The Future of Education

"Waiting for Superman... Spiderman, Batman and the whole Justice League...The task of every teacher – create engaging lessons that speak to the diversity of learners in a given class – is a heroic one. But we don’t have enough of these superheroes..."

"Technology, when placed in the hands of willing teachers, helps to facilitate students’ learning by moving solely from up-front lecturing to include more side-by-side facilitation. This shift can stimulate the kinds of exponential leaps in student achievement that we have longed believed possible but have not been able to achieve. The country that incubated Apple, Google and Facebook must now apply those same scaling talents and technology in the classroom.  It is time to help the 3,500,000 Clark Kents already out there learn how to fly" - from Matchbook Learning website

Sajan George is the Founder & CEO of Matchbook Learning, a national non-profit school turnaround management organization that has designed and implemented a unique blended model of school, the only one of its kind targeting turnaround (ie bottom 5%) public schools that blends face-to-face and virtual instruction. They started working in Detroit to bring their teacher-centric blended model of school to turnaround some of the nation's most neediest schools. Their blended turnaround model design has won numerous national awards and recognition. Interesting concept.

Inspiring Teachers

The CAA Foundation, a generous supporter of Teach for America, is sponsoring 8 teachers in 8 cities across the world. Here are some of their stories...



Kevin Steger is a 2010 Teach For America corps member teaching 5th grade in St. Louis's Normandy School District. He graduated from the University of California, Irvine in 2010 with a BA in economics and a minor in history. Lulu Meraz is a 2009 Teach For America corps member teaching pre-kindergarten in Los Angeles. She is a 2009 graduate of the University of Notre Dame where she majored in sociology and minored in Latino studies. Watch other stories here.



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Dream. Rise. Do.

Fifty years ago Martin Luther King, Jr. charged Americans to take radical and urgent action towards a very basic dream--equality. Equality attained not just by changing hearts and minds, but by transforming the societal structures at the root of injustice into the very genesis of equity. It's a dream unrealized for past generations, but for our children, it's not far from reach. With the power to see it through are:
- Teachers, who will help our children DREAM beyond all perceived limits
- Teachers, who will help our children RISE to every challenge
- Teachers, who will DO whatever it takes to prove to our children that a dream can be more.
-- visit Dream. Rise. Do

Amazing speech

Today we will focus on teachers and their potential to make a difference in young people's life.

"Everything that I am it is because a couple of teachers like you saw through all that mess and all my faults and saw the potential deep down inside me, that I could not even see for myself. And it is this type of teachers that made me into the man that I am today, a man that has extreme love for people. So I tell you again that you can do it because I am the living proof of it, you can pass the torch to these kids so they change their communities, they change the world. Believe in you, be determined and don't give up."

A summer intern at Teach For America Baltimore, Elijah Miles delivered this inspiring speech to a group of incoming teachers at institute. Wise well beyond his years, we think Elijah's words are a great reminder about why we do the work that we do -- uploaded by Teach for America
THIS IS A MUST WATCH, please do so.

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The urge for equal opportunities in education

Teach For America (TFA) is an American non-profit organization whose mission is to eliminate educational inequity by enlisting high-achieving recent college graduates and professionals to teach for at least two years in low-income communities throughout the United States. Their motto is "One day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education". TFA corps members and alumni are helping lead an educational revolution in low-income communities across the country.

Let's use video to reinvent education

“Personal responsibility is not only undervalued but actually discouraged by the standard classroom model, with its enforced passivity and rigid boundaries of curriculum and time. Denied the opportunity to make even the most basic decisions about how and what they will learn, students stop short of full commitment.” 

Salman Khan is the founder and faculty of the Khan Academy, a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing a free world-class education to anyone, anywhere.  It now consists of self-paced software and, with over 1 million unique students per month, the most-used educational video repository on the Internet (over 30 million lessons delivered to-date).  All 2000+ video tutorials, covering everything from basic addition to advanced calculus, physics, chemistry and biology, have been made by Salman.
In this TED talk he talks about how and why he created this amazing tool. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help. And now 3 years after his talk Khan has been busy reimagining the education experience and wrote a book that digs deeper into his idea – a landscape where teachers work in tandem with technology to foster the best learning environment for each student.
-- His book: The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined
-- read interview here

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The 100,000-student classroom

Today we will continue focusing on new forms of learning. Online classes...is this the future of education?

