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EdSurge

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EdSurge - Education Journalism and Research

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A nonprofit newsroom reporting on the powerful forces, fascinating people and innovative practices shaping teaching and learning.

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By now you've probably heard of personalized learning, which tailors instruction, expression of learning and assessment to each student's unique needs and preferences. While one-on-one instruction geared toward the strengths and challenges of each student has always been an ideal, only in recent years have technological advances allowed it to become a reality in public education.

Personalized learning capitalizes on students' almost instinctual ability to use technology, but it is so much more than technology and algorithms. It is the purposeful design of blended instruction to combine face-to-face teaching, technology-assisted instruction and student-to-student collaboration to leverage each student's interests for deeper learning. When done right, it meets several of the ISTE Standards for Students and ISTE Standards for Educators while leading to a more rigorous, challenging, engaging and thought-provoking curriculum.

Over the last four years, I have transformed my traditional classroom into a blended-learning environment that provides a more personalized learning experience for each one of my students. It hasn't been easy. It's taken a lot of research, trial and error, and adjustments. But the results have definitely been worth it.

Here are five lessons I've learned that have helped me take my classroom from a traditional sage-on-the-stage affair to a tech-assisted personalized learning haven.

1. Learn from others.

I won't lie. The journey from old school to new learning paradigm was bumpy at first. I tried blended lessons that took less time than planned, had technology failures, chose the wrong method of delivery for various types of content or skills, and generally made every mistake you can imagine. But I didn't give up, and eventually I had more successes than failures. My students' input and further pedagogical study helped me refine my lesson planning until I got it right.

I started by researching personalized and blended learning as a member of the Rodel Teacher Council (RTC) to create the Blueprint for Personalized Learning in Delaware. I was also a member of the BRINC Consortium, a group formed to implement blended learning in several Delaware districts.

Being able to work with other teachers also implementing blended learning was key to my continued growth. We worked with Modern Teacher to understand the shifts in pedagogy necessary to transition to blended learning. I heard Caitlin Tucker at a BRINC training and have used her books to guide my continued development.

All of these experiences helped me find more effective ways to lead my students while empowering them to take responsibility for their own learning. On top of that, learning from and collaborating with others is a hallmark of the new ISTE Standards for Educators, which advise us to "dedicate time to collaborate with both colleagues and students to improve practice, discover and share resources and ideas, and solve problems."

2. Use the technology you have.

Although it is not the focus of a student-centered classroom, technology plays a big part in the success of this approach because it allows the differentiation of instruction, assessment and expression of learning as well as the collection of student data.

We don't have a 1:1 environment at this time, but the students - who are my co-learners and teachers - have helped me adapt to whatever tools are available. The standard hardware in core content classrooms throughout my district includes a set of 15 iPads, a projector and a document camera.

Students are allowed to use their cell phones for educational purposes. We use Schoology as a learning management system. I use Google Classroom and curriculum sites such as CommonLit | Free Fiction & Nonfiction Literacy Resources to embed high-quality digital content within our LMS. Much to my surprise, technology itself plays the smallest role in providing personalized learning for my students.

3. Let students make choices.

When I first embarked on this mission, I decided to "release" one piece of the assignment at a time in an effort to control student's' pathway through the material. Since then, I have learned to take a more personalized approach to assignments, which also aligns to the ISTE Standard for Educators that advise us to "foster a culture where students take ownership of their learning goals and outcomes in both independent and group settings."

Class often starts with a mini-lesson, which then flows into students making choices about what they need to do next to meet specific learning targets aligned to the standards.

My units in Schoology offer guidance to the students while allowing them to choose their own learning pathways and complete the activities in the order that makes the most sense to them.

For instance, while reading a short story, they can choose between just reading or reading along as they listen to a story. They can also decide whether to annotate online or on a printed copy. They can take notes on paper or record their thoughts verbally as they analyze the story.

While my students are still required to write traditional essays on many assignments, they also get the chance to show their learning in a variety of other ways. When appropriate, they can submit their analysis by writing a traditional essay, creating a website, creating infographics, writing a script for a video that they then record or via a communication tool they suggest.

4. Choose the best content delivery method.

I had another a-ha moment when I finally understood how to choose the right delivery method for various types of content. My first few attempts included finding a video on each topic to provide background information or delivering a face-to-face lecture on a new concept, followed by an online quiz. My inaugural online lesson consisted of a folder with a page for my essential question, a copy of my PowerPoint and a link for students to submit their notes.

But I was simply using technology in place of my normal face-to-face teaching. When asked to explain the "why" behind my choices during professional learning sessions, I realized there was more to creating blended lessons than simply adding technology.

Today, I carefully construct my units with specific learning goals that drive the method of delivery and learning activities. When deciding how to structure my lessons, I look at the learning activities I've used in the past to decide which were successful and which need to be refined or replaced. As a result, instead of lecturing to students and showing them a PowerPoint during class time, I often give them screencasts or videos to watch at home.

The screencasts, which I create with Zaption, Screencast-o-matic and Video Ant, are better than PowerPoints because students can hear my voice instead of clicking through a silent slide deck. And videos are better than face-to-face lectures because they can skip forward, pause or rewind as needed until they get the lesson. They still get a chance to ask questions during our class time or online.

This flipped learning setup frees up my students to use class time to practice their skills. For instance, they might annotate a short story or poem in Google Docs or take part in a Socratic seminar. During our unit on research into social justice issues, students receive a digital review of the research process and choose their learning activities based on their needs. Some may meet with me to review how to embed quotes while other groups start planning their presentations and still others work independently on gathering valid research.

5. Assess as you go.

Instead of just giving a final exam at the end of each unit, I try to use formative assessment to enable me to give my students guidance and assistance when they need it. I use a variety of methods for this. For instance, my video lectures often include interactive questions to assess their understanding of the material. Playposit and TED-Ed: Lessons Worth Sharing are my go-to tools for this type of assessment. And our classroom is often noisy and active as we play a round of Kahoot, which gives me instant, actionable feedback on what we need to do next, who needs to be pulled into a small group for reteaching and who would be better off in a group that pursues extended learning while I reteach the rest of the class.

I also gather formative assessment data through:

Discussion threads.

Self-grading quizzes, which give students immediate and actionable feedback on their proficiency in specific skills.

Monitoring of students works in progress on Google Docs.

Exit tickets, which assess the class' comfort level with new concepts.

I use all of this data to inform adjustments to learning activities as well as selection of resources to help students meet the standards addressed in the unit. When the assessments show a student has mastered a skill, I can provide them with instruction to go deeper or learn new skills.

6. Pull it all together.

My original objective was to transform my classroom into a blended learning model that would give my students the best access to rigorous, engaging, personalized learning experiences.

Going into my fifth year, I am pleased with the progress we've made toward this goal and excited to implement new ideas including more flexibility in seating and groups as well as a better use of formative data.

My classroom today is a vastly different place than it was five years ago. Instead of showing up to class to hear me deliver all the content and teach the skills they need to meet the standards for our curriculum, my students are now the masters of their own learning destinies.

