Bernstein, Sousa and Jefferson

On Independence Day, Nancy and I enjoyed celebratory music offered by the New York Philharmonic and the Hellcats and Jazz Knights from the West Point Band.

The conductor, Bramwell Tovey,  leapt to the podium, pointed his baton at the Philharmonic snare drummer and we were instantly on our feet for “The Star Spangled Banner.”  We attempted to sing, but were caught up in the emotions of the moment reflecting the history of this anthem.

Familiar tunes from On the Town and Candide roused the audience as a packed house settled into the coolness of Lincoln Center, avoiding the intense heat of New York City outside.

The West Point Hellcats and Jazz Knights offered stirring renditions of  “America the Beautiful,”  Glen Miller’s “In the Mood,” and several military marches, including Sousa’s “Liberty Bell.”   


There can be few scenes that stir the soul of a former military person than the sight and sound of a precision drum and bugle corps blaring forth from bright silver horns and philharmonic field drums very strong cadences that reminded me of my favorite march of all time, “The Guadalcanal March” from Richard Roger’s World War II suite, Victory at Sea.

Following these selections conductor Army Lt. Colonel Jim Keene invited all current and past service personnel and their families to stand during the playing of their respective anthems, “Semper Paratus (Coast Guard), Anchors Aweigh,  The Marine Hymn, The Caisson Song (Army) and The Wild Blue Yonder (Air Force).”  Men and women, young and old, stood in silent attention at their seats as the corps musicians in crisp blue uniforms brought all of us to memories of having served this great nation,  and of those who paid the last full measure.

All during these emotionally-charged performances I recalled having read the Declaration of Independence in the morning’s New York Times.  There were the words that laid the foundation for our country,  “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the bands which have connected them with another. . . We, therefore. . .declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States. . .”

Most memorable, perhaps, are the words that each of us is endowed by our “Creator with certain unalienable rights, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”   Derived from writings of John Locke--who championed the pursuit of Life, Liberty and Property--Jefferson changed Property to Happiness, a word for which he then invoked civic virtues of courage,  justice and, perhaps, service.

Another thing that struck me was that “imposing taxes without our consent” was listed by Jefferson in the middle of a much longer list of grievances, commencing with “He—[King George III]—has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. . .” and ending with references to “Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us. . . suspending our own Legislatures. . . excited domestic insurrections amongst us” and caused the impressment of our sailors at sea.

What I remember from high school US History are the grievances about taxes, the Stamp tax, Tea Party and the like.  How time has faded our memories of original causes.

The most stirring tune on Independence Day was, of course, John Philip Sousa’s magnificent “Stars and Stripes Forever;”  its cadences sent our hearts to marching inwardly in ways that would be reflected that evening by seeing James Cagney as George M. Cohan, creator of  “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “Over There,”  strut, march, parade  himself across the stage in his own inimitable fashion.  For these two hymns Franklin Roosevelt awarded Cohan the Congressional Medal of Honor. 

We were reminded once again that freedom comes with high costs; that thousands have given their lives that we might breathe free and speak our own minds.  A little sign on the walker of a WWII veteran and friend of my mother’s says it all, “If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you’re reading it in English, thank a GI."

Every year we need to be reminded of how we came together to establish this great country on the ideas of Liberty, Equality and the Happiness of those civic virtues--courage, justice and public service.  And how on so many occasions our parents and grandparents sacrificed as necessary on all fronts--abroad and at home--to preserve, protect defend these rights. 

21st Century Skills--Critical Thinking

Recently, a US Federal District Judge, Sam Haddon in Helena, MT threw out a case brought by four readers of Greg Mortenson’s famed Three Cups of Tea.  The plaintiffs claimed that Mortenson had distorted the truth in order to build his reputation and sell more books.  For this they charged him with “fraud and racketeering.”

Judge Haddon dismissed these charges as “flimsy and speculative. . .” claiming that their racketeering charges “are fraught with shortcomings.”

