as a team and rely on each other. The student who doesn’t trust the others and is gonna want to read all, they can’t. They can’t do it. What they also do is they, again, are learning how to take out of dense, crazy stuff what matters and over time, by the way, they learn what the rest of us learn to do, which is how do you skim something like that for the gold nuggets? How do you…some of this stuff we assign is intentionally. It’s always got really good stuff in it. Some of it’s intentionally early on in this class, so dense that there’s good stuff there, it’s skimmable. You can’t possibly as a 17-year-old in one night analyze it completely. They start also learning the skill and art of looking at a bunch of stuff and figuring out, “What do I need from this? What can I get from this? What matters most?” Obviously, there’s stuff they need fully and whatever in this class. But they learn a lot of things in that jigsaw. And they come out of the jigsaw when they share, when we say, “Okay, now you have 15 minutes. Have somebody time. Each one of you is responsible to give the team any takeaways that we’re all…” Afterwards, then we do again, “Okay, what are your burning questions now?” And it’s crazy how good that is for them. Alison: I really think the way that you structured that whole experience through the weekend, through the assignments and all of that, really set us up well coming into the next week where they stepped into that and said, “Hey, I really think there’s a product market fit issue here.” Doris: Right. Alison: They took ownership over that where you didn’t say it and I really think it comes back to, and a lot of your method here, teachers cannot have that ego. We’re in the front of the room. They wanna come and explain, “Hey, I figured out the reality here. Here’s the real problem. And I’m gonna tell everybody. I’m gonna tell you how to solve it.” It’s not about that. It’s about leading the students to that so that they discover it on their own and step into it so they can take ownership. Doris: That’s what’s interesting and you’ve seen this too. We’ve developed, I’ve developed a ton of systems around us. Specific things. “Here’s what you do, teacher, to do this. But the students feel like I figured it out myself. I did this. I came up with the solution. These were my ideas. The guiding that we do is through questions and assignments and little workshops. But the real, as they look back on the experience of the class, what they remember are their eureka moments and their, “My gosh, I get it,” and they’re making the connections and that’s what you want, right? Alison: It’s pretty powerful. One thing I’d like to say as well because these are the types of things, as they come up, I’d like to do a better job of maybe even putting them into the Facebook group that we have. Doris: Oh, yeah. The one we just started. Alison: Yes. It’s open to the public and all of that. For anyone that is interested in having a bit more insight, I’m gonna try to do a better job of capturing these moments and sharing them with that group to get better insights into this methodology and how they can take this into their own classrooms. Doris: Great.

In this episode, Doris talks to Alison about the first week of this class and the early on exercises that lead to de-schooling. They go in depth into the Business Model Canvas activity describing how it sets the stage for a completely different mindset for academic learning. Alison: Ready. Doris. Doris: Oh my god. Are you tired yet? Alison: I’m exhausted. Doris: Is it time for winter break? Is the semester over yet? Alison: It feels like it’s already been a month and here we are one week into the first week of school. Doris: I know. It’s really tiring, isn’t it? Alison: I know. Well, I know the beginning of this course, as well, is really intense because of the experience the students have to go through early on. You call it de-schooling, that’s happening early here. But this week really coming back and remembering where these students are when they first join us… Of course I remember, at the end of the semester where they get to… Doris: I know. You were surprised, like, “Wait. Don’t they know this already?” Alison: Right. I’m forgetting how we have to really start back at the basics. Doris: And it’s hard. With de-schooling, you forget. And it’s kinda like having a puppy. It’s a good thing they’re so cute, or you would never have one. It’s a good thing that you end the last year when the students are, at the end of the semester, so incredibly, awesomely having just a great time with all of it. And that you forget how brutal de-schooling is. Alison: Well, let’s dive into it. Let’s talk a bit more about what’s gone on in the past week. I especially wanna focus a bit on Friday. And the work that goes on early in this experience for the students, I know, is…at this point you’ve been doing this for 20 years. I mean, really, this method that you’ve developed has been throughout your whole career, but this is now…I don’t even know how many times you’ve run this course in this way, but there’s some patterns that emerge in the first week. And I came into Friday with a sense of what we were going to do, but I’d love to get our heads back there. Where were you coming into Friday, recognizing where the students were in their growth and what we needed to do? Doris: Well, it was funny because you and Tim, at the end of Friday, when the kids left and you just… Alison: Yeah. We were exhausted. Doris: What did you just do with those kids? Okay, just to put it in perspective. So, Tuesday was the first day of school. And they’ve absolutely no idea what this is about, what they’re gonna have to do, and they’ve never done things like this. Alison: Yeah. No business background, no entrepreneurial background. Doris: Nothing. No. And we’re not trying to squeeze an MBA into a semester. And Wednesday, and we don’t have ’em all day every day, people think we have, we don’t, like not even close. So, Wednesday we…Tuesday we tell ’em some basic things about the class and I do some other stuff with ’em, and then Wednesday we took them to their first business challenge. Put ’em on a bus. They have no idea where they were gonna go, and they go meet Evan from Peaceful Fruits, who has a fruit snack made purely out of three fruits, fruit leather, and they learn about the açai berries and farmers, and they learn about his mission of doing well and doing good. And they see him, they learn everything, and they’re given their challenge. And by the way, I mean, how great is that, what he’s doing? Alison: To be honest, I was pretty impressed how articulately he described his work to these students who… Doris: Wonderful. He did a great job. Alison: He did a great job. But to explain a social enterprise in such a way where he has a layered level of social impact built into this business from the people in the Amazon that he’s working with, the açai farmers you mentioned, to the people with disabilities that are packaging the goods and creating jobs for them. Doris: Ten of them now, as he’s scaling. He’s employing. Alison: While trying to create more healthy fruit snacks in the general product market. I mean, it’s just pretty incredible that he was able to connect all of that for the students in a way that they were very engaged, they were really overwhelmed. Doris: Right. They were overwhelmed. But he was great and he also, he’s a fabulous person, he’s incredibly talented, skilled, bright, has all of his stuff, and he chose to do this. Anyways, so we take them in to Day 2, and they’re given their challenge which is, how can Peaceful Fruits and Evan win the U.S. market? What should he do next to win the market? And he worded it that way and then added, how did he word it? What’s the right message for the right ears? Alison: Right. Doris: Right? Okay. If you put yourself back into being a 16 or a 17-year-old who’s been in school, and still is in school and has no experience with it, they leave very, very, very passionate about Evan, about Peaceful Fruits, about the mission, and having absolutely no idea what to do next. Right? Alison: Right. And looking at us wide eyed. Like, “Great.” Doris: Like, “What’s the answer, and give me the recipe, and…” Alison: Right. “What are my directions? How do I help him?” Doris: Right. So this is the second day of class, and over time we’ve learned some things. When we say we’ve developed a bunch of systems, so, over time I’ve developed a bunch of systems. And in particular, what are the systems you set up curricularly, instructional practices, assignments, the whole bit, for the first experience they’re ever having with a learning stuff by working on a real problem. Okay? A real-world problem that doesn’t have an answer in the back of the book. And then there are other systems we develop that carry on throughout the whole semester. But as you’ve seen in this entrepreneurship class and in the classes that the educators we’ve trained do, a lot of these basic methodologies and foundational skills they have to learn in the first challenge so that they have those in their tool kit. Alison: And it’s not that you’re teaching them those methodologies or giving them those tools before they receive the challenge. They have the challenge by the time they realize, “Wow. We need some tools to solve this.” Doris: Which is, by the way, it’s super important because the whole point is that they’re learning by doing, and the reason they’re learning by doing is that they need to do. And so they figure out, “Ooh, I need to learn this to be able to do this.” Alison: For Evan’s challenge. Doris: For Evan’s challenge. So, we start by, they’ve got a problem that matters to them, which is Evan and his business, and scaling it so that he can, you know, do good… Alison: Create more jobs and…yeah. Doris: All this stuff and they’re totally jazzed. Three weeks later they’re going to present their solutions to Evan, and they have to be well-researched and evidence-based, and they know nothing. And they have no skills, and they have no anything to be able to figure it out. And that’s why we have them. I get asked many times, I love that you brought that up, I get asked so much, “Well, what do you do to prepare them?” And my answer is always, “Well, if I did a bunch of stuff to prepare them, that’s what regular school would look like.” The reality is, second day they’re thrown in and they care, and therefore they’re gonna learn a lot of stuff because they need to use it. And we have tons of evidence now that in order to learn something and be able to use it other contexts, you have to apply it and then you have to reflect on it. So, that’s the kinda method, the model that we use. Anyway, so, we know the basics that they need to learn early on. We know they need to learn Lean Launchpad, which is scientific method for today. Customer development. So we assign Udacity, and they learn it along the way and they realize as they’re experiencing the first challenge, “Oh, I need that.” It gives them language. It gives them a methodology for having a guess, testing it. Massive and foundational. We need to give them some design thinking kinds of tools. So, we do workshops and teach them how to interview, build an archetype, all of this stuff a lot of teachers are using. And it’s fabulous. Alison: Empathy mapping, all of that. Doris: All that stuff. We teach them some, you know, Rogers’ curve of innovation, etc. The other thing that we teach them early, and there are several items like this, but one of the things they need to learn ASAP is they really need to get conversant with the business model campus. They’re not gonna learn it well. They’re teenagers, they’ve never done…but they need to be conversant. And just watching videos about it or reading about it isn’t gonna cut it. And so what we did on Friday was, there’s certain things. We change a lot. We do a lot of different things as things happen. There’s certain things we do every single time, and a lot of those show up in the first three, four weeks. Friday was the BMC day. So, what we do is I say to the students to find a business that you’re into. That’s it. It could be Nike, and there’s pretty much one Nike every time. Right? It could be the bakery store down the street. It can be whatever you want, just one you’re into. We’re sending you the PDF from Alex Osterwalder’s “Business Model Generation” that describes the BMC and all the blocks, you know? Customer segment, value, prop, channels, key resources, key activity, all that stuff. It defines them, gives you…etc. I even mention, “By the way, you can look online. There’s tons of stuff on the Business Model Canvas, etc. And what you’re gonna do tomorrow, on Friday in our case, is you’re going to have your first experience presenting to the class, by presenting your business using Post-it notes and placing them on the BMC. One or three items per block, and you’re gonna tell the story of the business, three minutes, using the Business Model Canvas.” And by the way, there are also videos online, tons of them. Tons of people do this. You know, they do this at incubators. Alex Osterwalder and his… Alison: Team. Doris: …workshops does it, and has adults do it. It’s not like our idea to do this. But the reason that it’s really crucial in this course early on is, many of them are very afraid of presenting. So it gets that done and over early. We’re gonna give them feedback. Well, I should say what I tell them beforehand. I say, “By the way, you’re gonna do this tomorrow. You’re all gonna be presenting your business in three minutes using Post-its.” And they get a look of total fear on their face. And I say, “Of course you don’t know what the Business Model Canvas is. And of course you have no idea, and you have no experience, and you’ve never done it before. And no, we’re not lecturing on it,” right? We’re not spending three hours lecturing on the Business Model Canvas, giving… Alison: Customer segments, channels… Doris: Right. Defining them all for you. Giving you examples of how to do this. We understand that. So, we’re gonna have you do it tomorrow and, because you’re in high school, because you have no experience, because you have no clue about the Business Model Canvas and have never used it before, the first people who raise their hand and volunteer to do it are probably gonna be horrible. They’re gonna be horrible. And why are they gonna be horrible? And somebody says, “Because they’ve never done it before, and we’ve never done it, and we don’t know what it…” And I said, “Exactly. And what’s gonna happen is that we’re gonna give you feedback. And the first ones are gonna be the worst, and we’re gonna give especially a lot of feedback to those people. And the rest of you are gonna be in the room. Let me ask you something. What do you think?” and it’s gonna be in some random order by volunteer. “Do you think the fifth person is gonna be better than the first person?” Everybody nods their head, “Absolutely, yes it is.” “Okay, what about the eighth person? What about the 15th? Oh, yeah okay. Why are they gonna be better? Well, because they’ll watch the first people, and they’ll hear what you say and they’ll learn from it. So, what happens in that?” And so, that’s what we do to start. So, they go through and, sure enough, they get better and better and better, and we give less and less feedback. And the whole things actually, the first one, and the second one, and the third one, maybe, even though they’re supposed to be 3 minutes each, maybe combined it’s 20 minutes. But then, the rest go really fast. And if you don’t have time to do all of ’em in a period, it doesn’t even matter because once you get past the first three or four, the rest will do theirs later. No big deal. It can be two weeks later, depending on how much time you have in your class. Of course they should all get their turn. Let’s talk for a minute about what just that does. They, first of all, learn that, “I can learn this stuff. I can go in with my stickies…” and the first people, they’re 16 and 17. What they put in as a channel or a key activity, they have no idea, right? Alison: Right. Doris: I mean, do you remember the early ones, what they say is a cost structure? Alison: Right. Oh, always. Yeah. They’re very confused with the left side versus the right side of the canvas, how the relationships between the blocks work, they have stickies in the wrong blocks. Doris: Right. But because of the way we’ve set it up before, they come in, so they’re teenagers, which are the most… Being a teenager is probably the most insecure state, right? And oversensitive and the thing they all say, almost every one of them says, except the kid who’s in debate, on the first day they say the thing they’re most afraid about is presenting. Alison: Presenting. Absolutely. Doris: And so they do it. They realize that the feedback someone’s getting, if it’s critical, is actually a learning experience. It’s not personal. They don’t turn bright red in the face like a teenager normally would. The first day of class I set up… Do you remember where they… Alison: Oh, the role play that you did? Doris: Yeah. Alison: Oh, yeah. Let’s talk about that. Actually, that was great set-up for what then happened on Friday’s BMC feedback. Doris: Yeah. So, the first day of class. Now, it’s first day of class. We don’t have a lot of time, and there’s a whole lot to say because things…and then I always do this on the first day. Maybe do it a little differently, but the role play was, “Okay. Alison, Tim, Doris, and Fiona, we all work together. We all work together and we actually like each other. We do a lot of stuff together. And I put each of you, Alison, Tim, and Fiona,” physically, I use students and I put them in their own office. And I say, “Let’s say this happens. Doris goes into Alison one day,” and I walk in and I say, “Oh my gosh, I have such a great idea. I’m so excited. I wanna tell you my idea. Blah, blah, blah. Here’s my idea.” What do you say back? Alison: “Oh, sounds great, Doris.” Doris: “That’s awesome, Doris.” Alison: “Good for you.” Doris: “That’s awesome.” Right. And I leave and I’m all excited because Alison thinks I have a great idea, and I’m so excited about my idea. In the meantime, Alison is thinking, “Okay, that is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.” And Alison goes over to Tim, and what do you do with Tim? Alison: I talk to Tim about how that idea is going nowhere, that… Doris: Her idea’s so stupid. You like me, so you’re not necessarily saying…I’m being kind to myself. You’re not saying, “Doris is stupid, maybe.” But you’re saying, “That idea is so stupid. I can’t believe she came up with that,” and then you guys have a great time analyzing and diagnosing all the different ways in which that was a stupid idea. And then I turn to the kids and I say, “Did Alison, who actually is my friend and likes me, did she have my back? I was excited and she made me feel good. Did she have my back?” And they all, every time, say “No.” And I say, “Why didn’t she have my back?” And they get into this whole…they start reflecting on the fact that, to have my back… Alison: Means to give you some honest feedback in that moment. Doris: Yeah. And then I say, “Did what just happened here, do you see this? Do you see that happen in your day-to-day at school?” And all of them vigorously shake their heads. And I say, “You see it all the time, don’t you? Where there’s a conversation between two people, or one person and a group, and that person or that group gives that person great feedback until they walk away. And then the trashing starts.” And they’re high school kids, so they go, “Yeah. Yeah, we see that all the time.” And I say, “Okay. So, on Friday, you’re gonna do your BMCs, you’re gonna give presentation, and here’s a question. You’re gonna give presentation about something you don’t know about at all, and you’ve never presented on it, you have no clue, you have no reason to have a clue. Do you want us instructors to just say, ‘Oh, that was wonderful,’ and give you a grade quietly, separately, but just say, ‘That’s wonderful,’ or do you want us to give you honest feedback?” And they say, “No, we want you to give us honest feedback.” And I say, “Okay, and it’s gonna be hard because it’s your first time. But that sets the stage for this class where they’re gonna present every week, and we’re gonna be giving them feedback, honest feedback. Alison: One that was interesting even on Friday after, I think we got through maybe five or so by that point, that we said, “Who wants to go next?” And all of a sudden, the chain starts to happen, “Well, I wanna go. I’ll go after so and so. I’ll go after him. I’ll go after her.” And I had to laugh that, once we broke that open and they realized that they could withstand that feedback, they could learn from that, they were all interested in then going to get their own feedback. And truly, I mean, that activity is outstanding so early on in the course because like you say, they get out of their comfort zone by having to present when they’re super fearful of that. They have to deal with what it means to have constructive criticism or feedback given to them early. And I also love just as we’re getting to know these students, it’s a real insight into who they are simply by the businesses they choose and what they choose to highlight. You know, some people will pick a family business. Others will choose some big global conglomerate, and some will choose something down the street and it just gives a little insight into what they care about, what their interests are. And I’ve found that super helpful as a teacher to be involved in that activity early and help them understand what it means to be in this class. Doris: I agree. And then, think about the other things that wrap into that one activity, and we could talk about all the rest of what we did on Friday, but just that one activity. So, there’s only one book required for them to read coming into the class. Just one. And it’s “Mindset” by Carol Dweck. And it’s the idea, and I always say, “So what’s the big idea about ‘Mindset’?” And different people say different things. And then eventually someone says, “That if you work hard at something you can get better.” And I say, “Bingo. That’s it. That’s the point.” And that’s the framing of this entire class. So, what happens in this one BMC exercise, and the other thing we haven’t talked about is that as they present their businesses and they get the wrong thing in the wrong category, we’re able to talk about what variable and fixed costs are. Like, “Well, what do you think is variable cost? What do you think is a fixed cost? Oh, what is a channel? What does distribution mean? What does it mean to be a multisided market?” So, there’s all of this stuff that comes in. What does it mean to be strategic? They eventually, and this is a great exercise to understand what matters most. Yeah. So, if you’re putting 5, 8, 10 items in value proposition for a business, okay, and there are features… So, there’s so much learning that happens. So, when we reflect afterwards with the students, and remember this is…school started Tuesday. You’re not with them all day every day. And Wednesday they go see the business. Thursday we had a teeny, like, one block and had them, I always have them… Alison: Break down the challenge, think through the… Doris: Yeah. And I say, “Coming right out of meeting Evan and seeing the business, if you were to create the outline now of what you want to present in three weeks, do it now.” So that they can work backwards from there and it gives them a frame for the whole thing, a structure. So then it’s just the fourth day we do this BMC. And afterwards, when I say, “Okay, so what did you learn from doing that?” So now we’re in the reflection part. They learn, first of all, by experiencing it, that getting authentic, real feedback, they actually realize, “Oh, instead of not wanting it and being afraid of it, I want it.” And we’ve seen they crave it over the course of the course. They learn that they can learn stuff by applying it and using it. They learn a lot of real stuff that they’re gonna have to know. Alison: Content. Doris: Content, knowledge that they’ll know. It’s so funny, people talk about soft skills. I think I’ve mentioned this before. I’m starting to become allergic to that terminology because it suggests that something like communicating… Alison: Effectively. Doris: Yeah. That that’s a soft skill, it’s a nice to have. That’s really what the connotation, right? The implication. It’s a nice thing but it’s not hard, it’s not like a hard skill like being able to use a drill, okay, or being able to differentiate an equation or whatever. And what also these guys start learning really early on is that you can take on learning these soft skills as an academic subject. It’s just as academic, and therefore not personal, to learn to present well, to learn to communicate well, to learn to collaborate well, how to be a good team member. That very first BMC exercise is when we start setting the stage for a completely different, not only model for academic learning, but mindset about what academic learning’s even about.

In this episode, Alison and Doris discuss trying out new tools in the upcoming semester of Hawken’s Entrepreneurial Studies program. Alison talks about the decision to pilot Slack and incorporate the use of LinkedIn for ongoing student portfolios. Doris: Hey, this is an exciting moment. School starts next week. Alison: Yeah. Already. Doris: It’s cool, we’re gonna talk in this podcast about some of the new tools we’re gonna try out this year in class, but first just a minute to say, because you know this is for everybody who’s teaching in schools, for kids, for parents, for teachers, there’s that jittery, “Oh my gosh, back to school.” And it’s exciting. It’s really, really fun. And every year with this program that we’re running, we get to a completely new place. Tons and tons of fun with educators that we’ve gotten to know over the past year, many of whom…some started implementing this summer, some are implementing this fall for the first time. How do you feel going into your second year? Alison: I’m feeling great. I’m feeling excited about the new things we’re gonna try and I feel appreciative to have another year of working alongside of you, continuing to learn and really deepen my practice with the work that you’ve done over your career and developing this methodology. I think it’s an exciting opportunity, but it’s interesting you brought up the other educators and I’ve been thinking about the new Facebook group that we started. Doris: Oh, I’m excited about that, yep. Alison: And in there I think we were talking about the beginning of the school year, what you’re doing to get ready, what challenges you’re thinking, you know you’re worried about, and I appreciate that space as a new teacher as well to be able to vet some ideas and some questions and see what other people are thinking about as they’re entering into the school year. Doris: And talking to Yanez from Slovenia, not just me and him but as a whole group will be so exciting to watch what he’s doing. Alison: Yeah. There’s a number of different people I know who you’ve been able to work with throughout all of your trainings that you’ve been doing, and to have a space now that we continue to connect and collaborate in that Facebook group is pretty exciting. Doris: It is exciting. It’s really exciting. So here in the very earliest implementation of this stuff, we’ve used Google. Tim built the learning management platform in Google from day one. But we also tried a bunch of different things along the way, different apps, different software packages. We even at one point, we were paying a license fee per student. And we’ve tried different things along the way and we’re heading into this year, we learn every year, we learn every semester, and we’re heading into this school year trying some new things. What are you trying this year that you’re excited about? Alison: Yes. Well, we’ve been thinking regarding the different tools in the class and what’s been working and what other things exist out there in the marketplace that we might want to try and expose our students to but that also might help the efficiency of the way that they’re managing projects or they’re working on teams. The different functions that, especially with how quick technology moves now. For us to be up on the latest tools that actually might help their learning experience in a more meaningful way and to not shy away from those because we’ve used Google or we’ve used Todoist or whatever the existing tools are for the class to continually put ourselves out there and see what we should be testing out and trying. Doris: Well, it’s no different than anything else. This is really about trying stuff. Some of it you try and you think, “Okay, this is great, let’s keep trying this some more.” And some of it we decide not so much and we pivot and try something else. And what’s been fun for me during this time, as we all know, this stuff, there are new apps, anything we decide to try, two days later there’s something new that looks even better. So it’s just about trying and there are tools. Technology’s always a tool for whatever it is. So talk about our latest that we’re gonna try. Alison: Yeah, so we are looking into using Slack as a tool a bit more this semester for the students as a kind of team management, project management space, which is exciting because this past spring we had one student group test it out and from a teaching perspective what I really loved about that space, it allowed me to communicate more freely with the students as a group compared to their Google Drive, which has a team space and the Todoist which is a bit more passive. We could see the to do items they put on their homework list each night, but there wasn’t a space to really have a dialogue about that work they were doing in those venues unless I shot an email out or sent a text or something like that. What we’ve also learned is that our student teams tend to create group chats on their phone, like a text message chat. Doris: I loved reading those in Slack. Yes, I loved it. Alison: And that’s the coolest part is that now using Slack, the whole conversation that students would generally be texting back and forth to one another when they’re at home in the evening, working on their projects, we are now a part of and can easily see and interject. And it starts to free up that space in a way and also capture it where since we co-teach at times, we generally have to bring each other up to speed on what’s happening with one team versus another, and to have visibility into the kinds of conversations or the types of documents they’re sharing with one another. Or I know the team in the spring, they would even post to their whiteboard progress. “Here’s some of the brainstorming we did today” and they’d post it right into the chat feed. And you could visually see what they were working on in a very live and dynamic way that I appreciated from a teaching perspective. I thought it was very cool. So I’m excited to try it this fall classwide and see the different ways we can optimize that space for what we do in our class. Doris: It’s really interesting, too, because this is about finding tools that facilitate the kind of learning that’s happening. We’re talking about students working in teams. Each has different roles, they do individual work, they do stuff together, their conversations and their work together doesn’t always happen inside the classroom. Doesn’t even always happen inside the school day. And so having something that is really simple which Slack is. Using Slack feels like texting. It’s what they’re familiar with and most comfortable with. And also… Alison: It’s what a lot of the business world is transitioning to as well. Doris: Exactly right. I was just gonna say and they’re using tools and having conversations just like you would in the business world. And it’s so funny and also as I’m thinking about this… I think it was two years ago. I don’t think it was a year ago, but it was no more than two years ago that I remember the last conversation about, in a faculty meeting, about whether we should let students have their phones in class or not. What should we do if they bring their phone out? What should we do if they’re looking? That was maybe two years ago. There was even then, and even five years ago and three years, there was always somebody in those…and I’ve had conversations like that where school principals were worrying about this kind of thing. What does that mean and all sorts of… Well, this stuff changes so fast that there’s no way to say you can use technology as a tool in the classroom, but don’t do it on your phone or don’t bring it into…it’s not realistic. Alison: It’s not real world. Doris: It’s not real world. And our students have to manage what their protocol is, what the etiquette is, what you do when you’re in a class and you’re engaged versus what you don’t. Alison: True. Doris: And the way to manage that, with high school kids anyway, is not to say, “Leave your phone in the bucket at the door.” It’s to say, “Here’s the protocol in this class.” Think about it. We tell students in our class now when we’re talking or when someone’s talking, you’re looking at your screen, it’s a social barrier. You know, we learn etiquette, but it’s separate. So here they’re using Slack, and I thought the pilot with that team in the spring went really well. Alison: I was even impressed how you used it, Doris, because… . Doris: Yeah, I used it. Alison: That’s what convinced me actually was that you were able to jump in in the conversation in ways that you hadn’t with the previous tools because there wasn’t a place for that conversation. You would generally shoot the students an email. And it was very separate. It felt like it was in a separate space. But to be in the same place where we could, I could then see the conversation, the ways you were questioning them to get them to think deeper about the challenges, as well as motivating students in the space becomes a little bit easier as well. Where if only three out of four are really contributing to that conversation and going back and forth it’s quite clear that the fourth person on the team who might be slacking off a bit isn’t engaged. And for us to just say… Doris: No pun intended. Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah. Alison: And to just say, “Hey, so and so, what do you think about this?” To pull them in, to engage them more. And I feel like that’s a really beautiful part. Doris: Well, I think the thing about technology and it’s true about me, what I…for me whenever the technology required initiation from me, I had to go into the Google Drive to see what blah, blah, blah. Given my day and the way I operate, I would have to make a concerted, ooh, okay. Alison: Extra step. Doris: And it was an extra thought. It’s different than, ooh, I have a message on my phone, which is… Alison: It all lives in the same space. Doris: And it’s all in the same space. And the students are so comfortable with it. It’s totally their world. Alison: It’s native to them. Doris: It’s native to them and if we’re talking about giving them skills to thrive in the real world, the more the work they’re doing and how they’re doing it is real world the better. So what else are we doing this year? Alison: Well, another tool we’re gonna test out a bit in the class is LinkedIn. And this has stemmed from our continual effort to think through the digital portfolio space, how students are continuing to communicate, what they’ve done in this class, and how it’s relevant to experiences beyond this class. Doris: And it was a student’s idea to do this, right? Alison: Partially. They had beautifully elaborate plans which I’d love to get to at some point, I think this is our MVP, we have to start with a LinkedIn at first. I mean we’ve had a Google portfolio site the students have built in the past, and we’ll likely continue with that in some form. But as we look forward to additional ways we can show the work that these students do, that they themselves can elevate their content, their presentations, the types of challenges they’re working on in a very dynamic way that’s also familiar to the real world in ways that they can then share that maybe with a college admissions office or if they’re in college, maybe they can share it with the board of a group they’re trying to become a leader of. Or it may be a professor or if they’re trying to get a job, an internship, right? There’s different places we’ve heard our students in the past have wanted to share this and have struggled to package it in a very regular way. Like an everyday kind of way. Doris: Yeah, and we should give a shout out to…we had three students who finished our program who chose for their senior project, they wanted to redesign our capstone and the way we did these portfolios in the class. And it’s Phillip Hedayatnia, Bethany Unger and Clayton Carmen, and I’m gonna name them specifically. And they did an amazing job. And what they did, what you just described, what they did is said, “Look, the class is so real, we’re working on real stuff, and then the way we’re doing our assignments, the technology we’re using, where we’re putting the stuff and how we’re putting it doesn’t feel real. It feels like school.” We had a Google-based portfolio. They would put things in there and create a site, and I’m gonna use my interpretation of what they said. What they said was, “Let’s use through the class, through the course of the class, as we are posting things and writing things and creating. We’re blogging, we’re making videos, we’re doing reflections, we’re doing papers. Let’s use LinkedIn along the way in the class to post things, communicate things.” They had…you’re right. They had a wonderful solution that included a lot more. But basically, let’s use the platforms that we use anyway…Medium, LinkedIn, Slack and integrate those in the class and do our assignments that way. And for all the reasons you just mentioned they’re gonna be able to use the stuff more readily. And what they were saying is then instead of at the end of the semester, having an exercise to compile all the things that we wanted to elevate and create a new portfolio. We’re actually creating that portfolio all along the way in the class. Alison: Which I know is also Tim Desmond’s intention as he started that capstone project from the beginning. And again, you know, just trying a new tool, right? Trying a new space where this can live, and there are a lot of functions in the LinkedIn platform that allow students to have conversations with others in the business world. They can post some of their blogs and it even starts to shift the type of content and reflecting that the students are doing, and how it’s actually relevant to the real world where they’re able to think, “Okay, I’m struggling with some things in this team dynamic we have going on. What are my top five things I would recommend to someone in this situation?” For them at the age of 17 to realize the experience they’re having is common and something other people will experience, and that they have a chance to share their learnings with others I think is pretty powerful. And it’s a cool platform, whether it’s LinkedIn or Medium. We’re gonna try, but we’re gonna start with some core platforms initially. Doris: And one of the things I want to point out about this is this is like everything else in this class. It’s about experimentation. So when Tim first designed the portfolio for these students, he set it up knowing that they’re gonna create something that will be valuable to them beyond the class. And we saw that from the very first cohort. When they created their portfolio of all the stuff they’d created in the class that they were proudest of and put it all together, they found tons of use for that outside of school and even inside school. And that also, and now we’re evolving it, with every iteration it gets better, you know? Alison: Right. And more relevant in some ways. Doris: And more relevant. We try stuff, we try new stuff. But what’s really so similar about…it’s the same with this as it is with anything else. This generation of students, they know what’s relevant, what’s real and what’s not. And they want everything that they do in solving a problem in a class to be relevant and real. And finding new tools to make it better and better is great. And I love it as a teacher, you are totally and completely comfortable checking something, trying something new that you’re not that familiar with sometimes yourself. Alison: I love it. Truly, I’m appreciative that there’s space in this work to take creative risks, to try new things, because in anything that you do in life or in your work or in any kind of practice you have, it’s a kind of experimental approach that keeps things engaging that allows you to test out assumptions you have or different hypothesis you might have and to think through what…could this be better? Is there an opportunity that this learning could go deeper, that the students could in fact have a even more dramatic platform or tool or technique to develop their skills in a new way. I just really appreciate that in the work we do, especially in this model you’ve built, that you encourage that. You would call yourself, well, I don’t know if you call yourself that, but you’re known as the “Pilot Queen.” Doris: Yeah, I am the Pilot Queen. Alison: You very much encourage this idea of trying new things and testing them out to see if they work. If not, failure is embraced here. We have our students work on that, and we need to model that day to day. Doris: This is something that I can speak to that, because of my age frankly, I can speak to this, that this is again something with these tools that you don’t have to be an expert in. So you don’t have to know the tool as a teacher and feel like the expert in the tool in order to introduce it in the class. I’m a great example of that. I started making videos for my students to watch at home to augment my math classes. I think it’s been now nine years ago. They were horrible, okay? I was horrible at doing it, the videos were horrible. It was fabulously useful and successful for the students. So I learned it…and I learned even before, I learned a long time ago you can’t break the stuff, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to do it. To begin with, you try it, you play around, and there will almost always be for me, there will be somebody in the room who does know it, can help you out. So as a teacher, if something looks like it might be good, be willing to try it and don’t worry about being an expert before you do. Just don’t pay for it. Alison: Well that’s the other truth of it, right? There’s so many free tools out there. There’s no reason not to try things. And I think that comes back to letting your ego. Leave it out at the door. Leave it behind. In all honesty, that authenticity we come into the classroom with and say, “Hey, students, we’re gonna try these new tools. We haven’t used Slack much but we’re excited about it. We’re gonna test out with you, give us your feedback along the way, see if you can find some better ways to use it than we even identified thus far. Let us know. We’re doing this together.” And all of a sudden it takes away that “teacher knows all” answer kind of relationship that a lot of school is set up like. And to be able to work alongside the students and learn along with them is something I appreciate. I’m just a constant learner and always trying to expand my knowledge. So even getting exposure into new tools I think is a great by-product. Doris: It’s funny, I agree. We say the same thing over and over. As a teacher there’s this natural inclination to be nervous about getting something wrong, just like we do with the kids. And that’s probably the single biggest thing that teachers need to get rid of. And I’m hoping…I get tons and tons of emails from educators we’ve worked with about things they’ve tried that they love and they want to share. Like have you seen this, or have you ever used this, or look what I used in my class or look what we built or look what my students did. I hope that stuff starts showing up in this Facebook group so that everybody gets to see it. What a great use of a Facebook group like that for people to share what’s worked and hasn’t worked. Alison: Share some tools. Doris: Yeah and there are a lot of sites out there for that but if it’s this cohort of people who are trying this really weird stuff like this, it would be fun to see what works. I’m very excited to see how this stuff you’re adding into the class this year plays out. Alison: Thanks. We’ll try it out.  

In this episode, Doris talks with Michael Hudecek of St. Clair Superior Development Corporation. He shares his “overwhelming success” in piloting Korda’s model in one of Cleveland’s most impoverished neighborhoods.  Doris: Okay. Hey, Michael, how are you doing? Michael: I’m doing great. It’s good to see you again, Doris. Doris: It’s great to see you. It’s been such a short time and such a long time since I last saw you. Michael: It was an intense six weeks we just experienced. Doris: Yeah, how did it go? How did it go? Michael: It was overwhelmingly successful. Doris: That’s awesome. Michael: You know, that comes with a large caveat of, tons of trials and tribulations and it wasn’t perfect. But for year one, we left just overwhelmed at how wildly successful this experiential learning program is. Doris: Talk about the success. Who were the kids? How was it successful? Michael: The students all came from two schools in our service district. A little background about myself, my name is Michael Hudecek and I work for St Clair Superior Development Corporation. And this is, to my knowledge, the first CDC run foray into urban entrepreneurship for youth, so we’re sort of treading new water, none of us are experienced educators and the students came from Nexus Academy, which is an e-learning high school. The kids spend half their time in the classroom and half of their studies happen at home. And then one of the students goes to St. Martin de Porres, which is actually who hosted us for the summer. Doris: So they’re kids from public schools. Michael: Nexus is a charter school and St. Martin de Porres is a private Christian-run school, actually, a really interesting model. Doris: Yeah, it’s a really interesting model. It’s awesome. And the neighbor, could you talk for a moment about the neighborhood. Michael: Yes, so the St. Clair neighborhood runs from about East 30th to Martin Luther King and from the lake to Payne. So it’s the near east side, roughly the same geographical location on the east side of town as Gordon Square is on the west, so proximity to downtown is really quite amazing. It’s probably the most genuinely diverse neighborhood in the city. There’s a large Asian population. It’s predominantly African-American, but there is an old Slovenian neighborhood so there’s a lot of leftover ethnic neighborhood. They hold Kurentovanje in that service district every year, which is a huge Slovenian Easter time celebration. Doris: And just very briefly, because I was very excited about this, you said you’re not educators and it’s an economic development corporation and you decided to do this class because your goal is…? Michael: We really wanted to provide access to entrepreneurship to kids in our neighborhood. The Cleveland Flea was started by our CDC and has grown wildly and not without our help, or without our help largely in recent years, and residents weren’t getting opportunities to access them. So we first started trying to do some stuff with adults and then realized that for actual change to take place, we needed to reach kids sooner. Not that adults can’t learn entrepreneurship, but besides learning entrepreneurship, which hopefully will create new businesses in the future, it’s really just amazing life skills, soft skills as a lot of people like to call them, financial responsibility, you name it, and the thing that piqued our interest about your program, specifically, is it’s sort of project-based learning, teamwork, and not the usual lemonade day, park on a corner, sell ten bucks worth of lemonade and pat yourself on the back. Doris: Yeah, and yeah. Michael: We’re just trying to do something new and different and attack it in a different way than normal. Doris: So you did your first pilot. Michael: Yeah, we just finished our first six-week course, we had five students and it was really amazing. We worked with two businesses in our service district. The first one is Upcycle Parts Shop, which is another program that we run at St. Clair Superior Development Corporation. They’re what’s known as a creative reuse center, so they divert waste materials from residential, industrial, and commercial sources, and then resell it as art supplies as well as doing community art programming. And then our second business was APE MADE, which is a local screen printer, she does mostly clothing and apparel screen printing. And then for our final project, we were gonna have a third business but we decided to let the students try out their hand at starting their own and when we get to that, they had a really amazing concept which blew us away at the end of the day. Doris: Oh, yeah? What was it? Michael: So they wanted to launch a gym because they recognized there was a gym desert. If you look at a Google Map of where gyms are in the neighborhood, you see tons of gyms downtown and tons of gyms in the heights. But the crescent moon that sort of shapes those areas, mostly impoverished regions don’t really have access to gyms. The major component was childcare, which they highlighted from getting out and talking to people, and then a lot of those people work all day, they don’t have time to go home and feed the kids, find a babysitter, go back to the gym and come back. So it was really cool to see them identify a need and try and solve it. Doris: That’s awesome. Talking about if you had to net out the growth you saw on the kids from the start to finish as a result of your pilot, how would you describe it? Michael: Totally different people. Doris: Wow. Michael: Most of them were shy to begin with, some of them were ace students and totally, you know, brilliant by traditional test-taking standards but hated public speaking. As you said frequently this summer, wanted you to have an answer for them, and by the end of it, the weakest, again by traditional standards, air quotes, you can’t see at home, was probably the strongest kid in the room. He was confident, despite the fact that he was the youngest, he was 14 and everyone else, he was going to be a sophomore, everyone else was gonna be a senior, he excelled at every turn and the girl, he was the only boy, the girls kept chiding him for being young and immature, and he was the one who, when you gave him a task, came back to you with concrete information. Doris: That’s awesome. Michael: The ace students were finding reasons why they didn’t need to keep going and he was like, “Oh, I found this cool thing.” And he wasn’t braggadocios about it. He just sort of presented it matter-of-factly and really blew me away. Doris: That’s awesome. What do you think, so when, you know, we talk to educators after they’ve implemented and we talk about those skills, creative problem solving, critical thinking, all that stuff. But if I had to pick one, the one that every student universally says first and most generally, is confidence. Would you agree? Michael: Hands down, yeah. Being able to sit in a room, actually, the funder from Burton D. Morgan, who funded us, made it to the final presentation. So he was in the room, our executive director was there, some of our staff, and they had, you know, six or seven people in suits show up for their final presentation. There was some tragic circumstances, they lost a lot of days preparing, some team members were out for large stretches of that, and in the last 36 hours, they pulled it together, put an amazing show on and blew everybody out of the water. So it was just one of those, you know, when you’re down and out, you pick yourself up and keep going. And I think it was the trials that they had in the first two rounds that really gave them the confidence to pull it out at the end. Doris: Yeah, so that’s, I think that’s really important. There are a lot of programs, a lot of programs where what you did in the final part of your class and what we do in the final part of ours, is the entire class. Choose something you care about, create a business model. I have found the same thing that having them work on someone else’s specific problem first allows them to learn. Talk about that. Michael: There’s just so much from an entrepreneurship standpoint and the reasoning and logic that the students don’t know when they get going, so again, as someone who hasn’t been doing this very long, as an outsider, it just seems like the leap from, “I know nothing,” to, “I’m gonna start this business, that means a lot to me,” is just putting too much on their shoulders in too small of amount of time. And having a concrete single identifiable problem instead of, “I’m gonna change this world because there’s a need that I see”, allows them to focus and learn some basic tenets that they can use later on. That again at the end, they don’t necessarily know they’ve been taught, they just had to learn because they needed to solve this problem. So it was just really great to see them tackle it and then by having multiple iterations, grow the problem a little bit, take on more responsibility and they’ll tell you this, they didn’t think in the middle of the second one that they were gonna be able to do it. The same way in the middle of the first one, they say, “Oh, well we tackled the first one, we can do this. We’re stressed out but I know we can do this.” And then again in the third one, “Well, I guess we made it through that second one, there’s no way we can’t finish this one.” Doris: That’s awesome. Michael: So based on your concept of sort of like growing the responsibility