Re:Building School 2.0
In 2015, educators Chris Lehmann and Zac Chase published Building School 2.0: How to Create the Schools We Need. In this podcast, they revisit each thesis in the book and examine how their thinking (and the world) have changed or not after a decade of doing the work.
Re:Building School 2.0
Chapter 4: Build Modern Schools
It's the shortest chapter so far, and it's left Chris and Zac with a lot to consider as they examine whether what counted as modern schools ten years ago still fit the bill today.
The answer? It's complicated.
I'm Zach Chase and welcome to the Rebuilding School 2.0 podcast. My friend, colleague, and co-author Chris Lehman and I released our book Building School 2.0, How to Create the Schools We Need. It's a collection of 95 theses a la Martin Luther detailing our best thinking as school builders, teachers, school and district leaders, and policy makers on what we can do to make schools better, more humane places for the people inside them. In each episode, we revisit one of the chapters from the book, and Chris and I sit down to examine how our thinking has shifted or stayed the same In this episode, we'll be investigating Chapter 4. Build Modern Schools We talk a lot about what to call this movement in education. It does seem a little ridiculous to call this the 21st century schools movement when we're already over a decade into the 21st century and we don't really know what we're doing yet. But naming is important and we should be able to talk meaningfully about what this movement is trying to do and what the goal of all of this actually is. For ourselves, we want to be part of a school movement that recognizes the best of what has come before us and marry that to the best of what we are today. And we think we have an idea of how we want to talk about that. We want to create modern schools. For us, the notion of the modern school cuts straight to the heart of what we are trying to do. Modernity is something that we are always striving for, always reinventing, always coming to terms with. We understand the This is and should be a valid concern. It should also be a fire under those who are charged with asking, are we creating the schools we need today or have they slipped into yesterday? Smart modernists understand that they stand on the shoulders of giants. Modern schools should not denigrate the past, nor should they ignore what has come before them. The modernist learns from and builds upon it. Those are the goals we want to have, and we believe that is a powerful lens for our children. Moreover, the idea of modern schools encompasses not just the tools they use, but also the life they lead and the challenges they face. It recognizes that school is about now and their future while honoring and learning from the past. A modern school movement does not assume that because we learned a our children must learn the same. A modern school movement does not assume that what was good for us will automatically be good for our kids, nor does it assume that just because we did something a certain way in the past that it holds no value in the future. The modern school movement does not have to focus solely on tools or skills. Rather, it can also focus on ideas and people and the lives we live today. We want to create modern schools in and of our time, for our time, for these kids. Christopher D. Troy Lehman. So close. Dang it. So I think this one will be a real quick episode. Do we still think people should build modern schools, Chris? Nah, let's go back to the 18, you know. Oh, this will be longer than I thought.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Oh, he's like, and scene. Yes. Yes, I think people should still build modern schools.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, this one's like, I read just the title of it, and I thought, is there going to be anything in here for us to talk about? And then I was like, it's the two of us. We'll find plenty.
SPEAKER_01:How many angels can dance on the head of this pin? Right. And to that end, if I may, when I reread this chapter, I was like, sort of also similarly like, yeah, of course, But also like, yeah, of course. And I was a little annoyed with us with this chapter. Because I'm like... what did we, like on some level in its abstraction, you're like, yeah, cool. That's great. But what are you talking about? And of course the answer is the next 92 chapters is what we're talking about. Right. But we didn't do a great job of defining our terms here.
SPEAKER_02:I noticed the same thing. And I started to wonder why that was. We're
SPEAKER_01:not very good writers.
