The Inquiry-Driven Revolution: Chris Lehmann's Vision for Modernizing Learning at Science Leadership Academy Schools
In this episode, Chris Lehmann, founding principal and CEO of Science Leadership Academy schools, shares his compelling journey from a shy English teacher to a pioneer of the "school 2.0 movement." Discover how SLA embodies an inquiry-driven pedagogy where students actively ask questions, research, collaborate, and present their learning, fostering an environment where technology is as essential and unnoticed as oxygen.
- Science Leadership Academy, inquiry-driven, project-based school in Philadelphia, PA
- Inquiry Schools, non-profit dedicated to modernizing learning experiences
- Building School 2.0: How to Create the Schools We Need, book by Chris Lehman, Zac Chase
- Practical Theory - A View From the Schoolhouse, blog from Chris Lehman
- Educon,an educational innovation conference where people can come together to discuss the future and the now of schools
- Ted Sizer (educational philosophy)
- Deborah Meier (educator)
- Ann Cook (educator)
- Understanding by Design (UbD)
- Chubbies Steaks (Roxborough, Philadelphia)
- Jim's Steaks (South Street, Philadelphia)
- D'Alessandro's Steaks (Roxborough, Philadelphia)
Transcript
Peter Frank 00:00:02
Nick welcome to Talking technology with Atlas,
Peter Frank 00:00:05
the show that plugs you into the important topics and trends for
Peter Frank 00:00:08
technology leaders all through a unique Independent School lens,
Peter Frank 00:00:12
we'll hear stories from technology directors and other
Peter Frank 00:00:15
special guests from the Independent School community and
Peter Frank 00:00:17
provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics.
Peter Frank 00:00:22
Hello and welcome again to a another episode of talking
Peter Frank 00:00:26
technology with Atlas. I am Peter Frank. I'm the Senior
Peter Frank 00:00:29
Director of certification and operations for Atlas.
Bill Stites 00:00:33
And I am Bill Stites, the Director of
Bill Stites 00:00:35
Technology at Montclair Kimberly Academy in Montclair, New
Bill Stites 00:00:39
Jersey, and
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:40
I'm Hiram Cuevas, Director of Information Systems
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:42
and Academic Technology at St Christopher school in Richmond,
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:45
Virginia.
Peter Frank 00:00:46
All right, so we've got another Peter takeover of
Peter Frank 00:00:49
the Atlas podcast a lot sooner than we thought that was gonna
Peter Frank 00:00:52
happen, guys. But you know, it's been going great, I think so
Peter Frank 00:00:55
far, hasn't it? This
Bill Stites 00:00:57
is where I wish I would read my emails more
Bill Stites 00:01:00
clearly, because had I known, if it wasn't for our guests, I
Bill Stites 00:01:03
wouldn't be here. Peter, okay, I'd be like, this is just you
Bill Stites 00:01:07
and Hiram, have fun. I see.
Hiram Cuevas 00:01:10
I'll tee this up for you. Bill, go birds, go
Hiram Cuevas 00:01:13
birds.
Bill Stites 00:01:14
Go birds. There you go. Wow. There you go. This is
Bill Stites 00:01:18
when you got somebody from Philly. You know you're gonna
Bill Stites 00:01:20
get a response. There go. Birds.
Peter Frank 00:01:23
All right, nice. So we're already way off the rails,
Peter Frank 00:01:25
and I didn't lose my job the first time, but after this one,
Peter Frank 00:01:28
it might be over. I was thinking of wisdom, and I've heard some
Peter Frank 00:01:34
pearls of wisdom that have stuck with me. We don't need to get
Peter Frank 00:01:37
like deeply into it, but I'd love to hear your guys pearls of
Peter Frank 00:01:40
wisdom that you've heard over the years. I'll give you two of
Peter Frank 00:01:43
mine. Number one, a little heady. You know, Socrates was
Peter Frank 00:01:46
quoted, and it's been interpreted many times, but
Peter Frank 00:01:50
basically he said, If I don't know something, I know that, or
Peter Frank 00:01:56
I know that when I don't know something, and that that was
Peter Frank 00:01:59
wisdom in his mind. I always thought that was pretty
Peter Frank 00:02:01
profound, and as a rather rigid, closed minded individual,
Peter Frank 00:02:05
learning of that quote really helped me, actually, to open up
Peter Frank 00:02:08
a bit and be more aware of what I didn't know. The second nugget
Peter Frank 00:02:12
as a parent, which I know you guys will appreciate, if the
Peter Frank 00:02:16
oatmeal dries on the bowl you're throwing away that bowl.