Instead of relying on notes they take during one-time lectures, they can access and even return to my videos and screencasts and other resources when they need them most, as they are working on an assignment or reviewing for a test.

My role used to be standing in front of the room lecturing about the research process, modeling various components and monitoring students' progress toward a final, correctly formatted research paper.

Recently I began partnering with the Human Ecology Foundation to expose my students to a range of real-world issues. The students then form groups and choose one to research and propose a solution or way to make an impact. Not only are they learning to do authentic research, they will be volunteering and learning about the issue through first-hand experience. Students can even win a scholarship for their research and projects!

I am available to assist students, conduct check-ins, and assess their individual responsibilities and group outcomes throughout the project. But most of the time I just stay out of the way while they learn how to effectively research, collaborate and create presentations together.

The biggest compliment I have received since all this started came from a student in my AP Language and Composition class. He told me, "Your class is easy. I don't mean simple - I mean it is easy for me to learn because I can pick assignments that let me do my best work."

I strive to make my classes that kind of "easy" for every student I teach. Across the board, my students acknowledge that they feel better prepared for college or jobs because of our use of collaborative technology. I've had students who are now in college tell me that our use of digital content made it easier for them to adjust to college.
Robyn Howton is English Department Chair and the AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) coordinator at Mount Pleasant High School in Wilmington, Delaware. She is a member of the Rodel Teacher Council, which created the Blueprint for Personalized Learning in Delaware, and a member of the original cohort of the BRINC consortium. This is an updated version of an article that originally published on May 19, 2015.

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Turn your classroom into a personalized learning environment

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By now you've probably heard of personalized learning, which tailors instruction, expression of learning and assessment to each student's unique needs and preferences. While one-on-one instruction geared toward the strengths and challenges of each student has always been an ideal, only in recent years have technological advances allowed it to become a reality in public education.

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NEA Today Mag:

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Teachthought Podcast

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Drew Perkins talks with Barbara Condliffe, Research Associate at MDRC, about their recent research review publication "Project-Based Learning: A Promising Approach to Improving Student Outcomes".

Links & Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
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The TeachThought Podcast Ep. 109 What The Research Says About Quality PBL - TeachThought PD

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Drew Perkins talks with Barbara Condliffe, Research Associate at MDRC, about their recent research review publication "Project-Based Learning: A Promising Approach to Improving Student Outcomes". Links & Resources Mentioned In This Episode: Subscribe *Also published at TeachThought.com Listen on: Thank You For Listening! Also available on Google Music for subscribers!

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Mrs. Garrett's and Ms. Kenney's Blended Learning Road Map for Mill Pond

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Creative Schools: Mrs. G's
Mrs. G's Ki

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Cultbof Pedagogy

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Listen to my interview with Seth Perler, executive function coach (transcript):
It seems every teacher in every school struggles with what they might call unmotivated, lazy, or disorganized learners. These students seem to have a ton of potential, their test scores might even be pretty high, but they can't ever seem to get it together school-wise.

In my own teaching experience, I spent an inordinate amount of time on these students, giving them lists of make-up assignments to do, meeting with them at lunch or after school to help get them caught up, contacting parents, helping them go through their binders and backpacks and lockers to find missing work, and coming up with lots of different ways to basically say the same thing: You just need to stay organized.

It's not motivation; it's executive function.

It turns out this set of skills actually has a name: executive function. The first time I heard this term in Paul Tough's 2012 book, How Children Succeed, it was like a light bulb going off: Kids who struggle with executive function often have perfectly good academic abilities, but they don't have the same ability as most students to stay on top of the little details that make life run smoothly. So when we try to get them to manage those details like most other kids do, our efforts fail.

If I had known that, and if I'd had someone like Seth Perler to show me what to do differently, I would have been able to help these kids have a much more rewarding school experience.

Seth Perler is an Executive Function coach who works with these students he refers to as "outside the box learners." Because Perler was an outside-the-box learner himself, when he became a teacher, he knew how to reach this type of student. During his years in the classroom and then as an education coach, he has developed seven systems that he teaches these kids to help them meet deadlines, keep track of materials, and manage their time.

What's interesting about these systems is that although some of them may seem obvious at first, it's the little tweaks Perler gives them that actually make them work. What most of us have tried with these students turns out to be counterproductive; we've approached them in the same way that we approach our other students. For most kids, our standard methods for keeping them organized work just fine, but these kids need something different. Once you learn about these little tweaks-like why folders are far better than 3-ring binders-you'll be able to change your approach, share these insights with parents, and start to see some real differences in how these kids do in school.

Implementing the Systems

For these systems to work, Perler says, parents and teachers have to help students build them into habits. This takes patience, compassion, and more time than is typical for most students.

"It takes two good solid months of continuous effort with these kids to really build a habit," he says. "It's not easy. The brain is literally changing. The neurons in the brain are changing. They are building new networks that are helping them to execute, to use executive function to manage what are really an overwhelming amount of details we expect these kids to manage."

What does that "time" look like? Perler recommends a weekly overhaul, done on Sunday nights, to hit the reset button on all of these systems and prepare the student for the week ahead. Done consistently, this will eventually make habits out of all of these systems, and the student should start to see big improvements.

1. Paper Management
Use a separate folder for every class.
"Organized adults will often recommend that kids use three-ring binders," Perler says. "Their idea is, 'Well if it helps me stay organized, obviously it would help a disorganized kid become more organized.' But for kids who struggle with executive function, three-ring binders are horrible. There are so many details in terms of opening a big binder, finding the right place for the paper, unclicking it, putting it in with the three holes, re-clicking it, closing it carefully. These are kids who really just want to get it done."

What works better? "Cheap paper folders," Perler says. He recommends the following:

Use a separate folder for every class, with a different color for each folder.

Choose paper folders, not plastic, because plastic is too slick and can cause papers to slide out too easily.

Write the subject name directly on the folder in big letters, so it's easy to find. Then turn the folder over and write it on the back.

2. Backpack Management
Everything out, once a week.
Most kids are what Perler calls maintainers, because they are able to maintain a semi-organized backpack, taking out unnecessary items as they go and keeping things more or less organized. But students who struggle with executive function tend to be overhaulers, waiting until things get totally out of control and then doing a complete overhaul.

"Let's say you have a really disorganized kid," he says. "One day you come home, they've completely rearranged their bedroom, put all their furniture in different places, and completely cleaned out the whole bedroom. That's an overhauler. They like to overhaul."

When it comes to backpacks, however, this overhaul doesn't come frequently enough, and that results in backpacks where papers are lost or damaged. Perler recommends students do a weekly backpack overhaul:

Once a week, pull everything out of the backpack.

Throw out things you don't need, reorganize the things you do.

3. Planner
Keep it plain and simple.
"A lot of schools will buy planners for the entire school," Perler says. "They'll have the hall pass in the back, the school handbook in the front. They have the periodic table in the back, commonly misspelled words, famous quotes on the papers, and a bunch of colors often on the pages. It turns out that these planners are awful for the kids that I work with, for kids who struggle with executive function. It's too much. These are kids who really want to get at the heart of the matter within seconds. They don't want to have to flip pages and find things."

