The future of education is student-centered and empowers learners: NAIS AC 2018

Over the past two days, it’s been a pleasure to engage with educators from across the country discussing how education is evolving to serve our students and their future. Here are a few highlights.

Adam Grant says that successful givers:

  • Help other people while protecting their own goals. They say, “I care about other people and I also care about my own ambitions.”
  • Set boundaries on time. Chunking their giving all at once to create more fulfillment.
  • Are specialists, not generalists. Know what acts of giving you are best at and delegate the rest.
  • Praise the value of generosity. Thank others for being givers.

Data Has a Personality: I presented with don buckley, Saber Khan and Linda Vasu. We were lucky enough to have Jill Gough sketch the highlights:

by Jill Gough

Navi Radjou’s keynote: Beyond Smartness: Leading Wisely in a Conscious Society. Navi states that:

  • Wise leaders can modulate between functional and business smarts depending on the situation.
  • Make sure to have strategy (what) and purpose (why) in mind.
  • See the potential of others and amplify them!
  • Have an abundance mindset. Looking for fulfillment inside.

Sisonke Msimang then spoke about the power of language and storytelling.

  • Listening is as important as storytelling. Listening to stories requires you to be empathetic and learn from another person.
  • “May we all do stories and may that be the measure of our lives.” – Toni Morrison

Social Justice in the Student-Centered Classroom by John Bouton and John Daves, Ph.D.

  • What is student centered education? We discussed building skills and competencies that can be applied across contexts. They used an I Notice, I Think, I Wonder protocol to analyze a poem which challenged us to infer the gender and race of the author. This conversation kept us discussing race and identity, a critical conversation for all, but especially white Americans.

Luma Mufleh gave our closing keynote entitled, Changing the World One Game at a Time. A powerful story, of empowering refugees through Soccer, and then building a no tuition private school for these students. She described terrible racism and bias, as well as unbelievable challenges in keeping this school going. You should check out her TED Talk here.

Advertisement

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s