Unknown 00:02:22
I That's
Peter Frank 00:02:25
the second nugget. So what about you guys? I'd love
Peter Frank 00:02:27
to pick up some new nuggets of wisdom before we get to our
Peter Frank 00:02:30
guest here.
Bill Stites 00:02:32
It's one that you hear often, but it's something
Bill Stites 00:02:34
that I truly believe in, is that the wisdom is in the room, that
Bill Stites 00:02:39
if you can get people together, if you can sit down around the
Bill Stites 00:02:43
table and have a conversation about a topic, about any topic,
Bill Stites 00:02:48
you're going to come out of that with more than you would have
Bill Stites 00:02:51
hoped when you went into it. And I think to me, it speaks to the
Bill Stites 00:02:56
reason why I appreciate what we do with the podcast. I think it
Bill Stites 00:03:01
speaks to what I appreciate about a collaborative working
Bill Stites 00:03:04
environment. It speaks to the way in which Atlas is kind of
Bill Stites 00:03:08
organized to bring people together, because the idea that
Bill Stites 00:03:12
any one person could know it all or have all the answers to
Bill Stites 00:03:16
something is incredibly false. And when you have that
Bill Stites 00:03:20
opportunity to thoughtfully, sit down, collaborate and to share
Bill Stites 00:03:25
the wisdom of what you need, truly can come from the space
Bill Stites 00:03:28
for once you are at that point, great.
Peter Frank 00:03:31
I like that. I'm
Hiram Cuevas 00:03:32
gonna cheat a little bit here. The purpose of
Hiram Cuevas 00:03:35
education is to replace an empty mind with an open one, and I
Hiram Cuevas 00:03:39
cannot take credit for that line. That was by Malcolm
Hiram Cuevas 00:03:43
Forbes,
Peter Frank 00:03:44
excellent. Well, our guest has been waiting
Peter Frank 00:03:46
patiently now. This man, he wants to change the world. I've
Peter Frank 00:03:51
done my homework here. He is the founding principal and CEO of
Peter Frank 00:03:56
the Science Leadership Academy schools, which is a network of
Peter Frank 00:03:59
progressive inquiry driven schools. He is the co founder of
Peter Frank 00:04:03
inquiry schools, which is a nonprofit dedicated to
Peter Frank 00:04:06
modernizing learning experiences. He's a pioneer of
Peter Frank 00:04:10
the school 2.0 movement, a blogger, an author, a frequent
Peter Frank 00:04:16
speaker. No grass grows beneath this man's feet, and we are
Peter Frank 00:04:21
thrilled to have him here, though. Please welcome Mr. Chris
Peter Frank 00:04:24
Lehman to the podcast here. Thanks
Chris Lehmann 00:04:27
so much for having me. I'm really excited to
Chris Lehmann 00:04:29
be here absolutely and it works, of course. Okay, there he is.
Chris Lehmann 00:04:33
There you go. There you go. Bill.
Bill Stites 00:04:38
Gotta respond. Go. Birds.
Peter Frank 00:04:40
Fantastic. Chris, why don't you help us out? Just
Peter Frank 00:04:43
get started. Like, how did you come to this school? 2.0 what
Peter Frank 00:04:49
brought you here? What's your origin story?
