We know that students’ basic needs need to be met in order for them to learn and grow. Safety is at the core of this, especially as they discuss ideas in the classroom. And with this safety comes community, connection, meaning, and purpose, some of the most important elements of a school setting, according to this week’s podcast guest.

Michael Strong is founder of The Socratic Experience, a virtual school for students in third through twelfth grades, and he’s designed schools for students from Alaska to Chicago and beyond. In our conversation, Michael and I talk about why student choice is so important, why psychological safety matters more than test scores, and when parents should search for other options for their children.

Michael reinforces the message that I’ve been sharing since the start of this podcast: there’s no such thing as one size fits all when it comes to education. And it just takes one teacher, parent, or school administrator to start the conversation to create change.

Tune in today!

About Michael Strong:

Michael Strong is founder of The Socratic Experience, a virtual school for grades 3-12. He is one of the most experienced designers of innovative school programs in the United States. His projects include a public school program in which minority female students gained four years’ worth of critical thinking gains in four months (on the Watson-Glaser). He later went into Montessori secondary school program design at The Judson Montessori School (San Antonio), The Emerson School, and Hacienda School. He created The Winston Academy, where middle school students passed AP exams, making it the most academically advanced school in the country at the time.

Another of Michael’s projects, Moreno Valley High School, a Paideia charter high school, was ranked the 36th-best U.S. public high school by Newsweek. More recently he co-founded KoSchool in Austin, Texas, which combined his high-performance approach to AP coursework and SAT score gains with a focus on entrepreneurial and creative projects. KoSchool, in turn, became the original model for The Academy of Thought and Industry, the high school model for the largest Montessori network in the United States.
Students from Michael’s schools have been admitted to Harvard, Stanford, Georgetown, Smith, Bard, Bennington, McGill, UT-Austin, University of Colorado, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Parsons School of Design, Quest, St. John’s and many dozens of other post-secondary institutions.

He is the author of The Habit of Thought: From Socratic Seminars to Socratic Practice and lead author of Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World’s Problems.

Jump in the Conversation:

[1:45] – Where Michael’s story of transformation began
[3:03] – What is Socratic dialogue and how it’s used in online schools
[4:50] – How co-schooling with Montessori works
[7:20] – Solving for inequity
[8:26] – SAT and AP are cognitively rich, but schools don’t always have a cognitively rich curriculum
[9:10] – Keys to adolescent well-being
[12:26] – Simple suggestions to build connection, community, meaning, and purpose
[13:50] – Creating metrics for community and purpose
[16:19] – Focus on things other than test scores
[17:24] – We need a broader conversation about mental health data
[19:56] – How parents can support an alternative program for their children
[22:23] – What’s next for the school
[24:10] – Turbo Time
[25:30] – What people need to know about Socratic dialogue
[27:20] – Michael’s Magic Wand
[28:43] – Maureen’s Takeaways

Links & Resources

• Fear is a Mind Killer: How to Build a Training Culture that Fosters Strength and Resilience by Kaja Sadowski
• The Socratic Experience
• LiberatED Podcast
• Liberation of Education
• Connect with Michael on LinkedIn
• Subscribe to Michael’s YouTube channel
• Follow Michael on Twitter and Facebook
• Email Maureen
• Maureen’s TEDx: Changing My Mind to Change Our Schools
• The Education Evolution
• Facebook: Follow Education Evolution
• Twitter: Follow Education Evolution
• LinkedIn: Follow Education Evolution
• EdActive Collective
• Maureen’s book: Creating Micro-Schools for Colorful Mismatched Kids
• Micro-school feature on Good Morning America
• The Micro-School Coalition
• Facebook: The Micro-School Coalition
• LEADPrep

Transcript:

Maureen 0:03
Hello fellow parents and educators. Thank you for joining me at Education Evolution, where we are disrupting the status quo in today’s learning models. We talk about present day education, what’s broken, who’s fixing it, and how. I’m Dr. Maureen O’Shaughnessy, your host and founder of Education Evolution, Micro School Coalition, and co founder of EdActive, I consult and train with schools and leaders who are fiercely committed to changing the narrative, reimagining the education landscape, and creating learning that serves all children and prepares them to thrive. If you are new, welcome to the podcast. Please subscribe on our website to get it delivered to your inbox weekly. If you’ve been around a while, have you left a review?

