changing the culture of schooling.

I spent several hours yesterday and the evening before with A+ Schools Fellows. These are the teachers and trainers that serve schools in implementing an arts first strategy. It is currently supported by Thea Foundation and others, with the idea of turning around schools in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and other states. I was invited to sit in with Arkansas Fellows so that I could learn what they do, how they do it, and so that I would consider either joining or helping in some way to add woodworking to their collection of available arts.

As we watched in a video on Friday night, everything starts with the question, why. Why is the word that contains a world of motivation,  and without the question why, teachers, schools and students are left at ground zero. Without connecting in some way with my student's own wonderings, their interests would wander instead of being applied.

It seems that teachers from way back, like Comenius, Pestalozzi, Froebel and others had wondered about why and how students learn, and then, based on personal observation, had determined that children learn best when doing real things. And yet when it comes to devising schools, instead of student needs, the needs of the administration come first. Education is turned over to middle management and the children suffer. In the meantime, learning is the most innate and natural part of being a human being. We must breathe, we must eat, we must drink, and we must learn. The question then becomes how. And of course that's where the arts come in.

For me,  the why, the impetus to make change in education stems from being told as a young man that my brains were in my hands. That arrested my attention, caused me to reflect, led me to frustration with how children's natural inclinations to learn are frustrated at nearly every turn.

And so, how do we make necessary change? It is a long process, but could be shortened by arriving at a common understanding: 

What we learn hands-on by doing real things engages the heart of the learner. What we've learned hands-on has sticking power that leads directly to growth, for teachers, schools, students, and even administrators.

Tomorrow I will resume a discussion of common tools. Richard Bazeley in Australia sent a photo of a "shaving pony" that clamps to a work bench so that it can be used as a shaving horse and put away when not in use.

Make, fix, create, and increase the likelihood that others learn likewise.