Computer science is integral to a strong education

Lisa Zapalac is one of the co-owners of Long-View Micro School, an innovative new school in Austin that has a strong STEM focus. Lisa’s background in schools is extensive, as she has served as a principal, curriculum director, and teacher, working in both private and public schools, from preschool to high school. She is a dedicated proponent of early computer science and coding instruction and sees the results daily at Long-View.
 

We teach all children to write, but we don’t expect them all to necessarily become writers. In a world in which computing is ubiquitous and drives innovation in nearly every industry, it is important that we teach our children from an early age how to harness what is called “computational thinking.” Computer science is the broad area in which much of this would be taught to children, and computer science is now foundational to a strong education, right alongside reading, mathematics, science, and writing.

All kids will not end up as computer scientists, though we want many more to make that choice, as 71% of all new jobs in STEM are in computing and only 8% of STEM graduates are in computer science. However, most of our children will eventually find their jobs or their passions crossing over with computing. Whether they someday own a small business and recognize an app would accelerate revenue or they become a biologist who sees that the application of statistics, mathematics, and computer science holds the key to relations among several biological systems, computer science is key to being broadly educated and ensuring choice in future career pathways. This is sometimes referred to as the “double-deep” mandate, as the workforce will increasingly require sets of skills within technology and a secondary area, such as business, medicine, or sales.

Computer science is not just about sitting at a computer and coding. One might think of the relationship between arithmetic and mathematics (there is so much more to mathematics than only arithmetic!) when understanding coding and computer science. When taught properly, computer science will challenge students and teach them to approach problems in new and rigorous ways. It will stretch their logical thinking skills, and help them develop mindsets such as being curious and flexible. The core concepts and big ideas of computer science are broadly transferable, as CS is a discipline just like history, physics, or mathematics. It has a body of knowledge, and the thinking skills of the discipline will last students a lifetime. And there is ample evidence that the discipline of computer science is accessible to children in elementary school and onward.

What does it look like for young children to engage in a computer science class? Yesterday I watched a third grader, with a little bit of extra time on her hands, decide to challenge herself to code something she’d learned in math that day. She set forth to figure out how she’d write a program that allowed the user to consider two sets of numbers and then find the intersection of the two sets.

The third grader’s first thought was, “I don’t really know how to do that. The only thing I know for sure is that I can start with a print statement.” Using her knowledge of Python, she coded a few lines that would print onto the screen both sets of numbers, with six elements in each set. She then iterated her code by adding a line asking the user to consider both sets and then enter the value that represented the intersection of the two sets. After a peer tried out the fledgling program, the hard-working young computer scientist realized she had a problem to solve. What if the user inputted the wrong answer? How could she add to her program so the computer would respond by telling the user the answer was incorrect, and then allow for a new answer to be inputted?

The logical thinking and problem solving terrain that this young eight-year-old traversed, while also having to leverage her beginning knowledge of Python, is nothing short of remarkable. First and foremost, she was a curious learner who sought intellectual challenge. She found a starting point and had the stamina to continue breaking apart her problem. She was able to simultaneously think about the user’s experiences, the set theory she learned about in mathematics, and the coding language to which she’d been newly introduced. What a thinker!

As Jeannette Wing, Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon and VP of Microsoft Research, wrote in her seminal article in 2006, computational thinking “represents a universally applicable attitude and skill.” Her vision helped inspire innovation across the world, with England, as an example, leading as the first country to mandate computer programming instruction in primary and secondary schools. President Obama signed the U.S. education law called “Every Student Succeeds” and with it recognized computer science as a “critical academic field.” Our children live in a digital world, and we need to prepare them for the digital world by ensuring a baseline understanding. Computer science should be part of every child’s education experience.
 

Lisa Zapalac
 

“The gentle art”: Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and self-defense for kids

Chris Wilson, a student at Integração Jiu Jitsu here in Austin, joins us on the blog to explain the benefits of this Brazilian form of self-defense and how it differs from some of the better-known martial arts. IJJ is offering a free self-defense workshop designed for homeschooled kids this Thursday, Nov. 3, from 10:30am to noon.

What does it say about our society that many, if not most, parents don’t place self-defense skills very high on their list of important things to teach their children?

Perhaps we should see it as a good thing, an indication that today’s world is safer and less threatening, so spending time on self-defense seems unnecessary. I can see that perspective, certainly here in Austin. An article in Texas Monthly last year placed Austin as number 21 of the 24 most dangerous cities in Texas. That’s fairly good news, but it doesn’t mean self-defense isn’t important as a life skill.