Maureen 1:08
Hi, Michael, it is so good to have you on education evolution.

Michael Strong 1:11
Thank you. I’m delighted to be here, Maureen.

Maureen 1:13
And listeners. today I’m chatting with Michael Strong. Michael is an expert developer of innovative educational programs in the US and also the founder of the Socratic experience, an online school based on Socratic dialogue that emphasizes personalized and purpose driven education for students in grades three through 12. Wow. Michael, we know our schools must evolve from that 1880s model to serve all learners. Where did this story of school transformation begin for You?

Michael Strong 1:49
Well, That’s a great question. It really began in high school I had a high school class where I was a junior and we would simply read and discuss philosophy now Plato, Nietzsche, Buber, they loved it. For me it was like those films are goes from black and white to color. And so I discovered college fair St. John’s College where for four years, it’s all Socratic dialogue. And I was going to drop out of my senior year and go there instead of graduating. But I only had a couple of credits. So I ended up doing senior year I had good test scores. So my college counselor encouraged me to go to Harvard. So it’s been a year at Harvard, but I don’t like people lecturing at me. So I, St. John’s spent four years there, I describe it as after my wife, a great love of my life. The first 35 years I’ve been creating Socratic programs elsewhere, I started in Chicago Public Schools and Alaska Public Schools. Then I’ve created a series of private schools and a charter school. So I everywhere I go, I break communities where we talk about ideas,

Maureen 2:54
And I’m glad you have your priorities straight to. So for our listeners that might not know, what is the Socratic dialogue? And then how do you use it in your online school, the Socratic experience?

Michael Strong 3:09
Sure. So the basic format is we read and discuss ideas. So we may read an essay, literature, philosophy, sometimes we’ll look at a painting. In science, we may be discussing a mathematical problem or a scientific experiment. We describe it as a text, but whatever it is, we’re reading and talking about the text. And the guide, we call them guide rather than teachers a guide role is simply to ask an open ended question to get students thinking. And so you know, very, you know, Socrates famously would talk to people in the Agora of Athens 25 100 years ago. What is justice? What is truth? What is goodness? But there are lots of different questions. I asked our elementary school students, how do you know if you’re being manipulated, and by Italia fourth graders have a lot of ideas about how they’re being manipulated? And in a world of, you know, constant? Media? That’s a very live question. And so we get the students thinking and talking about ideas, and sometimes thinking how to solve a problem together, or how to do a project together, but it’s very much the students are doing most of the talking in the class. And going back to the fact I don’t like to be lectured at. I don’t like to lecture others.

Maureen 4:22
Nice. I think that’s really important that we model what we want for our students. So I’m curious in looking at your bio, it looks like there you’ve partnered ko school with Montessori and my understanding of the Coast school is there’s a lot of AP coursework, SATs score growth, and then we know Montessori is very student driven and experiential. So talk to us about each and how this combination works.