My first response was delight that Mortenson, who is responsible for bringing education to thousands of Afghanis and Pakistanis, was relieved of yet another burden.  (If you have yet to read his books, please do so.)

A second response was Hurray! for critical thinking.  Judge Haddon found no credible evidence to support plaintiffs charges.

Too often we find people in the public eye making claims they just cannot support with reliable evidence.  That’s what the Common Core Standards in Language Arts repeatedly call for students to be able to do, support claims with good evidence.  

This is one aspect of critical thinking.

How often do we hear “The economy (or my economic plan) will do this or that” without any supporting documentation, given nor asked for?  

Another aspect of critical thinking is too often seen by its absence: asking good questions about claims.

Recently, on one of the cable news channels, I watched as five people discussed and debated the merits of this claim: “The war on terror is over.”

During the discussion about effects of this claim no one bothered to raise any of the following essential questions:

Who said it?  To whom? When? Under what circumstances?

And, why was it said?  What  was the speaker’s or writer’s motivation?

These would seem to be quite basic questions.  The claim was made that this assertion came from “an administration spokesperson.”  But who?  A fifth ranked member of a branch of the State Department or Director of Central Intelligence?  Was it said the day before the program or in a leaked memo  directly after the killing of Osama bin Laden?

Other questions would include this one: What was said directly before this claim and after?  Even the Bible says, “There is no God.”  But we know that what precedes this claim is “The fool has said in his heart.” (Psalm 14: 1-3)   Context can be king.

How to foster critical thinking in humanities ought to be obvious.  We present students with challenges to analyze and evaluate actions and ideas in literature and history.  Students arrive at conclusions with supporting evidence.  We begin educating for logical thinking at a very young age.

For example, John Selkirk teaches first grade in Ottawa and one of his goals is to challenge students to think critically by  interpreting human emotions in pictures.  “How’s she feeling?”  Sad.   Students quickly learn to ask their friends, “What makes you say that?” What’s the evidence in the picture telling you she feels sad?

Pat Burrows in Catalina Foothills (AZ) challenges her students to think analogically about Napoleon in Orwell’s Animal Farm: compare him to other historical figures and support your conclusions.  We do the same when we claim “This conflict is just like---”  Again, what are the reasons with what kinds of evidence?

In math, we can strive for students always getting the right answer.  Or, we could educate them to think analytically by asking good, critical questions: “What am I asked to do?  What’s the key information?  How is this problem like others?  Can I draw a picture?  What are important assumptions?  Can I break it into smaller parts?” and once solved “How might I have solved it another way?”

We can foster critical thinking in sciences where we inquire, suggest testable hypotheses, analyze data, draw conclusions and provide evidence.  We can also ask good questions about problematic situations and claims.  A good way to diagnose students’ scientific reasoning is to present them with a complex problem in September and record the kinds of questions they can ask about it.  Then compare this throughout the year.

As Jacob Bronowski, noted scientist and poet observed, “That is the essence of science: ask an impertinent question and you are on the way to a pertinent answer.”

Critical thinking is analyzing situations, and using available evidence to arrive at conclusions.  It also means possessing that certain skepticism that leads to asking impertinent questions.  Skeptics are not negative. 

As Thomas Merton noted in his Secular Journal (1969): “. . . the true skeptic doubts in order that he may know.”

21st Century Skills--Imagination

21st Century Skills--Imagination

The Pulitzer Prize committee chose not to bestow an award for fiction this year.

Novelist Ann Patchett (Bel Canto and Run) wrote about this decision:

"Reading fiction is important.  It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings."  