SPEAKER_02:We are so bad with words. for me was more knowing that the rest of the book was coming because I don't know that we wrote it in this order. I remember we rearranged some pieces. So I know that knowing that these other chapters was coming was important. And I think that it felt in the moment, like we were putting our flag down in a way that it doesn't feel that way anymore.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. This was us saying like, here's something we believe. Right. And, but even with that, like, What's the something? Yeah, but we never really say at all in the chapter, this is what a modern school is. And that was where, as I was rereading, I was like, I know what's coming next, so I know we are going to talk about it. Those first two chapters, we're kind of putting our stakes in the ground in really big ways, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. This chapter feels like we did a lot of work to say, we know we're not the first people to have these ideas. This felt more like saying, we know we stand on the shoulders of giants. And because we said it a couple of times in different ways in this chapter, as a nod of saying we understand our history. And I think that we spent time doing that and didn't stop and say, okay, and as we stand there, that we did the yes, but we didn't do the and. We didn't build. And we know the rest of the book will do that. I guess the question I had as I was reading through is do I think the definition of a modern school is the same in my head as what a modern school looked like in my head then? And I think there's a difference to it. I think there's a difference to what I have learned and thought about since then around, and I think what the field of education has brought on. And I'm going to say something that I don't know that you're going to agree with or that is where your brain goes, and that is around the idea of the sciences and what we know about how the brain works feels like it has come closer to learning and teaching. That there are these conversations about the neuroplasticity. When you and I were learning to be teachers, neuroplasticity was not a thing that we... that was given much voice, any voice for mine, at least. A little bit. I mean, we had a little bit when I was, but very little. But I think about one of my favorite books in the last decade. One of my favorite books in the last decade is Pooja Agarwal, Powerful Teaching, right? And so what she does there by applying learning sciences to practical methods that teachers can build into their practice, I think is fantastic, right? Her whole piece around retrieval practice i think it's incredibly important and and that's a piece of that is that incorporates
SPEAKER_01:for those for those who are listening who don't know what you're talking about please tell us
SPEAKER_02:yeah well yeah so you did there and i'm so proud of you um So it makes sense to us, to those who are thoughtful practitioners, to say we should have kids think about what they learned. So metacognition is there. But what retrieval practice is saying is giving the brain some time And what we know is that if we give the brain time and then say, tell me what you learned, like if you're talking to me about tall ships, and I don't know why that's the example, if you're teaching me about tall ships and you do a whole lesson about tall ships, and maybe all you're doing is standing up there and talking about tall ships and I'm scribbling notes furiously. Later on, retrieval practice says, give it some time and then come back and say, hey, Zach, what's everything you remember about tall ships? And that just that, just the act of asking your brain to recall that, It helps to solidify the knowledge, makes it stickier, helps to connect the neural networks to encode that as like, oh, this is knowledge that we're going to need. And as she talks through, and Patrice Bain is her co-author, as they talk through in the book, doing that recall then also brings up, oh, here's the thing, what did I forget? So it creates all of these questions. And so for me, a modern school now, more than probably 10 years ago, is one that incorporates It's what we know about the science of how the brain learns or how brains learn, because there is not one kind of brain.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And I think for me, I always worry a little bit because I've seen people claim brain science to do. Oh yeah. Yeah. Like, you know what I mean? Like
SPEAKER_02:versions of all of this.
SPEAKER_01:What I worry about with what you just said is people trying to narrow down, like the last part of what you said, there's not one kind of brain. and what have you, is that there's always those folks who are convinced that whether or not Skinner was actually right, if we can just find the right scientist, we can standardize all the learning. I
SPEAKER_02:will now point to, so that people do not think I'm going down that route, one of my connected to this, one of my very favorite researchers is a woman named Huta Treviranus. She talks about designing for the ends of the curve. The very high and the very low. She's like, design for the people on the wings because you're going to capture the people in the middle. If you're talking about the belt. She talks about designing to incorporate for the neurodiversity that is inherent in the human condition. And then the other piece here that is well worth mentioning is universal design for learning. And the thinking there is saying, do not design learning experiences that are disabling to children, right? That's right. The learning experience as the thing that creates the disability and not the person as being broken. But those are also learning science, right? Those are also scientific concepts about how brains work and that brains are much more diverse than we thought when we were kids, certainly. and more diverse than I know I understood when I was a baby teacher. So that would be the big piece of what I think is different about a modern school. What about you?