Perler recommends a much simpler planner for these students:

Get a month-at-a-glance planner, rip out every single page that isn't the calendar of the months they will be in school. 10 pages max. "These kids tend to be very global thinkers, so seeing the entire month is a lot easier for their brain to learn to conceptualize time," Perler says.

To make the most of the smaller spaces on the planner, develop a shorthand system for recording important deadlines and other information.

Do regular check-ins with a parent or teacher make sure the planner is being maintained.

4. Grade Monitoring
Check once a week at minimum.
Although we have discussed on this site about the danger of parents monitoring their child's grades too closely, with students who struggle with executive function, it's helpful to work with the student to develop a habit of monitoring their own grades.

Once a week (at least), go into your school's online grading portal and check all grades.

Look at the details: Are there incomplete grades? Missing grades?

If the teacher hasn't been inputting grades on a regular basis, recent grades may not be available. Check with the teacher if you need more recent grades.

5. Self Advocacy
Make an actual appointment to see the teacher in person.
Although teachers make themselves available to students for help, and struggling students may intend to see them for it, in reality they often forget or put it off. For that reason, Perler recommends students agree on a time to meet with the teacher, rather than just intending to talk with them.

"Usually I'll have them write a short email to the teacher that says, 'Hey, I'd love to see you at office hours. When's the best time for me to come in?' The teacher can then say, 'Come in at 3 o'clock tomorrow,' and it puts accountability on the situation that they didn't have before. Most of the time the student will show up, and I will tell you that I have so many kids come back to me and say, 'Wow, that was so helpful. That was so easy.'"

Perler says self-advocacy is one of the easiest habits to develop. "Once they ask for help from their teacher two or three or four times, they have crossed a magical threshold that changes their whole academic experience. They realize that teachers are not mad at them. That teachers are there to support them. That teachers will give them the time they need. And that teachers will even give them secret tips and tricks for how to pass their classes or how to do well in their classes."

6. Sacred Study Space
Establish a distraction-free space at home just for school work.
This is a classic, but it may be an overlooked factor in a student's poor performance. "We really need to help kids learn to create a space that has the supplies we need that is decluttered, that is free of distraction. And that's very hard for families, by the way. Because real life is happening."

Rather than prescribe a specific type of space, Perler recommends building sharper awareness about the choices that will work for the specific student and the kind of school work they need to do at a given time. "The couch might actually be an effective place for some students some of the time to study. But I want them to make conscious choices: 'Sitting on the couch is going to help me relax into this book, so that I can really get in the mode,' or 'Sitting on the couch, especially with the TV on, is a ridiculous idea for me to be studying this biology stuff right now.'

7. Weekly Overhaul
Choose a time once a week to overhaul all systems.
Rather than "intending" to do the weekly overhaul, Perler recommends setting a specific time to do it every week, and post that time somewhere visible. "If you miss a time or two, that's fine," he says. "It's going to happen. But print up when it is and what time, so that you don't have the argument with your child about it, and it's concrete, and it's on the wall."

Here's what the overhaul should include:

Empty out and tidy the backpack

Update the planner, tear out old pages, cross everything out that is no longer relevant. Look forward to the upcoming week.

Go through each folder and get rid of everything you no longer need.

Check grades online.

Overhaul the desk or home study area.

You can learn more from Seth Perler by going to his website, sethperler.com, and subscribing to his email updates & Student Success Toolkit. Seth has created a special Student Systems Assessment to help students determine which of these seven areas they need the most work on. You can download that here.

Learn something new every week.
Join my mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration-in quick, bite-sized packages-all geared toward making your teaching more effective and fun. You'll also get access to my members-only library of free downloadable resources, including my e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half, which has helped thousands of teachers spend less time grading!

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7 Systems that Work for Outside-the-Box Learners

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Listen to my interview with Seth Perler, executive function coach (transcript): It seems every teacher in every school struggles with what they might call unmotivated, lazy, or disorganized learners. These students seem to have a ton of potential, their test scores might even be pretty high, but they can't ever seem to get it together school-wise.

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In this talk from RSA Animate, Sir Ken Robinson lays out the link between 3 troubling trends: rising drop-out rates, schools' dwindling stake in the arts, and ADHD. An important, timely talk for parents and teachers.

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Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

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Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

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Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!

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In this poignant, funny follow-up to his fabled 2006 talk, Sir Ken Robinson makes the case for a radical shift from standardized schools to personalized learning -- creating conditions where kids' natural talents can flourish.

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School Issues From North Korea to Finland

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School Issues From North Korea to Finland

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I witnessed the educational abuse of South Korean children documented in " How South Korea Enslaves Its Students," by Se-Woong Koo (Sunday Review, Aug. 3), when I was asked by the Korean teachers' union in 2007 to speak about the dangers the No Child Left Behind law brought to American schools. I asked if I could go early and visit schools in Seoul.

While Seoul kindergartens were filled with the playhouse items that once filled our own kindergartens, Seoul middle schools provide study carrels so that students can eat dinner at school and return to their studies for very high-stakes, competitive exams. They study until 10 p.m. or later.

Although in the name of college- and career-ready skills we've wiped out kindergarten as a "children's garden," we can breathe a sigh of relief that American schools aren't keeping children at their desks until 10 p.m.

In Seoul, I shared the podium with Peter Johnson, the president of the Finnish Principals Association, who gave a view of national education policy in sharp contrast with the corporate scheme shared by South Korean politicians, Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and President Obama. Mr. Johnson pointed out that while the global educational trend is for standardization, Finland emphasizes flexibility and what he called "loose standards."

He said Finland trusts teachers. What a radical notion.

SUSAN OHANIAN
Charlotte, Vt., Aug. 3, 2014
The writer, a retired public-school teacher, is a critic of national standards and testing.

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Opinion | School Lessons, From South Korea to Finland

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I witnessed the educational abuse of South Korean children documented in " How South Korea Enslaves Its Students," by Se-Woong Koo (Sunday Review, Aug. 3), when I was asked by the Korean teachers' union in 2007 to speak about the dangers the No Child Left Behind law brought to American schools.

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Last Child in the Woods

Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder

In this influential work about the staggering divide between children and the outdoors, child advocacy expert Richard Louv directly links the lack of nature in the lives of today's wired generation-he calls it nature-deficit-to some of the most disturbing childhood trends, such as the rises in obesity, attention disorders, and depression.

Last Child in the Woods is the first book to bring together a new and growing body of research indicating that direct exposure to nature is essential for healthy childhood development and for the physical and emotional health of children and adults. More than just raising an alarm, Louv offers practical solutions and simple ways to heal the broken bond-and many are right in our own backyard.

This new edition reflects the enormous changes that have taken place since the book was originally published. It includes:

100 actions you can take to create change in your community, school, and family.

35 discussion points to inspire people of all ages to talk about the importance of nature in their lives.

A new progress report by the author about the growing Leave No Child Inside movement.

