0:00:04.310,0:00:07.310
Good afternoon, before I get started,[br]I first have to say,

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hello, to all of my students[br]who let me be out of school today,

0:00:11.781,0:00:14.247
they're staying late at school[br]to watch the stream.

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Hello to everybody out there[br]in Philadelphia,

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I think they definitely deserve[br]a round of applause.

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(Applause)

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Today, I'm going to tell you[br]a couple of stories.

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I know I have[br]a bit of a provocative title,

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I'll get there, go with me.

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I have a story to tell you.

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I have been teaching for a long time,

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and in doing so

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have acquired a body of knowledge[br]about kids and learning

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that I really wish more people[br]would understand

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about the potential of students.

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In 1931, my grandmother -

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bottom left for you guys over here -

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graduated from the eighth grade.

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She went to school to get the information

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because that's where[br]the information lived.

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It was in the books;[br]it was inside the teacher's head;

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and she needed to go there[br]to get the information,

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because that's how you learned.

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Fast-forward a generation:

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this is the one-room[br]schoolhouse, Oak Grove,

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just down the road from where I grew up,

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where my father went[br]to a one-room schoolhouse.

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And he again had to travel to the school

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to get the information from the teacher,

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stored it in the only portable memory[br]he has, which is inside his own head,

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and take it with him,

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because that is how information[br]was being transported

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from teacher to student[br]and then used in the world.

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When I was a kid,

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we had a set of encyclopedias at my house.

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It was purchased the year I was born,

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and it was extraordinary,

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because I did not have to wait to go[br]to the library to get to the information.

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The information was inside my house

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and it was awesome.

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This was different

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than either generation[br]had experienced before,

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and it changed the way[br]I interacted with information

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even at just a small level.

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But the information was closer to me.

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I could get access to it.

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In the time that passes

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between when I was a kid in high school

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and when I started teaching,

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as Steve Case pointed out this morning,

0:02:05.796,0:02:07.795
we really see the advent of the Internet.

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Right about the time[br]that the Internet gets going

0:02:10.354,0:02:11.638
as an educational tool,

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I take off from Wisconsin

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and move to Kansas, small town Kansas,

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where I had an opportunity to teach

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in a lovely, small-town,

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rural Kansas school district,

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where I was teaching my favorite subject,

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American government.

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My first year - super gung-ho -[br]going to teach American government,

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loved the political system.

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Kids in the 12th grade:

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not exactly all that enthusiastic

0:02:35.800,0:02:37.799
about the American government system.

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Year two: learned a few things -[br]had to change my tactic.

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And I put in front of them[br]an authentic experience

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that allowed them to learn for themselves.

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I didn't tell them[br]what to do or how to do it.

0:02:48.011,0:02:49.799
I posed a problem in front of them,

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which was to put on an election[br]forum for their own community.

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They produced flyers. They called offices.

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They checked schedules.[br]They were meeting with secretaries.

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They produced an election forum booklet

0:03:00.298,0:03:03.049
for the entire town to learn more[br]about their candidates.

0:03:03.049,0:03:04.869
They invited everyone into the school

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for an evening of conversation

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about government and politics

0:03:07.800,0:03:09.991
and whether or not[br]the streets were done well,

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and really had this robust[br]experiential learning.

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The older teachers - more experienced -

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looked at me and went,

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"Oh, there she is. That's so cute.[br]She's trying to get that done."

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(Laughter)

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"She doesn't know what she's in for."

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But I knew that the kids would show up,

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and I believed it,

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and I told them every week[br]what I expected out of them.

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And that night, all 90 kids -

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dressed appropriately,[br]doing their job, owning it.

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I had to just sit and watch.

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It was theirs. It was experiential.[br]It was authentic.

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It meant something to them.

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And they will step up.

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From Kansas, I moved on to lovely Arizona,

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where I taught in Flagstaff[br]for a number of years,

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this time with middle school students.

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Luckily, I didn't have to teach them[br]American government.

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Could teach them the more[br]exciting topic of geography.

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Again, "thrilled" to learn.