SPEAKER_01:I think for me, thinking about, and it's funny because I went in a completely different direction where I was thinking about what were we talking about with this chapter and how would I think about it now. And there's a moment in the chapter where we say modern schools shouldn't sort of trip into post-modernism. So for me, when I was talking about a modern school, I was talking about sort of almost grounding it in the values of the modernist movement and placing it inside this larger sort of thought movement and what did that mean right and the sort of not wanting it to become this kind of self-referential post-modern look how clever we are thing which I think actually is still a concern that there are lots of folks out there who like want the cleverness of school if not the sort of meaning of school and I think the modernist movement was like and where where Where I still think this, or where I guess there's something interesting to mine that we didn't mine, is the modernist movement is all about this quest to understand our world. In a moment where many of the traditional institutions of the world were under rapid change, the modernists seek to find meaning. I always think about, again, one of the core texts for me is man's search for meaning. you know, and this sort of philosophical pieces of all of that. Our quest for meaning is, is still really, really important. And I do think the book delves into that in a lot of ways. But I think when we think about, are we searching for meaning? How utilitarian should our schools be? How much is this an inward look? How much of this is an outward look? How do we balance those things? Those are all the questions that the modernists grappled with. Where I question or where I wonder is we were both in such a very different place around how technology was going to transform all of this stuff and while I think we both still really you know I mean we're both still geeky about the tools we're even more skeptical than we were then I wonder how much we're like how much more are we actually building versus just kind of synthesizing and actually trying to make the best of what has of what we've seen right
SPEAKER_02:and I don't Right, because I think there's a drive, not necessarily ours, but there's a drive for some to say, and this is Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, right? Socrates. Socrates. Oh, that's two Socrates references in four episodes. There will be more. I think that there's such a drive to say, yes, I read that book, and here's how I'm going to make it bigger and better. I always go back to, okay, but let's just read Dewey and then try to do that well.
SPEAKER_01:Because not enough people have. Right.
SPEAKER_02:There's a picture of me with Deb Meyer sitting across the room from me right now. It's one of my very favorite photographs ever. And I love explaining to my kids over and over again that that is not one of my grandmothers. When I look at the picture of me standing next to Deb Meyer, one of the pieces that is so heartening there is that Deb read the books with the good ideas and said, I'm going to go build those things. And the things I'm building, I'm going to iterate on and I'm going to improve upon them. But she said, this good idea is good enough for me to build my schools up. That's right. And I think that that is an important piece. Like a modern school is, isn't trying to be smarmy.
SPEAKER_01:That's
SPEAKER_02:right.
SPEAKER_01:And I think that's what we talked about. That's what that don't become postmodern is, right? Like, that's the warning.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Don't get so full of yourself. One of my favorite answers that you have given to a question, especially early on, right, when SLA was hot, hot, hot, people were like, when can we build an SLA in our town, in our city? And your answer was like, I don't think we should. I'm paraphrasing you to you, which is stupid. super meta, but you always talked about like,
SPEAKER_01:I just disappeared in a sort of proof of
SPEAKER_02:like, exactly. Um, but you, but you talking about SLA is the, is the school that can only exist here in this time in this city. It is built for the place that it's in. And that is your answer to that question. But it is also, again, standing on the shoulders of giants of people who say schools should serve the contexts in which they are built.
SPEAKER_00:Uh,
SPEAKER_02:right. Like schools near where I am, in central Illinois, in rural places, need agriculture programs. They need shop class. Those serve the community.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and that's the moment now when I get to talk about one of my favorite books, right? Schoolmaster of the Great City. Right. And Angelo Patry, that the goal of the system is not to make one school like another, but to make each school serving its people wide awake, the best of its kind. When did he write that? Heart smack in the middle of the modernist movement. So I think that in that way, you're right. And I think everything we've tried to do at SLA is exactly what Deb tried to do with Central Park East Secondary School and, you know, those pilot schools in Boston and what have you, Mission Hill. It's funny, I was talking to a new teacher at SLA. You know, I was checking in with her. We're recording this episode right smack in the middle of PD week, right, when we're doing all the preschool workshops. I asked her how she's doing. She's like, I'm alternating between being really excited and really overwhelmed. I'm like, yes, that is exactly where you should be. I said, but what do you think about how we learn? She was like, oh my gosh. This is what I've been waiting for my whole career. This is a learning school. I was like, yeah. I think that this notion that we can be We can build schools that no one has ever done learning. You shouldn't be doing that because learning is a lifelong, like we say, whatever, but learning's lovely. But in our modern world, nothing is static. And how do you teach where everything is fluid, where every institution we have seems to be in a moment of rapid change, and the only, well, I don't know about the only, but the only But my best answer through that moment is to be as nimble and voracious a learner as possible.
