A must read - here's a detailed system for starting with the student, instead of the school

Good news: I just found a coherent and proven concept for personalized education.

Bad news: it’s in Sweden, offered by Kunskapsskolan, which means “the knowledge school.”

Good news: the KED (Kunskapsskolan Education) program is coming to the United States.

I first met Peg Hoey after she helped launch and run a charter school in the Bronx, and now she is the U.S. Project Manager for this initiative. Peg is my kind of person; she loves getting new ideas out there, and she has the initiative and expertise to turn an idea into reality.

To quote their new global site: Kunskapsskolan owns and operates 33 schools in Sweden, is the sponsor and founder of the Learning Schools Trust in the United Kingdom and provides support and curriculum to schools and educators around the world.

Peg and her colleagues hope to open a middle school in New York based on the KED program, ideally in 2011. In addition to moving through the formal application process now, they are also starting to create a US version of the learning portal their schools use in Sweden.

Peg explains, “We want to create a model school for people to see. We start with the student, not the adults, the shape of the building, or a traditional school schedule. Our core tenet is that everybody is different.”

Kunskapsskolan is a private company, but they are not looking to build and manage schools. Instead, they are seeking to work in partnership with schools, providing the tools and proven system for personalizing education.

So, for example, they might provide the KED pedagogical program for a charter school or partner with a private school or public school system who wish to deliver a more personalized approach to education.

Their approach literally starts with the student. Every student has a personal coach, a teacher who works with them throughout the school year and meets with them weekly to review their goals and the steps necessary to achieve them. These are not just loose “check in” sessions; KED includes a formal program for coaching each student.

The curriculum example from the U.K. pictured below includes both “step” and “thematic” courses, both of which allow students room for individual differences in both learning approach and pace. I urge you to take a closer look. Their website does an excellent job of explaining the KED program.

Glenn taught two of my three “children.” Ashley just taught my youngest. And one day many years ago, Carol pulled my daughter aside and told her, “If you don’t understand what I’m teaching you and I don’t notice, you need to grab me by the lapels and say, ‘I don’t understand.’” My quiet daughter got the message, and became an assertive advocate for her own needs.

But these wonderful teachers succeed despite the system, not because of it. Most schools are still run in an outdated mass production, assembly line system that barely works anymore to make cars, nevermind bring out the best in our next generation.

Unfortunately, our schools are not going to change much from the inside out. We need to change them from the outside in.

Government isn’t going to do this. Entrepreneurs are.

You see this already happening as entrepreneurial firms hack away at the edges of our educational system, offering test prep services, online learning and distance tutoring. Many top colleges are helping, by offering free access to some of their courses. Other schools routinely offer distance learning options.

This trend should accelerate. It has to, because many students simply aren’t being taught the skills necessary to succeed in the world they are inheriting. We already have a lot of teachers. Now we need entrepreneurs to create a better system for them and their students.

Kenwyn Smith drove many of my peers crazy. He was teaching organizational behavior, and once suspended his topic for the day to focus on why we let a female student who was late for class enter and sit down without anyone objecting. He made her sit on the floor until we decided what to do, but she ran out crying before the discussion came to a conclusion.

I liked Professor Smith. He made us think about why we did things, especially how we behaved in groups.

Earlier in the semester, Smith took us on a weekend retreat, to an old summer camp. We engaged in a simulation, in which Smith would set some rules, we’d live with them for a while, and then he’d change the rules again.

So on that last day of class, I raised my hand and told him I thought he’d gone too long between each rule change. He started jumping up and done and screaming, “Yes, yes!” (I was thinking: what? what?)

Fortunately, he explained.

People in groups always feel stuck in the middle. They feel powerless to change things. Even senior executives and CEOs often feel this way. You might think your CEO has all the power, but she or he might feel trapped between employees, the Board, investors and perhaps regulators.

Smith asked me, “Why didn’t you try to change the rules?”

I replied, “Because you had that role.”

But he pointed out that he’d never said he was the only one who could change the rules, and even if he had, I could have pushed back at any time. But I didn’t.