Michael Strong 4:54
Thank you. Actually, it’s a very insightful question. I really appreciate it. So I would say I am at the intellectual high end of alternative education. And by the way, many Montessori Ian’s have seen my Socratic approaches and appropriate secondary schools SQL Montessori emphasizes the independence of the child. And Socratic emphasizes independent thought as one becomes older and ideas become more abstract. And we do provide a lot of choice. We’re almost at the edge of self directed learning. But most students, we actually talked about that a little bit. We actually have both an accredited high school program and a non accredited high school program. And people say why would you want to non accredited program or flexibility. We have some students who don’t want to be required to take the standard, you know, credits required for high school graduation, we serve those students, but most students are college bound. And for college bound students, it’s helpful to do well on the LSAT, helpful to well on the AP. So we administer a free Khan Academy LSAT, three times a year as an option for college bound students. My attitude towards it is if you start in ninth grade, it’s a no stakes test. Who cares what you get? I think a lot of the anxiety is getting to senior year, never having taken you don’t like your scores. Oh no, my life is over. No, no, no, no, I’m very pragmatic. In some ways, I think of it as you know, American Idol. People line up to, you know, practice for American Idol. Let’s just look at these things very pragmatically. And again, we have a lot of students who may go to grade of Art Design film school, and they don’t need the LSAT, some students go directly into the startup world, they don’t need the LSAT. But for college bound students, we want to do a really good job by preparing them both for AP and LSAT. And so I see it as a way to serve the students in pursuit of their longer term goals.

Maureen 6:50
I like that. And you know, now the LSAT is something that actually is very lacking in equity, families have to go to a private agency and pay a lot of money for the prep. And a big part of the prep is taking practice essay t tests. So for you to just work those tests so that kids know what’s coming. And to weave that into the school day, instead of saying, you have to have extra money and extra time to get prepared for the LSAT. It sounds like you’re actually solving an equity issue, as well as preparing kids and taking stress off of them.

Michael Strong 7:25
Huge. I know, first, I do want to give credit to Khan Academy, anybody can do this for free, online at Khan Academy. And I recommend highly in terms of practice testing. And that’s part of their explicit mission. But to add something particular to what we do, I grew up my mother was a high school dropout, my dad was an elevator repairman. So I came from nowhere. But I would say, because I was a reader, the LSAT verbal was a piece of cake for me. And so the other piece we do is by reading difficult material, then you know, a very big on reading that most students don’t read as much as they used to. But we make it interesting to think and talk about ideas based on difficult texts. And if we are reading difficult material from sixth grade to 12th grade, really the LSAT verbal is easy, unless at math does require more explicit preparation. So definitely acknowledge that. But we have an essay t where we have a math problem solving curriculum that is also aligned with the kind of thinking that they do on the LSAT math. So the other thing I’m very big on is I think, insofar as both LSAT and AP are cognitively rich, a lot of schools don’t always provide a cognitively rich curriculum. And so there’s kind of a struggle to go from what I call, memorize and forget tests to these very complex tests.

Maureen 8:42
Absolutely a big gap there. So you’re an innovator, and you’re making learning work at a high level and for a variety of learners. Right now, we’re all aware that there is a crisis in terms of adolescents, and their well being mental health issues, anxiety, stress, social pressures. So using innovations, how do you see that this crisis can be hopefully mitigated?

Michael Strong 9:14
In a huge, huge issue? Thank you. And for me, that he’s to adolescent well being in our connection, community, meaning and purpose. And just to talk one by one with through those connection, there is data from the CDC that students who feel connected to somebody at their school are about half as likely to commit suicide. So something as simple as somebody cares about me in the school is an immense, immense benefit. And do we have a 15 to one ratio, all of our students get one on one mentorship with guide every two weeks, and we very intentionally create a warm community. So going from the connection, it’s great that one or two people care about you at school, how much better If there’s a warm community, we spend a lot of time on how to treat each other. Well, we go through nonviolent communication. We debrief the group dynamic after every one of our conversations. We do appreciations. Now, a lot of elementary schools do appreciation, some workplaces do appreciations? I think, very proved few, middle and high school. Do appreciations. So we’re quite deliberate about warm community. And then meaning a lot of our Socratic conversations are talking about personal meaning. We talk a lot about purpose and meaning and what will I do for my life? I teach a class called purpose where we go through the famous you could die or purpose diagram, what am I good at? What does the world need? What will the world pay for? We have the students write an autobiography from the age of 100, every fall, to have them thinking about who they want to be over the course of their life. When they’re younger, it’s often silly. I’m gonna be a Nobel Laureate, rock star, you know, brain surgeon. But as they grow older, they become very thoughtful about their lives. And I’ve had, I’ve read heartbreaking autobiographies about when their parents die. So they begin to take this very seriously. So we really lean into connection, community, meaning and purpose. And I describe our program or overall as the conscious development of personal identities. After going through this for years, they know who they are, what they stand for, and why. And they know that people care about them for their inner self, and not just their external self.