New and updated research confirming that direct exposure to nature is essential for the physical and emotional health of children and adults.

Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder has spurred a national dialogue among educators, health professionals, parents, developers and conservationists. This is a book that will change the way you think about your future and the future of your children.

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Last Child in the Woods - Overview - Richard Louv

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Last Child in the Woods In this influential work about the staggering divide between children and the outdoors, child advocacy expert Richard Louv directly links the lack of nature in the lives of today's wired generation-he calls it nature-deficit-to some of the most disturbing childhood trends, such as the rises in obesity, attention disorders, and depression.

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Want Change in Education: Look Beyond Finland

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Want Change in Education: Look Beyond Finland

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In a tiny hamlet in Tanzania, children who have never been to school, and can't recognize a single letter in any language, are about to start learning basic math and reading. They'll do this with the help of a cutting-edge, artificially intelligent "tutor" who can hear what they are saying in Swahili and respond meaningfully.

In the slums of Bogota, Colombia, children play with special board games, dominoes and dice games that can teach them math and reading in a matter of months. Youth volunteers in the community help bring the games to younger children.

On the outskirts of Tokyo, a kindergarten is built more like a giant playground. There is a circular park on the roof. You can reach classrooms by climbing a tree. A slide that goes from top to bottom of the building and the furniture is made of lightweight wooden boxes that the children can reconfigure themselves.

These three ideas have something in common. Each is part of a distinct global effort underway right now to identify important innovations in education and to help them spread.

The first project, RoboTutor from Carnegie Mellon University, is one of the just-announced finalists in the Global Learning Xprize, a $15 million innovation competition sponsored by Tesla founder and visionary Elon Musk. Mission: Create a software application that will enable children to learn basic math and reading independently.

The second, Literacy Education and Math Lab or LEMA, was highlighted in a recent report from the Brookings Institution's Center for Universal Education titled "Can We Leapfrog? The Potential of Education Innovations to Rapidly Accelerate Progress." Brookings has cataloged 3,000 innovations from 166 countries so far.

The third, known as Fuji Kindergarten, was picked by a Finnish nonprofit called HundrED dedicated, again, to spreading the top educational innovations from the world, around the world. Today they announced their first global group of 100 ideas from 42 countries.

Something big is happening here. Governments, nonprofits, donors and educators are gearing up to try to solve two intractable, and seemingly disparate, problems - at the same time.

The first one is that not enough children are learning the basics. The second is that the basics are no longer enough. And to solve these two problems, they are working hard to spotlight and spread innovations that go far beyond Silicon Valley.
100 years behind
The first problem, and likely the most familiar, is inequality. More than a quarter of a billion kids worldwide don't attend school, and that number hasn't budged for a decade. The Global Learning Xprize challenge is addressed specifically at these children, who may never see the inside of a schoolhouse or meet a trained teacher.

For those who are in school, meanwhile, there is a massive gap in basic skills between the richest and the poorest. You can express this as points on a standardized test: in the United States, for example, that gap is almost 40 percentage points in math at the highest level.

Or, you can express it in years: Adults living in the poorest countries in the world are about as educated as the average for adults in rich countries 100 years ago. And, at the rate they're going, it would take another century to catch up.

But there's a second problem. Just learning reading and math the way it was done 100 years ago is not going to prepare anyone for the future. Up to 70 percent of the tasks in most jobs are on track to be automated, leaving only the most creative, empathetic, technically fluent, collaborative work for humans.

Students need to find motivation and meaning, and take a playful attitude that makes it safe to try and fail.

It's as though half the world's children were 100 years behind on learning to walk, but everyone now needs to dance.
From walking to dancing
That's why Rebecca Winthrop of Brookings asked the question "Can We Leapfrog?" In other words, she says, "How quickly can we transform both what and how children learn?"

Leapfrogging as a concept is often associated with technology. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia and elsewhere adopted mobile communications without ever having extensive landline or telegraph networks. Kenya is a world leader in mobile payments because the system came in before people had formal bank accounts or credit cards. Social goals like sustainability can leap forward, too. This summer the nation of India, where car ownership is far behind the U.S., announced a goal to sell only electric vehicles by 2030. China is leading the world in both production and installation of solar power.

But schooling is fundamentally a human enterprise.

Change can't just be a matter of mass-producing some technological marvel and pushing it to market. And there are many in the development world, says Winthrop, who argue that poor countries should master the basics before trying to address 21st century skills. Can you really take people who can't walk and show them the moonwalk?

Her work argues that it has to be both/and.

"From the learning sciences literature we know that kids can learn small things," like addition and subtraction, "on the way to big things" - like creativity and collaboration, she says. "We're not doing poor kids any favors by the drill-and-kill method." Projects like LEMA, the board game project that started in Latin America and is now in 16 countries, bring a playful attitude to learning, which is part of cultivating what Winthrop calls a 21st century "breadth of skills."

Leapfrogging isn't about supplanting traditional schools, Winthrop explains, but it does address the need to change how they do business. Even in rich countries with high literacy rates, like the United States for example, there's a great deal of dissatisfaction expressed about education. And here's where leapfrogging really gets interesting: Some of the places with the fewest resources can become sources for huge inspiration.

Identifying great ideas is one thing, but getting them to spread is another. It requires overcoming a silo effect, says Saku Tuominen, the Finnish innovation expert who is the creative director of HundrED.

"If you think of a teacher in Helsinki, New York, New Delhi, Stockholm, Buenos Aires, they haven't got the faintest idea what is happening in another city on the classroom level," he says. In fact, they often don't even know much about what the teacher down the hall is doing.

One theme he's identified among the innovations highlighted so far has to do with exactly that problem: thinking about new ways for teachers to collaborate and co-teach. Other professions are increasingly evolving in a collaborative direction, he notes; why not teaching?

His nonprofit offers free support in PR and consulting to educators with ideas worth sharing, and it helps identify schools that want to adopt the ideas. "We're moving to a global world and it's time to make education global as well."

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Want Change In Education? Look Beyond The Usual Suspects (Like Finland)

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In a tiny hamlet in Tanzania, children who have never been to school, and can't recognize a single letter in any language, are about to start learning basic math and reading. They'll do this with the help of a cutting-edge, artificially intelligent "tutor" who can hear what they are saying in Swahili and respond meaningfully.

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The seats, space, and stuff that idyllic learning environments are made of

This is the fifth installment in our series about school in a perfect world. Read previous entries on calendars, content, homework, and teachers.
We asked prominent voices in education-from policy makers and teachers to activists and parents-to look beyond laws, politics, and funding and imagine a utopian system of learning. They went back to the drawing board-and the chalkboard-to build an educational Garden of Eden. We're publishing their answers to one question each day this week. Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Today's assignment: The Space. Describe the perfect classroom.

