 All right, it's the top of the hour. So let's begin. Let me welcome everybody. Let me welcome you to the future transform My name is Brian Alexander. I'm your host the cat herder and organizer of this event And I'm delighted to see you all here I'm really looking forward to a conversation with one of my favorite people in the field of education technology Now let me welcome this week's guest I'm delighted to bring will Richard Sinon board will is a fantastic person Among other things. He was the fourth ever guest on the future transform. So it's wonderful to see him back here again He's one of the most powerful People who works I think on the future of education. He's been doing some tremendous work With K through 12 in New Jersey. He started several different enterprises I believe several companies written a stack of books consulting and speaking widely again Just somebody I really really respect. I'm delighted that you can make it here. Hello, Will welcome Thanks, Brian. Thanks for having me. It's it's great to be back and thank you for that great introduction I'm just gonna take the video of that and just Send it out to people because that sounds way more impressive than my reality. Thanks for that. Appreciate it We'll record this and make it available. So don't worry about that I have two questions to ask and we're going to introduce you And and you have such a career that there's so many things. I just want to begin with two very very Gentle ones. The first is where are you today? So I'm at home actually in central, New Jersey where it's about 21 degrees outside. It's pretty cold But yeah, and I just picked up my daughter from the airport So we're having Christmas here this year and I'm really looking forward to that. Well going was that Newark? Yeah, I went to Newark, which was crazed at seven o'clock this morning. She came in on a red-eye from LA But thankfully she wasn't going out Had to be at least a couple hours in line setting you up for kind of Dantean transition from Erno of new work to the hopefully the paradise of yeah the I'm glad that you're home and as is your daughter my second question is looking ahead to 2020 What are the big projects and ideas that you're going to be working on? Well, it's interesting. I think There's obviously a lot of work to be done a lot of conversations to be had I'm actually becoming more and more interested in in doing events like this and Also doing smaller group events around well, we're doing one that I found I think it's really interesting called the big questions Institute. That's kind of where my head is. I'm Filled with many many different questions about where things are headed and It's a it's an attempt to engage people in Asking first of all bigger questions because I think sometimes in our conversations on education We we ask some small questions. We ask a lot of how questions when I think basically we should be moving Into a lot more of the why Obviously, that's not new a lot of people are singing that song but Yeah, and and just trying again to to build people's capacity to engage in this conversation at a I think a higher level with with a greater capacity to understand how things are changing in the world and what that means for us in Education specifically in K through 12, right? And let me just say at the beginning that I can't tell you how much I appreciate your work in terms of helping me Understand the both the challenges and opportunities that are happening in higher ed I think that obviously the two are connected very closely, but yet separate in a lot of ways And so it's a it's such an important context for people to have And it goes the other way too, right? I mean you can't you can't Simply live in the world of higher ed without understanding some of the the challenges and opportunities at K through 12 as well So, you know, I like to say it's a really interesting time There's never been a better time to be a learner, but it's also probably one of the most challenging times ever to be an educator and So that's kind of where we're at and that's gonna be the conversation in 2020. I'm sure Is this the the big questions lab on the on modern learners calm? Yeah, it is and We're putting some new dates together. Hopefully around the country. Maybe in some places internationally as well I I I'm doing them with a good friend of mine. Homa to vanger is Someone who is very much in the conversation around global competencies equity all of those types of Conversations that are much needed in a world that's expanding and being connected at the rate that it is today So I'm learning a lot and that's always the best part of doing that stuff, right? Is that I get to learn as much as hopefully the people that were with that's one of the great secret powers of education? It is. Yeah Let me welcome folks who've just come in like Randall edge is L rock sand George Catherine and Ruben and Jessica and Roberta whole pile of people just came in. Hello, Heidi Good to see all of you Well, that sounds like fantastic work and I would love to learn more about these these events We have So much to talk about and and the theme that that we chose to anchor today's conversation is Changing the stories about education changing stories about school And I'm wondering kid. Can you kick us off? What are some of these stories that you see changing it? And what do they tell us about the future of education and learning? Well, it's interesting right because as many ways as you