Maureen 11:31
This is so powerful. And yes, I, in my micro school, ikigai is definitely a part of what we’re looking at. And it’s so easy to weave that in to project based learning and into Socratic discussions. And when kids get to talk about what breaks their heart and tie in what they’re good at, and it’s so rich, and when they get to create around that. So Michael, what you’re doing definitely creates connection, community meaning purpose. And I know there’s also things that neuroscience talks about until we feel safe until we feel like we’re part of a community, it’s hard for us to risk and really dive into our thinking. I feel like this is something that’s really hard to do in high schools of 2000 kids and advisories that meet but it’s kind of like do your homework, and we’re going to have you sign up for next quarters, classes or whatever. Do you have some simple suggestions for educators that are listening here, especially secondary educators? Because they can’t easily tomorrow change their whole system? How can they be building some of these four factors just attend to the well being of our youth?

Michael Strong 12:41
Well, thank you. Well, at first, as an aside, since you’re the micro school world, I am a big advocate for micro schools, precisely because it’s easier to do a good job at these in human scale communities and Dunbar’s number we evolved in communities of 150 or so and so even with larger schools, I’d like to see them focus on communities where everyone knows each other and be familiar. The other thing is, I think, I think one of the challenges from the No Child Left Behind in the whole accountability movement last 20 or 30 years, is from the test pressure and test anxiety. There has been all this top down pressure that sometimes subtly, and sometimes not too subtly, has, I think reduced the amount of human I just I know teachers have been in public schools for 30 years, and there was so much more openness and flexibility. So I certainly encourage teachers and principals and administrators who believe in this to push back quite deliberately. And it doesn’t mean one doesn’t care about accountability metrics. But I’m I’m working actually with a former public school teacher to create metrics for public schools on connection community meaning and purpose. Because as you know, if it’s not measured, it gets lost in the maelstrom. And so I think we need to create a movement that then 10 time building relationships with kids, is at least as important, if not much more important than the accountability metrics, the testscore accountability metrics, and we need to push back on the establishment in those so I’m gonna campaign one other little piece. There’s a company called immersion neuro which has a way to measure psychological safety and engagement using a Fitbit like device. And I would love to see more schools use these because that’s hard evidence of I think any experienced teacher will say, if my students feel safe, and they’re engaged, they’ll learn better. But if it’s a subjective judgment, you just have to argue against whatever administrator, please, please let me know I’m exaggerated. Let me let this kids feel safe. So I look forward to time when we can actually use hard data say, look, these kids feel safe. And as a consequence, they’re learning better. Therefore, let us take the time it takes To make sure they’re safe. There’s a wonderful book, by the way called fear is a mind killer chart by James Mannion and a co author, I forget to co author, but I love the title alone. Fear is a mind killer.

Maureen 15:12
Yes. Agreed. Wow. And I think this whole situation is exacerbated by a mentality to pieces, a mentality that math scores and, and ability to write is like, that’s how we know somebody is smart, successful ready for university or whatever is next. And the soft skills, the 21st century skills that people talk about, don’t get that same kind of value placed on them. The other piece, when you talk about immersion, neuro Big Pharma is going to fund research in anything that means, hey, we can give a kid another pill for anxiety, depression, ADHD, you name it. But for them to be able to monitor with a device, and self regulate and for teachers to be able to adjust based on the data that they’re getting, the research is going to be a lot slower, because it’s not going to make any company rich. So this is pretty complex.