She continues to note that “following  complex story lines stretches our brains beyond the 140 characters of sound-bite thinking. . .” and allows us to be “quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps.”  (NY Times, 4/17/12)

Patchett’s thoughts on imagination took me to a book I’ve just completed, Katherine Boo’s behind the beautiful forevers--Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity (2012).  Boo is such a graphic writer that it doesn’t require much to visualize the real lives of Abdul, Sunil, and Zehrunisa, some of the 3,000 residents of Anawandi, a collection of 335 slum dwellings in the shadows of the airport.  From the trash heaps you could see “how crazy-lopsided all the huts were against the straight lines of the Hyatt and Meridien hotels that rose up behind them.”

Abdul, for example, is a young man whose skill is being able very rapidly to categorize purchased or stolen paper, plastic, metal waste “in order to sell it.”  (Categorization/classification fosters cognitive development.)  Others in the slum break into the Air India facilities and take apart new construction for the nuts and bolts--again to sell.

What’s amazing about their stories is that there is hope.  They go to school; they strive to graduate and move on to become nurses,  professionals, even politicians. Manju’s goal was to become Anawandi’s first college graduate. 

 As one boy said, “Educate ourselves and we’ll be making as much money as there is garbage!”  

There was, indeed, hope for the future, for better lives, but it did take intense imagining to place yourself in the skins of these folks struggling toward the light, for freedom from the crippling corruption that riddled every level of civic life.

What we have here is a tale of human aspirations, the same kinds of aspirations we see in page after page of Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools.  When his schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan had been damaged by storms  or by the Taliban, parents became insistent that he and others fix them, do what they could to return their children to the world of books and learning.  In one community struck by disaster, education was being conducted in tents until Mortenson delivered the chairs with writing arms with which we are all so familiar.

A better life for our children is what can all imagine and strive for.

The life of the imagination is one of our overlooked basic capacities.  It is the fountain of our curiosity about the world.  From our imaginations spring forth those alternative worlds that we grow to live within.  We become better persons by being able to create pictures in our minds, move them around in the past, project them purposefully into the future and then take actions toward self-actualizing them. 

In every classroom we should be fostering the life of our imagination.

“Imagining a life other than our own” is what we do while reading books in every classroom and we can foster this important capacity by challenging students with questions such as:

“What do the characters look like?

Where do you see them?

What do you think they would do under these/different circumstances?

How are you like them?

What would you do in these situations?”

In history, we must engage our imaginations if we are to understand how George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and other founding fathers felt during the first days of our new republic:

What were they thinking/feeling during these early days?

What were their aspirations?

Why did they advocate the ideas and actions they did?

How do you imagine they would deal with failure/frustration?

What if you had been at the Constitutional Convention how would you have handled representation among states/any issue?

How would any one of them want to change government today?”

In science we invoke our imaginations as the greats have done:

For Richard Feynman scientific thinking  “was a process of putting oneself in nature:  in an imagined beam of light, in a relativistic electron. (Gleick, 1922, p. 244)  He once asked,  “How would I behave were I an electron?”  

We know of Einstein’s imagining “thought problems” (gedanken) such as “What if I rode along a ray of light? What would I observe?”

These “What if?” questions require using our imaginations to go beyond givens into areas where physical laws do not apply.

And, in math, where do we use our imaginations?

In turning all those SAT figures topsy turvy in the theaters of our minds in order to demonstrate to somebody in college that we have this capacity. . . 

In posing our own “What if?” questions that challenge us to take the data and imagine alternative solutions, problems:

What if I try this approach?

Suppose I draw it out?

What can I compare this to?  (“Factoring is like. . .”)

Imagine being the tangent to a circle.  What is my goal?

How would I graphically describe myself as a math student.

These questions, if they become part of our ways of seeing problems, put us more in control of our own thinking.  We manifest what psychologists have called a sense of “agency,” being in command of our own thinking.

As Patchett said, reading and imagining make us more “empathetic beings” and thereby better able to work and live within our several communities.  

Our imaginations are gateways to those unexplored territories where we will make discoveries:

“Come, my friends,

‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.”

