NAIS Annual Conference, Day Two

The theme of this year’s conference is innovation. The opening general session this morning began with an address by NAIS president Pat Bassett that made me feel extremely good about the work that we are doing at TBS. He began by proposing that the work of independent schools is to teach students to be “critical, creative and inventive thinkers”, which ties directly to our school-wide learning outcomes. He then went on to proclaim ten promising innovations in education:

1. adopting backward design and mapping of curriculum around skills, rather than subjects

2. documenting student outcomes via formative assessments and “demonstrations of learning” and digital portfolios

3. connecting appreciative inquiry, the strengths approach, and growth mindset – all subsets of the positivist psychology movement

4. globalizing independent schools

5. stage II greening of schools

6. “STEM and beyond” signature programming – the great differentiator of your program

7. professionalizing the profession – 6 or 7 day schedules to get all teachers with an affinity free on a certain day; different teams (brain based learning, flipped classroom, differentiated instruction)

8. public purpose of private education initiatives

9. online learning consortia for independent school-branded courses

10. teaching and using design thinking

I’ve italicized the five innovations on the list that we are currently utilizing, which I think is a great starting point for TBS given the enormous change pressures that we have experienced in the last five years. I also believe that we’ll be in position to begin pursuing items #6 and #8 above in the next year, in explicit initiatives and programs.

Unfortunately, I was entirely underwhelmed the presentation of the keynote speaker, Bill Gates. His talk was centered on four aspects of technology that he believes can revolution education: reimaging textbooks as interactive, scaling our best teachers via online videos, connecting thru social networks, and personalizing learning. While there are tremendous possibilities in these mechanisms, Bill’s storytelling was flat and lacked humor, his visuals were overly simplified, and he essentially dodged the tough questions during the Q+A. Here’s an example:

Q: What skills do you think will be needed in the future?

A: The basic ability to use the latest software.

After the opening session came the first one-hour workshop period of the day. I selected a workshop titled Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, presented by Helen Landry and Laurie Reider-Lewis. I struggled with buyer’s remorse for the first twenty minutes; though this workshop connected directly to one of my personal PD goals for the year, I was also interested in a workshop on changing school culture, and the initial introduction by the speakers didn’t instill confidence that the conversation would yield substantive growth in my understanding of the concept of mindfulness. It was only when we did the first exercise – a “body scan” – that I was able to slip into a more mindful mode, and thus become content with the structure of the workshop and open myself up to the learning possibilities it could present – for which I was promptly rewarded with several nuggets about using mindfulness with students. Being in this mindful state carried over for the remainder of the day, and had a positive impact on my engagement with the other workshops of the day.

After lunch and conversation with Mohammad, and browsing the exhibit hall, I headed to a workshop on implementing design thinking with students, given by Kim Saxe at Nueva School (CA). In 2007, Nueva partnered with the Design School at Stanford to launch a design lab, giving over 3500 square feet to a design studio. Learning how Nueva implements and teaches design thinking to students, and used it in the development of their own program, was inspirational and exciting. Design thinking is the process that Laurie Schoeffler and I are using to improve our K-5 literacy program this year, and this workshop gave me several good ideas about how to integrate the approach with our ongoing curriculum review as well.

For the final workshop of the day, Mohammad and I went to hear John Medina, author of the book Brain Rules (about whom, and which, I’ve blogged before). I’d read the book earlier this year, so I was a little disappointed by his presentation, as it was a case of “read the book, or go to class, but not both”. He focused on two of the twelve brain rules in his book – exploration and stress – and you can get the basic ideas of these concepts by watching the videos below.

The day closed with a series of social and professional connections featuring a revolving cast. First I met with Nancy Foy, a member of my Fellowship cohort, for a conversation about her upcoming transition to a Head of School position in Richmond, VA. After this I attended a gathering of progressive educators hosted by Peter Berner-Hays, head of The Little School in nearby Bellevue, to discuss marketing and presenting the idea of progressive education in modern culture. Next, I gathered three Bay Area educators – Steve Bileca from Brandeis Hillel, Jon Kohler from Redwood Day School (another Fellowship cohort member), and Damon Allswang from Beacon Day School – for a Mediterranean dinner at Lola’s Restaurant. Finally, I met up with three members of my Aspiring Heads cohort – Andrea Kelly from Packard (NY), Rehki Puri from the School at Columbia University (NY), and Michele Williams from Stevenson (CA) – for drinks and reflective sharing about our learning from the day.