as they come along through the program and expanding what they’re required to respond to is really helpful I think for their growth. Doris: So, Michael, you’ve never taught before this. Michael: I spent six weeks in Costa Rica teaching ESL. But it was a drastically different environment, teaching ABC’s and one-two-three’s to six year olds. Doris: So talk about what it was like before, during and now, to teach as a teacher. Michael: I think the most amazing part for me was that I felt like I was on a parallel track with the students and we had a lot in common through the whole process. They kept saying how, “We haven’t done this.” And I said, “Neither have I, you know, we’re failing together, this is great.” Doris: That’s awesome. Michael: And I think the confidence as an educator improved greatly as well. At each step, I became more confident along the way and I think as someone who never did this and as a non-educator, you kept saying, “Oh, it doesn’t matter, you’ll be fine, you just got to do it.” And as I was leaving the workshop with four days to go, I was panicking and thinking, “Okay, well, we don’t have any more time so this is just gonna have to work out.” And to your credit, it really did. Just showing up and going through the motions and trying to stay one step ahead and connecting TED Talks and news articles and different workshops that we could do in class with the work they were doing on the business, just was great for everybody, including me. I mean, I still watch a TED talk at least once a day now as a result of it. It was just something that I enjoy as an adult. And I think to get away from the education standpoint, it’s something that we’re trying to use in our organization. We’re actually trying to get together an office wide project. A lot of our work tends to be siloed and so we’re trying to tackle a neighborhood project in 2017 that none of us like is responsible for, but that we identify as a need. So we’re sort of taking this experiential learning back home. Doris: That’s awesome. Are you gonna use any of the stuff that we do in the class? Michael: Yeah, it is predicated on that model entirely. Doris: That’s awesome. Michael: So it’s gonna be really cool, and I think that it’s a great reminder as adults and professionals that we shouldn’t pretend that we know everything and stop growing as people. So this has really been great for me. And at the final presentation, the day before was our annual meeting and I had to give a speech and I hate public speaking and it was great to be able to tell these kids. “I was up last night, making my own slide deck, I’m 33 years old, I still don’t like doing it, I wish I was you right now, because 15 years from now you’ll say, ‘Oh, that’s easy, I don’t, you know, it doesn’t stress me out.’” So it was just really cool to be on these parallel tracks with the students. So anybody, at any level of their life, should experience this once, whether as an educator or somebody on the other side. Doris: Yeah, and to your point about TED talks and there are so many things that are part of this model that, if you bring them in to your work, are fantastic, collaborate, you know, better collaborators bringing the rest of the world into what you do. Michael: Absolutely. And just thinking creatively about every problem, there are so many different ways to look at the world and it’s easy to get stuck in the one that you’re in because that’s what you do and it’s how you do it. And the more opportunities to shock yourself with these different mindsets, it’s amazing, if you’re paying attention, how much applicable reasoning and logic can be brought in… Doris: Yeah, we talked… Michael: Unrelated fields. Doris: Unrelated fields. We talked right before your first day of class and you were mapping out your plans for the, remember, for the first days, and you just said something now about staying one step ahead, which is before I didn’t think you understood that totally, you were nervous about making sure you had something to do every day, but clearly, now you have a different perspective on that. Michael: Definitely. I think it’s hard too, your tendency is to wanna plan and decide what’s gonna happen. Doris: Per minute. Michael: And for like the students who want an answer, there’s no answer. They’re gonna get stuck on one thing tomorrow, and then two days later, it’s gonna be something you didn’t even see coming necessarily, and so you just have to be thinking, “What might they be having trouble with and how can we try and figure it out?” And to be honest, a lot of times I didn’t figure it out right away and it took me a week, and then all of a sudden, it was like, “Okay, this is what I’m doing wrong. This is how we’re gonna implement it.” And I’m sure sometimes I didn’t really nail it. But I… Doris: Oh, yeah, sure. That’s all right. Michael: To your point, like I just had to do it and I’ve done it and I’m already thinking about next summer, how are we gonna do things differently? Doris: How great is that? Michael: It’s been really phenomenal and everyone at St. Clair is really grateful for it. The opportunity to go through the workshop and the fact that you’re championing this model for anyone and the fact that it’s open access and you’re trying to just get this way of thinking out in the world, I think that’s important for the youth of America. Doris: That’s great. That’s great. And you knew, one of the things, you mentioned at the beginning, everybody talks about these soft skills and I’ve decided not to use that term anymore. The reason is that in my travels I’d found that people are, there’s something about “soft” skills that devalues it and actually I really think the skills we’re talking about are the hardest ones to develop, they’re harder to develop than learning, memorizing my whatever and they’re… Talk about the skills that you’ve seen these students develop. And what you think they’re leaving this one summer program better equipped with as they head out? Michael: The ability to work in teams, I think is probably the biggest improvement for all the students when we were doing the first challenge. And even to some degree, when they were solving their own problem, they tended to wanna break up the work and say, “I’m doing this part and you’re doing this part,” and getting them to say, “We’re doing this and I’m helping work on this. But if I need help, I can talk to you,” I think was really important. And again, drawing parallels to our office place, a lot of times, as adults, we forget that when we’re in a group, whatever organization it is, you have talented people all around you and being able to ask for help is something that’s not really encouraged later in life. You’re supposed to have all the answers. So it’s really great for kids to recognize early and often that asking for help is good and helpful, and various ideas are good and helpful. Again, the confidence presenting in front of people, the confidence in having an idea and not coming up to me and saying, “I have this idea. Is this even the realm of okay?” And by the end, they’re throwing crazy ideas out there and if I say no, they come back five minutes later with a new one. It’s not, “Oh man, you shut me down, this is the end of the day, I’m done.” It was, “Oh, okay, well, let me see what, why that didn’t work and come back to you later.” And so the confidence to fail confidently, I think, is the biggest one outside of, you know, again asking questions and teamwork. Doris: I love that. It’s so funny because you come out of having done it and these are all different schools, they’re all different courses, different programs, different sets of students and everybody comes out of this saying the same things, right, about what these students have gotten out of it, and I call it substantive confidence because I think of it as, it’s not of the empty, “Oh honey, you’re great. Let’s make sure everybody gets a ribbon whether they won or not.” It’s the confidence that comes from knowing, “I can navigate complexity, whether it’s relationships, problems, situations, I know I can navigate.” Failing badly and picking yourself up, “I have confidence that I will be able to navigate whatever is in front of me.” And that is so important for students going out into this particular day and age. Michael: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. Doris: So what’s next for you? Michael: So we are regrouping for next summer. This is part of like a three-part program. So we’re actually in the midst of planning a pitch competition for the fall. We have some funds to hopefully start a small company in the neighborhood, so we’re excited about that, and we’re working on getting that together now. We’re actually using Flipgrid as our entry point so it’s been great to integrate that technology. My wife is pregnant and we’re due in like a month. Doris: Congratulations. That’s exciting. Michael: Thank you. So we figured Flipgrid was an easy way for them to get their first 90-second pitch in there and then we’ll do a more intense follow-up once I’m back from paternity leave. Doris: That’s great. And next summer, what are your plans for next summer? Michael: Next summer, we’re coming back better than ever, hopefully, now that we’ve got one under our belt. I definitely wanna have more students. I think having the opportunity to have different teams, not only to mix personalities and provide different experiences working in teams, but also to have that little competitive edge of one-upping your fellow students. Doris: Yeah, I have to congratulate you because people might think having a small cohort to start with is a really lucky, great, easy thing. It actually makes it more difficult because there’s a natural energy that comes from having multiple teams. If one team’s kind of stuck, they’ll look over their shoulder, the other teams going at it, and I think it’ll be so interesting to see how your experience is different as your class size grows. Michael: Yeah, we found even just as the teachers, we stepped out a lot. There was so little for us to do every little bit that it felt suffocating to be in the same room with the students because they kept looking over their shoulder, feeling like we were judging them. So Aiden, who was interning with us this summer, a student from Hawken, and I would just leave for hours at a time and just say, “When do you want us to come back? Well, you know, you have until you need some help, if you have any questions, we’re across the hall.” Doris: So that’s funny, the first, the reason in the Toolkit we give you the first full three weeks mapped out is that because they come in passive, wanting you to tell them everything, we find that these structures and teaching them the methodologies and all that stuff in the first stretch of the class is really important, but over time, they have the tools, they have the skills and they’re applying them, so there is more, later in the class, more time for the instructors to be out of the room. Michael: Yeah, you’re just sort of shepherding them back to whatever direction you need them to go, but they’re doing all the work. I can’t say enough about the amount of time they put in both at home and in class, on their own accord. I mean, we were very flexible and told them, “You know, if you wanna go home, we can go home.” And more often than not, they said, “Oh, let’s stay.” Or, “Let’s go do some more interviewing.” Doris: So if there are people listening who are thinking about trying something like this but intimidated and a lot of people do get intimated because it’s so weird, what would you say to them? Michael: I would say, just do it. Start tomorrow. Don’t wait six weeks, don’t wait 12 months. The amount of time, so we started talking about this in February and we didn’t start implementing it until mid-June, and I spent so much energy on stuff that was a waste of time having gone through it once. Just like trying to plan and prepare and thinking about what’s gonna be perfect and there is no perfect. Doris: No, there isn’t. Michael: Just get one under your belt and you kept saying that this summer, and you know, having not gone through, you say, “Well, yeah, but there’s gotta be like something you can give me.” Wanting that answer that doesn’t exist. You know, it’s like this desire to have a path. Doris: Yeah, so we’ll give you the toolkit, you’ll have a starting point, and just go to town. Michael: Go to town. Doris: Nice. Michael: Let them have at it. Doris: Michael, congratulations. I’m so excited for your students, past and future. Michael: Thank you. Yeah, we can’t wait to do it again and we really couldn’t have done it without the support of you and your team. So thank you all. Doris: Oh, nice. Okay, so we’re gonna keep going because I just, we ended the podcast session and Tim turned off the mics and you just started saying some stuff that I really want everybody to hear. So I listened to you, knowing the kinds of kids you’re working with, and my heart is just full thinking about what you just did this summer. And if you could talk a little bit about the kids you worked with. Michael: Yeah, I mean as I was just saying off mic earlier, poverty is just really hard. I think one of the biggest struggles we had was just the effects of uncertainty in your life at every turn, for people especially that young, deaf sisters leaving their kids with them for emergency daycare, transportation issues, lack of money, you name it. Every turn, when things seemed like they were on a course for smooth sailing to get to the end, something tragic would arise and somebody would have to be out for a day or two. And of course, it’s not a fault, no one’s mad at anybody. You have to reassure them that it’s okay and that no one’s mad. But it’s just a reminder of one, how important this opportunity is. Many of the kids…I don’t remember if we talked about this on the mic earlier…left saying how grateful they were that they had skills that they wouldn’t have had otherwise and how they’re gonna have it later in life. Doris: So the kids already got that. Michael: Yeah, just saying, “I don’t wanna, you know, I don’t wanna be done at high school, I wanna go to college, I wanna be a nurse, and having these skills under my belt now will be really grateful. Like I didn’t, admittedly, I didn’t wanna be here.” Some of the kids were supposed to be in another program and we tugged them back and they were crestfallen and then found that they really were enjoying it and were grateful for the opportunity. But our end goal, I think we were talking about too, is not to be the ones administering this program every year. It’s not that we don’t love doing it, my experience was amazing, but we hope to get teachers at the schools where the students we’re reaching or coming from, to recognize that, if I can do it with no background in education and practically no resources, somebody with an entire institution behind them can be having a much greater impact than Michael Hudecek can be with 5 or 10 or 15 students. Doris: Yeah, and if we get this amidst what we’re trying to do, we don’t want these to be add-on weekend summer programs. We want all students to have, develop these kinds of skills in school classes. Michael: Yeah, and that’s where we’re hoping to get at, too. So we are hopefully championing your cause on a very small scale. Doris: Well, and you know, we’re here to help anybody who wants to do it. Michael: And she means that. People listening at home, if you talk to Doris and you have a question, she will get back to you as soon as she possibly can, so don’t be shy if you have a question, and if she says, “Call me,” she means it. Doris: Well, and we can give you a starter kit. I think that’s also, thank you for saying that, I think. I think that the big thing that teachers need to know if they wanna try this is we give you a starter kit with step… Michael: Yeah, the toolkit’s immensely helpful to get off the ground. Doris: Right. So you can just have something to try and it’s right there in front of you. You said something about, you talked about the kids who went to the wrong place. I thought that was really interesting the first day. Michael: Yeah, we worked with Youth Opportunities Unlimited, which is a local sort of first job organization. They give young students between 14 and 19 summer employment. They make minimum wage. They show up, most of the jobs are manual labor or nominal tasks around for organizations that are usually nonprofits and don’t have the funds to pay for the extra help they need in the summer. And so, we partnered with them and the students were actually getting paid, but due to some administrative things, they ended up at the wrong site, which was a teen center and all their friends were there and they were so excited to be just learning about hip-hop and muraling and gardening and doing all this amazing fun stuff in the summer, and they showed up and I told them that they were basically in school again for six weeks. But it was nothing like school, which they did not believe, when I told them that. Doris: So they were not happy that first day. Michael: They were really unhappy and within 48 hours, they were the ones who were most excited and were saying, “Thank you so much for making us leave, we know we fought you on it but this is the best thing we could have done for six weeks. We can hang out with these kids for the next nine months at school, but we can’t ever get this back.” Doris: And why do you think they thought it was good that they were gonna be returning to school? Michael: They recognized immediately that the public speaking skills, the ability to work in teams, the confidence they were getting from it, and the ability to tackle a challenge that they felt completely unprepared for, was inside them the whole time, and that they didn’t need to judge themself against other people anymore because they had it all the time and they just needed somebody to say, “You can do this.” And force them to actually do it. Doris: Yeah, that was the most beautiful thing, we’re gonna end on that note. Okay, thanks.