SPEAKER_02:It does not occur to me that other people in education are not constantly thinking about education. I think this is our gratuitous Diana Laufenberg reference, but when I think I met the two of you, I was like, oh, these are two other individuals who are constantly thinking about learning and are constantly thinking about helping other people learn and constantly thinking about I do not go a day without thinking about how to improve a system of learning. And it boggles my mind to meet folks who are in education who do go a day or who don't read. Like you read all the time. I read all the time. So when I meet educators who don't read.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. No, that's right. And I think it's funny because I wrote about this this summer. which is that I'd really gotten away. Last year, I was not in the world's greatest headspace. It's not the greatest time in the world. And I had sort of succumbed to the scroll, right? And short video and sort of like just turning off my brain. And a lot of it was that what was being demanded of me at school was super, super intense. And I just didn't have anything left in the tank when I got home. But what I realized in sort of examining myself, was that what I thought I was doing to sort of turn off and recharge was to turn off and actually run down even further. And that was not reading, not writing, not doing the things that force me to be more than an automaton in the building. That was why, you know, like I've recommitted to like, even if it's not, I mean, like at my best, I'm reading interesting education theory and pushing pushing my pedagogy further, but also just remembering to read fun novels, remembering to read British spy thrillers. And, you know, this is where, you know, my favorite book of, or, you know, sort of brain science book of the last 10 years, Marion Wolfe's Reader Come Home. Oh, yeah. And talking about deep reading is not a normal brain function. And that by doing it, we are writing the neural pathways of our brains to engage in deeper thinking and more critical thinking through that act of reading. And video and everything else doesn't write the neural pathways the same way reading does. And that's something that I think about all of the time because it was something I always kind of had in my brain all throughout being a teacher and a principal. It didn't matter how a kid was performing in the sort of game of school. If I had I saw them curled up in a nook at school with a book in their hands. I was like, oh, they're going to be fine. And so–
SPEAKER_02:When I think through a postmodern approach, it is that exploration that you're talking about. But really practically, I think it is giving kids time and space to find their way into ideas. That's right. And that that's a modern school. For them to find their way into ideas. Not to lead them to ideas, not to give them ideas, but to help them to create experiences in education that lead them to want to have more experiences.
SPEAKER_01:And yet, the funny thing about that, because I agree with you, right? It's like, so, yes and... on some level, that is as sort of classically Greek. Absolutely. Right? I mean, and that's the funny thing. And I think
SPEAKER_02:the modern thing, I would say the modern element of that is that that is for every child. This goes back to educational colonialism. Every child deserves that experience. Because when we're talking about the Greeks, we are not talking about every kid. And so it doesn't matter where you're from it doesn't matter how you were born it doesn't matter how your brain works you deserve experiences that lead you to explore ideas and your world and then build something
SPEAKER_01:and that's the new piece and that's the modern piece right like this the and build something oh yeah this notion we were talking today um i was inspired by last week's podcast that we remember that was
SPEAKER_02:your you made a commitment
SPEAKER_01:yeah and so today we did the workshop right on like can we define citizenship and that was a really robust lovely wonderful conversation that like again some of the teachers who were new to SLA was like this isn't standardized curriculum but we were talking about like I was really pushing on people to say like don't just think about this as like classroom practice like you run a good discussion and you get like that like what are they doing that allows them to see themselves as expert voices in the world and active agents in the world what are what is the space you are creating in your classroom that enables them to see your curriculum as vital to the human they are and vital to the problems they want to solve?
