What Do We Want Our Kids to Be with Ira Socol Transformative Principal 397

Mar 21, 2021

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Ira Socol is a former Technology Director and special education teacher. He is also He is the author of Timeless Learning and The Drool Room.

The driver of change is where we want our kids to get to vs. where they currently end up.
We’re not accomplishing 99% of what we want our kids to accomplish.
We need to judge our work by how many choices kids have when they are 30.
We focus on all the wrong things. We focus on content acquisition, when that has always been secondary.
We’re not teaching the wonder of intrinsic motivation.
I watch kids learn all sorts of things not in school.
School without walls.
Judo principle of education - use what the student is passionate about to everyone’s advantage.
There are different choices we can make.
What should we be focusing on measuring?
50% of kids who go to college don’t go back for the second year.
They can’t assess anything without a standardized assessment.
We need to look for very specific evidence.
Step 1: Are you understanding what our responsibilities are in school/culture/society?
See kids having a maximum level of freedom?
If kids are in the halls, it means adults trust the kids.
I’ve never seen learning happen where kids didn’t trust adults, and kids never trust adults that don’t trust them.
You kids better get to work! Said one student to another.
This is a win that will pay dividends forever.
Changed summer school into maker camps.
Teacher: “Tell me, is there a problem you have in baseball you would like to solve?”
He can’t sit in a classroom. That’s our problem, not his problem.
Music construction studios
We didn’t define kids by any deficit.
Talent development - Gifted and Special education working together.
We found ways to make our kids succeed based on what mattered to them.
Why don’t more schools do this kind of work?
In many cases you can hear them spinning excuses from the moment they arrived.
I don’t know how to make people more courageous.
Your expectations of risk are very overrated.
Because they were learners, they did fine.
Kids live up to your expectations, just as they will live down to them.
What do you have to lose?
They just need to take the leap.
All we ask is that they take a little leap each time from where they are.
What do we want our kids to be?
Lifelong learning competencies
Wouldn’t it be easier if you were teaching all 8 year olds?
How would he learn to be 9?
How would he learn to care for the wee ones?
They can learn anything they need to learn to go forward.
Coder dojo
Kids can do so much more. We just need to have the guts.
Someone who is fearless is either uninformed our stupid.
Courage is knowing you’re afraid and doing it anyway.
Passion-based learning high school started with just 30 kids.
Aim small miss small.
How to be a transformative principal? Turn off the bells. Ask your teachers to open their doors and keep them open. Change your grade book so nobody can give below a failing grade.

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