Category: Student Leadership

Reinventing High Schools for the Future

If you’ve read my blog before, you probably already know that I’m a passionate fan of problem-based learning experiences and real-world, hands-on learning. These approaches help students learn to work collaboratively for a meaningful purpose, to think critically to justify their solutions, to build schools that focus on real-life skills integrated with academic content, and to prepare for a future ever more uncertain.

Recently I’ve collected an array of schools that do just that. Each has a different focus, but all of them value the life skills their approaches develop. For example, the Grand Rapids Public Museum School (GRPMS) has learners work in small and collaborative cohorts co-taught by teachers. The community is their classroom, and their mission is to “use place-based design thinking and the museum context to create learning experiences that develop confident, creative, and competent thinkers, doers, and leaders.” They have an impressive list of core competencies as goals: “Read Critically; Reason Quantitatively; Learn Independently; Lead Inquiry; Explore Social Phenomena; Communicate Effectively; Collaborate on Teams; Build Community; Design Solutions; Develop Self-Knowledge; Cultivate Well-Being; and Think and Act Globally.” (https://grps.org/schools/high-school/gr-museum-hs/) At this school, housed inside the Grand Rapids Public Museum itself, students “help museum staff collect, process, and curate new materials in a design lab where they play a role in designing and updating existing exhibits.” They’ve found artifacts like a spacesuit from an Apollo mission and a flapper dress from the 1920s, and they’ve recorded interviews about the artifacts and created podcasts. (https://xqsuperschool.org/where-we-work/grand-rapids-public-museum-school) At this school the content is integrated across subject areas, and classroom activities are blended with community-based experiential projects. How powerful that approach must be!

Another example, Elizabethtown High School is the only high school in its northeast Tennessee district, in a region hit hard by opioid epidemic and poverty. Teachers there invited a sociology class to design a school that could earn an XQ Super School grant.  As a result, they added two new classes the following school year, “Community Improvement” and “Entrepreneurship.” Students were able to work in the community; build relationships with government, non-profit, and business leaders; and start their own community project or business. One sociology class “investigated and helped solve a cold case from the 1980s, leading the authorities to identify the murder suspect.” They started in 2018, and subsequent students continued “investigating links between that crime and a series of murders. In 2024, their work became the subject of iHeart radio’s hit true-crime podcast series ‘Murder 101,’ now set to become a feature-length film.”

Other students there have found their own opportunities to make a difference. A student is now liaison to the local school board, and the at the prompting of students, the school has a Cyclone Student Center where students can find school resources and college information. (https://xqsuperschool.org/where-we-work/elizabethtown-high-school) Yet another student took on painting murals in the community during her senior year, even though she knew nothing about it prior to that effort. As an alumna, she still leads this ongoing project that’s transforming the downtown. Another student learned how to network and build relationships to make art “a viable business endeavor while providing a public service.” (https://ehs.ecschools.net)

These schools are not alone in their reinvention of high school. Crosstown High in downtown Memphis, a charter school with about 480 students, is sited within a one-million-square-foot landmark with over 40 business and agencies. It recruits students from all over Memphis who then learn “through projects, such as analyzing pollution in local soil and its correlation to cancer rates.” (https://xqsuperschool.org/where-we-work/crosstown-high) 

The learning framework at Crosstown High is action-based:

  • Center learning around authentic, real-world problems
  • Incorporate student voice and choice
  • Build in feedback, revision, and public exhibitions
  • Align projects with both academic content and transferable skills

(https://crosstownhigh.org/adult-learning)

In 2024, award-winning documentary filmmaker Lee Hirsch premiered “The First Class,” a documentary that goes inside Crosstown High to tell the story.