SPEAKER_02:And that allows you to get to a place where in a moment, if there is a piece of that curriculum that is not immediately practical, The dangerous part of what you just said is everything I'm giving them has to be practical right away. I know that's not what you're saying.
SPEAKER_01:I struggle. Yes, and, but is there a difference between practical and useful?
SPEAKER_02:Yes. I would say that we don't want to run the risk of thinking that everything that we are helping kids learn is practical and has to be practical and useful right away. That there are some things that we're just going to learn about sometimes. We're going to do it in a way that we hope is an interesting experience that activates their inquiry and their curiosity. But there are some times when you're learning a math fact that you're just going to learn a math fact.
SPEAKER_01:A, this has been on my brain for the last 18 months of wondering how utilitarian should schools be.
SPEAKER_02:Let's for a utilitarian all the time in their day to day. And
SPEAKER_01:could you give us a quick,
SPEAKER_02:what
SPEAKER_01:do you mean when you say utilitarian? Is all learning for a practical purpose? Are we teaching for truth and beauty? Or are we teaching to help kids become, and this goes back to last week and what we did today, are we teaching kids to be ready to be fully actualized citizens? And if we're teaching them to be fully actualized citizens and everything that we're doing is to help them make sense of their world and live in their world and change their world, Then, yeah, truth and beauty, like, sure. But I only got you for four years. I want to make sure that everything you're doing has utility for you. And then I recoil from that a little bit because I'm like, when do I teach the love song of J. Alfred Prufrock? And because it's beautiful, right? Except, you know, and I can make the utilitarian argument to read poetry and things like that. But, like, this is my forever struggle. Yeah. You might have told everybody listening, it's like, we can tell your voice just went up about 47 decibels.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know, Chris. It seems like you're just happening upon these ideas for the first time.
SPEAKER_01:Well, but I'm still struggling with them 30 years later. Like, how annoying is that? I mean, and it's the right struggle. But why does it have
SPEAKER_02:to be a dichotomy?
SPEAKER_01:It's not. Well, it's because time. Why does it have to
SPEAKER_02:be so far?
SPEAKER_01:Because time is our greatest limiting factor in schools more than anything.
SPEAKER_02:Sure, but is it not here? Is it hubris for us to think that I've only got you for four years and after that no one will be able to teach you?
SPEAKER_01:No, that is, I mean, yes, that is hubris. And no, I don't think that that's the only case. But like, at the same time, the New York Times published a study today that said the number of people who read for pleasure over the last 20 years has dropped like a stone. So on some level, if we don't teach you the utility of being a lifelong learner, and we don't teach you how to learn for yourself, and we don't teach you that there are these things that if you learn them, they are applicable to how you live your life and the choices you make and the voting you do and the purchasing you make and all of the ways you live your life, then when are you going to learn it? Because everything that's going on in the outside world is teaching people to be a lot more anesthetized and a lot less excited about learning. So on some level, no, it is hubris to think, you know, whatever, but it's also not because I I want that sense of urgency.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Well, I wonder if you pull it apart and say, perhaps school needs to be more utilitarian, but learning does not.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. That's a lovely way. That's a lovely nuancing of that. That's a lovely. Well done. Good job. Thanks. I will. You give me enough time. Good night, everybody. There you go. Yeah. Good
SPEAKER_02:night, everybody.
SPEAKER_01:Modern schools have to be responsive to the moment that kids live, in which kids live. and help them be able to be ready to deal with that world.