In this episode, Alison shares how the Korda Method of teaching and learning deepened her understanding of innovative teaching practices, pushing students towards rigorous and meaningful learning.  Alison: So Tim, we’ve been at this now for about six months, which is wild to think about. But… Tim: This crazy podcasting thing we’re doing. Alison: Yes, indeed. Do you have any updates to share or where we’re at, what are we doing here? Tim: Yeah, we haven’t talked a lot about the podcast itself. We haven’t gotten very meta on the podcast. But I think it’s safe to say our team here is pretty excited about what’s happening. We’ve seen tens of thousands of downloads since February. We know a lot of people care about this and we’re really committed to helping change the way education works, and to fix it. And so it’s really been encouraging to see the ears, I was gonna say see the eyeballs on it, but it’s really the ears. And so we wanna kind of…we’re always trying new stuff, we’re always trying to improve, and so based on that, we realized it’s probably a good time to start some ways to really engage people. And we’re gonna try a Facebook group, and we’ll start that, and we’ll put a direct link to it in the show notes. So if you’re listening in the car, you can just click on it and ask to join and we’ll approve you in. It’s gonna be a public group, so anyone can come in. There’s no requirements or fees or anything like that. And hopefully, it’s gonna be a place where we can start to interact with listeners directly, and listener to listener, and a bunch of other people we’re going to invite in, and really just start building that community. And we’ll try it out and see if it works. We don’t know if people will engage, but we’ve a pretty good hunch they might. So that’s where we’re gonna start. Alison: Well, I think we’re also anxious to learn more from the listeners. To really understand who it is that’s interested in what we’re doing, and encouraged by this movement, I know that we are. To see there have been so many listens, I think, really gives us continued momentum to move this forward, and to create a community, and start those conversations because this is an important issue that a lot of us care about. So the more we can engage together, I think might be better. Tim: Yeah, I think it’s gonna be really important for us because when we started this podcast in February, we really didn’t know who was gonna listen, if anyone was gonna listen, and so we crafted episodes around what we thought people would wanna hear. And so now we’re sort of in a phase where we want to invite more feedback, we want to know what you want to know about, and what we can provide, and so even in our own planning for future episodes, I think this Facebook group’s gonna be really valuable. And inviting everyone in, so hopefully you guys can come on in, check it out. Alison: Great. Tim: So, you ready to reflect a little bit today? Alison: Yeah, in fact, we’re gonna see reflecting, reflecting on the podcast and how that’s gone this past six months, a little bit more about reflection, summer time, good time to reflect. Tim: Yeah, we’re recording this towards the middle of August and we’re already thinking about our next crew of students that are coming in, and we’re also…well, you’ve also gone through a full 12-month cycle of this nuttiness. So now, you’re now to the point where you’re gonna be doing things for the second time. And so nothing will be new to you and we thought this was a good moment to crack that experience open and have you talk a little bit about what it’s been like, and what you’ve learned, and what you’ve discovered, and just any thoughts you have on it. Alison: No, that’s hopeful. And I have a hunch, knowing you and Doris, that there will be plenty of new things that come up that I will have to learn. This is a continual learning experience. But it’s great to spend the time, I think, reflecting and thinking back through the year. And I’ve done a bit of journaling myself this summer and had some conversations with good friends, to recognize the amount of growth I’ve had on a personal and professional level, that has been so intense. I mean, it really has felt in a lot of ways like it’s been 10 years that I’ve been working with you guys, because of the amount of growth and intensity at which I was learning this year. Really thinking about where I came from, that I wasn’t in the education system as a teacher prior to working with you guys this year. I had a lot to learn, in general, about schools. Tim: And you really didn’t wanna be a teacher, either, right? Alison: Fair. Great point. There was a little bit of convincing that happened to get me into this team. But to be honest, it’s been a hell of a year. I’ve learned so much. With regards to what I had been doing previously, where I was working with entrepreneurs in Latin America, in the Caribbean, and really thoughtful about how we were helping to scale their work, and to provide access to resources that they didn’t have. Whether that was Mayan women who were selling water filters, solar lamps, and eye glasses, in rural areas of Guatemala, or if that was working to build more sustainable and scalable models for entrepreneurs in agribusinesses or tech businesses in Jamaica. And I continued to do that work, then when I came home and was really recognizing the value of immersing people in the entrepreneurial experience of bringing ideas into reality, really how empowering that can be for someone to recognize the skills they have, the strengths they have to add value to the world around them, and had been doing these one-off workshops for girls in high school and college whether that was a weekend workshop, summer camp, that kind of a model. And given my own experience, I mean, in college I had studied entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship specifically, and I had been on a team of students that cofounded a social enterprise, and had my own kind of immersion into this work as a student, and then given the experiences I had…I felt like I was creating experiences in these workshops that I had when I was running my own business, that were great for women and girls to really learn more about themselves and how they could create value in the world and make an impact somewhere. But given where I am today, to look back at this past year and recognize how much deeper I’ve gotten in that work because of the guidance I’ve had here, really under Doris’s mentorship which allowed me to really understand how to create transformational learning environments for the next generation, in very specific ways. There was a lot of nuance in there that…I mean, as I was running my own, one-woman startup, I didn’t have the opportunity to go so deep, when I was also trying to manage the other sides of the work. But to have the opportunity here where…I was obviously interested in learning, but to have a team of people, you and Doris also focused on my growth and so intently, every day helping me get deeper into it, where there was conversations of reflections, how could we have done this differently? Or you spending the time to really sit down and talk me through the craziness of grading a class like this, or grading in general, and all of the elements that allowed me to start to understand how to do this in a different way that was really rich, that was really meaningful for students. And it was during their school day too, which was different from what I had been doing before. So, from a high-level, the amount of growth I was able to go through to deepen my practice and knowing that my bigger mission in life really, I feel is to continually shape this next generation of change makers to go out there and solve problems in the world. And that…I think I joked with you and Doris in the past about feeling like I’m gaining a master’s right now in this Korda methodology that she developed over 20 years of her academic career. And has allowed me to develop more strategies and practices, that really move a needle for a lot of our students and that’s wild to watch. Tim: Well, that’s an interesting idea that I wanna ask you a little more about because I think the common perception from people from the outside is that, well, you just kinda throw the problem in the room, and then you walk away and see what the kids do, and then you come back later. And it’s sort of, a really hands off approach… Alison: Not at all. Tim: Not at all, right? So can you talk about that then? Alison: Sure. That’s a great point you make. Because the work we do is highly experiential. It is intended that the students are the ones navigating that experience, that it’s immersive. They’re the ones that are in it. But that’s not to say we as the facilitators, teachers, instructors, guide, whatever word you wanna use, doesn’t mean that we then sit casually by the side and just allow that to happen in a siloed environment. It requires a lot of work and a lot of prep. And at kind of a granular level, what that breaks down to, is, for example, the assignments, the timing which the assignments happen and how much time Doris spent with me to really train-up on the depth of content that these students need to get into when they’re solving a challenge isn’t, “Hey, you know, we did this last semester. Let’s just find her a lesson plan and throw that into the classroom, and see how it works this semester.” Because of the way this course is designed, and we have different challenges every three weeks really, for the students, but they’re also very different challenges than they were from the previous semester, there really isn’t the opportunity to completely replicate the same assignments over and over again. Which I love actually, because it’s very dynamic, and as a learner myself, it requires me to be equally engaged in the challenges students are working on. So for example, if they’re working on the dental insurance challenge, I had to get my head deep into that work to really understand, okay, where are the gaps in the access to dental insurance market? And what does it mean that the current data points which people have on their dental health aren’t sufficient enough? And what does it mean for consumer behavior, when we’re trying to integrate new products and services into their day to day lives? How do we have those behavioral shifts happen? What is the psychology behind that? I had to do a lot of that work. Not because I’m…well, really, because I’m not an expert in everything we do, right? And that’s the truth of this model, that you cannot be an expert in everything. It’s not expected that you are, and to be able to get up there with the students and say, “Hey, we’re learning this alongside of each other.” Because they really believe in those early days that we know the answers to these challenges, which makes me laugh. But the truth of it is, we are right there with them. The CEO doesn’t know the answer, we surely don’t. And to be able to work towards the solution required a lot of effort. So as we’re doing the assignments, figuring out how we would navigate those problems, and setting up real meaningful challenges each night for them to really dive into meaty reports, and have to come back and work with their teammates to go over what they pulled out of that assignment, the way that they collaborate, learning how to best facilitate that as a teacher has been another big learning. It’s interesting that in a lot of school, there’s groups projects that happen, but to be able to create an environment where we watch these students leverage each other’s strengths and really balance each other out so that they are able to cover as much ground as necessary for these challenges. Again, they only have three weeks. So they have to do a lot of work, and it’s not, “Hey, three people are gonna slack off, like group work generally happens, and one person’s gonna carry the whole team” because these challenges are too complex for them to do that. And they need everyone on their team to divide and conquer in order to cover the ground necessary to create some sort of solution to present to that CEO in three weeks. And they know that because it’s real. And there’s something on the line for them to really show up and do the work. But that doesn’t just happen. Again, there’s this whole curriculum that Doris has created behind collaboration, and how we’re creating those environments for the students. How they’re able to give each other peer feedback, what the setup for that even looks like. How we give them individual feedback to help them reflect on their team. What the dynamics are and ways that they can…you know, strategies, I think about that all the time, you and I going into different team meetings where we had to think through with one of the team members, what are the strategies for that team member who maybe hasn’t been pulling their weight, or needs more guidance or more direction? What are ways you are able to do that? Having real informed practices around that where as a teacher, I’m learning better ways to help students collaborate, which is such an important skill for our world. That matters. Tim: And I think too, it’s also the system is scaffolded. So you can’t…it’s a system, but it’s a system that builds on itself as well. So the way Doris has designed it is that the collaboration strategies and skills that they’re learning for Business One, is then built upon and reinforced and evolves by biz-three. So even in the same pedagogical realm, of say, collaboration, that changes over time. Would that be an accurate assessment as well? Alison: That’s a great point. Absolutely. And that’s what I love about, again, this opportunity to deepen my practice because throughout the semester. And the same way that the students have three, four, opportunities to test out different models, different solutions, in different business contexts, with different CEOs and different challenges, I also have three to four opportunities to go deep with my practice and learning, “Okay, that teaming situation didn’t work so well in the first business setup. Let me try it again in biz two and figure out a different way to approach that.” So that that team can be more productive or they can better navigate the challenges that always come up when you’re collaborating with people. So that’s, again, that’s sort of the brilliance of the model and having many reps built in not only from a learning perspective but from a teaching perspective. And I think that gets back to this whole kind of Korda method, as I’m so calling it now. That really is a model for not only learning but teaching. There is so much here, there’s a lot of systems around the assessments and the teaming and the assignments and the reflections and the best ways to set this type of learning up so that the students can go deeper and really learn these skills, and that, I, as an educator of this next generation have the skills myself to do this in a meaningful way. And I’ve really just appreciated so much, that I’ve gained skills while trying to help more students gain skills. That’s a really nice opportunity. Tim: It’s a bit of a hypothetical and maybe an unfair question, but, if you didn’t have these systems in place, knowing what you know now after the first year, what do you think would have been really difficult for you in teaching this way if you hadn’t had that structure and guidance? Alison: That’s a great question. I would have to say, I feel like the student work would have been more shallow. There was moments many times over the past year where I had only so much experience to get them to a certain level of depth, and Doris would come in and just in a masterful way, she would nail in these questions…she just has a sense of asking questions. That’s something else I’ve been learning a lot. I’ve had to write down, the ways to set up questions that leave room for them to still be creative, but narrow them in on areas that they’re overlooking. It’s a real nuance the way she does that, that I’ve been so grateful to be around because I think it just takes practice and exposure to that work in order to get deeper in that space. But being able to help the students go deeper into their research and recognize, “Wow, we’re stuck trying to design this solution for LumiLor,” the company that had the electroluminescent paint where they were supposed to be identifying new market opportunities that might be interested in this work. And that one of the teams was looking into amusement parks, because they had found some interesting things around lights there and how they could leverage this paint technology to reduce their light costs, but also do some innovative things. But they were stuck, they were really stuck, for about into week two. They had been tapping on Doris, trying to get some more interviews, they had really been going through different online research, and reading books, and all of this. But they reached their wall. And this happens, I think, with students where in a traditional classroom, they’re asked to come up with, generally, one answer. And they’ll go out and they’ll find that answer, and they’ll bring it back, serve it up and feel like they’re finished. And when we push them to go further, I feel like their brains start to melt out of their ears, and they look at us and like, “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do” because they’re not pushed to go further. And when they really sit there with us and we say, “Are you comfortable just providing that amount of research with a solution that’s somewhat minimal, to the CEO who’s coming back next week? Now, into week three, how comfortable do you feel?” They immediately want to go deeper, and I’ve been grateful to start to learn that strategy of how to get them further into the challenge and the complexity of this work, which really brings in the global system, you know, I mean day to day, in the new circles that we have in the morning where we start to talk about what’s going on broadly in the world and current affairs, and they have to explain why that’s interesting to them. It comes up then, the challenge that they’re focused on, as well, and how it’s relevant to what’s happening in the real world. And once they start to make those connections it’s really powerful, the depth they go to. So much so that I think the CEOs often tell us this is deeper work than some of their team members have done, and that they’re pretty impressed a bunch of high schoolers could produce this level of work. I am, from my own experience watching people in undergrad, as well as graduate level programs, they are not doing this level of work. I remember when I first came in before starting with you all, wo watch a few of the presentations, I was blown away. And I thought, “There’s gotta be some magic behind this, how do they get these young people to do this work?” And that’s definitely been something I’m grateful, there’s some actual systems to learn from. Tim: Awesome. So as you’re heading into year two, last, as we wrap up, what’s top of mind for you right now, and coming into year two? Alison: That’s a great question. I’m constantly anxious to continue to learn more, but also create even richer, more meaningful experiences for the students. So looking into the practice and some of the new things I might wanna try this year and as a team, some possible new things we want to develop and test out, pilots, see how they go. I appreciate that there’s room on this team for experimentation and for a bit of failure too, that feels really refreshing. That in this space, the type of work we’re doing requires us to push the limit, take risks, and be present for these students, and meet them where they are, so that we can really prepare them for what they need to do in the world. Tim: That’s really exciting. So, we’ll bring it full circle and just remind people that if you’re thinking, “Wow, I wish I had a Doris Korda at my school and I don’t.” We’re gonna be in the Facebook group. So if you have those sort of questions, or you’re struggling with how to do something. Alison: How to go deeper, into the practice. Tim: How to go deeper, yeah, whether it’s something tactical or strategical or emotional or even if it’s behavioral. You know, we’re talking about kids here. Join us in the Facebook group and then we’ll get that conversation started. Alison: Great.