21st Century Skills--Innovation

As Tom Friedman noted a while back in his NY Times column (7/13/11), employees of the future will survive depending upon their ability to add value to their jobs, in other words, to think beyond defined expectations, to be able to innovate. Employers are looking for people “who can invent, adapt and reinvent their jobs every day, in a market that changes faster than ever.” (p. A47)

More recently we’ve had

research on successful countries, developing nations that are growing prosperous largely because of their abilities to do the same thing, innovate, to create new ideas, products and ways of living.

In Why Nations Fail (2012), authors Acemoglu and Robinson note that the US, Britain and European countries prosper when compared to other countries. Why is the US so much richer than, for example, Egypt? In part because we rid ourselves of dictatorial powers and shared control with all citizens. “We, the people. . .” are in charge.

As noted historian Niall Ferguson observed about this book, “Without the inclusive institutions that first evolved in the West, sustainable growth is impossible, because only a truly free society can foster genuine innovation and the creative destruction that is its corollary." (emphasis added)

What does this “free society” mean? That we as citizens have a good measure of control over our lives and ways of prospering. Some have less than others.

When you can take a plot of land and carve out space and time for your own plantings and ingenuity, you will invest more in it, rather than, as serfs during the middle ages, having to give all products to the lord of the manor. We have a stake in our future

What does this have to do with schools?

In our classrooms we as the educators have opportunities to do what Pat Burrows does in her Catalina Foothills 8th grade English class does. Provide students with choices:

I give my students choices on a regular basis. Those choices range from choosing from menus to demonstrate their proficiency in a skill/knowledge to making decisions about using technology or other resources. Bottom line here: if my students do not feel that they have any power when it comes to what and how they learn, they don’t `own’ their learning and become`bystanders.’ (Barell, 2012)

It’s the same way with emerging nations. If the people feel they have control over over access to and use of certain natural resources and can devise ways of making money therefrom, then it stands to reason that this country can grow and prosper.

Innovation is also fostered by an educator’s creating a more authentic problem-based curriculum wherein all students can pose good questions, conduct purposeful research, making findings, think critically and creatively and draw reasonable conclusions.

Students in Mary Darr’s STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) middle school classes (Sandusky, OH) have been, for the past two years, been learning how to collaborate with friends in order to solve problems such as:

How to attract `Tweens to the Cleveland Indians ball park

How to use vacant properties along Lake Erie for profit.

How to rebuild the Cedar Point roller coaster rides to attract more customers.

During these intensive learning experiences, students often struggled with collaborating and learned that “TEAMWORK” was the most important ingredient for success. They were also able to create novel solutions to well-stated problems, solutions that often intrigued the adults who reviewed their ideas (e.g. using mood indicating colors on the roller coaster handle bars, “Acting cool in front of friends would be difficult if the lap bar turned a color that showed nervousness.” ).

As we are learning from books like The Idea Factory (Gertner, 2012) about how Bell Labs created/invented the transistor and laser, it’s vitally important for creativity to have people with diverse experiences and backgrounds working with each other. The best solutions come when people with different perspectives collaborate with each other. Hence, problem solving in schools should be conducted with students with different experiences and talents. Diversity of input is key.

In addition to having some control over decision making within a problem solving context, and having problem solvers with varied talents, another element within our educational systems that can foster innovation is our openness to mystery, novelty and, of course new ideas. Not all adults are comfortable with the new thinking of our children and students, new thinking reflected in such questions as:

Do you think that angler fish think humans are fish sometimes? (kindergarten)

How big will space be when it stops growing and when will it stop growing? (kindergarten)

Why are mountains necessary? (grade four)

What if a planet spun out of the solar system? (grade four)

How much g force can a person bear during a coaster ride? (grade eight)

What if there were no gravity on the moon? (grade nine)

Suppose Holden Caulfield (Macbeth, Jefferson, Marie Curie, Cleopatra) lived today? (mine)

These are just a sample of the kinds of questions we might encounter when we provide students with some control over their own educational destinies within a problem-oriented curriculum.