".. to me, the most exciting part of it is the data that we're gathering. We're gathering thousands of interactions per student per class, billions of interactions altogether, and now we can start analyzing that, and when we learn from that, do experimentations, that's when the real revolution will come. And you'll be able to see the results from a new generation of amazing students". 

Peter Norvig is a computer scientist and expert in both artificial intelligence and online search. Currently the Director of Research at Google Inc., Norvig was responsible for maintaining and improving the engine's core web search algorithms from 2002 to 2005. Prior to his work at Google, Norvig was NASA's chief computer scientist.
In the fall of 2011 Peter Norvig taught a class with Sebastian Thrun on artificial intelligence at Stanford attended by 175 students in situ -- and over 100,000 via an interactive webcast. He shares what he learned about teaching to a global classroom.

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Studio School - an interesting concept

The Studio School is a new concept in education, which seeks to address the growing gap between the skills and knowledge that young people require to succeed, and those that the current education system provides. Studio Schools pioneer a bold new approach to learning which includes teaching through enterprise projects and real work. This approach ensures students' learning in is rooted in the real world and helps them to develop the skills they need to flourish in life. They are government-funded state schools for 14-19 year olds of all abilities.
Some kids learn by listening; others learn by doing. In this TED talk, Geoff Mulgan gives a short introduction to the Studio School, where small teams of kids learn by working on projects that are, as Mulgan puts it, "for real." Geoff Mulgan is director of the Young Foundation, a center for social innovation, social enterprise and public policy that pioneers ideas in fields such as aging, education and poverty reduction. Geoff Mulgan has held various roles in the UK government including director of the Government's Strategy Unit and head of policy in the Prime Minister's office, and he was the founder of the think-tank Demos.




Creative & Media Studio School - NLC Media from Studio Schools Trust on Vimeo.

Making higher education accessible to all

"College is a place where a professor’s lecture notes go straight to the students’ lecture notes, without passing through the brains of either" -- Mark Twain
"The mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting" -- Plutarch

"Maybe we should spend less time in universities to fill our students' minds with content by lecturing at them and more time igniting their creativity, imagination and problem solving skills by actually talking with them" -- Daphne Koller
"So to summarize, if we could offer a top quality education to everyone around the world for free, what would that do? Three things. First it would establish education as a fundamental human right...Second, it would enable lifelong learning...And finally, this would enable a wave of innovation, because amazing talent can be found anywhere." -- Daphne Koller

Daphne Koller is enticing top universities to put their most intriguing courses online for free -- not just as a service, but as a way to research how people learn. With Coursera (cofounded by Andrew Ng), each keystroke, quiz, peer-to-peer discussion and self-graded assignment builds an unprecedented pool of data on how knowledge is processed. Coursera is bringing courses from top colleges online, free, for anyone who wants to take them.
-- Daphne featured on Time Magazine among the 100 Most Influential People in the World

Look what we found...

IMAGINE...
Young Israeli star Liel Kolet singing "Imagine" with President Bill Clinton and a choir of 40 Israeli children, and 40 Arabic children for Shimon Peres's 80th birthday.

Arts Education

"There are direct academic correlations between music and art instruction, and what we often call the essential academics... Creativity is really going to drive the future economy..."

We spoke about this award winning documentary, CLASS ACT, some time ago...
This is an excerpt from it. Michael Huckabee is an American politician who served as the 44th Governor of Arkansas. He has always been a strong supporter of arts education in schools.
-- read more on the examiner.com

The Value of Music Education

This video presents a powerful argument for the inclusion of music in the elementary school curriculum -- uploaded by the Children's Music Workshop

Student Spotlight

"Music is important in my life because I think it is a good way to express without words pictures, you can get like a feel of hope, joy..." -- Wonder

A few students from All Schools Elementary Honor Orchestra are featured in the following videos.
Wonder is 11 and plays the trumpet. Sonia is 10 and plays the violin. Spencer is 11 and plays the trumpet. Brendan is 10 and plays the violin.
Different backgrounds, different opportunities, but all have in common the love for music.
-- upload by the Children's Music Workshop

All Schools Elementary Honor Orchestra

All Schools Elementary Honor Orchestra at UCLA. Under the direction of Larry Newman they performs the Finale from Beethoven's Fifth.