You can find new stories coming out of classrooms and coming out of some schools I'm not sure that the larger story is changing very much at all I Remember there was a pew report actually I was saying about this the other day I think there was a pew you may have even been a part of it in terms of They interviewed a group of experts educators trying to look into the future and I remember Justin Reich from Harvard Kind of surprised me when he said I think the question was what is education? How how is it going to change 15 20 years down the road and he said he didn't think it was going to change at all 15 or 20 years down the road and I think in a lot of ways he might be right that the Uber narrative that we have the the story that we tell about school is a very very difficult one to change Because so much of our society is dependent on that story, right? I mean structurally The idea that we're you know that the idea that school isn't gonna be compulsory is just something That's just a throwaway. That's not gonna happen anytime soon if ever The idea that you know, they're gonna the kids are gonna go Preciably longer than 180 days or six hours a day So a lot of that stuff is just so woven into our fabric the way that we conduct ourselves at work You know the way that we think about so many of the structures that we have in society are really built around in many cases The way school operates So that big narrative, I'm not sure the the the systems and structures narrative is really gonna change that much But what's interesting is that I think there is a shift in a pretty big shift actually in what the expectations of school are I think there are a lot of people a lot of parents who I've talked to in recent years who are questioning whether or not School as we know it is preparing kids for the world that they're gonna enter I think everyone feels a little more uncertainty and anxiety and and you know looking into the future What it's gonna take for kids to be quote-unquote successful depending on how you define that right and that's another part of the story that we We have to interrogate in terms of you know What is success in moving into the future and how is it different from the success that we've defined in the past? I think it's probably really different So and and there are a lot of people now who are pushing back against some of the pieces of the story that have been In grain for a long long time the one most interesting to me right now is is the pushback against grades I think it's been fascinating to watch Mastery org that group of schools that has gotten together and just said we're not doing this any longer grades are really stupid They don't really measure learning. They don't really give us a sense of whether or not kids will be successful in the future They put a high degree of anxiety and stress on our children And so we're not going to do them anymore and these are very reputable high-flying schools both independent and public who have just taken that on and said we're gonna stop that stupidity and Have become I think are on the cusp of being pretty successful in moving to a competency-based type of approach that You know higher education is gonna is gonna get a totally different type of transcript Without without any numbers on it Just just you know It's an interesting Attempt to reframe the experience of school that kids don't get grades that kids don't get numbers that that colleges don't need numbers that they don't that they that they can actually Evaluate what students can do and and their ability to you know to succeed in college based on on competencies and things like that so That's been really interesting and and I do think that that if that domino fell that a lot of other things might actually Begin to change in terms of how we think about it, you know Well, you know, I mean so the whole idea of subjects is kind of arbitrary that we that we parcel up learning into 90 minutes or 45 minutes for chemistry and then 45 minutes for English and then you know, whatever it is I mean, there are a lot of I call these things the unpleasant truths, right about school that not a lot of people Really want to acknowledge But we do a lot of things that don't make a lot of sense like that doesn't make a lot of sense at the end of the day That's not that's not conducive to learning in the way that we think about learning in our personal lives We would never do that on our own That's a construct that we put into schools that at the end of the day doesn't really serve kids But yet we continue to do it because that's kind of the way the structure is built I think the teaching changes pretty dramatically in a world where if the focus is on projects and if the focus is on You know doing real work for real purposes in schools, which a lot of schools now are beginning to do You know another another change that I've seen and it hasn't been a huge change but a lot of schools are doing genius hour and they are acknowledging that Kids need to have time to pursue things that they of their own choosing they need that agency That that's a good thing for learning that that inspires them that their curiosity is peaked when they do that Go ahead What is genius so genius hour basically is giving kids usually it's an hour a week Although I have seen some schools that are doing in fact I'm gonna visit a school in Australia in a few weeks That's doing it an hour and a half a day where actually kids get to choose projects