Rita Pin Ahrens, the director of education policy for the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center

Students need to be in classrooms that inspire them-spaces that are light, airy, and filled with examples of work that they aspire to do. Each school will have a variety of spacious classroom settings. Some will be more traditional in the way that we envision classrooms now, but others might be set up outside or within an atrium or amphitheater. There might be desks, cushions, or benches arranged in rows or circles-however the teachers want them, as not every classroom will follow a template. Each classroom will be set up based on what is necessary to meet learning objectives. But schools will prioritize configuring classes to inspire learning first and foremost, and, where appropriate, reflect the diversity of environments that students are exposed to outside a school setting. Students will have beautiful spaces that make them feel good to be at school-with art, living plants, music where appropriate, comfortable seating, and fast internet access.

Nicholson Baker, the author of Substitute: Going to School With a Thousand Kids

Windows that open are a nice feature, as are clean bathrooms and individual desks that can be rearranged. Smaller schools and smaller rooms seem to work better than larger schools and larger rooms.

Teachers enjoy decorating their classes; the walls of the rooms in which I substituted often held a polychrome profusion of STUFF-posters and charts, and rules and exhortations, and cartoon characters and keyword lists. Sometimes the decor works wonderfully, sometimes it doesn't. Less is more, in general. If you are forced to go to a place you hate going every day, any sentence on the wall can become an irritant.

Carol Burris, the executive director of the Network for Public Education

My experience as a high-school principal taught me to never spend too much time worrying about the "small stuff." I put the arrangement of desks in a room in that category. Students and teachers need clean, roomy, well-ventilated, and well-lit spaces for teaching and learning. Every school will have air-conditioning, and there should be sufficient heat in classrooms when it's cold, but there should not be over-heating.

Hallways should be quiet, and classrooms should be as sound proof as possible. Desks or tables should be comfortable, and they should be configured in the room as the teacher sees fit, depending on the lesson. Everything about the physical space should be designed so that there is little to distract from teaching and learning.

I have seen movable walls come and go, and I have witnessed the debates over blackboards and whiteboards, and desks in a circle versus desks in a row. Yet in the end, we seem to come back to designs that are pretty traditional. I think that happens because those designs serve our students and teachers pretty well.
Catherine Cushinberry, the executive director of Parents for Public Schools
In general, there will be different types of movable desks varying in size and capacity-individual, long, and round. Chairs will be movable and will not have an attached desk. There will be large pillows near the windows. Students will be able to find a place that is comfortable for them. Standing will also be allowed, even when students are using computers. There will be a large open space that will serve as a community gathering spot. The classroom will have big windows to let a lot of natural light shine through. The room will be colorful without being obnoxious-colors will be blues, greens, whites, and yellows. There will be multimedia equipment in the room, along with the latest computers. There will be areas where students can post ideas to help make the learning environment more engaging and fun. The classroom will also be tailored to the topic, but all will have interactive stations where hands-on learning can be experienced by all students.

Michael Horn, the co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute

In the future, we won't have "classrooms." The enemy of the future of the classroom has arguably been that phrase: "the future of the classroom." It locks us into a model of believing students will be sorted by age and sit in a room together with one teacher in the front.

Students will learn in student-centered environments-perhaps we'll call them learning studios-where each student's learning is personalized to meet his or her precise needs. It will be critical to rearrange the physical space and furniture to align with the principles of student agency, flexibility, and choice that are the core of new learning models. Because these models will leverage multiple modes of learning, they will need spaces built for different activities, which can occur individually through digital media or in small interactive groups. As Larry Kearns, an architect at Wheeler Kearns Architects who recently designed a cutting-edge school space in Chicago, told me, "Ideally, spaces for all of these modes of learning can be located in the same physical space, interlocked to minimize disturbances between them. [The] combination of learning spaces [will be] inherently decentralized since it focuses on the students. The teacher's desk, if there is one, is pushed to the margins."

Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation

Form will follow function, and if one of the key principles of public education is to instill an appreciation for democracy, then classrooms will be arranged so that students are equals with one another (not some in the front, others in the back), and so that students are active participants in learning, not passive recipients of teachers' knowledge. Whereas the traditional lecture hall connotes hierarchy, placing desks in a circle suggests students should be learning to debate and become decision makers. Within the circle, desks will also be clustered in small groups of four to encourage collaboration among students.

These classrooms will feature student artwork and projects but never publicly show grades or test-score results that might humiliate struggling students. The most important feature of the physical classroom is that the students seated in the desks come from a variety of backgrounds-rich and poor, black and white, Latino and Asian. Integrated schools are important because they teach children how to get along with classmates from different backgrounds and underline the democratic message that in America, we are all social equals. Low-income students attending mixed-income schools are as much as two years ahead of low-income students in high-poverty schools, so we must ensure not only that the arrangement of the desks is equitable but also that the backgrounds of the students occupying those desks are diverse.

Michelle Rhee, the founder of StudentsFirst and the former chancellor of Washington, D.C., public schools

Classrooms at the elementary-, middle-, and high-school levels will look very different. Elementary classrooms will have work stations that can be easily moved throughout the room so students can begin fostering relationships with each other. Also included will be the beloved "story space," a communal seating area with soft fabrics and warm colors, where the full class can gather for announcements, reading, and celebrations.

Middle-school classrooms begin to mature with the students, incorporating informal seating areas like window seats and benches with collaborating worktables. This will allow students to become comfortable working in teams and also to seek out space for personal reflection and work.

High-school classrooms will be designed by students themselves, providing breakout space for group work and more private areas for individual work and studying. High-school classrooms will reflect the transition that students are facing, allowing for independence but also providing a nurturing environment for curiosity. Classrooms at all levels will have interactive technology, books, and e-readers, and as much natural light as possible. Further, all schools will think about non-traditional learning spaces such as gardens, kitchens, and places off campus.

Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers

The idea of prescribing what a classroom should look like is laughable. In New York, I negotiated a contract that said the arrangement of furniture should be up to the teacher and based on the needs of the class.

Every classroom will be properly apportioned for its purpose. A science lab needs scientific equipment. A music room needs instruments. All classrooms need enough desks for the students and enough books for every child. And teachers will arrange the room in the best possible way for their students' learning.
Check back tomorrow for the next installment in this series.
It's also important to look at the appropriate role of technology in the classroom. Technology can be a powerful tool, but it must be implemented with the intention of enhancing educator-facilitated learning, not replacing it. It must also be paired with real professional development for educators, not a "just add water" program of handing students a device and expecting positive results.

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The seats, space, and stuff that idyllic learning environments are made of

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What Students Should Know by the Time They Leave School

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What Students Should Know by the Time They Leave School

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Education experts weigh in on the content areas children should have mastery over by the time they graduate.

Guillermo del Olmo / Picsfive / Shutterstock / Zak Bickel / The Atlantic

This is the second installment in our series about school in a perfect world. Read the first entry on calendars.

We asked prominent voices in education-from policy makers and teachers to activists and parents-to look beyond laws, politics, and funding and imagine a utopian system of learning. They went back to the drawing board-and the chalkboard-to build an educational Garden of Eden. We're publishing their answers to one question each day this week. Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Imagining the ideal school system
Read more

Today's assignment: The content. What should students be expected to know by the time they leave school?