The fact is that kids need to learn self-defense not so much to protect themselves from crime as to protect themselves from other kids. We all know the damage that bullying does to a person. I certainly do. I was bullied for several years growing up. The thing is that I was only attacked physically two or three times. But I was intimidated daily. I was afraid of other kids, even kids my own age, who were just bigger and meaner than I was. How I wish I had been taught to defend myself when I was growing up!

But I’m really not sure that it would have helped. In my day, if you wanted to learn to defend yourself, you took Karate or Tae Kwon Do. So, that’s what I did with my kids. I put them in Karate by the ages of 8 and 6. Sitting on the bench in the dojo one day, after both boys had been at it for over a year, it hit me. They had learned nothing. They punched and kicked at the air. They blocked imaginary attacks with gusto. But they had no actual skills that would protect them from someone who wished them harm.

Sure, they had the confidence that came from breaking boards and getting a new belt every 9 weeks, but they would not survive their first real fight. Why? Because most fights end up on the ground, where Karate and Tae Kwon Do have nothing to offer. Moreover, kicks and punches prolong fights and make them more dangerous—exactly the opposite of what I wanted for my children. I struggled with this realization and eventually concluded that I had to find something else to prepare them for the bullies and jerks of the world.

Then I discovered Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. The words mean “the gentle art” in Portuguese. Ironically, while it professes to be gentle and almost entirely defensive, Jiu Jitsu is, hands-down, the most effective approach to fighting and self-defense that exists on the planet. Don’t take my word for it. The Ultimate Fighting Championship was started in 1993 to showcase the superiority of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu over all other fighting styles.

The UFC in its early days was brutal. No gloves. No holds barred. Anything goes. It was bloody and often hard to watch. We saw giant men in overalls (street brawlers) face enormous chiseled wrestlers and black belts of all types, representing everything from Kung Fu to Boxing to Karate. And who won? The little Brazilian guy using his Jiu Jitsu. He won again and again. Even today, Jiu Jitsu skills are essential to success in mixed martial arts on any level. It’s just that effective.

But this is not about what it takes to become a top-level mixed martial artist. This is about what kids need to protect themselves from other kids. It turns out that the gentle art is superior for this, too. Here’s why:

• The focus is on defense and on de-escalating conflict. To punch is to attack. To kick is to attack. Even if you’re counter-punching, you’re counter-attacking. That is not de-escalation. Kids who practice Jiu Jitsu do not spend time punching and kicking the air. They spend time learning how to stop or redirect punches and kicks as they gain control over an attacker. They spend time learning how to get the other person to simply walk away.
• The objective in Jiu Jitsu is to get the aggressor to stop attacking. If a bully knows he cannot win, he will stop. Or, if she knows she will suffer injury if she doesn’t quit, she will stop. This is the fundamental premise of Jiu Jitsu.
• Training in Jiu Jitsu is real. Students spar against one another in every class. A kid who trains in Jiu Jitsu knows what to do when a fight breaks out, and he or she knows what to do when it goes to the ground (which it almost always does). The mental preparedness that comes from regular sparring is a very big part of the self-defense equation. Being mentally prepared for a fight causes a kid to exude enough confidence to stop it before it starts.
• Jiu Jitsu equalizes size and gender. This is because Jiu Jitsu relies upon leverage-based control holds to neutralize threats without violence. Students learn to use their opponents’ size and strength against them. These days, when a smaller kid stands up to a larger, meaner one, the big kid should be worried. There’s a good chance the smaller kid knows Jiu Jitsu.
• Jiu Jitsu is intellectually stimulating. When kids realize the principles of applying leverage using their bodies, a world of possibilities opens for them. They start to recognize that every sparring scenario is different and what they can do is limited only by their creativity and experience. Practitioners of Jiu Jitsu often refer to it as “human chess.”
• Jiu Jitsu is FUN! While there is certainly some structure to a Jiu Jitsu class, there is also a great deal of room for play. Kids can get great exercise while rolling around on the mats, competing with one another in a peaceful and friendly way. They often don’t even realize how much they’re learning.

All in all, Jiu Jitsu has been transformational for me and for my two sons. I only lasted about two months on the bench watching before I signed up and started training myself. That was four years ago, and now I have the privilege of owning a Jiu Jitsu school with a world-class Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt. It is such a pleasure to watch my kids and the other kids at the school grow through Jiu Jitsu.

It has given them all the confidence they need to stand up to anyone who wishes to push them around or intimidate them. It has given them the skills to not only look after themselves, but to defend those around them when no else can or will. Most importantly, it has taught them how to turn a potential conflict into nothing, which is the ultimate in self-defense. If you haven’t considered Jiu Jitsu as a self-defense/fun activity for your kids, I highly recommend it. Just google Jiu Jitsu in Austin. There are schools all over town. If you want to visit ours, just check out our site at www.ijjatx.com for class times.