There’s little or no preparation for such innovative thoughts. What we need to do is respond in ways that encourage the original thinker’s creation, urging him or her to share their thinking, to take it further and suggest the kinds of resources that might be necessary to find answers, if there are answers. For some this might take gradually moving beyond our comfort levels into those domains where novelty prevails. As one teacher in the STEM projects noted, “We were out of our comfort zones!”

So, countries and classrooms thrive on innovative thinking, when citizens in both environments have choice, emotional and intellectual support and are confronted with challenges of a high order wherein all can participate in their own fashions.

I never realized while I was a graduate student at Teachers College, Columbia University in Dwayne Huebner’s curriculum theory class that his introduction of the concept of who controls which decisions, when and how would be so vitally important to my work as an educator and to the prosperity of persons as well as developing nations.

www.morecuriousminds.com

21st Century Skills

“How do we know they’re getting better?”

This is a question I started asking many years ago while working with a national educational organization. I wanted to know then if there were ways of determining if our students were getting better at critical thinking and problem solving.

One respondent commented, “I don’t think we need to be reductionist about it.” Seemed to me he thought we needed to look at students’ growth only in terms of numbers. We dropped the subject until about three years ago when I began asking the same question about what we now call 21st century capacities or skills--inquiry, problem solving, critical/creative/reflective thought and uses of technology.

Corwin has just published a book by this title focusing upon how some outstanding educators grades K-8 have been answering this quetion. They work in schools such as Partnership 21, STEM, International Baccalaureate and traditional schools.

There are many amazing stories within this new volume and one that I am especially fond of is related to an earlier post, “STEM changed my life.” Here I related the story of Karla, an eighth grade student in Pearson Middle School during her challenge with a science, technology, engineering and math project to build a better roller coaster for Cedar Point Amusement Park.

We also learned from interviewing these students on several different occasions that the most important learning was “TEAMWORK!” Virtually every student, in grades 6-8, noted how difficult this was--working in teams to solve problems.

One CEO, Carlee noted, “I like my team because were are able to bounce ideas off each other and work well to get everything done.”

Emmy said, “Working together is important because you all have to be on the same page, and if you’re not you get off task.” (Barell, 2012, How Do We Know They’re Getting Better? Assessment for 21st Century Minds, K-8, Corwin)

But not all teams were as successful. Sydney noted that “you have to learn to deal with arguments” and with those who do not participate. Some groups were able to achieve consensus. But when I asked one CEO what she did with disagreement, she replied, “I told them what we were going to do.”

When Mary Darr, the leader of the STEM projects, and other teachers realized through observations that teams weren’t working well together, she often brought them into her office and asked questions such as, “What if we follow your solution? What are the consequences?” and “How are these two ideas alike? How might we combine them?”

Mary worked with students’ struggles to build teams where collaboration was the essence, where students listened and bounced ideas off each other; built upon each other’s ideas and were able to arrive at reasonable decisions by consensus.

During subsequent team challenges their abilities to work together improved markedly.

Today, teams work in all fields of human endeavor from sports, medicine, engineering to education, and the military. What is the essence of good team work? Being able to work for the good of the group, not always feeling that one’s ideas are the best but keeping your eye on the intended outcome.

As somebody once noted, “There’s no `i’ in `team.’”

Phil Jackson, the NBA’s most successful coach observed in Sacred Hoops (1995), quoting his former NY Knick coach Red Holzman, “

The power of We is stronger power of Me.”

And, “Working with the Chicago Bulls I’ve learned that the most effect way to forge a winning team is to call on the players’ need to connect with something larger than themselves.” (p. 5)

This “something larger than themselves” might be the goals of the team--to do your best, as John Wooden coached; the desire of every family--develop its health, welfare and collective joy; the aspirations of a concerned citizenry--to preserve the essence of our democracy; the vision of an action group--to save the planet.

