Teaching For a Mixed Age Class

When designing curriculum, I think a lot about the right level of challenge. Too easy means boredom and disengagement. Too hard means stress and discouragement. 

Finding the perfect balance, especially across a group of students with different abilities, is what separates great learning from the average school experience.

At Inner Fire, we use several strategies to meet each student at their learning edge:

Personalize -- For math, coding, and Mandarin we fully tailor the teaching to each student's level. Even if all students were in the same grade, ability will vary and it's hard to mix different levels together: you can't teach algebra to students still working on multiplication, and you wouldn't waste an advanced speaker's time on "ni hao". Instead, we determine the student's current level, and start them at the appropriate spot on each curriculum.

Make hard things easier -- In our English curriculum we'll mostly read classic youth-oriented literature like Hatchet and The Westing Game, but also Twelfth Night and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Can 8-year-olds properly follow these adult works? Aside from the most gifted, probably not on their own. But by reading together in class, with frequent pauses to go over the meaning and subtext of each passage, we can meet our younger learners at their level of understanding while still introducing the class to great and complex writing.

Ask open-ended questions (or, "make easy things harder") -- In History and Science, we like uncovering facts but even more than that we love asking questions and making interpretations. Not just "what color was the precipitate" or "what were the food sources of early nomads" but also "what do we think that tell us?" and "what if it was ____ instead?" Big questions are much more interesting for more advanced students while still being accessible to everyone.

Enjoy the arts! -- Art is amazing for many reasons, not least of which that it can always meet any student's edge. During our school year we'll be making portraits, building string sculptures, acting drama scenes, composing poems, coding music videos and many more creative projects. In each case, student ability and effort is unboundedly rewarded with beautiful pieces, and it's okay to relax and just have fun with it too.

Is it hard to do all this? Apart from personalization, I struggle to see why these strategies wouldn't work for any classroom. They do run contrary to a culture of grade standards and right/wrong answers, but if you're willing to give that up you'll unlock a whole new level of learning.

Sebastian 07/21/2023

How You Feel > What You Know

A lot of teaching is focused on what we want kids to learn in each subject. But I think even more important than that is, how do we want kids to feel about each subject?

In today's world, factual knowledge and even skills are rapidly becoming outsourced to the internet and AI. Success is no longer driven by "can you answer the question", but rather do you know the right questions to be asking? And do you have the motivation to ask?


With that in mind, here's what I want to students to feel from their study of each subject:

Math -- Solving puzzles is interesting. I'm not afraid to tackle unknown problems and I feel a sense of accomplishment when I solve tough ones. Especially if the answer is beautifully elegant.

Language arts -- Reading and writing is fun! I like and feel confident looking for the right way to say something, both when I'm trying to be clear or when I'm writing to inspire and entertain.

Science -- I've started to ask "why" and "what if" about things a lot more. I can think of my own ideas for finding the answer, and when I do find it it usually inspires even more questions.

History -- I see a lot of patterns and connections across time and place. I like to ask why things happened the way they did, and look for supporting evidence to support my theories. 

2nd Language -- It feels magical to learn about another culture through its own language. When I speak it it feels a bit like a superpower, and I feel a bit transformed too.

PE -- Moving around outdoors feels really good! I like the feeling of getting better at something with more practice, and I like working together with teammates.

Coding -- It's cool that I can make programs do what I tell them. I feel like I can go build anything. 

Art -- It's nice to slow down and observe carefully sometimes. Taking the time to get all the details right is relaxing. I feel a lot of pride in my pieces; I put a lot of work into them.

SEL -- Feelings drive so much of what we do. I've learned to think more about how my actions impact the feelings of others, as well as to be more mindful of my own feelings.

Inner Fire curriculum is curated subject by subject towards these outcomes. It doesn't matter if you're learning multiplication or trigonometry, ancient Greece or the Civil War--a great education focuses on teaching students how to think and nurturing a love and comfort for the discipline, regardless of what you know or don't.

Sebastian 7/14/23

Lagunitas Open Classroom

I recently learned about Lagunitas Open Classroom, a progressive school founded in the 1970s with many of the same values I hope to bring to Inner Fire. There’s a fantastic video about it here:

https://vimeo.com/251435316

Key features included mixed-age classrooms, high parent involvement, student autonomy in how they spend their time, and flexible scheduling to capitalize on positive class momentum and passionate spur of the moment ideas.

Where Inner Fire differs most is 1) we have a much smaller school (Lagunitas has 100 students in 3 classrooms all in the same space, it looked rather chaotic); and 2) we are more gifted-focused and have a deeper, faster-paced curriculum.

But when it comes to teaching values I couldn’t agree more with what’s highlighted in the video—I highly encourage any parent to take a look!

Sebastian

4/14/2023

Good Education Doesn't Scale, Bad Education Does

What most determines educational outcomes for a young student?

