Kids Aren’t Bumpers

Kids aren’t bumpers, they’re human beings! My colleague yelled this in a crowded auditorium filled with teachers and administrators. We were all there for a staff meeting. It’s been a few years since this happened… and I think about it from time to time. I usually remember it when I think about the universal nature […]

Toil and Trouble

A snapshot of Mosaic as we continue to develop and grow – both as a program and as a rag-tag collective of ambitious teachers and students: We all work hard in Mosaic … and for that I and others are extremely grateful and appreciative. Though some of us can be abrasive and harsh at times, […]

The Day The Bells Stopped

September 28, 2015: One year, one month, twenty one days, three hours, and twenty minutes after the launch of our Mosaic program. It was a Monday. And it was the day and date of one of the most profound moments of my career as an educator. For on this day, at approximately 11:00am MST, the bells […]

A 3-Step Filter For Edu Email

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about how we communicate in schools. You know, how we send ideas information, questions, etc. This post is about email. And, how and why do we email in schools? Can our inboxes be more pleasant places to visit? I think so. There are many ways to communicate with each […]

5 Questions You Should Ask Students and Teachers When Observing

Next time you’re in a classroom and want to initiate a quality conversation with either a student or a teacher, ask them the following five questions: #1: What is going on? #2: Why? #3: Why? #4: How? #5: What’s next? Try hard to say nothing but these words and that you really, really listen to their responses – pushing […]

Mosaic FNG – Of Supernovae and Vision

As one of my colleagues put it, You can ask each Mosaic teacher about what Mosaic is and what it isn’t and you’ll get different responses from each of us. No surprise or disagreement from me. Much has been written about Mosaic over the past three years. We’ve each contributed in our own way to […]

The “White Water World”

John Seely Brown, co-author of “A New Culture of Learning” – a must-read for anyone curious about modern education and the future of learning – recently delivered a 15-minute commencement address at Arizona State University. What follows are some of his thoughts and quotes that resonated with me, chief among them an analogy that compared the […]

The Freedoms to Learn and to Question

I was asked to respond to a question, which I will, but first a bit of a good old-fashioned soapbox style rant: When I think of popular movies like Good Will Hunting, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Stand and Deliver, Dead Poet’s Society, School of Rock, and a few others, I think of how these movies celebrate […]

The Buddy Bench: Nurturing and Encouraging Ideas

My family went on a walk this morning and eventually found ourselves at the playground of a local elementary school. While there my son pointed out the Buddy Bench that had been installed. The bench was inscribed with the following message: When you feel a little sad And don’t know what to do… Just have a […]

City, Death, Impact, and Time

Today was super fun … so I’ll share! Beginning with one of the following seed words: city, death, impact, or time, our students asked deep questions to investigate and answer. That’s what the Seeds portion of Mosaic is all about. Student spend most mornings working on their Seed questions and research, which they eventually share and present. […]