My skill started when I first got my Playstation 3 for Christmas two years ago and I played by myself until I played against Travis Hill and got admitted in the 7o6 Playstation Network clan. Although he beat me thirty to twenty-one, he still thought that I was good enough to join. I didn’t always play with Travis on Playstation, … Read More
A church basement on the South Side of Chicago
I grew up going to my mother’s afterschool tutoring program in a church basement on the South Side of Chicago. It is the best learning community I’ve ever been a part of and the best learning experience I’ve ever had. That is high praise because I have been lucky enough to attend extraordinary schools and to have great professional development … Read More
What Trust Can Do
I am an educational consultant and writer, and the most powerful learning experiences I have are when the folks I am consulting with/learning with have chosen to be part of the group, agree on the nature of the problem, and there is a high degree of trust among group members. I’m working now in a troubled middle school that won’t … Read More
William Owings' Learning Story
The year was 1988 and I was a new high school principal in Franklin County, Virginia. The school had problems – a high drop out rate, low percentage of students going on to higher education, and parent and student apathy to name a few. We did a good job of working with the academically talented students, but not all students. … Read More
Steven Zemelman's Learning Story
For the past year and a half, I’ve been working with a small group of schools in Chicago that are improving kids’ learning through instructional leadership teams. These are teams of teachers in schools that work democratically and systematically to help teachers throughout the school adopt a powerful practice, such as classroom writers workshop. What I love about this is … Read More
Gwendolyn Faulkner-Holley's Learning Story
I love teaching my students to write because there is no greater pleasure in my life than expressing myself. Over the years, as politicians and other folks push standardized testing, students resent the more formal writing and complain, refuse to participate or do a lousy job to prove how much they hate writing. Today, I explained to my students that … Read More
Anthony Cody's Learning Story
All of our students deserve well-trained teachers, but high needs schools often struggle to retain teachers, especially in math and science. I was lucky to work for 18 years with a remarkable group of teachers at Bret Harte Middle School in Oakland. Nine years ago, our science and math departments were struggling with turnover, so we applied and received a … Read More
Anonymous's Learning Story
When I was thirty, I had the great good fortune to attend my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and thereby board what I think of as the great ship of AA, which was to carry me through the often-stormy seas of life, one day at a time, to today, 33 years later. AA is an extraordinary model of learning. There are … Read More
Cooper Zale's Learning Story
JLO. Before Jennifer Lopez’s fans laid claim to this three-letter combo, it was the acronym for the unique youth theater group I participated in from 1970 to 1975, playing a role either backstage or, later, onstage in over twenty musicals, comedies, dramas and children’s theater. During the years I was a member of ‘Junior Light Opera’, it was a group … Read More
Hanna Neuschwander's Learning Story
I was trained in school and through my early professional career to write and edit, to think and communicate clearly. Along with that training — which came packaged in an excellent, challenging education — I also learned to be a bit of a snob. I read books I was supposed to read, I could define “synecdoche” and follow iambic tetrameter … Read More
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