In my view, the most important criteria are:

• Teacher Quality

• Class Size

• Sense of trust and respect from adults

• Peer educational engagement

Ideally, we'd have talented, passionate, and empathetic teachers in small classrooms of highly engaged students, who feel trusted to act maturely responsibly.

It's not easy, but within a small community it can be done. You can find one or two great teachers. You can pool funds to afford a smaller class size. Parents and teachers together can build strong relationships with each learner as an individual, creating a sense of mutual trust and raising educational engagement.

Now imagine you are a school district. How do you systematically find hundreds or thousands of great teachers? You can't. The best you can do it put in credentialing systems and regulatory standards. This will reduce the chances you get a bad teacher, but it doesn't help find great ones and may even rule a lot of them out too.

What about class size? Your budget is set per student. Fewer students means less money to run the school, and it's not practical to fundraise the shortfall on such a massive scale. Unless the state gives you more money, your only real option is larger classes.

As to the relationships between students and their educators, and the student engagement that arises from that, you can hope for the best but it's completely out of your control. And large class sizes in a standardized system don't help. At best you will have a few strong students that are liked by their teachers thrive, while most can choose between following the rules and being ignored or risking criticism and judgment for 'making trouble'.

I don't blame the public school system. I have no idea how to make education successful at scale. But I know what I can do in one classroom. And I'm happy to start there.

Sebastian 4/7/23

Less Measurement, More Joy

A famous business consulting adage states, "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it." And we love managing things, especially children's education.

We use grades to manage learning progress. What if we just told students what they're doing well and what they can work to improve on without adding a grade at the end? They'd probably be more curious, more intrinsically motivated, and less anxious. But then we couldn't manage it.

We use standardized tests to manage the content and quality of the education itself. Without them we'd have more time to focus on actual teaching and improve education quality. But we can't trust individual schools and classrooms to do that without managerial oversight.

Increasingly, we set curriculum goals down to the specific activity, even having the students themselves recite and focus on these goals. If we didn't tell them that their reading was intended to teach new vocabulary and test their critical comprehension, if we just let them read for enjoyment, well then we wouldn't know if they're learning anything.

The more it feels like educational outcomes are sliding, the more we want to manage the details and try to fix the problem. We seek to create a controllable input-output process that will identify and correct deficiencies in a systematic way. This works well in factories, so why wouldn't it work in schools?

Because our children are not widgets. They have preferences and passions, and because they're also not school administrators their passion isn't to become a well-educated output product. 

They want to be seen. To be trusted. To be entertained and energized. They want to learn things because they think those things are awesome, not because it's the next step in their education process.

The more closely we manage education, the more it feels like a robotic joy-sapping responsibility for the learner themselves. And that's why more and more students disengage and our educational outcomes get even worse.

One can only conclude the solution will be to start measuring that. <insert facepalm emoji here>

Sebastian 3/31/23

Where has all the genius gone?

Why has genius per capita been on a steady decline in the last two centuries?

Erik Hoel has thought through this well: https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/why-we-stopped-making-einsteins

3/24/23

Evolving Education

How has education evolved so far, and what’s the next step?

1000 years ago, resources were scarce and education was reserved for only the noble classes. Their kids got 1:1 tutoring from experts across all subjects of knowledge to groom them into the best future leaders they could be. Commoners got nothing.

100 years ago, we began to see this was unfair and we had more resources to work with. While we couldn't provide 1:1 expert instruction to everyone, we could at least offer universal basic classroom education. Not enough to really help each student shine, but enough for literacy and productive employment.

Today, we have exponentially more resources available. Yet we're still at the level of a hundred years ago--barely striving for student employability, let alone greatness. Even for wealthy elites, education looks more like a school classroom than Philip hiring Aristotle to mentor Alexander.

What's keeping us back? What keeps us from a world where teachers drawn from our best and brightest are working side by side with just a handful of students each?

In the US, in 2023, in SF, it's not lack of money. We’re ready to invest in greatness, we just need the vision.

Sebastian 3/17/23

To Tech or Not To Tech?

Is learning tech effective in the classroom? Almost every school I’ve taught at has a significant share of their work online. While it offers a lot of advantages for distributing, tracking, and grading assignments, I’ve also found it adds challenges to the learning itself.

Challenges of edtech/learning apps:

1) Software is usually built to make things easier, but we retain knowledge better when things are hard. Writing out our thinking by hand sticks in our mind more than typing in boxes, and much more than clicking a multiple choice option.

2) Gamification mechanisms (eg Blooket, Gimkit, etc) shift the focus to external rewards. The idea is that students get game resources by answering questions, then get a bit of game time with those resources. But students end up mostly focused on the game, speeding through the learning questions with little attention.