Check out Thomas A. Edison High School is an anchor school among the 100-plus city high schools participating in FutureReadyNYC, a consortium for career-connected learning. Their students choose from thirteen different career tracks that allow them to seek internships and earn industry certifications. They can also earn college credit. The school focuses on developing five essential skills—communication, collaboration, giving and receiving feedback, design thinking, and professionalism. That focus guides classroom work, with students and teachers collaborating to co-design curricula suited to the modern world and workplace. For example, an English class may include a student-run theater. (https://xqsuperschool.org/where-we-work/thomas-edison) They don’t focus on career skills in place of academics; they integrate the two. Their vision: “Thomas A. Edison Career and Technical Education High School envisions empowering every student to become a leader of tomorrow by excelling academically, technically, and civically through strong collaboration among faculty, students, parents, and community partners.” (https://www.taehs.org)

Take a look at Brooklyn STEAM Center, a school that “delivers innovative, industry-informed experiences that empower students—treated as young professionals—to shape their futures. (www.spacesmith.com) The Brooklyn Navy Yard behind the school hired Spacesmith, a design firm keyed to each client’s mission, to expand it. As a result, “school leaders and contractors, along with architects and interior designers from Spacesmith, put the entire high school body in the driver’s seat to design their future.” Already a bastion of student-centered learning, the school sought student input both pre-design and during design and construction. Students played a central role in designing quieter and more private spaces, adaptable classrooms, acoustic and health-grade materials, and glazed classroom entrances enhance transparency and connection. They learned a whole new level of advocacy and collaboration. (https://schoolconstructionnews.com)

My own students experienced this kind of learning in my problem-based learning classroom. Even as they worked for the school, public and private agencies, and a Chicago law firm to solve real-world problems, they met curriculum standards and developed academic skills. You can read all about it in Tales Told Out of School, my teaching memoir.

At a time when students are so disengaged and often not even present, offering learning opportunities that prepare them for the future is an invaluable approach. American public schools suffer from inertia, and change is somehow always harder than it should be. It’s up to all of us – students, parents, teachers, taxpayers, citizens – to demand that change occur now.

Changing the World, One Student at a Time

Too much bleak news distorts our hope for the future. I’ve been collecting stories about youth who make a difference, and I’m ready for some good news – aren’t you?

Remarkable teens out there challenge the status quo, seek innovation, and work to ignite change. Some are famous already: Greta Thunberg’s quest to educate people about climate change, Malala Yousafzai‘s fight for education of girls in Pakistan, even Sal Kahn, who founded the  free online non-profit educational platform Khan Academy years ago.

But there are many others toiling in relative obscurity. Simmi Sen, a high school senior from Vancouver, WA, founded the clothing brand Tints Streetwear to help women in Bangladesh and India get vocational and educational training that could break the cycle of poverty. (https://tintsstreetwear.com/) When he was a freshman at Harvard, Sahil Sood founded HYPE, a health care non-profit that distributed money and led to his current role as the International Vice President of HOSA-Future Health Professionals, a nonprofit career technical organization that aims to help students pursue careers in healthcare. (https://www.arielfoundation.org/mr-sahil-sood/ – :~:text=Sahil Sood is a youth,prominent issues in the community.) A victim of Lyme disease as a child, Olivia Goodreau founded the LivLyme Foundation to provide financial support to families, fund research, and provide education and awareness. (https://livlymefoundation.org/)

There are many others. As a high school student, Radhika Goyal founded the nonprofit TechPower4All to break gender and socioeconomic barriers in technology. (https://techpower4all.org/) High school student Alex Chen Alex Chen launched Youth for Finance, the largest youth-led financial literacy nonprofit organization in the U.S., with over 75 registered school chapters, 3,000 members, and four finance events hosted with more than 400 attendees. (https://www.youthforfinance.org/) When she was only 18, Neha Shukla was a New York Times-featured young inventor, chair of the World Economic Forum’s Generation AI Youth Council, and the bestselling author of Innovation for Everyone: Solving Real-World Problems with STEM and A Kids Book About AI. (https://www.neha-shukla.com)