and they get to Pursue those projects with the help of teachers it so it reframes basically the role of the teacher which is not to Decide what content to be delivered at what time and what you know in what fashion But to support kids to help them answer the questions to develop the skills that they need in the moment that they Need them and so teachers become I guess coaches or consultants whatever however You want to frame that but it changes the role of the teacher in some pretty interesting ways and The just briefly the interesting thing about genius hour whenever I talk to teachers in K2 K12 who are doing it Every one of them raise every single one of them will tell you that it's some of the best learning the kids do It's some of them. They're they're more engaged more excited And so, you know, my kind of throwaway laugh line is if it's so wonderful Then why don't you just have curriculum hour and make the rest of it genius, right? Because it would seem that would be a better environment for learning but So yeah, I mean, I do think that there are some some pressures that are beginning to bear on this You know eight to three You know, whatever it is six and a half hours a day six different classes, you know GPA valedictorian all that kind of stuff I think a lot of those things are now people are beginning to look at them and hold them up and say Is this really the experience that we want kids to have in Order to to try to best prepare them for a world that is not very You know, it doesn't seem at least to be very consistent or not consistent, but predictable, let's say or less predictable And You know, certainly again just going back to your blog I mean, you could riff off the last five things that you've been talking about in terms of, you know Numbers in higher ed are declining even I found it so fascinating that That post you wrote a couple days ago about how people feel about higher education, you know that that with I guess It's generation Z. There's like a 30-point drop in six years of people who say that higher ed is very important And I think that's trickling down. I think that that's becoming a Part of how parents are beginning to think about the futures of their kids Not at scale yet, and there's still a lot of work to be done in terms of again engaging people in that conversation but I'm finding it a little bit more interesting these days in terms of how people are thinking and talking about what they Want to pursue in the future So we seem to be in the cost of all kinds of changes Potentials Let me bring up another Another participant to ask a question about this Let me bring up Tom Hames from Texas Who had a great question and I wanted to if you're new by the way to the forum This is just how easy it is to bring some up on stage for video You might not be as cool looking as Tom But on the other hand you might have a beard so that might more Tom you had a question about different nations and Just kind of practice. Yeah, so yeah And just so I have a sophomore in college right now who I was just on the phone Kind of help him come up with some thesis statements for a couple of essays that he's got a right And then I also just for full disclosure have a 22 year old daughter Who is pretty much self-sufficient in Los Angeles with no college degree? So there you go, right? So I'm talking about different stories. I mean, I'm living different stories too in terms of my kids So It's it's in terms of the international piece of it There are a couple places that I think are more progressive than others I would say the most progressive thinking around education right now might be British Columbia In terms of K through 12 education they have really really pulled back on testing and on those types of evaluations they are Building much more opportunities for student agency into the school day And they're I think at least creating attempting to create a culture which you know kind of is the Overlap for all of this in terms of when we talk about how the the story changes They're trying to build more cultures within their schools that suggests that teachers and students both have more agency to pursue learning on their own terms and And it's a it's pretty much of a pushback against a lot of those Uncommon sense things that that we do in schools where they've just Come to the conclusion that the the narrative needs to shift New Zealand is another country where they've always been kind of edgy and thinking differently And there are other you know other spots Singapore actually is Even though that's it's still a very kind of test centric and achievement centric Small country obviously They're having some very interesting conversations as well about how to do it differently and So there are some places around the world that that are beginning to to at least have some Some different again ask some different questions. Some have gotten to the point of policy like British Columbia and and New Zealand and some others but By and large, I think most of the innovation and change is happening in individual classrooms in individual schools Or it's happening in people who are going outside of the system, which I think is beginning to happen a little bit more and more These days I'm seeing more examples of innovative schools that are starting from the ground up and you know in the with the people who we work with I mean most of my work Is with leadership in K through 12 and when there are conversations about doing things