0:04:01.312,0:04:03.228
But what was interesting

0:04:03.249,0:04:06.249
about this position I found[br]myself in in Arizona,

0:04:06.600,0:04:08.212
was I had this really

0:04:08.233,0:04:10.926
extraordinarily eclectic[br]group of kids to work with

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in a truly public school,

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and we got to have these moments where[br]we would get these opportunities.

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And one opportunity

0:04:17.248,0:04:20.248
was we got to go and meet[br]Paul Rusesabagina,

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which is the gentleman

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that the movie "Hotel Rwanda"[br]is based after.

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And he was going to speak[br]at the high school next door to us.

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We could walk there.[br]We didn't even have to pay for the buses.

0:04:30.362,0:04:33.324
There was no expense cost.[br]Perfect field trip.

0:04:33.800,0:04:35.363
The problem then becomes

0:04:35.384,0:04:37.406
how do you take seventh-[br]and eighth-graders

0:04:37.406,0:04:40.229
to a talk about genocide[br]and deal with the subject in a way

0:04:40.229,0:04:41.959
that is responsible and respectful,

0:04:41.959,0:04:43.799
and they know what to do with it.

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And so we chose to look[br]at Paul Rusesabagina

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as an example of a gentleman

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who singularly used his life[br]to do something positive.

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I then challenged the kids to identify

0:04:53.800,0:04:56.919
someone in their own life,[br]or in their own story, their own world,

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that they could identify[br]that had done a similar thing.

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I asked them to produce[br]a little movie about it.

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It's the first time we'd done this.

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Nobody really knew how to make these[br]little movies on the computer,

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but they were into it.

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And I asked them to put[br]their own voice over it.

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It was the most awesome[br]moment of revelation

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that when you ask kids[br]to use their own voice

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and ask them to speak for themselves,

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what they're willing to share.

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The last question of the assignment is:

0:05:22.800,0:05:24.562
how do you plan to use your life

0:05:24.583,0:05:26.582
to positively impact other people?

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The things that kids will say

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when you ask them[br]and take the time to listen

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is extraordinary.

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Fast-forward to Pennsylvania,[br]where I find myself today -

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the students that you all clapped for[br]at the beginning -

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I teach at the Science Leadership Academy,

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which is a partnership school[br]between the Franklin Institute

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and the school district of Philadelphia.

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We are a nine through 12 public school,

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but we do school quite differently.

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I moved there primarily

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to be part of a learning environment

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that validated the way[br]that I knew that kids learned,

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and that really wanted to investigate

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what was possible

0:06:02.990,0:06:04.746
when you are willing to let go

0:06:04.767,0:06:06.766
of some of the paradigms of the past,

0:06:06.822,0:06:09.822
of information scarcity[br]when my grandmother was in school

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and when my father was in school[br]and even when I was in school,

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and to a moment when we have[br]information surplus.

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So what do you do when[br]the information is all around you?

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Why do you have kids come to school

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if they no longer have to come there[br]to get the information?

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In Philadelphia we have[br]a one-to-one laptop program,

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so the kids are bringing in[br]laptops with them everyday,

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taking them home,[br]getting access to information.

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And here's the thing that you[br]need to get comfortable with

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when you've given the tool

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to acquire information to students,

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is that you have to be comfortable[br]with this idea

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of allowing kids to fail

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as part of the learning process.

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We deal right now[br]in the educational landscape

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with an infatuation

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with the culture of one right answer

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that can be properly bubbled[br]on the average multiple choice test,

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and I am here to share with you:

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it is not learning.

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That is the absolute wrong thing to ask,

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to tell kids to never be wrong.

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To ask them to always have[br]the right answer

0:07:06.939,0:07:08.938
doesn't allow them to learn.

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So we did this project,

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and it's this very hilarious story[br]of how I ended up here,

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and this is one of the artifacts[br]of the project.

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I almost never show them off

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because of the issue[br]of the idea of failure.

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My students produced these info-graphics

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as a result of a unit that we decided[br]to do at the end of the year

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responding to the oil spill,

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topic we've heard about today a lot.

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I asked them to take[br]the examples that we were seeing

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of the info-graphics that existed

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in a lot of mass media,

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and take a look at what were[br]the interesting components of it,

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and produce one for themselves

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of a different man-made[br]disaster from American history.