Michael Strong 16:12
Oh, it’s a big problem. But I’m all about paradigm changing. That’s to go back to your earlier point about Well, I think of it is encouraging students to do entrepreneurial and creative projects, if, you know, things other than test scores, you know, you’d mentioned that and there are young people, I was great at tests, I could rock the tests. And so always, I think those of us who happen to be good at tests are now imposing them on other people. And for maybe 20 to 30% of students, that’s fine. But I think for 70 to 80% of students, we need to validate other pathways. And by means a real achievement. So we have an our high school, we have an intellectual track and entrepreneurial track and a creative track. And that’s a deliberate approach to validating the entrepreneurial entrepreneurs and creatives, and helping them become rock stars in their domains. You know, going back to the soft skills, I think students need real world, you know, you mentioned project based learning, we encourage our students to do a real world project where they start a company or sell a product or read something, you know, in that kind of real world experience sets them up for success. I mentioned the startup world, we’ve had students who go off and actually start companies or work in a startup. And I think that we do need to create a broader conversation in our society about how you know, the data was presented. 75% of high school students are unhappy at school, two thirds are not engaged in learning. And, you know, roughly half or seriously depressed, it is a catastrophe. I mean, I think part of this paradigm shift too, is, you know, I respect the idea of social emotional learning, but most of the social emotional learning comes packaged as curriculum, rather than let’s create meaning and relationships and purpose and do things. And so we need a much deeper paradigm shift in education to really develop soft skills and improve mental health.

Maureen 18:07
I love what you’re saying. And and this tracking that you have, in my mind goes to some of the European high school models where you’re tracked academically or vocationally. But and sometimes there’s a brighter and not so bright stigma perhaps attached to the ones that are not so bright. But creatives, entrepreneurs, intellects, all three of those are super powerful, and just honoring different ways of being this. Boy, I would love to see more high schools with this.

Michael Strong 18:42
Well, thank and just to kind of dig into the details where, you know, we do have kids in software development gets all the attention and software development is good. We have kids, coding and coding classes, that sort of thing. But I think what’s underdeveloped and this gets into the creatives, I often tell my creatives, you can still be a poor, starving artist, that lifestyle is available. We actually live in a golden age for creatives if they can use it in the professional workplace. And so digital marketing, you know, every company needs more eyeballs. And often young people are better at how do you optimize on Tik Tok or Facebook or Instagram or YouTube? You know, my one of my favorite anecdotes is Mr. Beast was a kid, a 12 year old kid who hated school, and he started learning how to optimize video on YouTube. Last year, he made about $50 million, his company that source a billion dollars, and he has 129 million subscribers, whereas the poor New York Times only has 9 million subscribers. So when you think about the opportunity, wow, were kids 12 year old kid who, you know, wanted to focus on YouTube rocket it.

Maureen 19:51
That is such a great anecdote. Michael, what about parents? Parents listening to this could be like, Well, yeah, but we only have traditional schools around us are how would I even find an alternative? Or how can I support an alternative program? What what encouragement or suggestions would you give to our parents?

Michael Strong 20:09
Well, that’s a great question. Well, to start with, I’m actually co hosting a conference called the liberation of education. It’s liberation of education.org, may 19, through 21. And we’ve got about 40 or 50 speakers from all kinds of alternative sorts of schools. So I happen to know Montessori Waldorf Acton Academy Academy, Sudbury, you know, I’ve been through the alternative school universe, homeschool and unschooling self directed learning. I know all of this, but most people don’t. So we have speakers at this conference, who can help parents learn about these different modalities and see what works for them. There are many virtual schools now with more alternative pathways. And there’s also a bold track in our conference on entrepreneurship as education, where we have teenage entrepreneurs who’ve been very successful. One of our teenager, entrepreneurs who attends our school received 1.2 million in venture capital last fall, or his minecraft mod company. So, majors, I think part of this is for parents to realize, sometimes, you know, if your kids asin, and school, wonderful, but sometimes parents see that their child really is not being validated. And I encourage parents to take the know, whatever they love, seriously, again, going back to the UK, a guy, and then also be realistic about what will the world pay for, you know, water, that’s the probably not going to be a lucrative career. But if you can learn how to optimize and one of these other platforms, it can be better than high school and college.