In this episode, Doris talks with Renee Bischoff, Director of College Counseling at the Hawken School. Renee shares insights on the impact the entrepreneurship program has had on students, including their personal and academic growth as well as their readiness for college. Renee: Well, I generally get students in my office space sometime in the beginning to the middle of their junior year and typically, those are kids who are under confident about life at that point because…what? They’re 16 years old and they don’t really know what they want to do. So when they are enrolling in your program, you know, that’s the, sort of, space they go into and one of the things that’s been terrific for me about your program is it’s academic but it’s incredibly, incredibly developmental and I can give you a couple of personal examples of kids. So there’s a kid, Chase, who was a little lower on the academic end and decided to sign up for your program because the subject really interested him and he also thought that it seemed like a program that might stretch him a little bit. Because of our school’s intensive program, he already knew that learning in a format where he was going to be in the same space for a long time was something he liked. So I think he, sort of, viewed your program as super intensive. So he, kind of, jumped into that and in some ways, he’s a risky kid because he’s like “Well, what do I have to lose? My grades are not fabulous anyway. Like, this program, what’s it going to do?” And I think what he really discovered in the program is that he had more skills and talents than he thought he did. So Chase is a kid who would’ve described himself as not being very strong quantitatively and in fact, his transcript shows that. But what he ended up doing in Entrepreneurship was a lot more research and quantitative analysis on businesses and he actually discovered that math has a real purpose and the other thing that he brought to the table was he was a little bit of a clown, a little bit of an…I would describe him as a little untethered when I first met him, and disorganized. What Entre did for him partly through the leadership of the teachers in the class but more through his peers was an ability to really think about “What do I want to get done? How am I going to organize my time? And what does it mean to be respectful of others? And why does it even matter?” So when he got up to give a presentation, you could literally see all of these skills coming together in one place and I remember the first time I saw him present and he stopped, it was at the end of the presentation. It was like one of those people who went on stage and didn’t really remember what happened. And I remember thinking “There it is. This is who this kid really is.” And that, to me, has been the moment for many, many kids in this program is I know it’s going to happen. The kid doesn’t quite know it will but I do and I think you do is at one point I’m like “There it is. That kid just showed up.” So another example is a kid named Greg who did not…again, school has not always been his great space but presented last spring on a product that was designed to help cancer patients. And it was really a care program and his interest in this was helping spouses, men typically, of women who are going through treatment. And the empathy that he showed in the presentation, the thoughtfulness and care…when he got done with the presentation and he got off the stage, I walked to him and I said “Sorry, now I know who you are. And the reality for you is you’ve got to show up every day just like that because now you know who you are.” And what that’s transformed in for Chase and for Greg has been increased academic confidence outside of Entre so their other classes…their grades are getting better. But I would even go farther than that and say that these are young men, and I can give you examples of young women, who understand what they want to learn. So when Chase went off to look at colleges, he just finished his college process. He wasn’t thinking about “Am I going to be so lucky to get in?” He actually was looking at it as “Which school is going to be the best place for me?” And quite honestly, as a college counselor, that is, like, my dream, to have a kid who could do that. And in Chase’s case, again, not a GPA that I think most people would be excited about in the college process. He upsold himself by being able to talk about his academic transformation and his personal transformation as a learner. And in all of the years I’ve done college admissions and college counseling, the authenticity of a young person who wants to learn is what makes an admission officer believe. And at the end of the day, even there’s numbers and metrics. It’s a human process and what Chase learned through this is he’s a human being with value in the process and so I think his agency, as he goes forward in college and in life, is going to be about “What am I responsible for?” In a way that’s confident. Doris: Yeah, one of the things…I was with a student very recently and one of the things he said was that in classes before Entre he was always struck by what he wasn’t good at and when he got into Entre he started discovering where he was strong and he had avenues for that. And then he also found in the process, like you said, things that he could do that he…turns out he’s very analytical and very strong quantitatively. He just didn’t know that before. Yeah, what about the students who are more driven in traditional academics? The kind of students who come in and have been, you know, performing well on tests, taking the high classes, etc. Renee: Well, I think for those students, the entrepreneurship program, first of all, I want to say, is incredibly rigorous. So I think my view on this has always been the case that Advancement Placement doesn’t necessarily make the class a better class. I mean, the College Board puts that label on classes and says they’re hirable but that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn just as much, if not more, in another class. The College Board doesn’t have the whole line on rigor. So I think for some kids, they come into the program maybe thinking it’s not going to be as rigorous, but they quickly find out it is. I think what’s interesting about it for kids who are structured and I would say are…these are the kids who are fixated on GPA, is that quickly gets put aside. Because one of the things these kids are really focused on and worried about is their work and how they work in groups and that’s my favorite part of the Entre program is everybody’s personality gets thrown in and they all have to learn how to deal with each other. And if there’s anything I’ve learned about high achieving kids is they do appreciate and crave a dose of reality. So I can give you an example of Laura, who was a pretty high achieving, GPA protective, kind of kid. Always wanted to know what was going to be on the test. Was, “What was my grade? What was my grade? What was my grade?” and finally, in this program, got called out by her own peers like “Cut it out. We have work to do. Like, just let it go.” And I think the Entre program provides a real space for kids to have those conversations with each other and at one point I remember talking to Laura about this and she said “I’m just so worried I’m not going to get a good grade. It’s so important for college.” And her friends were around her and said, “Well, of course you’re going to be fine, because if you do great work, the work of your team will support you and then the grade just happens. It’s not about you getting a grade. It’s about you working and having some sort of assessment that reflects your work and real commitment to the program.” And once she understood that, her work got better. You know, it’s almost like you have to take grades off. So I love those kids going into the program because I feel like they’re finally going to go to college and not be so stressed out. I mean, there’s a real mental health problem going on with college kids these days and it’s because kids are so tightly wound and I feel like Entre allows this space for them to…It’s crazy because they actually work harder in the Entre program than they do in any AP class. They always tell us that. Like, “I’ve never worked so hard in my whole life and I’ve never loved anything so much, but I never also was in the space where nobody wanted to talk about the grade.” And I think that’s a really important space for kids and they also learn that just because they get As, it doesn’t mean they’re the best. Doris: Yeah, I think… Renee: And that is important for them. Doris: Yeah, I think so. I think one of the things that very quickly changes things for those kids is when they realize they’re working on real problems. They’re working on real things, problems that haven’t been answered yet. Do the students ever talk to you about that? About the difference in terms of the work itself? Renee: I mean, so I always feel terribly for the kids who do Entre early and then have to go back to regular school, because they had a chance to work with amazing companies and amazing mentors and then at the end of the program where they get to design their own organization. To have to go back to school and just learn Latin, where they don’t… you know, again, not that they don’t care about it. They do care about it, but I think they see a real purpose in what they’ve learned. What I appreciate about it is then we start to talk about colleges and we start to think about programs. And one of the misconceptions about the Entrepreneurship program is that every kid who goes into it is a business person. That’s 100% true. I mean, there are plenty of kids who go into it thinking “Oh, I really would like to have a career. I like this idea of working in the business world, but plenty of kids who come out of Entre thinking more about what it’s like to learn and what it’s like to work in organizations and I think, from the college end, what I hear from them is “Boy, these kids out of this program are terrific leaders. I want this kid to be an orientation leader. I think this kid will be a great resident assistant. I think this kid would be amazing at our experiential learning program internships.” And what I think…I had a funny commentary from a girl, Dana, who went out and visited colleges this spring and she critiqued the presentations and she said “Ms. Korda would not like any of these presentations. These presentations are not up to standard.” And this is a young woman who I thought would be terrified of looking at colleges, and in fact, she is looking to find the college that will be the best place for her. She’s evaluating them, not them evaluating her. So I think it puts kids into a space as designers of their own future. Doris: I love that. I think that with a lot of the students that we’ve had, coming into the program their view of themselves is narrowly defined by very specific metrics. “What is my GPA? How well do I do on tests? Am I good at memorizing? Do I get the math problems quickly like the guy sitting next to me?” And when they get a chance to work on real things that they care about, that are really hard actually, much more difficult because they’re real and not yet solved. I think they do start, in a bizarre way, to relax about themselves. Renee: Yeah. Doris: Maybe that’s not the right word but the way you’re describing it, that’s… Renee: Well, and this is the other thing. I mean, I almost feel like you could title this podcast, you know, something like, “What does Hot Chicken Takeover have to do with life anyway?” Doris: I think that’s awesome. Renee: When you hear kids talk about Hot Chicken Takeover…I mean, first of all, best company name ever, but also a really fascinating…That’s, sort of, a microcosm for what this course is trying to teach kids. What’s the misconception? How do we break those myths down? And then how do we add value? And I mean, that’s a company with a really thoughtful, purposeful mission, with a real problem. Doris: Yeah. Renee: Not, like, a problem like a bad thing but a problem like an opportunity and a way to think about…the trajectory of that company is, kind of, like the trajectory of our kids. How do you do something with meaning that provides value? But I remember when a group of kids came back from that thing and said “Yeah, we’re working for Hot Chicken Takeover.” And I said “Are you going to school?” And they’re like “Oh, we’re doing more than that.” I mean, when kids can come and…or Choolah, you know, the idea that they were going to be on the forefront of a company’s evolution, or the Sauerkraut Company. I mean, you know, we can go on and on about the examples. These kids are going to go off to college and say “Yeah, we worked for the sauerkraut company.” And their peers are going to say “What?” Doris: Right, right, and actually learn statistics and big data as a result of that. Renee: Well, and the fact is what does sauerkraut have to do with biomedical engineering? In fact, it has everything to do with biomedical engineering because you can’t learn how to do that if you…I mean, so I think this is, sort of, an interesting way to think about that and again, you do have to have fundamentals. I think part of the issue on the college side at first with Entre was they were worried that this program was just a soft program without hard skills. And our kids…I mean, I didn’t have to worry very long about that, because you give a kid 15 minutes with a college admission officer and that college admission officer is walking out saying, “We don’t have a program at our college like this.” And so I think we’ve seen in the past few years a lot of high schools have programs like Entrepreneurship, colleges have programs like Entrepreneurship or they’re adding them. I think the question is how do you do your Entrepreneurship. Doris: Yeah, yeah. It’s like a lot of other things. It’s how you do it, right? Yeah, they…right, you mentioned the sauerkraut company. They had to learn a lot of science. Renee: I mean, seriously, I hear sauerkraut and all I can think of is kielbasa and then I’m out because I just…yeah. Doris: Yeah, no. It’s really something. When you think about…you brought up a student…you brought up that colleges…students have been telling us that many of them send their portfolios in from this class and that you, then, have conversations sometimes, I think, with the admissions officers from colleges. And do you see increasingly colleges looking for students with these kinds of skills? Renee: Yeah, absolutely. There’s a young woman, Christie, who produced this amazing portfolio and presentation for a food distribution…I’m trying to remember what the name of that company was but they…Do you remember? Doris: The CCLK? Renee: Yeah. Doris: Yeah. Cleveland Culinary Launch Kitchen. Renee: Right, so she produced this amazing presentation and when we were going through her college list I said “You know, I feel like if we don’t send this portfolio in, we’re missing who you…this school is not going to understand who you are.” And unfortunately, sometimes on the application there’s not a space for that. So we made a plan to get her in contact with college admissions folks and she sent a link and wrote a really lovely message saying, “This isn’t going to take 15 years of your life. It’s going to take, like, five minutes. And if you would look at this you will have an understanding of what I’m doing in the class and why I think the program at your school is a good fit for me.” And she got a lot of positive feedback from that. And