3) Using edtech means having laptops out, which increases the temptation of student distraction. Teachers end up spending the time trying to keep kids off of youtube instead of teaching.

4) Even when edtech is effective, it's still more screen time in an era where kids are flooded with screen time already. Is it really worth it?

Personally I hope is to strike a balance between building online skills while maintaining our abilities to work and thrive in the physical world too. I find myself more often looking for opportunities to avoid using technology than seeking it out, as it’s already the dominant force in our lives. For example, math problems, reading, and language practice all work as well or better on paper.

In other subjects, we explicitly focus on learning the technology itself: coding, using online and AI resources for research, and creating presentations with software tools. We aim to develop students that are confident both with and without technology, who are in control rather than be controlled by it.

Sebastian 3/10/23

The 80-50-20 Method

Looking for a more engaging way to introduce a new method? Here’s a story.

I was in a middle school math class with a wide range of student ability and interest. In the back was a particular group of that hadn't touched their work, just chatting. I approached the quietest one.

"I notice you haven't started the work yet." (observation without judgment)

"I don't know how to do it. I'm not good at math."

"You just haven't learned this yet. I bet you can do it. Can I show you how to get started?" (encourage, get buy-in)

The next part is critical, and this is where the 80-50-20 method comes in:

First, you'll show the learner how to do it. But you'll only do 80%--find a few of the easier steps they already know (e.g. multiplying numbers, expanding parentheses, etc.) and ask them to contribute those as you go. This keeps them engaged as a partner in the process and builds confidence for the next step.

Once you've demonstrated the process, lead them through it again but ask them to do as much as they can: "how do we start?", "what's the next step?", "and then what?" At this point there will still be lots of gaps you need to fill in and that's okay. The goal is to get to around a 50-50 balance.

Then, let them try to lead the solution in the third pass. They still won't be perfect and you're there to support them through the parts they can't remember, but by this time you'll only need to do ~20% of the talking. They've practiced the steps three times with support, and each time they built confidence by tackling a manageable level of new challenge.

Finally...

"Do you think you're ready to try them on your own now?"

"Yeah." She worked quietly for the rest of class.

A few minutes 1-on-1 with a student can make hours of difference if you use them well.  

Sebastian 3/3/2023

Signs of Good (and Bad) Schools

Lead a class just one day and you'll know. You'll see immediately whether students are excited by learning or eager to be free of it, whether they model an organized class structure or require constant teacher direction, whether they're eager to help peers or more eager to distract.

Even better if you are in TA role, where you assist teachers and can observe how they run their class. You'll see which teachers support students and which criticize. Who captures the class's attention and whose students are trying to escape. Who's tirelessly working to be an excellent educator and who's just trying to survive.

As a parent touring a potential school, you're unlikely to get such an unfiltered view. But there are still some good signals that tell the story:

• Admin Experience. Is the school organized? Are appointments run on time, and changes clearly communicated? I've been to schools that forgot they booked a substitute, or didn't know which subject I was there for, or hadn't yet figured out what my schedule would be. Without fail, that disorganization extended into classrooms and throughout the school day. If the admin experience isn't good for you, it's probably not good for teachers and students either.

• Facilities. Do you like the physical space? Is it clean and thoughtfully decorated? Does it put you at ease? You wouldn't want to live in a stark, rigid home--your student similarly won't enjoy spending 5 days a week in class if the room is comfortless. And even more than the direct effect of the physical atmosphere, it's a dead giveaway of which schools are striving for excellence and which are just checking boxes.

• Teacher Personality. Do you like the teachers you meet? It's not enough that they're nice--most people who go into education are nice--are they interesting? Do you leave with the feeling that you'd want to spend more time with them? The traits that draw you to a person as an adult are the same ones that will draw students to a teacher. Confidence. Empathy. Energy. Humor. Attentive Listening. A teacher that isn't likeable won't bring out the best in their students.

Every school will tell you they have great programs with great teachers. And they'll believe it--they are genuinely trying their best. But what you're told is not nearly as representative as what you see. The environment, the experience, and the people (teachers, staff, and students) tell the story, you just need to be looking for it.

Sebastian 2/28/2023

Teaching For Maximum Learning

By now we've understood that our grandparents' way of learning--listening to a teacher lecture--isn't very effective. Learning happens when students engage their own thinking by questioning, discussing, experimenting, and synthesizing. The effectiveness of a classroom can be measured well by how much time is students get to spend personally interacting with the subject.

So if students learn best by doing things themselves, and so much great learning content is freely available online, what then is the role of the teacher?

• Teachers are motivators. Students learn by doing the work, but they actually have to do it. A great teacher infuses passion and interest in the subject, and selects relevant, engaging, assignments that pique student interest. If a student is struggling to get into a particular project, it's the teacher's job to work with them to adjust the assignment and find something the student can be excited about.