Chris Lehmann 00:04:51
The first piece is, you know, I'm the child of a
Chris Lehmann 00:04:55
lifelong teacher and a union lawyer, so from the early. I can
Chris Lehmann 00:05:00
remember, you know, the mantra in my house growing up was, the
Chris Lehmann 00:05:05
purpose of life is to make the world a little bit better of a
Chris Lehmann 00:05:07
place because you happen to live in it for a while. There's a lot
Chris Lehmann 00:05:11
of these ideas. And my mom was this amazing educator, and she
Chris Lehmann 00:05:15
came of age as an educator in the 70s, in the sort of, you
Chris Lehmann 00:05:20
know that wave of the progressive schools movement,
Chris Lehmann 00:05:23
open classroom and a lot of those ideas. So she was an
Chris Lehmann 00:05:26
innovative educator. She likes it when I say that a lot of
Chris Lehmann 00:05:29
these ideas are hers, just sort of more modern. So thing One was
Chris Lehmann 00:05:33
this idea that I very much was raised by two people who saw
Chris Lehmann 00:05:38
purpose in the teaching life, who saw purpose in making
Chris Lehmann 00:05:41
schools better, and who believed schools could be better. So
Chris Lehmann 00:05:43
that's a not insignificant part. I think the other thing is, is
Chris Lehmann 00:05:46
that I as a teacher, I taught for nine years in New York City
Chris Lehmann 00:05:49
at this wonderful, progressive public high school called
Chris Lehmann 00:05:51
beacon. And if you were teaching in the mid 90s and early 2000s
Chris Lehmann 00:05:57
in New York City, there was so many new schools popping up,
Chris Lehmann 00:06:00
there were all these really cool ideas happening. You had Deborah
Chris Lehmann 00:06:04
Meyer, Ann cook. You had all these incredible educators who
Chris Lehmann 00:06:07
were starting new schools and creating a vision. And then for
Chris Lehmann 00:06:11
me at Beacon, I got there when the first class were seniors,
Chris Lehmann 00:06:14
and I worked for these two incredible educators, Ruth Lacey
Chris Lehmann 00:06:17
and Steven Stoll, and really was part of a cohort of young
Chris Lehmann 00:06:21
teachers who helped these really visionary educators build out
Chris Lehmann 00:06:25
their vision of a school. And I think when you get the chance to
Chris Lehmann 00:06:29
do that, you see the art of the possible, right? So I think for
Chris Lehmann 00:06:33
all of us who are at Beacon in the early days of that school,
Chris Lehmann 00:06:36
this sort of only limits put on us were like, how hard can you
Chris Lehmann 00:06:39
work and how big can you dream? And that's a cool way to grow up
Chris Lehmann 00:06:43
professionally, right? That what an incredible sort of entry into
Chris Lehmann 00:06:47
the education life. And from very early on, when I was there,
Chris Lehmann 00:06:50
people used to say to me all the time, like, you're going to
Chris Lehmann 00:06:52
start a school someday. And my wife said to me, you're going to
Chris Lehmann 00:06:55
start school someday. Just please God, don't do it when
Chris Lehmann 00:06:58
we're trying to start a family, which, of course, is then
Chris Lehmann 00:07:00
exactly what I did. And thank god, I'm married to an
Chris Lehmann 00:07:03
incredibly patient woman. But then what happened with SLA is,
Chris Lehmann 00:07:06
I'm from the Philly area, like I grew up outside of Philly. I
Chris Lehmann 00:07:09
went to college in Philly. You know, I was at the World Series
Chris Lehmann 00:07:12
parade in 1980 when the Phillies won it. I still wear number 20
Chris Lehmann 00:07:15
because of Michael Jack Schmidt. So I'm a Philly kid at heart.
Chris Lehmann 00:07:20
And then there was this day in like, mid 2000s I'm sure if it
Chris Lehmann 00:07:24
was 2004 five, when the school district Philadelphia put out a
Chris Lehmann 00:07:27
press release that got picked up by ASCD daily. And I tell all
Chris Lehmann 00:07:31
young educators subscribe to the ASCD smart brief, because, like,
Chris Lehmann 00:07:34
even if you don't read it every day, just browsing what's going
Chris Lehmann 00:07:37
on in the world of education is incredibly important. And the
Chris Lehmann 00:07:41
press release was Philadelphia to start 27 new small schools.
Chris Lehmann 00:07:44
And I was like, oh my goodness, this is the thing I want to do.
Chris Lehmann 00:07:47
And my wife and I were like, ready to leave New York City.