Stay safe, Austin!

Chris Wilson

Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life (movie review)

Looking for a movie to see with your teen or tween this weekend? Our guest contributor, Antonio Buehler, says this film is worth your while. Antonio is the founder of Abrome, a K–12 school just west of Austin that offers a program of “Emancipated Learning” for students age 5 to 18.
 

Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life (PG) revolves around a young man named Rafe who has a wild imagination that flows through the drawings he keeps in a special notebook. He also has not had the best experiences at school, seemingly due to behavioral issues, and is on his third school since his younger brother died from leukemia. He understands that this is his last shot at public school, and the threat of being sent away to a military school looms on the horizon if he does not make it work at Hills Village Middle School (HVMS). 

His first day of school does not get off to a great start. After staying up all night drawing cartoons in his notebook, he is stopped by the principal as he is approaching the front doors of the school. Principal Dwight informs Rafe that the clothes he is wearing violates one of many school rules. While he is droning on, telling Rafe to get to know all of the rules in his rule book, Rafe’s friend Leo shows up behind the principal and mocks his every gesture. Rafe is thrilled to see Leo, who says that he was pushed out of his old school, too.

In class, the first thing Rafe experiences is laughter from his classmates when they find out what his last name is, and then a student tells him, “Welcome to hell.” Bullying is baked into the environment at HVMS through the common structures of schooling, which include age-based segregation, competitive testing and grades, and the oppression of restrictive rules and abusive adults (e.g., Principal Dwight). The social conditions within the school and society also contribute to a bullying culture. While giving a pitch for his student council campaign at a school assembly, a male student encourages people to vote for him because “my dad is super rich and my mom is smoking hot.”

While bullying contributes to the misery of schooling, so does standardized testing. At the aforementioned assembly, Principal Dwight attempts to rally the students to focus on the upcoming B.L.A.A.R. (Baseline Assessment of Academic Readiness) test. Unfortunately for Rafe, a fellow student grabs his notebook while he is drawing up a sketch that mocked Principal Dwight’s focus on the B.L.A.A.R., and this brings the assembly to a tense halt. In retaliation, Principal Dwight destroys Rafe’s notebook.

Distraught, Rafe holes himself up in his room at home. Fortunately, Leo comes to the emotional rescue and encourages Rafe to seek revenge by engaging in a campaign to undermine Principal Dwight’s oppressive rule. Leo convinces Rafe to figuratively destroy Principal Dwight’s rule book. With eight weeks left until the B.L.A.A.R., Rafe and Leo begin to plan and execute elaborate pranks that systematically violate each of Principal Dwight’s beloved rules.

As Rafe and Leo carry out prank after prank, with the outcome always seen by an amused audience of students, many older viewers will be brought back to their middle school years, wishing that they could have done something about the needless limits imposed on their freedoms, while younger viewers may find themselves imagining taking on The Man in their schools in their own ways.

Just beyond the pranks, the B.L.A.A.R. is a constant, brewing threat. Not just for the students in terms of a stressful waste of time, but even more so for Principal Dwight and Vice Principal Stricker, who are judged based on the scores of their students. Rafe recognizes how pointless the B.L.A.A.R. is and comments at one point, “I’m learning more by breaking the rules than by preparing for some dumb test.” Principal Dwight, on the other hand, is willing to expel students in an effort to boost the test scores for the school, much like many public schools have been documented pushing out poorly performing students or those with disciplinary issues.

In the course of breaking all the rules at school, Rafe falls for a social justice oriented classmate named Jeanne while trying to navigate around a bully named Miller. At home, Rafe and his little sister Georgia have a complicated relationship, likely complicated by the passing of their brother, while they both suffer through socially painful interactions with their mom’s obnoxious boyfriend, Carl. The acting is not as moving as the story, although I doubt many people can get through it without shedding some tears, particularly during a moving plot twist toward the end of the movie.

All in all, the movie does a fine job of highlighting some of the problems inherent in conventional schooling. Rafe’s homeroom teacher asks at one point, “What is this obsession with testing and categorizing kids?”—which, hopefully, plants a seed in the mind of every student and parent who sees the movie. Unfortunately, the movie does not take this question to its logical conclusion, given the reality that traditional schools will continue to test and categorize young people for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, for those who are willing to pursue an answer, there are many alternatives to conventional schooling, including progressive alternative schools, homeschooling, and unschooling.