Maureen 21:48
No, absolutely. Wow, I’m going to put a link in the show notes to this upcoming conference, so that hopefully parents and educators will go and businesses pretty much anybody will go and and broaden their scope of what alternatives could be, and have some connections so that they’ll act on that and help make more alternatives available. This sounds powerful.

Michael Strong 22:13
Thank you. It’s really exciting. Wonderful.

Maureen 22:17
So you have so much going on? What’s next for you?

Michael Strong 22:23
Well, thank you. First of all, gross, we’ve we’ve got families from around the world, we have students from Pakistan and Taiwan, and Mexico and Guatemala, and we’ve had students from Europe, we have students from Iraq. So we’re very global, but we want to continue to grow. And we want to continue to offer more options. A lot of our families, some of our families are full time, some are part time, we’ve got an after school Python coding club for parents who want to do that. I’m very, you know, very much one size does not fit all. So I think we’re in an exciting stage of education, where, whether it’s my program or other programs, I want parents to see how many different ways there are to educate children, and how many different ways for young people to live vibrant lives. Going back to purpose, I think the mental health catastrophe is partially because so many students don’t feel fulfilled. And the big message I would give to parents is, if they see the light going out of their child’s eyes, when they start coming home from school, sometimes it’s it’s early as third or fourth grade, sometimes it’s 6789, whatever, to find ways to support and validate the child’s true interests. So I’m writing and speaking on this as much as possible growing my school during this conference, I actually have a proposal out for a center for flourishing adolescent cultures at a university. I’m all in in terms of getting people to, to see how many healthy possibilities there are beyond conventional schooling.

Maureen 23:58
Wow, super impressive. Michael, I am going to pivot. And I always like for our listeners to get to know the person behind the idea or in your case, the multitude of ideas. May I ask you some turbo time questions?

Michael Strong 24:13
Walk right, go for it.

Maureen 24:15
Okay, what’s the last book you read?

Speaker 2 24:18
So dominion, it’s a history of Christianity is 2500 years I’ve been doing history deep dives for wild.

Maureen 24:24
Fascinating. Wow. How about two inspirational folks you’d like to meet?

Speaker 2 24:30
I absolutely love thinking people. I don’t know actually Marc Andreessen. I actually know a lot of interesting people. I know John Mackey actually met Elon Musk briefly last fall, but I not met Marc Andreessen. Of course, I would love to have met Steve Jobs, but he’s done. But I’m very interested in entrepreneurs and innovators. So that that’s kind of where my energy is.

Maureen 24:57
How about your favorite place to travel?

Speaker 2 25:00
Haha Greece. So I’m a big hello file after being a little file my whole life and learning Greek at St. John’s I actually got to travel to Greece for the last fifth time last year on a school trip we take our students to Greece, and this summer we’re planning on going back both with the students so then my wife and I go to Crete. Our hanya is this smaller city and beat. It is extraordinarily beautiful.

Maureen 25:26
I add that to my list. What’s the biggest thing you wish folks knew about Socratic dialogue?

Michael Strong 25:33
That it is joyful and fun? I think many people there is a kind of a hardstyle of Socratic which can be you know, Paperchase, style, aggressive and sometimes some Socratic educators, I would say even err on the side of humiliating students in law school, for instance, but can be warmed fun and joyful. Now I actually have a YouTube channel called Socratic Michael strong, where I began having Socratic dialogues with the daughter of a friend whose name is Alana, when she was four years old, she is now 10. And so you can see how it’s possible to have warm, friendly, gentle conversations with a four year old. That ended up I would say, having her be an exceptional thinker by the time she’s 10. And, you know, I think the sky’s the limit. So play I want parents to have and educators to have fun with it.