Of all the things I learned at Wharton, that lesson has stuck with me the longest. You and I have a much greater ability to change our circumstances than it sometimes seems. We don’t have to wait for the rules to change; we can change – or at least bend – them ourselves.

Smith was also right that nearly everyone feels stuck in the middle. I’ve been continually surprised at the degree to which seemingly powerful people didn’t act or feel that way.

Truly powerful people don’t depend on their position for power; they depend on their own character and initiative.

Here are a few hints:

DO:
1.) Show, don’t tell
2.) Show who you are, right now
3.) Show you have something positive to offer the college’s community

Don’t:
- Say, “I have something positive to offer your community…”
- Repeat anything elsewhere on your application (grades, honors…)
- Waste words

Try opening with a story. Paint a picture with words. Think like you are creating a video, rather than just spitting words at people. Describe a scene.

The ball grazed my outstretched hand, and for a moment time stopped. Then my body slammed into the ground and the ball kept going. For what seemed like forever, I lay there knowing my failure had cost us the game. But that moment changed me forever, and taught me I am far stronger than I ever imagined.

is better than…

I am a really competitive person. I like to win. I jumped as far as I could, but missed the ball. We lost. It was my fault. I’m still bitter, but my anger makes me work harder.

What if it isn’t that easy for you to write creatively? Here’s a hint: it’s not easy for the vast majority of human beings. The difference between “great” writers and everyone else is they write. A lot. They revise draft after draft.

Here’s another hint: you are not going to write an effective college essay in one or two tries. You might need ten, twenty or thirty drafts. But save each draft! Sometimes you will go back to an earlier draft and discover it was almost perfect.

Get feedback from people you trust, but don’t let anyone else put words into your mouth. Your Mom or Dad might be able to write an essay for you, but it is a horrible idea to let either one do that. College is all about becoming your own person, and what a horrible way to start that adventure by making yourself a mouthpiece for someone else’s ideas.

If you’re stuck for a topic, just start writing. Write for ten or twenty minutes at a stretch. Write about anything. After each session, go back and circle any phrase or sentence you either like or that mentions something about which you’d like to say more. Start a list of these nuggets, and use them as the inspiration for subsequent writing sessions. Sooner or later, you’ll see an essay emerge.

How do you know if it’s any good? Does it give others a taste of who you are, this year? Does it help others understand how you have grown as a person? Does it make you think: this is a person I’d like to meet?

My four days at College Summit inspired me to write this article.

Two kinds of schooling

Type 1. You can take a class where you learn technique, facts and procedures.

Type 2. You can take a class where you learn to see, learn to lead and learn to solve interesting problems.

The first type of teaching isn’t particularly difficult to do, and it’s something most of us are trained to absorb. The first type of schooling can even be accomplished with self-discipline and a Dummies book. The first type of class is important but not scarce.

The second kind, on the other hand, is where all real success comes from. It’s really tricky to find and train people to do this sort of teaching, and anytime you can find some of it, you should grab it.

The sad thing is that we often conflate the two. We think we’re hiring someone to do the second type, a once in a lifetime teacher, someone who will change the outlook of stellar students. But then we give them rules and procedures and feedback that turn them into a type 1 teacher.

Even worse, we often pay as if we’re getting the scarce and valuable type 2 teachers but we end up hiring and managing type 1 teachers.

I spend a lot of time in colleges and other teaching institutions. Over and over I see the same thing–organizations that have painted themselves into a corner, keeping themselves busy but refusing to do the difficult work of teaching people to see. The dean of one college was so stuck in his type-1ness that he couldn’t even bring himself to participate in a session run by a gifted type 2 teacher.

Is there anything more important to you and your organization (or your kids or your town) than figuring out how to obtain and share the wisdom that real teaching can deliver?

College Summit brought us together, and our challenge is to produce a college essay for each student that will change the course of their life for the better.