Still more: To deal with her own depression and an eating disorder, Emily Bhatnagar founded For Love & Buttercup, collecting tens of thousands of books for sick children and schools in economically disadvantaged communities. (https://www.forloveandbuttercup.com/) When she was only eight years old, Sammie Vance  launched the Buddy Bench project, collecting plastic bottle caps to turn into benches that promote kindness and inclusion at schools. Her eco-friendly project encourages kids to make friends while also helping the planet. (https://sammiesbuddybenchproject.com/) Two years ago, after taking a sixth-grade programming class at his San Francisco private school, Jacob Shaul wanted to share his passion with students at other schools.  Despite a lack of enthusiasm from most school administrators, he managed to launch Mode to Code to introduce computer programming to middle schoolers. Mode to Code now partners with 30 institutions, offers classes in other countries, and is teaching senior citizens in the Bay area. (https://www.modetocode.com/)

There are so many stories like these – an internet search offers profiles of youth making a difference. Many other stories go unnoticed, but they matter. There’s even an organization to support these efforts called “Do Something.” Founded 31 years ago, their mission is to fuel young people to change the world by making volunteerism as cool as sports for young. They have over 1 million active members ages 13-25 committed to leading the change they want to see. https://dosomething.org/)

These youth should inspire us. Their leadership shows us what’s possible. They may be extraordinary, but every teen has potential to innovate, to support their community, to make a difference. What can – and should – we do to motivate more young people to follow their lead?

For years I advocated for a senior service project. I saw first-hand how my problem-solving class, which exposed my students to service-learning projects of both my and their design, transformed their commitment to others. At a time when so many of our students seem disconnected if not downright alienated, why don’t we lead the way?

A Blueprint for Meaningful Educational Reform

Words are inadequate to describe my excitement when I discovered XQ Institute, an organization “dedicated to rethinking high school” (xqsuperschool.org)! I’ve been poring through their material, and they promote everything I believe about how to redesign schools.

XQ Institute was co-founded by board chair Laurene Powell Jobs, founder and president of Emerson Collective, and Russlynn Ali, XQ’s CEO and former U.S. assistant secretary of education for civil rights. XQ’s board of directors also includes Geoffrey Canada, Marc Eckō, Jimmy Iovine, Michael Klein, and Yo-Yo Ma.

XQ Institute maintains that a school that bases its rethinking on this set of design principles “fully realizes its potential to achieve a bold, holistic, student-centered school design”:

  • Strong mission and culture
  • Meaningful, engaged learning
  • Caring, trusting relationships
  • Youth voice and choice
  • Community partnerships
  • Smart use of time, space, and tech (xqsuperschool.org)

These principles encourage shared values to drive change, interdisciplinary and engaged learning strategies, effective personal connections, student-centered learning with some level of autonomy, and the expansion of non-traditional approaches and flexible use of technology tools. What’s not to like?!!

I believe this framework effectively incorporates best practices that could transform schools and leads naturally to the XQ Learner Outcomes:

  • Masters of all fundamental literacies
  • Holders of foundational knowledge
  • Original thinkers for an uncertain world
  • Generous collaborators for tough problems
  • Learners for life (xqsuperschool.org2)

XQ Institute offers this ultimate goal: “students who are deeply engaged in their own learning and fully prepared for all that the future has to o­ffer” (xqsuperschool.org3). Doesn’t this description fit the needs of students, schools, and the country?

This set of outcomes reminds me of the Glenbard Essential Qualities I’ve written about previously. In the 1990s, they were knowledgeable person, critical thinker, effective communicator, quality producer, collaborative worker, responsible individual, and socially responsible citizen. They’ve evolved in important ways, and now include the following:

  • Practices responsible decision-making and considers impact on others
  • Creates, monitors and reflects upon ambitious and realistic goals 
  • Builds and sustains strong, healthy relationships 
  • Advocates for self and others in a socially responsible, empathetic manner
  • Employs a growth mindset that includes self-regulation, motivation, and resiliency
  • Communicates
  • Thinks Critically
  • Embraces Diversity
  • Creates
  • Collaborates (glenbard87.org)

The shift to verbs instead of nouns makes the qualities more proactive, and the new list seems even more aligned with my values as an educator and with the XQ Framework I admire.