I think, in some ways, if you can get the colleges to take five minutes to see something that a kid has really produced versus something that’s been manufactured. I think a lot of essays can be manufactured. They were able to put her academic profile more into context. So for example, there are smart kids, right, with good grades, good scores but then there are kids who are intellectually curious, adventurous and kids who are willing to dive in and engage below a superficial level. By her sending her profile…and sometimes it’s even listening to things like podcasts when the kids are reflecting on their journey. Those are pieces that the colleges find to be real. The issue right now is they feel like kids are too packaged and Entre takes all of that away. They can’t help but be authentically who they are. Doris: Yeah, I think I used the word democratizing, that this kind of education’s democratizing. I was talking yesterday with one of our attendees who’s working with low income students in a public school in a community where they’ve really been hit by hard times. And she was talking about how this kind of education, this kind of program is going to give these kids a chance as they leave high school to compete in college and beyond. I guess the question I would ask whether it’s an independent school, public school, whatever, the kind of program we’re talking about where students learn these kinds of skills. You’ve been in schools for quite a while. Why is this important now? Renee: Well, I think it’s more important than ever and particularly now because when students come to school, it’s time and it’s money and there’s a real search for value. So when the market crashed, you know, parents became very nervous about the value of the child’s education and I don’t quite understand why costs continue to go up. They do, and so we need to develop the ability in young people to take advantage of opportunities when they’re presented. I had a British parent who said to me “American college just seems like four years of expensive daycare.” And I think from his perspective and the way he thinks about the system, I think that’s kind of right. We need our kids to not approach college that way. And so for somebody coming from a school system like the one you described, this mentor wants her young men and women to be able to get to college and know how to find the academic advisor and know how to get the resources and support. And this program gives kids confidence to do that. I think that’s a really important skill. We hear stories all the time about colleges who have parents who call up to complain about grades. I heard a story recently about a mother who went to a job interview with her college graduate son. And the reality is that system is not going to work and the kids who will actually be successful are the kids who can show that they can manage things. Not perfectly, I mean, these kids don’t come out fully formed. I mean, they’re still messy, they’re teenagers. But I do think that their skills and their ability to interact in the adult world is incredibly important. So I think that’s the real thing is their transition into the next world is going to be much easier because they know how to manage some of those conversations that… I mean, do you remember when we were little kids people would have to answer the phone? There was a way you had to answer the phone. Doris: Sure. Renee: Kids aren’t on the phone anymore. In Entre, kids have to go and talk to the CFO. Doris: And the man on the street and the woman on the street. Renee: Do you remember a student who, a couple of years ago, emailed the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic because he was working on a project and was totally surprised to get a reply back from Toby Cosgrove saying “Yeah.” And if I had known that that kid had the ability to even do that and then have a follow up conversation…I mean, to me, that’s really another hallmark of this program is giving kids the confidence to do something like that. Doris: Well, thanks for everything Renee and you do amazing work and it’s exciting to see the progression of education not only at Hawken but, you know, there are lots and lots of schools now doing this kind of thing. Renee: Yeah, I think it’s amazing.

In this episode, Doris and Alison examine the growth of the entrepreneurship education movement and how that has changed both the needs of educators seeking training and Doris’s approach to training them. Alison: So I was curious, now that I’ve been involved in this work for about a year, if we could talk a bit about where you feel entrepreneurship education in the K12 space really is at this point. Doris: Yeah, it crazy how quickly it is changing and how much it’s changed from year to year, literally from the time I started this five years ago versus even in the past year. When I first started researching this entrepreneurship education, I really did not find much at all anywhere that was an academic program called “Entrepreneurship” that was consistent with how I viewed entrepreneurship. In the K12 space, and even undergrad, any time I saw the label entrepreneurship and I got all excited, what I would find is either what Steve Blank calls “Lemonade Stand” versus “How to Build a Lemonade Stand.” Your grandmother has a great cookie recipe, can you, you know, scale that? Or you know, in undergrad and even graduate programs, a lot of spray-painted MBA classes, where they’re using case studies, or they’re, you know… Alison: Writing a business plan. Doris: How to write a business plan or a business plan competition, etc. And there’s still a lot of both of those, frankly, a lot. Alison: Absolutely. Doris: But I found early on, the only place I found something that really was exciting to me as consistent with my view, really that’s how I came across Steve Blank to begin with, was because of the class he was teaching at Berkeley, and then later, Stanford and etc. Alison: And why was that of interest? Why was that consistent? Doris: Because, so you know this, the way I define entrepreneurship is turning ideas into successful realities, and that’s not limited to business. It’s certainly not limited to small business, and it’s really about problem-solving and how to approach in this crazy, chaotic, data-filled world. The challenges that we face, whether they’re social problems, business problems, consumer…whatever they are. And so it’s a great vehicle, entrepreneurship, for real academic learning. Knowledge, skills, habits of mine, all that stuff. And I’m happy to say that I’m seeing many, many, many more programs now that really define entrepreneurship, view entrepreneurship in that way. Aren’t you? Like even this last workshop, we didn’t have to talk about what entrepreneurship education is and why it is relevant to academics. A year ago at the workshop, I had to talk about it. Alison: Absolutely. I think it is interesting that, I don’t know if it’s the state of our world or the state of education as well, but the conversation around the need for skills and how critical it is for preparing the next generation to really go out there and understand how to solve problems in a complex world where they have to navigate through a lot of information that…you know, the issue is certainly not that they need to have things memorized anymore. Like you say, now that technology has shifted the game entirely, they have to now understand how to access information, the right kinds of information, and how to synthesize that in order to find solutions. And the encouraging thing, certainly, seeing a lot of these educators coming to these workshops, is that they are so eager to understand how to build these skills. And I understand that maybe not everyone in all the school systems are there yet, but it’s very encouraging that a lot understand the value of skills in addition to actual knowledge that needs to be given, really, to these students. Doris: Yeah, I think that everybody’s pretty much heard now the call for the development of skills in our students and our young people in our workforce. And the big question’s been, well, how do you develop those? And you know, that’s what we’re trying to do here, and that’s what, fortunately, I’m excited a lot of people are now trying to do and doing in different ways. We talked, you and I, to a woman yesterday who is a scientist and has a very, very impressive resume when it comes o academic credentials in science. And she quit her job a year ago to do a startup full-time. And she said on our call that she has learned more about science in being an entrepreneur than she ever did in school. And I thought that, given her credentials, that anybody would look at and say, “Wow, look where she got her PhD from. Look where she got her Masters from.” Anybody would find that a really remarkable statement. But I get it, you know? I get it. Alison: Well, I think it speaks to the fact that entrepreneurship is really interdisciplinary. The work of entrepreneurs requires you to pull from multiple disciplines, find those interconnections, look at the world creatively, pull from different sources in order to create solutions. And we can’t imagine that our students in our course or anyone experiencing a problem-solving course like this, could ever go out into the world and not understand how you utilize science, math, statistics, aspects of the humanities, all of these elements that we’ve siloed for years in the education system. Capturing all those together to really create solutions, I mean, it’s really exciting to see. Doris: Yeah, and we’re working with educators, we’re working with schools, we’re working with some who are creating entrepreneurship programs, but we’re also working with math teachers and science teachers and history teachers. And you know, I talk about mapping out the learning terrain. So you could teach an entrepreneurship class and choose problems for the students to solve that really are not rich with academic learning and challenge. Alison: True. Doris: You could. You could pick really simple, but what we’re developing here are ways to create academic learning experiences for students where they are learning, as you said. They’re learning science, and they’re learning communications, including writing. And they’re learning analytical skills and quantitative analysis, qualitative. They’re learning these things because we give them problems that will require them in order to solve them well. They’ll have to learn these things. Alison: Well, even this past semester is an example. The students were working with an electroluminescent paint company that had a really interesting technology. And when the entrepreneurs came in to explain their business and explain the technology to the students, they pulled me aside after, the students, and said, “You know, this morning we were sitting in physics class, and we were completely lost when they were talking about the ohms and the hertz and this and that.” And they said, “But we just sat through this afternoon with the entrepreneurs and all of a sudden understood why this matters, where it fits in in the world.” And for them to connect and actually have to apply the learning that can come from a textbook or from the Internet, wherever they find the content, but they have to apply that and do something with that. It’s foreign, it’s very new for a lot of these students, where they are initially thinking, “Wow, I know they’re asking me what to do with the information now that I have it.” And it’s a cool space to watch them transition and realize they have the power to take information and use that to create a solution to something. Doris: It’s interesting. As I listen to you talk, I’m thinking about the fact that as an adult…I’m 57 years old, and I did well in traditional school. But it was when I got out into…I worked for Bell Labs at one point, and when I was in Bell Labs working on something I cared about, I learned some really heavy-duty technical stuff. And I learned it well, because I needed it… Alison: You were using it. Doris: …for what I was doing. Alison: Absolutely. Doris: And what we were really talking about here is that because of technology, because of the Internet, because of the tools that our students and we have access to, we’re bringing that kind of learning to students earlier in their lives. That’s really what this is. And you know, when you have a student…like I’m thinking of one, a student who came in and had never, ever gotten above a C in science class, couldn’t have cared less. Was into sports, told me day 1, “I’m not into school. You need to know that.” Had really mediocre grades, etc., and worked on Health Spot and in three weeks learned more science and came out of it when…you know, you talked to our college counselor, and she said that she sees these students coming out of this program, who come into the program having not done well in traditional classes, and then they come out of the program, and they start doing well in traditional classes. It’s because it’s relevant. It’s because they’ve learned how to learn. Alison: That’s right. Doris: And they understand that it’s relevant. Alison: And they are really recognizing the value, I believe, that they can contribute to the world. I feel like that wasn’t something I learned until later in life. And certainly in college, I got a glimpse of that, but it wasn’t until I hit the workforce that I recognized my own inherent value that I added to the workplace. And for students at a young age when it’s a really formative time for their identity, they’re trying to figure out who they are, they’re in high school…we all remember high school and how you feel and all the judgments. And for them to be in a place where they’re able to take creative risks and see themselves in a different light where they all the sudden realize, “Oh, I actually am strong at science when I’m using it in this context,” that they find things out about themselves and who they are as a person, what strengths they have, and how they can contribute to a team. It’s pretty powerful to then watch them step into themselves and realize, “Yeah, I actually do have things to contribute to the world, and there’s a lot of things that need to be solved in the world. Let me step into that.” At 16, 17 years old? Are you kidding? That’s exciting. Doris: Yeah, it is exciting. Two stories that you’re reminding me of. One is we did our first workshop, you know, in the summer of 2014 at Steve’s house, and a woman reached out to me beforehand, who she’s a science teacher at a public middle school in California. And she reached out and wanted to find out what I was gonna be doing at the workshop. And she said, “I’m a science teacher. I’m not teaching entrepreneurship, but it makes me really sad that I can’t get my students excited about science.” And she did all this homework, and she came, somehow, across what we were doing. And she came to the workshop, and coming out of the workshop, she started teaching her 7th and 8th grade science classes using real problems with all the systems that we showed her for instruction and how to use a problem for a unit, and all this other stuff. And her students don’t all have computers. She doesn’t have the resources at her school, you know, that for example, we do. I spent a lot of time talking to her about how to do this with a different age group, 35 kids in a class. Alison: Public school setting? Doris: Public school setting, the whole bit. And I wish I had it in front of me, the things she wrote about how it totally turned her students on to science. And she did this amazing job of giving her students this discovery of their world and how science plays a part, and their own ability to not only understand it, but to actually love exploring it and to be creative in using it. And that’s not about…you can call it entrepreneurship, and it is, in my definition. But it’s really about how do you make the learning relevant and real and powerful and personal? And then the other thing you reminded me of as you were talking was the conversations we had with several educators in the workshops last week. One in particular, I’ll just use an example, teaching physics. Has a physics class, teaches physics, has content he has to cover in the course of the year, and was struggling with, “Okay, how can I use this in my physics class?” And what I asked him was, “Well, how’s that physics class going?” And he rolled his eyes, and he said, “Well you know, I get these sophomores, and some of them are into it, but a lot of them are kind of bored and disconnected. And I said, “So would you be willing to give up two or three weeks of content real estate at the beginning of the class to have the students work on a real problem that involves physics so that in the first two or three weeks of the course these 14, 15-year-olds realize the relevance of physics to their world? Would that be worth it?” And he said, “Absolutely, because then the rest of the year as I’m teaching them physics, they’ll have it connected to something.” So we’re talking about any discipline, every discipline being connected to the world in ways that are not discrete. Alison: And it’s exciting work. I’m encouraged that entrepreneurship is now being seen in this way in the education space. I am hopeful that will continue in the K12 space, and as well then, as more K12 moves into this work, that the colleges will also continue to get deeper in their offering. Because we do have a big challenge ahead of us as educators in this world. We have to prepare this next generation to go out there and make some change happen. Doris: Yeah, and it’s exciting that there are so many educators in schools working on this stuff now. You asked what’s changed. It’s five years ago, I didn’t see a lot of folks out there to talk to, and now there are tons and tons of them. Alison: Finding some other people that are crazy enough like we are to… Doris: Yeah, crazy like we are, absolutely, absolutely.