Maureen 26:25
I love that because yes, there is this, this image of it’s going to be very intellectual and dry and, and logical and right. So I like the idea of joyful and fun, big time. And what’s something most folks don’t know about you?

Michael Strong 26:42
I grew up on a farm and I milked cows and you know, lived without indoor plumbing. And you know how to very simple guy. boyhood growing up in northern Minnesota, been fairly simple conditions.

Maureen 26:57
That sounds really interesting. It was fun.

Michael Strong 27:01
I might actually my admissions essay to Harvard into the line. I may never hug a cow again. And back. I have not hugged the cow since I was a teenager.

Maureen 27:12
that would that would hook the reader’s attention. Yes, I like to end the podcast with a magic wand moment. So Michael, if you had a magic wand, and could revamp secondary education, what would be two or three key pieces that would be mandatory?

Michael Strong 27:38
Well, I’m very much a pluralist. So the mandatory is tricky for me. Okay. But I would say I would say I’m respecting the children’s individual pathway. Number one, you know, allowing multitude of pathways. Number two, warmth, healthy community with connection meaning connection, community meaning and purpose. That is a scenic one on and three, being joyful for the learning experience be joyful. I think a lot of kids do have fun with athletics and extracurriculars and at lunchtime and so forth. But I want the learning experience to be joyful.

Maureen 28:14
Absolutely. And okay. They don’t have to be mandatory, but boy, they would be highly recommended there.

Michael Strong 28:20
Well, I think as as more schools offer these, the teams will rush to those schools because again, there’s so much misery right now.

Maureen 28:27
Exactly. Michael, thank you so much for being a guest today on Education Evolution.

Michael Strong 28:33
Thanks for having me Maureen. It’s been a blast.

Maureen 28:43
Michael is using a career full of maximizing student learning to serve his online school, the Socratic experience, connection, community, and purpose or meaning, our ongoing themes in reducing mental health concerns. Michael’s model provides connection community and meaning. It is flexible, and it has many opportunities using Socratic dialogue for youth to lead. Think deeply and articulate ideas. It is definitely something worth checking out and seeing how we can have more educational opportunities similar to this one. With students creating the meaning and digging into their learning for personal gain. We have the polar opposite of the top down, No Child Left Behind mandated testing. It would be wonderful if we could rethink high stakes and anxiety producing tests with authentic demonstrations of learning where students have ownership. As Michael shares we need to push back on memorization based state testing and develop criteria to measure relationships. We measure what matters how We develop relationship skills and treat each other matters. Creativity 21st century skills, and becoming entrepreneurial, are also qualities that we need to define so we can start measuring. This is what really needs to be valued, and technology is available to help make assessment relevant in this manner. Michael is on fire. His mission to help folks see the many healthy options beyond traditional education, aligned perfectly with his magic wand wish. We need to and can respect each child’s individual pathway and create warm and healthy learning communities. And make sure that learning experiences are joyful for each learner. Let’s make this wish a reality. Wonderful, inspirational work, Michael. And listeners, thank you for being a part of the education evolution.

Maureen 31:08
If you are finding yourself thinking, I need to do this in my school. Let’s talk about it. I consult and also have a book TEDx talk an online course to support starting learner driven schools and programs. My goal is to help schools and individuals find new innovative solutions to reaching every student. Let’s create an action plan together. Visit educationevolution.org/consult to book a call and let’s get started. Education evolution listeners, you are the ones to ensure we create classrooms where each student is seen heard, valued and thriving. We need you. Let’s go out and reach every student today. I’d be so grateful if you’d head over to your podcast app to give a great rating and review if you found this episode valuable. Don’t wait. Please do it right now before you forget. I really appreciate it. Thank you listeners signing off. This is Maureen O’Shaughnessy, your partner in boldly reimagining education.