Chris Lehmann 00:07:50
I'd always wanted to come home and help Philly schools get
Chris Lehmann 00:07:53
better, right? And Philadelphia was not, at that moment in time,
Chris Lehmann 00:07:56
really known for progressive education in the 70s. It was, I
Chris Lehmann 00:08:00
mean, you had the parkways. There are the seeds of
Chris Lehmann 00:08:02
progressive education here in some really amazing ways, but it
Chris Lehmann 00:08:05
had kind of gone dormant. So I wrote up a white paper of what I
Chris Lehmann 00:08:08
thought a school could be. I called it the Philadelphia
Chris Lehmann 00:08:10
Academy of teaching and learning, which had the fabulous
Chris Lehmann 00:08:14
acronym of paddle. Because if it's not funny, why do it? And I
Chris Lehmann 00:08:18
started shopping it to anybody who would take a meeting with
Chris Lehmann 00:08:22
me, and anybody who knew somebody who knew somebody who
Chris Lehmann 00:08:25
knew somebody who was connected to Philadelphia education, I
Chris Lehmann 00:08:27
would get on a train, get on a bus, and come and have a
Chris Lehmann 00:08:30
conversation with them, and that was not normal for me. Like I'm
Chris Lehmann 00:08:34
I know I have a lot of energy, but like around people, I don't
Chris Lehmann 00:08:36
know, I'm actually pretty shy, but this was the thing I was
Chris Lehmann 00:08:38
supposed to do. So you found it right. And the thing that I
Chris Lehmann 00:08:41
learned is people want to help, and they don't always know how
Chris Lehmann 00:08:46
to help. They may not have money, they may not have this,
Chris Lehmann 00:08:48
they might not have that, but they know somebody. I always
Chris Lehmann 00:08:51
ended the meetings by saying, Well, who should I talk to next?
Chris Lehmann 00:08:54
And are you willing to put me in touch with them? And that was a
Chris Lehmann 00:08:58
way people could help, and they were excited, and it allowed
Chris Lehmann 00:09:00
them to feel part of this idea that this weird kid with an idea
Chris Lehmann 00:09:05
and a lot of energy seemed to have. And at one of those
Chris Lehmann 00:09:09
meetings, this woman who was, like, right out of central
Chris Lehmann 00:09:12
casting from the school district, she has had seen
Chris Lehmann 00:09:14
everything, done everything. She's this older woman, probably
Chris Lehmann 00:09:18
my age, now that I think about it, but like at the time, she
Chris Lehmann 00:09:21
said to me, You talk like the people at the Franklin
Chris Lehmann 00:09:23
Institute. We're supposedly starting a school with them. I
Chris Lehmann 00:09:26
don't know where the project is, but you should go talk to them.
Chris Lehmann 00:09:29
Hang on a second. She picks up the phone, and she says, I've
Chris Lehmann 00:09:32
got this kid here. Do you have five minutes for him? And she
Chris Lehmann 00:09:35
gets off the phone, she says, you're gonna walk right over to
Chris Lehmann 00:09:37
the Franklin so I was like, two blocks away. She goes, and
Chris Lehmann 00:09:39
you're gonna go up and you're gonna go up and you're gonna
Chris Lehmann 00:09:41
meet this woman, Carol Parson in so I walk over the museum, and I
Chris Lehmann 00:09:44
go up to the executive offices, which are incredibly
Chris Lehmann 00:09:47
intimidating. There's like chairs that Ben Franklin sat in.
Chris Lehmann 00:09:50
There's pictures of dead white men everywhere, right? Like this
Chris Lehmann 00:09:53
is an intimidating space. And I go knock on this woman's door,
Chris Lehmann 00:09:57
and this very, very, very elegant. Older woman comes to
Chris Lehmann 00:10:00
the door, and she looks at me over her glasses, and she says,
Chris Lehmann 00:10:04
You have five minutes, just like that. And I had this packet that
Chris Lehmann 00:10:10
I was shopping that had the white paper and the resume and
Chris Lehmann 00:10:13
some clippings from what we'd done in your city. So I hand her
Chris Lehmann 00:10:15
the packet, and the first question she opens up in the
Chris Lehmann 00:10:18
immediate question she asked me is, what is a English teacher
Chris Lehmann 00:10:23
doing? Wanting to start a Science High School. And
Chris Lehmann 00:10:26
meanwhile, I am hearing the clock in my head, like I know I
Chris Lehmann 00:10:29
have five minutes. I'm talking as fast as I can, which is
Chris Lehmann 00:10:32
pretty fast. And I said, well, the Franklin Institute doesn't
Chris Lehmann 00:10:36
want to start a Science High School. She said, Excuse me. I
Chris Lehmann 00:10:39
said, you start a Science High School, you'll get great science
Chris Lehmann 00:10:42
and math teachers, because the school will be about their
Chris Lehmann 00:10:44
subject, but everybody else will feel like a second class
Chris Lehmann 00:10:47
citizen, because the school is not about their ideas and their
Chris Lehmann 00:10:49
subject. The school that the Franklin Institute wants to
Chris Lehmann 00:10:52
start is an inquiry based High School where everything is
Chris Lehmann 00:10:54
learned by doing hands on, figure it out, just like the way
Chris Lehmann 00:10:56
people learn when they come to this museum. You want a school
Chris Lehmann 00:10:59
that matches the ethos of this museum, and of course, it's
Chris Lehmann 00:11:01
gonna have a great science program and science program.