Rita Pin Ahrens, the director of education policy for the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center

Students will leave school with the ability to think critically and independently, to leverage and adapt to ever-shifting technology and modes of communication, to navigate and direct their own independent research, and to understand how to collaborate with others. There also will be a stronger focus on both career preparation and college readiness. That means integrating the soft skills that current employers find valuable, as well as technology readiness. All of this will be taught in the context of the subjects we associate with school-art, history, science, and math-but we have to think more creatively about how we present concepts, content, and opportunities to really expand students' ways of thinking. Math doesn't always have to be taught in a 40- to 50-minute dedicated chunk of time. It can be-if that's appropriate for the age and learning objectives, especially for advanced math and science-but we need to reorganize and disrupt how we are currently teaching students.

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Fixing America's Broken School Calendar
Michael Horn, the co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute

Content knowledge is critical-not anathema-to helping students build higher-order skills such as critical thinking, communication, and collaboration in a variety of domains. Accordingly, content knowledge will continue to matter, but students will learn content in different ways-from online modules to in-person sessions. A core set of standards will be critical for all students to master-or, in some cases, gain exposure to-in English, mathematics, history, and science. These standards should be fewer, such that as students master them, they can go deep in areas they enjoy to find their passions and develop expertise. For example, every student may not need to master Algebra. Exposure to music and arts, as well as such things as financial literacy, economics, engineering, and computer science will also be critical to build a foundation for students with an eye toward helping them have a broad enough base such that they can find and develop passions and be engaged citizens. Finally, physical education will continue to have a role in schools, but the purpose will be to help students lead healthy lives-not necessarily to develop athletes-and to bolster learning, as evidence shows that exercising before learning can greatly improve productivity.

Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation

The Knowledge Matters Campaign notes the cramped nature of modern schools' narrow focus on math and reading skills: "From ancient civilizations to far-away galaxies, from tyrants to heroines, from terrible wars to magnificent works of art, the world of knowledge contains wonders that young people eagerly explore when given the opportunity."

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Schools Aren't Teaching Students What They Need to Know

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Education experts weigh in on the content areas children should have mastery over by the time they graduate. This is the second installment in our series about school in a perfect world. Read the first entry on calendars.

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Newsela | Schoolyard conflicts may affect health later in life, research shows

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The way kids handle conflict with peers may have major long-term health repercussions

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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Sudbury Valley School * Online Library. Underlying Ideas

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For several years, John Snelgrove began his workweek with a lengthy fax from the local police, listing the home addresses where officers had answered domestic violence calls over the weekend.

Snelgrove, head of guidance services for Brockton (Mass.) Public Schools, would check those addresses against the district's student database. When a match came up, he'd alert the counselor at that child's school, who, in turn, would take a red envelope and deliver it to the child's teacher. Inside was a slip of paper with a student's name and a quick prescription for "TLC."

A Sunday night, disrupted by violence, panic, and 911 calls, surely will make it difficult for a child to settle down to learn on Monday morning. But, even more than that, researchers have found that exposure to unrelenting stress and repeated traumas can change a child's brain, making it easier to "fight or flee" from perceived dangers and harder to focus and learn. Understanding this neuroscience makes it possible for educators to create trauma-sensitive classroom.

"It's more than one or two children in your class of 28, it could be closer to 30 percent or more," Snelgrove tells his colleagues. But even children who haven't experienced trauma will benefit from the strategies that Brockton teachers and education support professionals have learned through years of training with the Massachusetts-based Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative, and their partnerships with local police, mental health, and child welfare agencies.

"Be consistent, be kind, focus on connecting with kids," he urges.

The Traumatized Brain

Back in the 1990s, Dr. Vincent Felitti, working with very obese adults, discovered that a shocking majority of his patients had suffered significant traumas during childhood. Eventually, his work led to a mega-study, involving tens of thousands of patients, which showed the long-lasting effects of "adverse childhood experiences," or ACEs, such as child neglect or abuse, or a parent with addiction or imprisoned. Those children often grow up to be adults who are more likely to be sick, to be violent, to miss work, and to marry often.

Since then, it's become clear that the damaging effects of trauma are not saved until adulthood. It starts early and it affects students and teachers: in fact, kindergartners who have had tough experiences score below-average in reading and math, even when other factors like household income and parental education are considered, a study published this year found. Those traumatized 5-year-olds also are three times more likely to have problems with paying attention, and two times more likely to show aggression.

What neuropsychologists have found is that traumatic experiences actually can alter children's brains. In times of great stress, or trauma, the brain activates its deeply instinctive, "fight, flight, or freeze" responses, while dialing down the areas of the brain where learning, especially around language, takes place. When this happens over and again, especially in children under age 5, the brain is fundamentally changed. Basically, it adapts for survival under the worst conditions.

"It's an appropriate adaptation to their circumstances," says Amanda Moreno, professor of early-child development at the Erikson Institute in Chicago. "But it comes at enormous cost to schooling, especially with the way we do schooling in this country, which is very standardized."

Traumatized 5-year-olds are three times more likely to have problems with paying attention, and two times more likely to show aggression.

Veteran Illinois special education teacher Kathi Ritchie knows what this looks like in a classroom: "You will see kids struggling with all areas of language, word retrieval, writing... memory suffers hugely. They tend to be forgetful. They don't remember content-area ideas that have been taught to them; the next day it's like they never were taught," she says. "The other thing that is huge is the behavior."

Living in a constant, fear-activated state of hyper-awareness means these children can be quick to rage, Ritchie has seen. In their subconscious efforts to self-protect, they often can be perceived as defiant, disrespectful or overly aggressive. Others may look like they're zoning out or drifting off, she says. "It can look like kids are shutting down, but their brain is telling them, 'you need to be safe.'"

Calming Colors, Safe Spaces, Mindfulness

So what's an educator to do? First, here's what not to do: Punish a child for showing the symptoms of a medical disorder. Trauma and stressor disorders can be found in the most up-to-date Bible of mental health disorders and diagnoses, the DSM-V, which means they are a real medical issue. Out-of-school suspensions are an inappropriate response and likely feed the school-to-prison pipeline.

Instead, what helps is to create a trauma-sensitive classroom where kids can feel safe and build resilience. Although Snelgrove no longer receives faxes from the local police because of revised confidentiality requirements, he hopes the "universal precautions" that Brockton teachers and education support professionals have embraced will catch any student who has experienced trauma.

Trauma-sensitive teachers often offer a "comfort zone" to their students, a safe space where kids can retreat and calm down. Sometimes it's as simple as a beanbag chair. Their classrooms also are neat and uncluttered. Think about how you feel coming home to a messy house, Snelgrove says. A little overwhelmed, right? It's worse for hyper-aroused children. Cool colors reign on the walls.

Ritchie also recommends teaching strategies that include predictable classroom routines with advance warning to students of any changes; asking students to repeat verbal instructions, using more written instructions, and also using visual prompts for multi-step directions, like a sticky post-it note on a desk. All students can benefit from short "movement breaks" every 30 minutes to "reframe the brain," she says.