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And they had certain criteria to do it.

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They were a little uncomfortable with it,

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because we'd never done this before,[br]and they didn't know exactly how to do it.

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They can talk - they're very smooth,

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and they can write very, very well,

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but asking them to communicate[br]ideas in a different way

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was a little uncomfortable for them.

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But I gave them the room[br]to just do the thing.

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Go create. Go figure it out.

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Let's see what we can do.

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And the student that persistently

0:08:07.805,0:08:10.805
turns out the best visual product[br]did not disappoint.

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This was done in like two or three days.

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And this is the work of the student[br]that consistently did it.

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And when I sat the students down,[br]I said, "Who's got the best one?"

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And they immediately went, "There it is."

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Didn't read anything. "There it is."

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And I said, "Well what makes it great?"

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And they're like, "Oh, the design's good,[br]and he's using good color.

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And we processed out loud.

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And I said, "Go read it."

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And they're like, "Oh,[br]that one wasn't so awesome."

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And then we went to another one -

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it didn't have great visuals,[br]but it had great information -

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and spent an hour talking[br]about the learning process,

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because it wasn't about whether or not[br]it was perfect,

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or whether or not[br]it was what I could create.

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It asked them to create for themselves,

0:08:49.273,0:08:50.963
and it allowed them to fail,

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process, learn from.

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And when we do another round of this[br]in my class this year,

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they will do better this time,

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because learning

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has to include an amount of failure,

0:09:02.148,0:09:04.602
because failure is instructional

0:09:04.762,0:09:06.761
in the process.

0:09:07.800,0:09:10.799
There are a million pictures

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that I could click through here,

0:09:12.800,0:09:15.790
and had to choose carefully -[br]this is one of my favorites -

0:09:15.791,0:09:17.114
of students learning,

0:09:17.135,0:09:19.134
of what learning can look like

0:09:19.189,0:09:22.188
in a landscape where we let go of the idea

0:09:22.209,0:09:25.179
that kids have to come to school[br]to get the information,

0:09:25.200,0:09:27.448
but instead, ask them[br]what they can do with it.

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Ask them really interesting questions.

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They will not disappoint.

0:09:30.613,0:09:32.852
Ask them to go to places,

0:09:32.874,0:09:34.590
to see things for themselves,

0:09:34.611,0:09:36.733
to actually experience the learning,

0:09:36.754,0:09:38.307
to play,

0:09:39.879,0:09:41.700
to inquire.

0:09:42.800,0:09:44.799
This is one of my favorite photos,

0:09:44.800,0:09:46.799
because this was taken on Tuesday,

0:09:46.800,0:09:48.896
when I asked the students[br]to go to the polls.

0:09:48.916,0:09:51.537
This is Robbie,[br]and this was his first day of voting,

0:09:51.558,0:09:54.558
and he wanted to share that[br]with everybody and do that.

0:09:54.640,0:09:55.999
But this is learning too,

0:09:56.000,0:09:59.000
because we asked them to go[br]out into real spaces.

0:10:02.000,0:10:03.999
The main point

0:10:04.000,0:10:07.000
is that, if we continue[br]to look at education

0:10:07.675,0:10:10.497
as if it's about coming to school

0:10:10.518,0:10:12.109
to get the information

0:10:12.130,0:10:14.767
and not about experiential learning,

0:10:14.800,0:10:17.364
empowering student voice[br]and embracing failure,

0:10:17.385,0:10:18.658
we're missing the mark.

0:10:18.679,0:10:21.679
And everything that everybody[br]is talking about today

0:10:21.703,0:10:24.702
isn't possible if we keep having[br]an educational system

0:10:24.723,0:10:27.031
that does not value these qualities,

0:10:27.052,0:10:29.251
because we won't get there[br]with a standardized test,

0:10:29.272,0:10:31.987
and we won't get there[br]with a culture of one right answer.

0:10:32.051,0:10:33.653
We know how to do this better,

0:10:33.674,0:10:35.422
and it's time to do better.

0:10:35.443,0:10:38.443
(Applause)