SPEAKER_02:And I think that, yeah. And so this is an important point, and I don't want to gloss over it, because we were writing in a time when everybody was talking about 21st century everything. And it had gotten old, because we were more than a decade into it at that point. And I think that that is the important, I think that is why we talk about modern schools, because in the moment in which you are living, your school must be a modern school. So we didn't mean a 2015 school. We went a modern school. So that's why not much has changed, because we thought that then. And
SPEAKER_01:we very intentionally didn't use that phrase, 21st century
SPEAKER_02:school. There was a sentence that said, this is not useful to us. But a school in 1820 needed to be a modern school. And this is where I don't think we do it too often in the text. I think we avoid this pretty well. The phrase, like, We are preparing students for a future that does not exist yet. And things are moving so quickly. Yeah, that's everybody, all the time, always. Yes, change is happening. But I think if you pick somebody in 1920 and put them into a school in 1960, they'd be like, what the hell has happened to the world? And I know there's exponential change. I get all of those things. But we are always and forever have been preparing our students for the world in which they live. And we have always and forever have needed modern schools right the question that is incumbent upon us is what does our modern school need in this moment
SPEAKER_01:right and i think the problem is and this goes back to like what you were saying earlier about you are always shocked at educators who aren't always thinking about what we do right you and i our brains don't shut off on this stuff i think that where that then is more than the no No kidding, right? Like, of course, duh, right? Like is, and what does that mean when we think about the evolution of the institution itself? How do we continue to evolve to reflect the moment? What is a modern school in 2025? In a moment when there are some very, very, very toxic counter movements to this notion of citizenship and there are some very there are there is a creeping disengagement of young people not be you know in ways that are unhealthy right kids like I'm doing stuff for the lols I don't care like as long as I I don't care who I hurt as long as I think it was funny right right and if that means I'm gonna you know and we see that you know again being preached at some very high levels the modern school holds it values and says how do we meet this moment right because it's different right And if you're not constantly investigating your curriculum, investigating your pedagogy, and iterating to get better for the moment in which we live, you're not a modern school. You're calcified.
SPEAKER_02:Right. And the way that this comes out, I think, oftentimes in the most kind of frequent way is when teachers talk about how their demographics have shifted. Right. And which is oftentimes coded language for like the poor kids moved in or kids of color are there more kids of color and fewer white kids like that is often
SPEAKER_01:what do you mean i have to teach all of these kids who don't speak english
SPEAKER_02:but a different version and a different part of that is i learned how to do it this way right i was teaching it i learned how to teach in a way that was modern for the moment when i started and now modern is something different and i think that's why modern works here right like and i think that is the sentence that drives me It was the worst when I worked as a district leader and I would go into schools and try to say, all right, we're going to work on, you know, improving the reading, writing and communicating in this school. And teachers would say, well, you know, our demographics have really shifted in the last few years. And I would like, oh, my God, I might need, just excuse me for a moment. I got to go find a pillow to yell into. Yeah.
UNKNOWN:Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:But I think, but, but those are people who are like my version of modern has shifted. Um, right. And the world moved on and their practice stayed the same.
SPEAKER_01:Teacher identity is a fragile thing, right? Like, and I, I have, right? Like there's some empathy there, like for that I have for these people who want to be good at their job and all of a sudden find themselves less good at it. Right. And, and at a time when society is blaming teachers more, when schools are under attack more, it's an unpleasant thing. A modern school is actively engaged in understanding what they don't know. If I want to sort of think well of this chapter, I think that we left something intentionally or unintentionally undefined in a way that allowed it to forever be evolving.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. I'm on the other side of where I started with this chapter, because simply by saying we modern schools is also a challenge. It doesn't say go build a school that's built on these tenets. It says go build the school you need in the time that you're reading this chapter. The
SPEAKER_01:schools our children deserve. Oh, dang. If only there was a place where people could come together and have conversations like this one. Wait a minute. Educon.org. Exactly. Educon, the conference that we host every year at Science Leadership Academy. I believe this episode is going to, yes, this episode will drop before proposals are due. So if you have a great idea for a conversation you would love to have with a bunch of really, really, really fascinating educators and students, for that matter, go to EduCon.org and propose your conversation. We'll be there talking, I'm sure, on mic to bring EduCon to the folks who are listening. But it's really an amazing three days of learning with people who are interested in investigating the kinds of questions we're talking about here. Thanks Chris.
UNKNOWN:Thank you Zach.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you, indeed.
SPEAKER_01:If you want to, like, if this episode was a little too theory heavy and sort of like pie in the sky, get ready for some concrete examples of what we're talking about and how to do it at a school level and what that means for how you operate in the classroom as an educator and as a school. Because I love this.
UNKNOWN:Music