In this episode, Alison and Tim reflect on the 2016 Hawken Educators Workshops in both Cleveland and California. They discuss how the needs of the attendees have changed as Entrepreneurship Education continues to expand and evolve. Tim: So we are fresh off of two workshops here in… What was it now, July of 2016? Alison: Yeah. Tim: And the last two of five that we’ve done. Alison: That’s right. Tim: We were kind of sitting here reflecting on what we felt from it, what we heard from it, and thought I’d like to kind of get your thoughts on exactly that. Alison: It’s interesting. I feel like I’m resurfacing after being deeply immersed in these workshops the past few weeks. I think, really my biggest takeaway at this point has been that we really are part of a global movement. That here we are in our school, and I feel like I’ve been in training the past year, so I’ve had my head down. I’ve been pretty amazed with the transformative growth that our students have gone through, and how powerful this is as a vehicle for education. But even beyond that then to recognize how many other educators out there around the world are interested and trying new things, and doing school better, and truly seeking out people who have had some success in programs they’ve developed? That there’s this interest in collaborating and sharing, and building together. I mean, truly, we had people coming from China and Australia, Slovenia, Kazakhstan, a whole range of different countries who are in much different places economically, and even with their education systems and things that they’re facing. Yet, that there’s this demand for stepping into a globalized world that’s a lot more complex with the issues, and being able to prepare our students to go out there and be those global change makers, the people that know how to solve the problems. Or at least understand how to navigate the problems, and find some kind of meaningful solutions. I think it was pretty encouraging. Tim: There was a lot of diversity within the attendee pool, that we weren’t really aware of, at least I wasn’t until I saw the people in the room. It was the geographic diversity that you mentioned, but it was also the differences in both programming and needs that people had. So you had administrators of private schools there to kind of see where this might fit in their school, and then you had sort of co-curricular after-school program managers looking to implement something in four weeks. You had middle school classroom teachers, public, private. It seemed like we had a lot of diversity in many different ways. Alison: Even in subject matter, as well. The interesting piece here was we had a number of teachers who really wanted to test out how you can use real-world problems to solve challenges in their own class, whether it was a science class or a math class, or history, or English. There was a number of different lenses, or disciplines, that people were interested in using still. But by taking this new kind of approach that Doris has built out over 20 years of her career, I mean, this is her life’s work and to be able to share that with people who were eager for a how… You know what I mean? Everybody in the room is pretty aware that education is broken, and they really were there to understand, “How can we try something new to address that?” Tim: You had mentioned that you had some conversations with people that were sort of takeaways for you. Were there any specific ones that you kind of wanted to talk about? Alison: Yeah. Actually, there was a person who mentioned that they were a science teacher and they had been interested in developing something in their course. They were thinking, “Well, maybe I’ll pilot a little something at the beginning just to see how it goes,” and came away saying, “This really was a moment where I recognized it’s okay to try things like this, and that they might not work out and it’s okay to fail. But if I’m able to at least pilot one unit up front in the beginning of my physics class, that it might create more engagement for my students. In fact, the entire year’s worth of physics might be more engaging because of the three-week unit we did up front to explain why this matters to the real world and having them solve a real-world problem using some physics to get there.” So for me, hearing something like that coming away from these two-day workshops, I thought, “This is amazing. Here we are, trying to share what an entrepreneurial mindset can be for the next generating, and equipping our students in a way that they’ve got the mindset, they’ve got the skillset. But if we’re able to also share some of that with educators who are now a little bit more entrepreneurial in the way that they approach their work, or they’re willing to take a creative risk, they’re willing to try something new, they’re embracing failure, I think those are some entrepreneurial characteristics that I’m not sure are always present in the classroom. Tim: An interesting thing about this idea of failure, which is a really common theme in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial education, and there’s a heavy emphasis on failing often and failing fast, and failure is something that’s talked about a lot. I think what’s been lost in that approach is that failure occurs outside of that as well. So for example, as a traditional classroom teacher, you’re going to fail. It’s not like if you don’t do entrepreneurial education you won’t fail. You are still going to fail no matter what you do. It’s in a different way. So this idea of trying things, and failing and learning from them, but doing them in a way that is from a positive approach as opposed to a shameful one. So I have numerous examples from my teaching career, where I was in the classroom doing exactly what I was supposed to in the traditional sense, and came up short. It was more of a shameful thing. It wasn’t a learning opportunity. Alison: For you as a teacher. Tim: For me as a teacher, it was like, “Okay. Hide that.” Alison: Ah. “Don’t talk about it.” Tim: “Don’t talk about it,” and then thinking like, “Well, maybe that’s happening to other teachers. It probably is, but I’m not going to talk about it.” So I think, it’s not an either/or for failure, when we talk about entrepreneurial education. Alison: True. Tim: You’re going to fail either way. It’s like, what are you going to do with it? Alison: Yeah. No, that’s interesting to think about what’s going to resonate with students. I mean, it’s something I’ve had to learn over the years, certainly, where with Doris’ guidance day to day, and your support as well through that process, really thinking through, “Where are the students at in this moment, and how do we reach them?” and that we just have to try things. Sometimes things will stick and other times they don’t, and when they don’t we have to figure out then, “What are we going to do next in order for it to really resonate?” Because the work itself with students working on real problems, there’s that ultimate understanding of why this matters. But their process getting there, even if they’re motivated to find a solution for a real CEO that’s coming back in three weeks that they need to present a solution for, day to day, there’s still a lot of messiness in that process that the students are trying to figure out and that we’re trying to guide them through. Absolutely, some things work and other things fall totally flat, and you thought, “Wow. That wasn’t so successful, but let’s try it again.” I appreciate, as a teacher this first year, that you and Doris have given me such space to fail. I remember, I came in the door and you both said, “Listen. You’ve never really done this before inside of a school. We expect you’re going to fail. We expect that you’re going to screw this up. We’re here to help support you through that so that the class experience isn’t compromised for the students.” I’ve been incredibly grateful for that leadership, because it really felt like it’s been a mentorship kind of relationship. Like I’m an apprentice in some ways, where I can really learn day to day by doing this work, and then reflecting on it after the fact, through conversation with Doris, conversation with you. Or thinking through, “Why was that successful?” or, “Why didn’t that work today? What can we try tomorrow?” And continuing to have this proactive approach that is very creative. Every day feels different, and I think I had a little bit of fear coming in the door that teaching meant standing in front of the room and having a lesson plan prepared. That that was going to feel stale. But this model, again, that Doris has created allows a lot more space for creativity and requires you to be much more invested in the moment to find where the students are and fill their needs. So that you kind of fill the gaps in whatever needs they have so that their learning can happen in a transformative way. That feels really dynamic and exciting from an entrepreneurial perspective, which is more my background. Tim: Something I not only heard, but something I found myself emphasizing even more so in this workshop than previous ones was this idea of being completely honest and transparent with the students, and saying up front, “We’re going to try some things and they’re not all going to work. I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t know the perfect path.” Alison: Yes. Tim: I think it’s a very different way of learning than the system I was taught in, where I just assumed the teacher was the authority. The teacher showed no weakness. In fact, as students, we tried to find that weakness and exploit it, like that was part of the game. Alison: How interesting. Tim: I think, sort of, in listening to people and talking with people at this workshop, not only was there an understanding that you almost have to partner with students. But there was sort of a desire to be more transparent and to show themselves as learners, not just as educators, and that that’s a big component of this type of learning. Alison: Absolutely true. Really, the educators that were a part of our work this year had a lot of interesting goals and learning objectives that they were hoping to achieve through this approach to learning. I’m curious if you felt those were different in any way from years past, or how this group of educators approached things in maybe a different way? Tim: Yeah. It’s an interesting reflection, because this is all happening in such a tight timeframe. Alison: True. Tim: This change is happening so quickly that it’s hard to believe that it was only three years ago that we did this first workshop, and we’ve done five. But it feels a whole lot longer because of some of the changes. One of the things that I was struck by at these last two workshops in 2016, as opposed to the first one in 2014, was sort of the maturity of the movement, which there’s probably a better way to phrase that. But it’s a combination of things. It’s people who no longer debate whether or not school is broken. Like that’s just a given now. It is, and the people who we interacted with at this workshop, it was not even a part of the conversation. We just know it. There also seemed to be more of sort of a tactical and systemized approach to this type of learning. In the first workshop, it was sort of more theoretical like, “Why does this work?” I felt like, at the first one, Doris and I were doing a lot of explaining on sort of all the selling. Not selling in a way to convince people, but like to give them a framework. But it was a real generalized one. It was like these were kind of the raw ingredients, but we didn’t have a recipe. I felt like, in these past two workshops, it’s not a recipe because you can’t just hand someone like an entrepreneurial education curriculum. Alison: A curriculum. Right. Tim: But we now have more experience doing this. We have more experience doing these workshops, and we have specific tactics that we know work. We can now give those to people, and they can implement those things. I think people came into the door this time not only aware of those, but sort of ready and willing to take them and run. It just felt more mature on many levels. Alison: That’s a really great point, actually, because I was talking to Doris a bit about this work, and the systems that are in place here, that overtime have been put in place. I mean, this course is the most highly developed version of the model that she’s put together. That we’re now in a place where we’ve been able to systemize it and understand where those patterns are and, “Here are the key ingredients, and here’s how they flesh out. Here are the assignments that come next, and here are the types of workshops we do in class with the students when they need to understand prototyping, or when they need to do empathy interviews, or whatever it might be.” We can get pretty granular, and I was actually surprised how much of that the educators really wanted. I thought, “Oh, maybe we’re getting too deep.” When we were laying out the plan for the workshop, I thought, “Oh, we’re not going to be able to get through all of this.” But the kinds of questions people were asking were really about the how and the implementation of this work, which made me feel excited that I knew they could take this work directly back to their schools and implement in ways that they’ll adapt to how they fit to their own programming. But that it really was sort of a how-to guide to implement something that is pretty radical by school standards. Tim: The truth of it is this is just what it is, but we are practitioners and we have been developing this program at our school while we’re teaching the class to real students in real-time. It’s not theoretical. It’s not based entirely and only on research. Research is an important component. I’m not minimizing it. Alison: Sure. Tim: But I think to your point of attendees coming into the workshop and looking for tools, they are tools that we have tested and tried, and either succeeded or failed, or both, with real students in a real course, doing real work. Hopefully, that type of experience is valuable. I find myself talking to people and saying the same thing like, “Hopefully, you can steer around the pitfalls that we fell into, because we’ve tried this with real students.” Alison: Right. Tim: “We know some of the things are going to work and some of them won’t.” Alison: Well, I know a number of attendees also appreciated being able to have those conversations with the students that we brought with us, who were able to share from their perspective things that were successful, things that fell short, and bounce ideas off the students as well. That they said, “Here’s what I’m thinking about doing in my middle school, public school class. What are some thoughts you have on that? Can you give me some feedback?” Based on their own experience and what they’ve learned in the course, they were able to give some deeper insight that was helpful to the attendees. So it was pretty cool to watch the numbers of people get behind this kind of approach to learning, and know that we aren’t the only people out there. That there really are a lot of individuals who care about this work and are deeply passionate about finding new ways to implement these types of approaches in their classroom. Tim: It’ll be pretty exciting to see what our takeaways will be a year from now. Alison: True.