Chris Lehmann 00:11:03
It's affiliated with the Franklin Institute. That's the
Chris Lehmann 00:11:05
high school you want to start. And she says, Keep talking, and
Chris Lehmann 00:11:09
five minutes turned into two and a half hours. And two and a half
Chris Lehmann 00:11:13
hours has turned into 20 years, and one school has turned into
Chris Lehmann 00:11:17
three. And the other piece of this puzzle that I will tell
Chris Lehmann 00:11:21
you, and it's something I tell kids a lot. I wasn't the first
Chris Lehmann 00:11:23
choice of the School District of Philadelphia. I was the first
Chris Lehmann 00:11:25
choice of Franklin, but when it finally got down to the hiring
Chris Lehmann 00:11:28
process, there was this guy who had tons of experience. He had
Chris Lehmann 00:11:31
worked with Ted sizer, he was a professor, he'd done all this
Chris Lehmann 00:11:34
stuff, and I remember like he and I were the two finalists of
Chris Lehmann 00:11:37
this crazy, long process where there was lots of people and it
Chris Lehmann 00:11:40
was just the two of us, and I'm this kid who's never even been
Chris Lehmann 00:11:43
an assistant principal, and he's this unbelievably accomplished
Chris Lehmann 00:11:46
dude. And I remember sitting and going, like, well, maybe he'll
Chris Lehmann 00:11:48
make me the assistant principal, right? Like, I'm literally
Chris Lehmann 00:11:51
sitting in the room, like, and I liked him. He was a really
Chris Lehmann 00:11:53
smart, good guy, but he wanted too much money, and I was
Chris Lehmann 00:11:56
willing to take the salary. And what I tell kids all the time is
Chris Lehmann 00:12:00
it doesn't matter how you get in the room. If you have a seat at
Chris Lehmann 00:12:04
the table, take it and use it and do good work with it.
Chris Lehmann 00:12:08
Because if I get was in my feelings, and if I let my ego in
Chris Lehmann 00:12:11
my I'm not your first choice. Well, then we would have never
Chris Lehmann 00:12:14
done this, right? So it's like, do your best, work hard. And if
Chris Lehmann 00:12:18
they give you a seat at the table, it doesn't matter how you
Chris Lehmann 00:12:20
got it, do good, work with it and never apologize for having
Chris Lehmann 00:12:24
gotten there.
Peter Frank 00:12:25
Sure, and such a testament. I think the passion
Peter Frank 00:12:28
is such a key element. I think that's also part of why people,
Peter Frank 00:12:30
like, at least, if I give them five minutes, it's gonna be a
Peter Frank 00:12:33
lot of valuable like, like, this guy is clearly passionate about
Peter Frank 00:12:36
what he's doing. He's bringing something to the table. So let's
Peter Frank 00:12:39
figure out what it is. I've
Chris Lehmann 00:12:40
been the happy, fun ball for 54 years. It's
Chris Lehmann 00:12:42
true. There
Peter Frank 00:12:43
you go. Well, we won't taunt you. And
Bill Stites 00:12:48
you know what? I love, Chris. I love the fact
Bill Stites 00:12:50
that the process of getting to where you are now, the process
Bill Stites 00:12:52
of trying to sell the school, the process of going through all
Bill Stites 00:12:56
of that, it models the process that you go through with
Bill Stites 00:12:59
inquiry. You got to come up with an idea, you got to present the
Bill Stites 00:13:01
idea. The idea will either be accepted or it won't. And you
Bill Stites 00:13:04
need to go back, and you need to iterate on it. You need to go
Bill Stites 00:13:07
back and work on it and sell it and develop that. It's one of
Bill Stites 00:13:10
the topics that we've been talking about on the podcast,
Bill Stites 00:13:13
not in those specific terms, but the idea of, how do you deal
Bill Stites 00:13:17
with not achieving immediately and still pursuing those goals.