Once again let's hear it from them

Today we will focus on music, and the way it benefits our kids. We will listen to their stories and the experiences they share. Music not only impacts academic achievement, it also shapes the way our students understand themselves and the world around them. Let's think beyond the bubbles and educate the whole student.
-- video uploaded by the National Association for Music Education as part of atest advocacy venture, 'Broader Minded: Think Beyond the Bubbles'

And let's talk about Peace

Jeremy Gilley is an actor turned filmmaker, who in the late 1990s became preoccupied with questions about the fundamental nature of humanity and the issue of peace. He decided to explore these through the medium of film, and specifically, to create a documentary following his campaign to establish an annual day of ceasefire and non-violence. In 1999, Jeremy founded Peace One Day, a non-profit organisation, and in 2001 Peace One Day’s efforts were rewarded when the member states of the United Nations unanimously adopted the first ever annual day of global ceasefire and non-violence on 21 September – Peace Day. Peace One Day’s objective is to institutionalise Peace Day 21 September, making it a day that is self-sustaining, an annual day of global unity, a day of intercultural cooperation on a scale that humanity has never known.
Since 2012 Peace One Day and Lennon Bermuda work together to promote peace and unity throughout the world.
-- Peace One Day website
-- The Day After Peace
-- Jeremy Gilley visits Bermuda

Let's talk about Happiness for a change

Did you know that the International Day of Happiness is celebrated throughout the world on March 20th? 

"On this first International Day of Happiness, let us reinforce our commitment to inclusive and sustainable human development and renew our pledge to help others. When we contribute to the common good, we ourselves are enriched. Compassion promotes happiness and will help build the future we want." -- Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (Message for the International Day of Happiness, 20 March 2013)
The International Day of Happiness was established by the United Nations General Assembly on 28 June 2012.  It recognizes the relevance of happiness and well-being as universal goals and aspirations in the lives of human beings.The United Nations invites Member States,  international and regional organizations, as well as civil society, including non-governmental organizations and individuals, to observe the International Day of Happiness in an appropriate manner, including through education and public awareness-raising activities.
-- Day of Happiness website
-- Action for Happiness website | Action for Happiness on Facebook
-- The world first 24 hour music video - Pharrell Williams
-- Happy Bermuda page
-- We Are Happy From website






Happy (Homeless People Dance Video) -Music by Pharrell from Inhabitants of Burque on Vimeo.

Why we need art in school

A nice project made by some teachers to emphasize the importance of art in education. Not professional quality, a few mistakes, but the message is still loud and clear.

Reimagining Learning

"There are a lot of challenges that we face in education today, but we have the tools right now to solve all of them, we have the tools right now to solve all the educational challenges if we find a way to close this gap, and we have to do it now and we have to do it fast because our students deserve it and cannot afford to wait any longer".

A teacher by training and innovator by inclination, Richard Culatta works to leverage technology to reinvent learning. In this interesting TED talk, Richard identifies 3 major challenges with our current approach to education and suggests how a shift to personalized learning is the key to the future of education in America. To make this shift, we must close the digital divide between those who can leverage technology to reimagine learning and those who simply use technology to digitize the status quo. Interesting talk about the need to change the way we learn.

Kids, take charge

"I uncovered that if learning is embedded in real-world context, that if you blur the boundaries between school and life, then children go through a journey of "aware," where they can see the change, "enable," be changed, and then "empower," lead the change. And that directly increased student wellbeing. Children became more competent, and less helpless". 

"..But we had parents who said, "Okay, making our children good human beings is all very well, but what about math and science and English? Show us the grades." And we did. The data was conclusive. When children are empowered, not only do they do good, they do well, in fact very well.."

In 2001, Kiran Sethi founded the Riverside School in Ahmedabad, designing the primary school's curriculum (and its building) from the ground up. Based around six "Beacons of Learning," the school's lesson plan focuses on creating curious, competent future citizens. The school now enrolls almost 300 children and has franchised its curriculum widely. Sethi's latest project, is called AProCh -- which stands for "A Protagonist in every Child." Fighting the stereotype of modern kids as rude and delinquent, AProCh looks for ways to engage Ahmedabad's children in modern city life, and to revamp our cities to make room for kids to learn, both actively and by example.
In this inspiring TED talk Kiran shows how her groundbreaking Riverside School in India teaches kids life's most valuable lesson: "I can." Watch her students take local issues into their own hands, lead other young people, even educate their parents.
-- read more about Kiran here