This week is the beginning of The Innovator’s Mindset Massive Open Online Course. For the next five weeks, I look forward to the opportunity to reread a great book and interact with educators during the weekly YouTube Live sessions as well as the Twitter chats! I love this format of PD, and look forward to creating new connections and growing my Personal Learning Network! If this sounds like something you would be interested in, you can still sign up here: IMMOOC
As I was reading the introduction to The Innovator’s Mindset this week, there was one line that really stood out to me: “if students leave school less curious than when they started, we have failed them.” Given the meaningfulness of that line, I was so glad that became a major topic during the YouTube Live event on Monday evening. During this session, AJ Juliani talked about a self-audit based on 4 questions, and I felt that these questions could really help us think about what we do in the classroom that might encourage students to “play” school and take away some of their self-agency and curiosity.
- What do I allow for in my classroom/school?
- What do I make time for in my classroom/school?
- What do I support in my classroom/school?
- What do I praise, assess, look for in my classroom/school?
What intrigued me the most about these questions is that students who play school well get there not because of their own desires. Instead they get there due to the things that the adults in their lives (both educators and family members) value. Watch kids of any age, and you will see curiosity – whether it’s on the playground, with their friends, or while playing a video game, our students our naturally curious. But for many, when we put them into a classroom and ask them what makes them curious, the response is “I don’t know.” If this is happening in your class, then your students are probably well trained to play school.
If we want our students to create, we have to model creativity (or at least a willingness to try). If we want our students to be problem finders and solvers, that spark has to be modeled through our actions. All of us have our interests and desires. A lot of us keep those interests and desires separate from what is happening in our classrooms. If we want to ignite the fire of curiosity in our students, we need to show them that their interests matter.
Recently in our school building, a student noticed that our cafeteria never served ice cream at lunch. She knew from talking with friends at other intermediate schools that ours was the only one in the school district that did not ever serve ice cream as part of the school lunch. Instead of just complaining about it, or even accepting that’s just the way it is, she went into action. She did research. She got friends and classmates involved. She met with our school’s cafeteria manager to understand why we didn’t serve ice cream. She met with our district facilities manager to learn about options to make ice cream a possibility at our school. She got the student council on board to do a fundraiser. All of this started last year with the question of why.
The Creamsicle may not be the fanciest of all ice cream treats, but it was a huge step forward in a school that had not served ice cream at lunch ever before!Last Friday at lunch, our school served ice cream for the first time.
I would argue that the learning that happened for this student, and her classmates who were part of this work, was some of the most meaningful learning in the past year. All of this happened because the adults around this student saw the curiosity and the drive that this student had – for ice cream – and they let her run with it.
What are the ice cream moments that are happening in your classroom? In your school? How are you helping to ignite that curiosity? What are the ice cream moments for you? Are you modeling that curiosity with your students? As the leaders of our classrooms and schools, we have the ability to choose a course for our students that inspires them, or we can choose a course that creates students who “play” school well. Which course do you choose?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Keep the conversation about innovation in learning going here, or hit me up on Twitter @brian_behrman.
The View from 518 
Brian, I love that you highlighted the questions that AJ posed during session 1. Not only am I going to revamp the questions and mantras that I had been using from Poor Students, Rich Teaching as a sef-reflection tool, but I will also be sharing this with my para-educators in an attempt to foster the same mindset with through our small, but encompassing context.
I do I wonder how we can most effectively engage our colleagues and subordinates to own these self-reflection questions in order to drive that creativity and curiosity. I think this could be a poignant mindset shift because it would give a shared framework that drives all classroom activities, not just the academic ones.
Keep #IMMOOCing!
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I’ll be honest, I haven’t found the solution for engaging others in these same types of questions. As I think about it, an interview of a high school football coach comes to mind. He had taken on the challenge of coaching in a very difficult district. His community had issues with gangs, drugs, and many other challenges for his athletes. He talked about the difficulty of taking that team from their rough background and leading them to an undefeated season. The line that resonated with me was when Coach Courtney was asked how he did it, he said that he would just “walk it.” He went on to explain that his leadership and modeling for his players what hard work, positive attitudes, and effort helped them to change their ways. We can keep going into our classrooms and schools and “walk it” through our words and actions.
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