The XQ Institute provides specific tools and materials to help schools undertake a serious self-evaluation and work toward change. Just imagine how a school might evolve to serve its students and community better if it shapes its curriculum and pedagogical design around these principles!

Change is hard, and school systems suffer from inertia. Visionary leadership from a thoughtful organization, accompanied by materials to lead schools through self-exploration, offers a real opportunity to transform schools to meet the needs of today’s students and the world. I would love to see school systems embrace the XQ Institute Approach. Our students, our schools, and our country badly need – and deserve – these changes.

Happier News for a Change

When so much of the news is distressing, here’s a break with some good news about education:

  • The American Exchange Project helps students build bridges across the American divide. Co-founded by 29-year-old David McCullough III, grandson of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough, it pays to for youth to spend a week in the summer after senior year “in an American town that is politically and socio-economically and culturally very different from the one that they’re growing up in,” McCullough said. Participants report bonding with others very different from themselves and seeing shades of gray in a world that used to be more black-and-white. (cbsnews.com)
  • Boston has opened high school reengagement centers that “offer a proven, scalable way to help more students find a path to a diploma and a better life.” Dozens of volunteers visit the home of students living well below the poverty line who have had poor attendance to encourage them to stay in school. Bostons’ four-year graduation rate went from 59% in 2006 to 81% in 2022. The five-year rate jumped from 65% to 84%.  Other districts could certainly duplicate this effort. (nextcity.org)
  • Indiana already had some work-based programs to prepare students for chosen careers, including those that do not require college. Now their Career Scholarship Accounts are available to every student as a sophomore in high school. “Students participating in qualifying programs can apply for $5,000 each year to pay for career training courses, enroll in earn-and-learn opportunities and cover the costs of items like transportation to and from work sites, uniforms, tools and certification exams.” (the74million.org)
  • Education Reimagined is developing partnerships with educators, communities, and researchers to shift the current model of schooling to “one built on community-based ecosystems of learning that offer deeply personalized opportunities to all students.”  For example, the brand-new City View Community High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, uses the local Chamber of Commerce as students’ home base and creates personalized learning activities, connected to standards, and community-based projects and problem solving. (the74million.org2)
  • Michael Hayes, a male fifth-grade language arts teacher at Hidden Valley Elementary school, started “Men Count” to ensure that Charlotte students see more men of color in the school so that many can see themselves. Male volunteers from all over Charlotte participate, providing role models children can relate to. (charlotteobserver.com)
  • Hope Chicago is taking a two-generation approach to attacking poverty by working with five Chicago schools to provide scholarships for both students and a parent of those students. As long as the student stays in school, the parent does, too. An April 2023 report by “Belfield, a City University scholar, found that college enrollment rates averaged 74% — a 17% increase — in the organization’s first year partnering with the five schools.” Chicago Hope plans to expand the program. (the74million.org3)
  • Ed tech nonprofit UPchieve offers free, individualized, on-demand academic support. This 24-hour online tutoring service relies on 20,000 volunteer tutors to offer free, on-demand academic and college application support to any U.S. middle or high school student attending a Title I school or living in a low-income neighborhood. (the74million.org4)
  • Two years ago, some students at a 60% white school in East Ridge, Minnesota, met to brainstorm what they could do to make students of color feel less isolated. They founded the Close the Gap club, which offers free tutoring by students for students. 40-50 teens participate and appreciate the support, finding it easier to get help from peers than teachers. (startribune.com)
  • Last spring Aleksander Simeunovic, a high school student in Batavia, Illinois, created Fox Valley Coding Buddies to promote online safety and digital literacy for elementary and middle school students. The group has already hosted 46 workshops across eight suburban school districts for students in grades 3-8 with 1,550 student participants, using 76 trained volunteers and eight executive board members. They tailor each workshop to the specific schools’ needs. (www.shawlocal.com)
  • New Jersey is the first state in the country to require public schools to teach media literacy to K-12 students. They believe that “students will become better citizens as adults by learning how to conduct research, analyze information, determine credible sources and ask questions to better reach their own conclusions.” (dailygazette.com)
  • Last month St. Charles, Illinois, offered a parent program entitled “Make Kindness Go Viral: Addressing Cyberbullying at Home.” A presenter from the Cyberbullying
    Research Center provided information on how kids use the Internet and their devices first and then examined cyberbullying, sexting, and unwise social media use along with practical strategies for identification, prevention, and response. (district303.org)
  • Two college students in Tulsa, Oklahoma, live in a senior community for free in exchange for performing music concerts and practices and engaging with residents. Although the financial benefits attracted them, both they and the residents say the bonding has been wonderful. The students bring joy and life to the facility, and the residents provide encouragement and advice. (kjrh.com)
  • A first grader in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, has been working on improving her reading by going door to door in her community and practicing by reading to seniors. Not only has Maggie’s reading improved as the seniors support her and help with difficult words, but they really enjoy the company! (kare11.com) In my own hometown retired adults work in the elementary schools as volunteers and report the cross-generational experiences are truly fulfilling. Perhaps we can expand opportunities like this across the nation.