I encourage people to go see this movie, preferably as a family, and then discuss the themes it raises.

Antonio Buehler

 

Home-brewed education at AHB

Nicole Lessin is an Austin-based writer whose work has appeared in the San Antonio Express-News, Edible Austin, and the Hundreds of Heads Survival Guides. She has recently returned from a two-year adventure living in Denmark with her husband and two daughters, both of whom are thriving at AHB Community School. We invited Nicole to the blog to write about the school and its unusual fundraising and community-building tradition.
 

For the past eight years, Austin Home Base Community School (AHB), a small, progressive elementary and middle school in Hyde Park, has been hosting the Austin Home Brew Festival, an annual fundraiser that celebrates Central Texas’s finest home-brewed beers, meads, ciders, and kombuchas.

Though the brewfest began as a small backyard gathering of parents swapping their homebrews and tossing cash into the kitty, the event has in more recent years emerged as a player in the city’s iconic festival landscape, offering participants a unique, DIY Austin experience.

“People say the beers at our festival taste professional, but they are not mass marketed,” says AHB parent and longtime festival volunteer Wendy Salome. “They are unique and individual and they exist in that moment.”

Indeed, this year’s uncommon flavors—all preselected by a panel of certified beer judges and not otherwise available for sale in any stores—will include Sweet Coffee Stout, Summer Cider, and some great traditionals like Helles Lager.
 

While small-batch beer and progressive education may seem at first glance to be unlikely bedfellows, festival organizers say the slow-food spirit of home brewing is a perfect match for AHB’s creative and collaborative approach to education.

“We talk about AHB a lot as a hybrid, taking the best of different things and creating something even better out of it, and I think that’s what homebrewers do as well,” Salome says. “It’s kind of taking the things that you like about your different beers and making the beer that works best for you. That’s what families and administration have done all along at AHB.”

To be sure, in an era of increasingly standardized education, testing, and grades, the emphasis at AHB is on authentic, project-based learning, critical thinking, and community participation. Instead of standard grade levels, kids work in mixed-age classrooms. And instead of mandatory attendance five days a week, the students’ school week ranges from three to five days—depending on age and interests. 
 

“When I first discovered the school and came into the classrooms, the thing that hit me the most was the confidence and the importance of the narrative voice of the child to be heard, to be understood, to be supported, and that follows along in everything we do in our integrated curriculum,” says AHB Director Mary Williams. “The teachers set the agenda, but then it’s up to the children to help drive the curriculum and to complete the process and the products and the projects.”

Parents say the result is a unique blend of creative freedom with rigorous academics, often at the level of or even exceeding international standards.

“We wanted to find a place where kids could grow and be free and be creative, but also have structure, so we knew that there was accountability for their learning,” says festival volunteer and AHB parent Valerie Sand. “I wanted someone who knew what they were doing to say, this is what’s going to happen now. Let’s make it fun. Let’s give you ownership of it. And I really believe in that, and that makes it easy to get involved.”
 

The 8th Annual Austin Home Brew Festival will be held from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Friday, November 4, 2016, at Saengerrunde Hall. For more information, go to facebook.com/AustinHomebrewFestival or ahbfestival.org.
 

Nicole Lessin

 

3 reasons personal development is essential to 21st-century education

Guest contributor Letsie Khabele is co-founder and CEO of KọSchool, a unique high school in south-central Austin. He joins us on the blog today to share some of his expertise on personal development, one of the pillars of a KọSchool education.
 

Many high-performing athletes, entrepreneurs, and leaders stress the value of personal development. While there are variations on approaches, there is a lot of consensus on the goals: How does a person increase their performance in any area by becoming more responsible, more compassionate, creative, and present? Oddly enough, an emphasis on personal development is either missing or marginalized in traditional schools as it’s typically considered silly and unnecessary. However, rather than minimizing its role, 21st-century education requires personal development as the foundation for student growth and success.
 

1. Being an Effective Learner

Hard work and studying matter. But they’re no longer sufficient. To deal with the abundant and ubiquitous data and information of our times, learners increasingly require presence, focus, and an optimal mindset. Consider the different results when a student spends two hours on pre-algebra with the mental model “I’m horrible at math” versus the same amount of time on the exact same subject with the mental model “Math is a puzzle that’s fun to figure out.” A core practice in personal development is becoming aware of one’s attitude and mindset around a particular activity, taking full responsibility for it, and then embodying an attitude that’s more effective. Unless students are in control of their mindsets, they’re often resigned to drudgery and struggle to “just get through the classes,” which can color their educational and learning experiences for life.
 