really differently We always at some point come to the conclusion that it is easier to start something brand new That fits a model that you want to pursue than it is to change the old model Changing a school that's been around for a long long time is excruciatingly difficult and and in the long run to be honest with you I I'm a huge fan of Seymour Pappert who wrote extensively about technology and change in kids and schools and one of his One of his beliefs was basically that the system itself has an autoimmune response to change Which I love that line, right? And so it remains to be seen how? To the extent to which real innovation can take root anywhere Because there's lots of places lots of individual programs in schools that I'll go visit and I'll say wow That's really amazing and come back five years later And it's not so amazing anymore Because it's been kind of it's been kind of neutered or it's become you know There's been a change in leadership or whatever, right? You know how that goes so And it's really really hard to be out there on a limb on your own You know as much as as much as there may be rhetoric that suggests well we need to innovate We need to try new things. We need to do all this other stuff at the end of the day Really the experience of school is driven more by the consumer of education and their Expectations than it is by the educators and that's one of the realizations that I've come to in the last two or three years That's kind of disturbing to be honest with you, but Is then a little bit of a different challenge? Is that again, you know schools serve a particular? Purpose in this society that people expect And then to change that purpose or to change that experience is to go against Society's expectations and that's really hard to do without some larger You know federal Type of initiative that says, you know, we're gonna change things or without higher education coming out en masse and saying We're not gonna do this We're not gonna look at kids the same way we've been looking at them for the last 200 years in terms of who we accept or who we don't accept and and and again to be honest if we really were truthful about the experience of school and I think you know You'd probably agreed Tom if you have three kids in high school. I mean my question is always to parents Well, what are they learning actually? What are they actually learning in school and the responses very rarely has anything to do with what's happening in Classrooms what they're learning how to do is succeed at school, right? Which is a signal to higher ed that those kids can succeed in school And so they'll probably succeed in college and you know, then we get to the Brian Kaplan argument that Heist that higher ed is basically a signal more than anything else to employers that kids can do college so therefore they have the the you know the skills or the Dispositions or the literacies whatever else to to manage that and they'll be they'll be able to manage a career in some in some In something so just to kind of tie a bow on that I mean, you know my my son is in a top 50 University in the United States by just about every ranking and he's there as a as a scholarship athlete But basically he's what he's really learning is how to how to get through college you know and and There's some merit in that don't get me wrong, right? He's learning some skills that will serve him probably pretty well in his life But I think the the idea that you know, it's the content and the the things he's being Tested on and all that kind of stuff. That's a little bit more of a difficult argument to make I'm not saying that the higher education is worthless or what happens in classrooms isn't isn't doesn't have some value but I don't think it has as much value as as we want to pretend that it does honestly and I do think that We're at a moment in in our history right now Where we have to interrogate whether or not the experience of getting through school is enough to serve kids in getting Through life, which is I think changing in some pretty dramatic ways So well ask your kids and ask ask your kids next year what they remember from learning last year and Almost a hundred percent of the people who I asked that question to will answer it the same way as you do yet We don't we don't use that lens then to engage in a really difficult conversation about well That what should classrooms be if it and and you know, let's be honest if they're not going to be about learning Well, then let's just say that okay Look the school experience is to get through school and to learn some skills and that kind of thing but it's really not about learning chemistry and it's really not about learning history and it's really not about learning Spanish because You know the way that we learn those things anything like that a stupid be immersed in those things we learn Almost everything that we learn as adults. We learn on the job Certainly there's reading writing communication skills literacies that we need to get from school that school can help us with I'm not suggesting that it's again. It's totally valueless, but We do pretend or we do kind of you know not not go there very often and say yeah You know what that chemistry class or algebra class, you know fill in the blank whatever you want Yeah, kids aren't learning really learning very much in there. No, but I'm not saying I don't think it's the students as much as the parents I think the parents expect the same