you notice it all starts and ends with fire it rolls back once more - excerpt from Kristina Martske's blog post this week One from the TGIF archives, written in mid-October six years ago. Notice how our learning cycle repeats: I know that this first month has been a tough waiting game for many of the people reading this: when will these people blossom into self-directed, amazing learners? Where are all the paradigm-shifting projects, already? Why are those people allowed to have a couch, and to come and go as they please, seemingly at random? Why do they look so happy? I thought this was supposed to be school! (ok, maybe I am making up those last two.) I know that I have certainly been feeling it, working hard to stay patient, to trust the process, to trust that whatever data sets of memorized facts or procedures or vague conceptual frames they might have been working with in their classes are outweighed by the learning to learn work that is necessarily happening as they struggle to identify interests, to reach out to the wide world, to perform tasks when nobody is looking. The difference, perhaps, is that I have known this day was coming. What I hope is that the reality of these exhibitions [starting on Monday October 23rd] will cause them to get working like they haven’t (in some cases) yet. I want to turn the heat of rigor up a notch, because (and I think rightly) I have by far prioritized relevance and relationships. Those are Doc Littky’s new 3 R’s of education, and they are the magic formula: get kids convinced that we care about them and their minds and their success, then encourage them to generate projects that are relevant to them, and finally build in the rigor, defining what is good enough for them. The pride that comes with success at a rigorous project, in a field that is relevant, among people whose relationships matter to you, is our target. That motivates us (see Pink’s recent book Drive if you don’t believe me). It is a time consuming process, but it’s the only one.
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