Moreno's research currently involves the effects of mindfulness exercises on students in some of Chicago's roughest neighborhoods. Although her study is not yet complete, teachers and principals have told her that the time they are spending on mindfulness actually is leading to more time for instruction. Students refocus more quickly after transitions, and calm down after upsets. This makes classrooms more efficient, but it also helps with an even bigger goal: Helping children grow up to be healthy adults.

You will see kids struggling with all areas of language, word retrieval, writing... memory suffers hugely.

- Kathi Ritchie, special education teacher.

Apart from employing a mindfulness curricula, or classroom yoga practices, which also are gaining popularity, simply greeting students at the start of the day and "acknowledging their humanity" before diving into tasks will help, Moreno says. With all the demands placed on teachers, it can be difficult, even "radical," for teachers to slow down the pace of their classes and to take time with every student, but it will pay dividends, she says.

In Brockton, Snelgrove appreciates his district's leaders for investing in years of trauma-related training for teachers and education support professionals, and developing partnerships with police, mental health, and child welfare agencies. This isn't the stuff that appears on state-mandated standardized tests, he acknowledges. But it is the stuff that engages the "hearts and minds" of teachers and education support professionals, he says.

"We're not perfect, and I know we have a way to go, but when we talk about the 'whole child,' we mean it."

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How Trauma is Changing Children's Brains

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For several years, John Snelgrove began his workweek with a lengthy fax from the local police, listing the home addresses where officers had answered domestic violence calls over the weekend. Snelgrove, head of guidance services for Brockton (Mass.) Public Schools, would check those addresses against the district's student database.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/31/well/move/hits-to-the-head-may-result-in-immediate-brain-damage.html

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But surprisingly little is conclusively known about the relationships between head impacts, concussions and C.T.E., or about how quickly or slowly a head injury might begin to shade into early signs of disease.

Those precise questions have gripped a large and distinguished group of scientists at Boston University School of Medicine and many other institutions around the world. These researchers were among the first to identify C.T.E. in the brains of football players and later in soldiers who had experienced blast injuries to their heads.

Their work has established strong links between such hits to the head and later C.T.E.

But for the small new study, which was published recently in Brain, they hoped to learn more about how and how quickly such injuries might contribute to the disease.

So they turned to what were, frankly, a series of tragedies. The brain bank at Boston University had come into possession of brains from four teenage athletes, each of whom had died within days or weeks of a head injury experienced during play.

Two of the young men had killed themselves. The scientists do not know if their head injuries had contributed to their suicides. The other two had died of brain swelling that most likely was related to "second-impact syndrome," which can occur if someone experiences two head injuries within a short period of time.

"None of the individual impacts was serious enough, in and of itself, to have caused death," says Dr. Lee Goldstein, an associate professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and the study's senior author.

But when the researchers closely examined the young men's brains, they found more harm than they had expected. The teenagers' blood-brain barriers, a natural defense system that keeps harmful substances from entering the brain, appeared to have been damaged, and many of the small blood vessels throughout their brains had sprung tiny leaks. Two of the brains showed disquieting accumulations of tau proteins near these broken blood vessels, and one brain had diagnosable Stage I C.T.E.

This was the first time that scientists had found signs of incipient or actual C.T.E. so soon after a brain injury and in people so young.

But since so many other factors might have contributed to the brain conditions, from genetics to earlier hits to the head, the researchers next decided to look at similar head impacts in animals and track precisely what happened inside their skulls.

Using young male mice, they applied relatively mild jolts, designed to result in a sudden, strong jerking of their heads, much as occurs during head-to-head tackles and other impacts. Afterward, some animals showed symptoms of a rodent version of a concussion, stumbling and performing poorly on memory tests.

The scientists then injected some animals with a dye that cannot cross a healthy blood-brain barrier and scanned the living animals' brains. In about half of the mice, they saw signs of the dye in their brains, indicated that their blood-brain barriers had become permeable. Many of the mice also showed signs of leaky blood vessels and other damage, including inflammation and disruptions in the electrical activity within their brains. Some had early signs of tau accumulation.

All of this had occurred within days of the head impacts.

But, interestingly, the damage was not closely associated with concussions. The animals that had developed concussion symptoms were rarely those that showed damage during the brain scans. So some animals had developed concussions despite having little discernible brain damage, while others had experienced damage typical of C.T.E. without showing any symptoms of a concussion.

The upshot is that "we probably have raised more questions than we've answered," Dr. Goldstein admits.

Principally, those questions center on whether the current focus on concussions in athletes (and the rest of us) might be too narrow, Dr. Goldstein says.

"It looks like it's the head impacts that matter," he says, whether or not they result in a concussion.

But mice are not men (or women, who were not part of this study because, blessedly, no brains from deceased, young female athletes were available). So whether the effects observed within the animals' skulls exactly replicate those in people is unknown.

The study also cannot determine whether older or younger brains respond the same way to injuries, or why some brains, in both mice and men, seem especially susceptible to mild trauma, while others, after the same hit, remain healthy. Perhaps most important, this short-term experiment cannot tell us whether brains that show incipient signs of C.T.E. will necessarily go on to develop the disease.

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Hits to the Head May Result in Immediate Brain Damage

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But surprisingly little is conclusively known about the relationships between head impacts, concussions and C.T.E., or about how quickly or slowly a head injury might begin to shade into early signs of disease. Those precise questions have gripped a large and distinguished group of scientists at Boston University School of Medicine and many other institutions around the world.

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Newsela | Brain disease called CTE is found to affect almost all pro football players

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https://newsela.com/read/highschool-concussions-tx/id/24921
https://newsela.com/read/highschool-concussions-tx/id/24921

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Running Free in Germany's Outdoor Schools

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Running Free in Germany's Outdoor Schools

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ONE EARLY MORNING this past February, before the frost melted or the sun fully rose, 20 small children gathered in a scabby municipal park in Pankow, the northernmost borough of Berlin. The sky was gray and the ground was gray, but the children's cheeks were bright and so were their moods. They ran in circles, shrieked with delight and spent a great deal of time rolling around atop frozen soil as traffic whizzed by just meters away. Their parents, shivering and anxious to get on with the day, paid them little mind. They smiled absent-mindedly and took sips of coffee from environmentally friendly stainless steel to-go cups.
Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
At the sound of the bird call, mimicked loudly and with eerie accuracy by a man in his early 40s named Picco Peters, the children gathered together and formed a tight circle. A spirited round of songs, sung in both English and German, began and was finished off by a chorus of wolf howls. The circle then dissolved and the group's 15 older children, ranging in age from 3 to 6, marched past a community garden and toward a busy intersection. (The remaining children, who were younger, stayed in the park.) A woman named Christa Baule led the way, carrying a backpack with a three-foot-long branch sticking dangerously out of it; Peters took up the back.

The children continued to chatter until the public bus came, at which point they wordlessly formed a single-file line and climbed in. Ten minutes later, the bus stopped. Everyone was deposited at the entrance of an 84-acre public park and proceeded to run amok.