This might or might not be hard for Carlee and her friends to grasp, working for something larger and more significant than our own egos, our own successes, and today, how wonderful it is that there are in every walk of life people who recognize daily that power in a team’s committing to goals representing

an ideal worth striving for, the betterment of the human condition. Perhaps in every walk of life with some notable exceptions.

Carlee and her friends might just have learned life’s most important lesson.

Play Time--"The Best Day of My Life!"

Luke was having a regular day in his Kindergarten class at Deer Creek Elementary School in Austin, Texas. Activities before lunch included calendar time, whole group reading and work board, where every child has and performs her/his special job for the day. After lunch the class would have time for math and science instruction. At the very end of the day would come Play Time.

But on this particular day during a break just before lunch Katy Azanza and her partner Gina Pinkston decided to try something different.

“Let’s see what happens if we move Play Time up before lunch instead of its being the last event of the day as it normally is.”

Gina agreed and both went into their classrooms to announce:

“OK, children today we’re going to do things a bit differently. So, right now is Play Time and you can go to whatever corner or computer you want to.”

There were youthful cheers, a scramble to get to the blocks, the reading corner and Luke walked purposefully by Katy saying, “This is the best day of my life!”

Imagine that, at six Luke already knows his good and better days and having time to play at the computer—or, one imagines, with the blocks—represents to him a significant change for the better.

What have Katy and Gina done?

They have chosen to provide Luke and his friends with the opportunity to play, to make a choice and to have fun. But her decision involves more than just making this choice, for she has given Luke and his friends time to engage in what psychologists have called play, “children’s work,” a most important activity in growing up and learning to think and act responsibly.

Why is play so important for kindergartners and others? Because play is that very important human activity characterized by:

Internal motivation—We play because it is fun, not for external rewards

Internal control—We decide what to do—to go to the computer, to use blocks to build a city

Internal reality—We make a block into a truck, a whole structure of blocks into a city or a school.

There are few if any other human activities wherein we have such control over our experiences, to engage in fantasies about being a commander on a space shuttle, a world famous basketball player, a doctor, teacher or Antarctic explorer.

Recent research by Aamodt and Wang, claim that play is one of those experiences that lead to self-control:

“Play allows children to practice skills that are useful in adult life. Young children build self-control through elaborate imaginative games like pretending to be a doctor or a fireman.” (19 February, 2012, NY Times, Sunday Review, p. 5)

Play gives us opportunities to make choices, to create little dramas as the teacher or the commander of an expedition, to figure out how to solve them and learn from our experiences. Katy says that some of the dramatic play in her class focuses upon playing husband and wife, imitating how their parents act at home, how they deal with family situations.

Play builds our minds, our feelings and our physical bodies and is not something to be relegated to the end of the day. H erein, as Katy and Gina are discovering, are golden opportunities for kids to play with the toys of the curriculum—the snails in the science unit where a Wonder Wall records kids’ questions.

Imagine being a snail out in search of food during a rainstorm, or when a predator lurks around the corner. What would you do?

Play makes us who we are and every child deserves as much time to play as in doing her numbers to prepare for first grade.

Katy reports that now Luke and his classmates “are much more calm” in class as they do not have to wait all day to play.

And truth be told, my Kindergarten teacher, Lilian Mould, reported that John Barell’s Dramatic Play—“centers around block construction he has done, and shows he has a variety of ideas.” She also noted, however, that he “tends to be somewhat over-anxious.” Would that little John had played more often and with others to gain Luke’s sense of calm.

STEM Changed My Life!

Karla is an eighth grader at Perkins Middle School in Sandusky, OH.

Recently, she and her classmates were challenged to design a roller coaster for its amusement park:

To continue its domination as the “World’s Roller Coast,” Cedar Point design engineers need your help. They want to bring a new coaster to the park, one that will generate much publicity and many riders. What is your vision for Cedar Point’s new roller coaster? Where should it be built? What will it look like, and what will it be named? Who should be its target audience? How will the park finance it? How far can designers go with the ride and still keep it safe for riders? If you build it, what will make them come?