type of experience that they had That's what they want. They that's what makes them comfortable Anything that that goes outside of that experience makes them very uneasy. There's a great There's a great movie. I don't know if you've seen it But you know most likely to succeed which talks about high-tech high and there's a scene in there where this parent is being interviewed And she goes I'm really scared because this is not what I did You know all this project-based stuff that they're doing all these exhibitions and things that wasn't my experience I just don't know if this is okay for my kid. That's that's where the narrative has to change I think at the end of the day parents are gonna have to demand something different before something really different Manifests itself in the K through 12 system at least Tom, thank you so much for these great questions and thank you as well for sharing from your own experience Much obliged much appreciated. Well So thanks for the softball Look just a couple things right so and I think they're they're interrelated the technology piece is really interesting because in most schools 98% of the ways that schools use technology is to teach not to learn And I think there's a huge distinction there right to me technology is an opportunity to give learners more agency and to allow them to really create and make things and and You know do things that they couldn't do without the technology too much of of how teachers use it is to You know post documents or or assignments or Hand in homework or whatever else I again my kids through eight years of high school each of them had a laptop the entire time Very little interesting use of technology. So number one. I think that we have to we have to be willing to Change the way that we just think about how how learning happens in classrooms to begin with that It has to be more about student agency. It has to be more about Giving kids more opportunities to pursue learning on their own terms That's kind of the phrase that I've become a little fond of maybe too fond of but anyway Where to start? Well, we always start with the most important question in the work and that is well, how do you define learning? What is it? and and it's It's kind of Shocking how difficult the question that is for educators to answer It's not one that many people actually talk about very much and it's It's one that when you really get down to it when you really check in to your own personal experience around learning when you really try to Define it or describe it in ways that That match again the way you understand it in your own life. It looks very different from what we do in classrooms Because you know good really powerful learning requires agency it requires time it requires passion and curiosity it requires Creating things and and you know all that type of stuff and then If you can get to that point and then just map that to the experience the kids are having in school That's a great place to start the conversation because more often than not those two things are totally in dissonance right what you believe is not what you do in most cases in schools and and a lot of that again is is Structural a lot of that is cultural a lot of that is just tradition whatever else But if you're not starting from that frame, I know I'm not sure that that anything sticks in terms of innovation or change so Well if the question is Can we change the learning experience given the structures of current schools that we have it's difficult It's really hard, you know, I mean we're putting kids in the spaces that comfortably hold maybe 20 25 kids They're isolated from other classrooms usually You know, whatever else I mean the structures in the classroom environments and the structures that we have in schools Are not conducive to the type of learning that we would hope kids would experience Again, if we've had those conversations on learning, so you're right. This is a really I think Interesting moment when it comes to design of schools and there are there are a lot of people out there who are doing some very very interesting things but what I find most powerful about it is that Most of the innovative designs that I see are really Based on a conversation around what learning is and how it happens and what it requires There's a great school Called design 39 campus out in outside of San Diego Where they spent a couple of years basically is asking the question, you know, what is learning? How does it happen? What does it look like what's required they built a beautiful school where the the classroom environments are They're collaborative. They you know, they have a lot of flexibility Flexible open spaces all that type of stuff, right and they they also but they also built that to employ a very different Narrative a very different story or a very different experience of how kids go through school and So they don't do grades. They don't do they don't separate kids out by grade as much, you know And this was basically a K through 8 school when they started it I think they're about five or six years in just as a side note They're about five or six years in and parents have come to them now And they've said you now have to build a high school because we don't want our kids to experience the high school That currently exists after they've had this experience and and so, you know and and again design had a lot to do with that in terms of What it looks like what it feels like what it sounds