• Teachers are supporters. Nothing stifles curiosity more than the feeling "I'm not good at this." Teachers must champion and energy of curiosity and psychological safety--it's not about being 'good', it's about being open to trying and exploring, and getting a little bit better every day. Great teachers give coaching suggestions and assistance from the student's side of learning journey, they're not passing external judgment on the results.

• Teachers are challengers. Kids (and adults!) are capable of much more than they think, and than most people give them credit for. A great teacher sees the learner's infinite potential and pushes them to explore it. Regardless whether a student is at an A+ or D- level, a teacher's job is to find the right level of next challenge within their ability. Curriculum standards are a starting point, but great teachers adjust and raise the bar for each student to keep stretching their thinking.

A teacher effective in these roles creates a virtuous learning cycle: they build interest in a subject, foster an open and safe atmosphere, give students space and the right materials to engage on their own, and then support and adjust the challenge as needed so that the student can feel the satisfaction of being stretched and succeeding. This builds learner confidence, which leads to more interest and openness to bigger challenges, which builds even more confidence, and so learning is accelerated.

It's not particularly complicated, and yet many traditional teaching practices undermine this cycle. A few pitfalls to look out for that great teachers know to avoid:

• Don't give extensive one-way lectures. Passive listening is usually a bore, and students tune out of the subject. And even in the best case that the presentation is enthralling, listening alone does not lead to strong retention of the material. Time is better spent letting students read and write out personal notes on the topic. If you do choose to lecture, add frequent questions, discussion, and moments of audience interactivity.

• Don't blame students if they are disengaged. Of course we want learners to engage with the subject, but most humans don't consciously control their level of interest. It is up to the teacher to create a captivating experience, and a structure that encourages that engagement (e.g. no phones). It's fine to remind students to focus and ask them to adjust behavior, but doing so without unwarranted criticism will be much more effective.

• Don't compare students. Whether comparing against each other or to a fixed grade standard, an atmosphere of competition polarizes the classroom. While a competitive atmosphere can be motivating for those near the top, it risks other students feeling like they can't win and disengaging from fear of judgment. The right standard of comparison is for each learner against their past self. Everyone can and should celebrate their personal growth, there are no losers.

Specifically because we are in an era where quality learning materials are universally accessible, teachers more than ever before have the responsibility and space to be coaches instead of lecturers.

Sebastian

2/17/2023

Why Start A MicroSchool?

I get asked about this question frequently, and it’s obvious why parents want to understand the motivations of their kids’ primary educator. This is my personal story.

When I left my corporate career to search for something more meaningful, teaching was not immediately on my radar. I was exploring starting a business, but even though a number of ideas seemed potentially successful, I couldn't find anything that spoke to me. Tired of sitting at home all day, I decided to try substitute teaching as a way of getting out of the house and into my community in a person-to-person way.

I immediately loved it, and it pained me. I loved working with kids. I loved thinking of how to bring excitement into each lesson. I loved challenging students to set their bar higher. And I loved how the students responded. The first time returning to a school, after having taught a single day multiple weeks prior, I was floored that students remembered me and were excited to see me again. I knew then that I was in the right place.

But as I experienced different schools across the Bay--public, private, and charter schools; elementary, middle, and high schools--I was also pained by what I saw. Coming from a highly competitive tech environment that's constantly striving to be on the cutting edge, I was shocked that most schools seemed to be mostly focused on just getting by.

Too often I encountered disorganized administrators, overburdened teachers, uninviting facilities, and classes where far more time was spent on behavior management than actual learning. Private schools were generally better, but even they seemed to be striving for "good" rather than world class. (And this s with not only high tuition fees but usually additional charitable funding too.) The biggest single difference maker I saw were the rare teachers who more than just being competent were truly exceptional. They brought a deep passion for their subject and a deep caring for every individual student's success, and it was infectious. In their classes there was almost no need for behavior management, students shared their passion and returned their caring--the class strove for success together. These are the teachers all our students deserve, and we need more of them.

At the same time as I was substituting, I was also put into contact a nonprofit that helps educators start their own microschools. I had heard of the microschool model but this was my first opportunity to see it up close. I was impressed, and inspired. Microschools' low overhead (low rent, no non-teacher administrators) enables smaller class sizes, letting teachers give more attention to each student in a calmer and more productive class environment. They give teachers full control over the education. Not least of all, the create a tight knit community between learners and between their families as well. Contrasted against the industrial-era large scale standardized schools that have become the norm, microschools offer a better experience for students, teachers, parents, and their communities. They might take a bit more work, but it's worth it.

So here we are. I'm starting a microschool because I am passionate about the importance of education, I see the opportunity and need for it to be done better, and I've built confidence in my ability to deliver that, both in the classroom as a teacher, and running the organization as an administrator. I can't think of anything else I'd rather spend my life doing.

Sebastian

2/2/2023