Reflection

ETT21 #167: The Reboot
May 16, 2012

An update on where we have been and a conversation on where we are going. 

Why do we do what we do?  Where are we going in the next year or two.  An invigorating conversation around how we are planning to reinvigorate our practice. 

How we've developed over the years -- Our friendships and how we hope to continue to flourish in the future.  
 

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?feed=rss2, Monika Hardy and Paul Allison discuss "Detox," a reflective practice that they have been inviting students to do in their different contexts.

Monika has been doing Detox with her students for a couple of years http://labconnections.blogspot.com/p/what-is-detox.html

Monika and Paul are joined in this conversation by a co-conspirator with Monika and a researcher of Detox James Folkestad, from Colorado State University.

We also get the perspective of youths from two of Paul's high school students Evelyn Salazar and (on the phone) Shamar Smith. In addition there are valuable insights from 7th Grader Kelsey Shelhart and her father Scott Shelhart as well as Fred Mindlin.

After listening to this podcast, you might be inspired to try something similar in your classroom or perhaps your students are already doing this kind of reflection on who they are, what they are doing, what they dream could happen, what they are noticing, and what connections they are making.

Either way, whether you are starting something new or continuing a valuable process in your classroom, please let us know about it. We'd love to hear if "detox" is spreading virally or "scaling across trans-locally" to use some of the language that Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze have given us in their book Walk Our Walk On:

Taking things to scale doesn’t happen vertically through one-size-fits-all replication strategies... experiments move horizontally, scaling across villages and nations, trans-locally, as many diverse people learn from their discoveries and are inspired to try their own.
( http://www.walkoutwalkon.net/mexico )

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

For this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, Monika Hardy @monk51295 invited a few of her colleagues:

• Thomas Steele-Maley @steelemaley
• Roberto Greco @rogre
• Mary Ann Rielly @MaryAnnRielly
• Amanda Judd @venueX
• Amy Lewark @fat4thought

to join Chris Sloan @csloan and me @paulallison to introduce why we need lab spaces to disrupt and redefine school (Lab Connections). The goal is to facilitate self-directed learning. Here’s how Monika and others introduce their work in an in-progress book they are writing:

Students in Loveland, CO crafted a four year plan of disruption to redefine school. We are just beginning year two. Year four has community/life as school, with the city as the floor plan. Who, what, when, where, how, and with whom you learn, per choice. The premise… nothing is for everyone. We’re redefining success per individual/community. We’re respectfully questioning everything, especially what public education deems as normal. Imagine if the 7 hours a day we currently call school would/could awaken indispensable people. It’s a quiet revolution.

There has been plenty of theory/research invested in what we are doing, and that will be ongoing. But mostly, we have had the privilege and delight to indulge in experimentation/failure/prototyping/etc. The following is our best attempt to capture the key elements learned from key failures. If you are so inclined, shuffle along with us. It’s a kick. You might just fall in love with it.

For more history of the lab, see this video set/documentation (reverse chronological order):redefineschool.tumblr.com

For current updates/info on the lab, see labconnections: http://labconnections.blogspot.com/p/about.html

This was a first, exploratory conversation, and one that we hope will inspire you to join as well. We'll be continuing our conversations with Monika Hardy and her colleagues in the coming weeks on Teachers Teaching Teachers. Join us every Wednesday at edtechtalk.com/live where you’ll hear and see a Livestream broadcast of our conversation, and be invited to chat and ask questions as well.

  12:34:19   arvind -> EdTechTalk: hey folks, waitinf for alex
  12:34:25   arvind -> EdTechTalk: how's everyone?