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.

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.

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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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. 

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.

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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.

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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.

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