Robin Hood Waldkindergarten, which opened in 2005, is one of more than 1,500 waldkitas, or "forest kindergartens," in Germany; Berlin alone has about 20. Most have opened in the last 15 years and are usually located in the city's parks, with a bare-bones structure serving as a sort of home base, but others, like Robin Hood, rely on public transportation to shuttle their charges daily out into the wilderness, where they spend most of the day, regardless of weather. Toys, typically disparaged at waldkitas, are replaced by the imaginative use of sticks, rocks and leaves. A 2003 Ph.D. dissertation by Peter Häfner at Heidelberg University showed that graduates of German forest kindergartens had a "clear advantage" over the graduates of regular kindergartens, performing better in cognitive and physical ability, as well as in creativity and social development.

The American journalist Richard Louv, who coined the term "nature-deficit disorder" in his 2005 book, " Last Child in the Woods," is cited often by Robin Hood staff, as is " Coyote's Guide to Connecting With Nature," by Jon Young, Ellen Haas and Evan McGown. (" Savage Park," by Amy Fusselman, is another book that chronicles uninhibited play and was inspired by a visit to an adventure playground in Tokyo.) The pedagogical philosophy of waldkitas, which privileges outdoor play and hands-on environmental learning, comes originally from Scandinavia, but, as one teacher put it to me, "they don't make a big fuss about it like they do here." The trend's non-Teutonic origins are somewhat surprising: There might be nothing "more German" than a state-funded preschool based primarily in a forest.

Germany has nearly three times as much protected land as the U.S., proportionate to the countries' sizes, a nontrivial fact that highlights the way much of the country thinks about nature and its role in the emotional health of its citizens. "It's terrible that kids today know all about technology but nothing about the little bird outside their window," Peters said, gesturing out toward the woods and sounding like any number of quotable Germans, from Goethe to Beethoven to Bismarck, all of whom have rhapsodized on the psychic benefits of spending time in the forest. He continued: "In life, bad things happen - you lose your job or your partner or everyone just hates you - but you'll always have this."

AT AROUND 9 A.M., one child discovered a gruesome scene and pulled Baule over. "Ah," she said, beckoning everyone else over. She pointed to the ground, where a pile of dark feathers lay lumped beneath a fir tree. She asked the children to guess who "killed" the blackbird. One small boy suggested that it was maybe the work of a fox. Baule, the school's director, pantomimed exaggerated thought. "Well, no," she said. "See how smooth the quill is?" The boy ran his fingers along the feather and nodded. "That means it was plucked. So the blackbird was killed by a bird of prey, not a fox." She gathered the dirty feathers from the ground and distributed them one by one to the children. A wild-eyed girl with snot dripping from her nose rocked back and forth with impatience and squealed when she finally received her feather.

Within a few minutes, the children were spread out over an expanse of at least 10 acres. Some were jumping from boulders; others were dragging logs through marshland. Most were sucking on filthy icicles that had fallen from the eave of a greenhouse. At Robin Hood, the children are allowed to be out of eyesight of their minders, but not out of earshot. "Being secretive is good for child development," Peters said. But whenever an adult called out "cuckoo," the children all dutifully returned from whatever dangerous thing they were doing, which on the day I spent with them included climbing at least 10 feet up a tree and sliding unsupervised across a frozen pond.

"We used to bring very simple things, lengths of rope for instance," Peters said. "But soon we realized even that wasn't necessary." The lack of toys, he explained, means less fighting and more inclusiveness. "They realize that they need friends if they're going to play." Just then, Peters bent down and picked a frosty leaf - an English plantain, I later learned. "We use this instead of Band-Aids," he said, "You just mash it up a bit and stick it on a cut. It has natural anti-inflammatory properties."

By the time a secluded spot had been chosen for breakfast, the childrens' fingernails were black with dirt, and although it was exceptionally cold nobody was complaining. Instead they all arranged their backpacks into a circle and wandered off in various directions to pee semi-privately, each one undressing out of their snowsuits without help. They returned and took out small Tupperware containers full of fresh produce from their backpacks. Two girls, both under 5, began arranging the fruit into an elaborate mandala atop a wooden tray. They piled carrot coins in the middle and surrounded them with concentric circles of tangerines, bell pepper slices and cucumber sticks; dates went in one corner and apple chunks in another, with a scattering of walnuts on the opposite side of the plate. Baule had encouraged them to organize the food "neatly" but provided no further instructions. The girls did all this slowly and wordlessly, rearranging items when they didn't like a particular combination. The end result was as beautiful as anything you'd see in a restaurant.

As it is on most mornings, breakfast was eaten in complete quiet. Children took turns silently presenting everyone else with the tray from which they each chose a single piece of fruit until it was all gone. For months, they had been reminded that by not making any noise at all while eating, it is more likely that a deer might approach them, and at the very least they'll better hear the bird calls. In over 45 minutes I didn't hear a single giggle. When they were done, Baule excused them. There were sudden laughs and yelps and everyone vanished into the forest.

THERE ARE SCATTERINGS of forest kindergartens in the U.S. as well as in the U.K. Even in Japan and South Korea, where education is famously strict, waldkitas are becoming increasingly popular. They have spread mostly through word-of-mouth among parents. And in Germany, it's not just the wealthy - or the eccentric - who send their children. Like all other preschools in Berlin, tuition at Robin Hood is covered by the government for kids aged 2 through 6 (apart from a 100 euro per month fee because it's a private school). New York City preschools can cost upward of $40,000 per year.

Though it was below freezing and we had been outside for five and a half hours by the time we made our way to the bus stop, nobody - besides me - wanted to go back inside. When we returned to Robin Hood's modest three-room building, which is filled with indoor plants and wooden forts, the children immediately kicked off their boots and stripped off their snow clothes. I suddenly saw them as they really were: tiny. In every case, their volume had decreased by at least 60 percent. They ran into the main play space where a long table had been set for them. Ceramic plates were heaped with salad and polenta, which they devoured with real flatware. One particularly squirmy boy was gently instructed to "please sit properly" five times. For dessert, every child was given a mug filled with elderberry juice, made from fruit that they had picked the summer before.

After lunch, Baule showed me a photo album, filled mostly with pictures taken in the last couple of years. A few children got interested and came over to sit in her lap, excited to see themselves "as babies." One photograph captured the image of a towheaded boy of about 3, stripping bark off a stick with a jackknife. In another, a different boy was crushing walnuts with a log. A third picture depicted four children walking across a gravelly path, completely naked and covered with mud.

The room, which was warm and lined with pillows and books, suddenly seemed stuffy. The children would be picked up in about an hour, but I left early. I hailed a cab, and within five minutes regretted it. I rolled the window all the way down, and stuck my head out.

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Running Free in Germany's Outdoor Preschools

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ONE EARLY MORNING this past February, before the frost melted or the sun fully rose, 20 small children gathered in a scabby municipal park in Pankow, the northernmost borough of Berlin. The sky was gray and the ground was gray, but the children's cheeks were bright and so were their moods.