2. Having Purpose

Getting through secondary school and graduating from college can be challenging. Without purpose, it’s often daunting, meaningless, and uninspiring. Students who have purpose, who have passion, who have a context for their experiences, are more likely to make the most of their time in any school. Developing an authentic purpose necessitates a level of personal responsibility, self-confidence, and self-awareness. When schools neglect to provide students opportunities to develop these characteristics, like anyone else, they are less likely to overcome challenges or connect with their inner fire of motivation. Worse, once structures of accountability disappear upon graduation, many young people are left rudderless, without a developed connection with their inner compass. On the other hand, when educational systems invest in teaching personal development practices, purpose and meaning naturally emerge. Students become increasingly likely to succeed on their educational path and even enjoy the process.
 

3. Embracing Change

There’s a saying that the only thing that is constant is change. I’d argue that even change is changing. What I mean is that the speed of change is accelerating. Driven by technology and demographics, there will be more disruption and change in 2017 than there was between 2000 and 2005. Successfully navigating change requires years of personal development work. Without ongoing practice, the vast majority of people automatically fear change, with many being prone to intense anxiety. With practice, not only can students learn how to stay centered and proactive during times of rapid change; they can also learn how to embrace it. While most are feeling overwhelmed and reactive, people who have been practicing personal development will create new ways of providing value, will discover new solutions, and will find ways to make a difference in the world.
 

At KọSchool, all members of the community engage in a sustained personal development practice. For our students we use group exercises, socratic inquiry, and personal coaching to expand their capacities of mindfulness, integrity, and self-awareness. Our mission is to develop “FutureAuthors”—students who continuously improve, can teach themselves anything, and are driven to make the world a better place. If you’re interested in learning more, please join us for a tour or our upcoming open house.

Letsie Khabele

How to have a great day at a museum? Step into your kid’s (lunar-powered) shoes.

This post was written by Abigail Kutlas, who studies Learning Sciences at Northwestern University. This summer, Abigail is a museum intern and researcher in Washington, DC. Her research focuses on family engagement and accessibility for children with intellectual disabilities.

What would you invent to help someone see differently? Ask an eight-year-old and a thirty-eight-year-old and you’ll get very different answers.

When we posed this question to our visitors at the hands-on, maker-space-esque exhibit I work in, the youngest patrons were fountains of innovative ideas. They drew elaborate lunar-powered shirts, shorts, and shoes so soccer players could practice at night. They wanted to make a virtual reality headset so you could see information about your favorite constellations just by looking at them. One jokester even sketched carrots.

The answer I got nearly every time from grown-ups? Glasses. Nothing special or new, just glasses, like the ones perched on my own nose.  

Something similar happens when I watch kids sit down at a table with an open-ended prompt, like “How can you project an image onto a screen?” They start by sifting through every available material, and they work until they’ve found two or four or ten solutions, often using every Lego in sight. And most of the answers they come up with make sense, because they intuitively understand that lenses and light, in some combination, will help them reach their target.
 

Meanwhile, their parents often turn to me within seconds of sitting down and ask, “What’s the right answer?”

I don’t fault grown-ups for thinking like this. It’s a combination of what our traditional education system has taught us to value and the many hats we wear when we take our kiddos out into the world: timekeeper, taskmaster, bathroom-runner, and above all, expert. Each of those roles is important at times, but for a museum experience that lasts in the minds of all family members, I wish parents could check most of their hats at the door when they walk in.

The best advice I can give to adults visiting any museum with children is to be 25 percent grown-up and 75 percent kid while you’re there.

Go ahead and use your advanced fluency skills and big vocabulary to make sense of the information given on plaques and signs, but then assume your role as a kid and just enjoy it.
 

On your day at the museum:

• Ask questions with the assumption that there are no right or wrong answers.
• Talk about connections between what you’re seeing and anything (literally, anything) it reminds you of.
• Don’t feel obligated to see every single thing in every exhibit. Let your and your kids’ natural interests tell you where to linger, which exhibits to race through, and which to avoid.
• When you discover something new or are confused, stop and pay attention to those feelings. Discuss them with your kids. In other words, model the fact that learning is a lifelong process.

I see our youngest visitors do most of these things naturally, and it enhances their learning and overall experience when they see their grown-ups behaving this way too.

As museum professionals, we have theories upon theories about how to engage your children, but in the end, you spend every day with them and have so much more influence over their experiences than we ever can. We do our best to facilitate experiences that will be meaningful to kids and stick with them. But when parents let go and learn to walk through the museum like their kids do—with boundless imagination, curiosity, and amazement—that’s when the truly lasting impressions happen.

That’s also when parents and kids have the most fun!

Abigail Kutlas