This was a STEM project, one focused on developing students’ abilities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. Many schools across the country have adopted such innovative approaches, some in an effort to qualify for Race-to-the-Top federal funding.

Karla worked on a team with several other students acting as CEO, lawyers (Legal Eagles), architects, financiers and marketing experts. During their weekly meetings students had to solve many problems of design, safety, publicity and finance, e.g. “How close to the beach can you build and what kinds of permits are needed from OH?” “What is the g-force on a human body going 75 mph?” No easy task, especially if you were new to the roller-coaster improvement business.

But they had the benefit of experts in engineering, marketing, architecture, and financial planning. Imagine hearing about design principles from someone who actually designs buildings, not from a textbook, and then designing a model yourself!

According to many team members the most valuable aspect of this STEM project was an important 21^st century skill, learning how to solve problems collaboratively:

Emmy: “Working together is most important because you all have to be on the same page and if you’re not, you get off task. .”

Nicholas: “The most important thing about STEM is TEAMWORK!!!!”

Sydney noted that “You have to learn how to deal with arguments” and those who do not participate.

Doug Reeves notes that in the future “performance will be measured not by the success of the individual, but by the success of the team. . .[helping] others learn is an essential process and therefore collaboration is essential.” (2010)

In telephone interviews several of the CEOs told me that they found the problem solving most challenging—finding solutions to problems required them to “think differently,” as Karla said, to be imaginative, creative and “think out of the box.” Carlee noted: “I like my team because we are able to bounce ideas off each other and work well to get everything done.”

This involved a lot of brainstorming new solutions, searching Google for ideas and narrowing ten ideas down to two or one. And then the CEOs would have to arrive a consensus, not an easy task by any means. They had to learn, for example, “how to incorporate other peoples’ ideas” into an agreed upon solution. Some CEOs worked for compromise, others made a final decision themselves.

Before a final presentation each team ran a dress rehearsal to get feedback from other students, as Grant Wiggins has advocated. Kids saw others’ ideas, responded, “That’s pretty neat” and changed some of their plans.

And Karla? At first she was bored, but she persisted and made the project her own: “I wanted to find some purpose for the project.” And she did.

“STEM made me actually start to do better in school and to start thinking about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. . . I started to think differently because I realized it was time to become a better person and to grow up and to reach the expectations that my parents have for me and I have for myself.”

So, how did STEM projects compare with regular classes?

What pleased some students was learning “more ways to get things done, rather than just [sitting in class and] answering specific questions.”

There were “more variables” you had to work with, more points of view (others’ ideas) you had to reconcile.

During a subsequent challenge—building a colony on Mars—you had to “project consequences” of, for example, building this or that kind of structure and responding to a variety of “What if?” scenarios—suppose somebody gets killed. . ?

And, said Karla in conclusion, “You had to ask a lot of questions.”

What are the benefits of this kind of project?

Students thought there second STEM project--habitat on Mars--was superior because they had spontaneously used good problem solving processes--creating a challenge statement, brainstorming solutions and thinking critically about them to make decisions. They'd become better problem solvers and team members.

Some teachers noticed a transfer effect into their regular classrooms—students becoming more self-reliant, resourceful and focused on the tasks at hand. “We had to teach ourselves!” said one student.

Mary Darr, the faculty leader of these STEM projects, observed, “Unlike standardized tests, these challenges encourage students to work together in an authentic environment to generate something new, to figure out what to do when answers aren’t obvious. Here they have to pull everything together,” meaning apply knowledge from all subjects they’ve studied.

And Paul Dougherty, Director of Curriculum, noted that life for middle school students today is very “individualistic” and “social only within a cocoon.” STEM provides them with opportunities to create a product and persuade an authentic audience using logical arguments and good reasons.

No wonder Karla transformed her life.

(Photo left to right: Brandon, Karla, Kayla, Laura)