It’s easy to feel discouraged about education given the strains schools are facing and the impact of the pandemic on learners. News items like these can remind us that good work continues around the country. We should support it and urge expansion of the best initiatives.

“Let the Children Lead the Way”

Whitney Houston was right when she sang, “I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way.”

At a time when political polarization continues to fracture families and communities, we hear voices of reason among our youth. An opinion piece in The Washington Post this week proves that once again.

Eli Tillemann, a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, described a divisive issue in his school that led to further polarization among adults (washingtonpost.com). This top-rated magnet school saw its selective admissions process overhauled by the Fairfax County School Board in an effort to improve diversity. No longer would applicants have to pay a $100 application fee or undergo standardized testing. Sadly, the infighting that followed nearly ended the Parent Teacher Association and a lawsuit was filed with the Supreme Court.

Tillemann shows more maturity than most of us when he writes, “Over the past two years, many of my classmates and I have learned a valuable lesson from this factional squabbling: It doesn’t work. When a society separates into warring camps, no one is left to have a meaningful conversation about fixing the underlying issues.” Instead of taking sides, he and many classmates decided to write their own curriculum, to learn to debate constructively and “to build a program that prepares students to navigate our increasingly tribal cognitive ecosystem.” With help from Niels Rosenquist, a psychiatrist and an interdisciplinary researcher at Harvard Medical School, and digital media executive Stuart Schulzke, they created “Dialectic,” a program now being looked at in states like California, Utah, and Massachusetts.

As president of both the Democrats and Republicans at his school, Tillemann has brought them together to host lectures on “the science around communication in the digital age, the neurobiology of tribalism and, perhaps most important, how to disagree.” He writes that more than 70 students attended the kickoff lecture, and that he and his classmates really want to learn how to disagree better, how to avoid the tribalism so apparent in the adults around them.

These students seek to tackle controversial problems, working together to generate better solutions. He writes, “This is not just civility for civility’s sake. The best outcomes in policy, business and life usually emerge from a competition of ideas and a compromise on solutions.”

These young people recognize that their solutions may not be adopted, but they hope to change the acrid environment surrounding the debate about the issue. They recognize that the well-intended changes to the admissions process are still flawed, and they are suggesting options to avoid some of the problems. I am impressed!

But Tillemann is right that we need more work like this around the nation. He says it far more effectively than I could: “Americans must level up the caliber of our discourse by relearning the benefits of practical debate. Constructive, respectful disagreement is vital to a functioning democracy. It is time for both sides to embrace a new strategy for resolving our differences.”

Out of the mouths of babes…