Three of the students are from Flushing, Queens. Two are from New Haven. They’re a diverse lot, each with much to offer the world. None have had the intense college prep work teenagers in my suburban town experience. A few risk their lives when they walk out their front doors; some have never enjoyed the unconditional love and support we try to hard to provide our own children.

College Summit works with schools that previously haven’t sent many kids on to college. It recruits the most influential students from these schools and tries to instill in them both the conviction and ability to attend college. The theory is that these students then influence their peers. Based on College Summit’s data, it appears to work.

The four day summer workshop I attended last week serves to let kids spend time on a college campus while they write their college essay and receive a list of recommended colleges.

My wife and I volunteered as Writing Coaches, which means we worked with the students as they wrote. The trick is to let each student use his or her words to show – not tell! – colleges who they are. In the process, we got to know each student in an intense and emotionally moving way. This is not an intellectual exercise, although it challenges your intellect. It is a profoundly human experience.

Their talent is what surprised me. One young woman – I’m respecting her privacy, but you know who you are – got up in front of about 100 of us Saturday night and sang a cappella. She’d mentioned occasionally that music was important to her, but in a matter-of-fact way that didn’t fully register with me, until she captivated the room.

Another young man walked in the first day and told us he would work as hard as it took. He wasn’t kidding, and pushed far past his comfort zone to craft an essay that revealed both his fears and strengths.

None of this was easy. Few people love to write draft after draft after draft, especially in the middle of July.

This country doesn’t just waste energy; it wastes talent, too. Fortunately, you can do something about it. Volunteer.

Eight years later, with kids aged four and six, the couple had trouble remembering how narrowly focused our educational system used to be. All the top universities had embraced the lifelong learning concept, and schools were starting to be replaced with a hybrid blend of community centers and self-paced learning programs. Students spent much of their time working with digital learning tools, interacted with peers and teachers via such tools, and gathered in person only when it made sense to do so.

It was now common to have 14 year olds in online classes with people twice their age, and 60 year olds were no longer segregated in elder programs. Kathy had been taking two classes at a time ever since she physically left the MIT campus, and Jamal both taught and took one course without more than a three weeks break.

“I love it,” explained Kathy. “It keeps me sharp, makes me question our limits, and exposes me to new ideas.”

Jamal, who initially thought the end of graduation was the worst idea he ever heard, had switched views 180 degrees. “I much prefer the Mastery ceremonies we now have. Being able to reach a level of mastery regardless of whether you are ten or 65 makes so much more sense. We celebrate growth, rather than completion of a fixed amount of time and effort.”

The transition to a mastery-based system was wrenching. For many people, there is comfort in structure and predictability. In four years, you get a high school degree. In four more, you get a college degree. It was great concept, except millions of people went through the process and still lacked the skills and mindset to succeed over a 40 or 50 year career.

“The reality is that our economy, culture and tools change far too rapidly to make it possible for education to end at the age of 22,” says Kathy. “I’m so glad our kids will never have to sit in a boring classroom five days a week, eight months out of the year. The world they are inheriting is starting to make so much more sense than I ever expected it would.”

Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America
asks more questions than it answers, but knowing which questions to answer is essential, especially when our educational system is broken but there is no consensus how to fix it.

The authors agree with Clayton Christensen, John Seely Brown, John Hagel and others that change comes from the edges of markets. In education, that means home schooling, workplace learning, distance education, adult education, learning centers, educational television and videos, computer-based learning software, technical certifications and Internet cafes. These are the places where technology already allows customized and individualized learning.

Public schools are going to change last. By the time they do, substantial portions of our students will already be educated in a manner distinctly different from today’s system. The authors are cautious in predicting how exactly things will change, but they make it clear the change is underway.

This is a call for visionaries to step up and lead. I especially value the book because it provides a framework that will allow innovators from other industries to understand what is happening in education, and to jump in and help drive many changes.

Best of all, the book explains why we have the educational system we do today, what role it plays, and how disconnected that role seems to be from what lies ahead. It is well worth reading.

Here’s my first, which provides links to the top 10 online test preparation tools.