like all that kind of stuff The most innovative place. I've ever seen by the way is a school outside of Sydney, Australia, which is it was just mind-bogglingly beautiful and in Just innovative and whatever else but they again started with the conversation. What kinds of environments do kids need to learn most powerfully? What needs to be present? I knew you were gonna ask me that it's I'll remember it Either tweet it out or Thank you. Yeah, I'll remember it, but but yeah But so there's a lot of innovation that's happening with school design right now Yeah, Northern Beach is Christian school. There you go Northern Beach is Christian school So Yeah, it's a it's a really interesting moment for design as well but only if it's if it's grounded in a Conversation around well, how does learning really happen? You know, I think you have to throw out You have to start almost with a blank slate and you start from there and If you can do that, then I think you can build really interesting spaces. I mean if you've articulated the definition of learning that Is probably the one that all of us would come up with the 21 of us give us, you know 20 minutes or so in this forum We'd come up with probably a fairly similar definition that you know learning is when it's your choice when you have freedom When you know all those types of things right if you've articulated the definition of learning which many schools have to right now They're doing that work then then yeah your curriculum the way that you teach should be built on that definition The people you hire the budgets that you create the assessments that you create You know everything that you do has to map back to that definition. Otherwise, what's the point? Why would you why would you articulate a definition of what you believe learning is and then not? employ that definition in every decision that you make and by the way, you know just for the sake of saying it I guess but I'm almost you know, I'm almost Better off or happier when schools say well, we be learning we believe that learning We actually believe that learning happens when kids sit in 60 minute classes in rows listening to a teacher If that's what you believe then do that at least that makes it a consistent experience for kids They all understand what the game is what the rules are instead of saying to kids Well, we really don't know and so my kids experience school They went to block one had to figure out what that had teacher meant by learning then they went to block two It was a totally different definition block three was something totally different again Because there's no there's just no cohesiveness or no coherence around what learning means Thank you John Thank you for the great questions especially based on your experience just one quick question for you Is the third teacher book from Canon design? Yeah. Yes, it is. Yep That's it. Hi will Okay, I'm I'm thinking about Your your term student agency quite a lot. Hi Brian. I hope you're feeling better I'm thinking about the term Student agency because that's thrown a lot around a lot and it's one of those talking points as well But I want to bring it to the conversation now teacher agency we Don't often recognize teachers need to be empowered and and what do you think about? environments that facilitate and cultivate teacher agency and how do you see this Unfolding like in the next five years with innovation and technologies This comes the students are saying okay, what what does my professor want me to do so I can Culture in K through 12 you're talking about College as well. So it's a systemic change from let's say preschool through 20 Well, we're almost out of time, but we had more great questions that came in From a long-term friend of the program George station terrific guy asks How can our high-red colleagues as well as our parents demand an experience different from their own for today's students? I only bring it back up. Is there a space to do this outside rogue pockets of rebellion? We have a another question from the awesome Giselle Let me bring it from Giselle LaRose who asked have you seen a breakthrough results? We're a school district or college has approached organizational change by harnessing a common interpretation of learning the questions are burbling in Right as a completely out of time April had a question about what kind of schools you want your kids to attend My pastor and Prince just asked what will be some characteristics of narratives Let's think about that and maybe maybe take it to Twitter I'm I hate to wrap things up so quickly, but we we are out of time Will it's fantastic talking with you You you're necessary of change and new ways of learning One of the best ways for people to keep up with you. I mean your Twitter feed will Richard 45 now if you'd like to catch up on Will's first appearance on the forum way back in 2016 Or if you'd like to catch up on almost 200 other videos Please just head to tiny world comm slash FTF archive where you can find them all if you'd like to keep talking about What is learning and how do we redesign the narratives around schooling? We have a lot of places for you to do that You can join us on our Facebook group our LinkedIn group our slack channel or just keep go adding at us on Twitter at FTTE and the meantime Thank you all again for fantastic conversations for everyone who support who celebrates these winter holidays Please have a great one. Otherwise. We'll see you next week. Bye. Bye