Bill Stites 00:13:22
And I think it's great that you went through that, because you
Bill Stites 00:13:25
can talk to that, you can talk about how you got to where you
Bill Stites 00:13:29
are now, that I think will resonate with the students that
Bill Stites 00:13:33
you're working with and that you're educating. I think it's a
Bill Stites 00:13:36
great use case, and it's a great example, because you're truly
Bill Stites 00:13:38
leading by example.
Chris Lehmann 00:13:40
Thanks. And I think the other piece of all
Chris Lehmann 00:13:42
that iteration is you have to listen, you know, as high score
Chris Lehmann 00:13:45
values, inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation,
Chris Lehmann 00:13:47
reflection. But that idea of collaboration, that idea that
Chris Lehmann 00:13:50
your idea should interact with my idea, and that the synthesis
Chris Lehmann 00:13:55
will be better than each of our ideas alone, is a huge part of
Chris Lehmann 00:13:58
that inquiry process, right? It's like when you listen deeply
Chris Lehmann 00:14:03
and really listen for how your ideas can be impacted by others
Chris Lehmann 00:14:06
ideas, we get better. Like one of the things I say to anybody
Chris Lehmann 00:14:10
all the time is I have the greatest job in the world. I
Chris Lehmann 00:14:13
wake up every single day and I work in service of the best idea
Chris Lehmann 00:14:17
I ever had with teachers and students and families who make
Chris Lehmann 00:14:22
that idea better, right? Like the day that that gets boring,
Chris Lehmann 00:14:27
get out of the game, right? I might eventually get too tired,
Chris Lehmann 00:14:30
but I hope that even up to the day I retire, I'd still love the
Unknown 00:14:36
work. Let's
Peter Frank 00:14:38
get to the work. We've got SLA and inquiry
Peter Frank 00:14:41
schools. Can you explain the difference? The
Chris Lehmann 00:14:43
SLAs are three schools in Philadelphia, right?
Chris Lehmann 00:14:45
We are School District of Philadelphia schools. So I have
Chris Lehmann 00:14:48
this bizarro title where I am the CEO of SLA schools. Even
Chris Lehmann 00:14:52
though all three SLAs are School District of Philadelphia
Chris Lehmann 00:14:55
schools, we're a union shop. I'm a Teamster like the whole nine
Chris Lehmann 00:14:58
yards and. Then inquiry schools came about because Diana
Chris Lehmann 00:15:02
Laufenberg, who is the executive director of the organization and
Chris Lehmann 00:15:07
amazing educator in her own right, and visionary, she was a
Chris Lehmann 00:15:12
teacher at SLA, and she's not a city kid. She grew up in rural
Chris Lehmann 00:15:17
Wisconsin. It's where she lives. Again. She's lived most of her
Chris Lehmann 00:15:20
life, not in cities, but she loved the idea of SLA, and she
Chris Lehmann 00:15:23
came to visit us in the second year of the school. And when she
Chris Lehmann 00:15:28
came to work, she was like, I'll give you an advisory cycle. Like
Chris Lehmann 00:15:31
stranger said, I want to come here and work for two years. And
Chris Lehmann 00:15:34
I was like, I don't want you for two years. I need you for four
Chris Lehmann 00:15:36
because that's one full advisory cycle, which I'll get to what
Chris Lehmann 00:15:39
advisory is in a bit. And she agreed to give me four years of
Chris Lehmann 00:15:41
living in a city, and she loved the school and hates living in
Chris Lehmann 00:15:45
cities. And when she left, you know, she's one of my dearest
Chris Lehmann 00:15:50
friends in the world, and she was like, what does it look like
Chris Lehmann 00:15:53
to like build this workout? And the first project we had was to
Chris Lehmann 00:15:56
replicate SLA, to build SLA Beaver, which was our second
Chris Lehmann 00:15:59
school, and we needed a nonprofit to do that work, to
Chris Lehmann 00:16:06
help the replication process. We needed for any number of
Chris Lehmann 00:16:08
reasons. We needed somewhere to be able to park the grants and
Chris Lehmann 00:16:11
spend the grants, and we needed somebody who was willing to do
Chris Lehmann 00:16:14
the work. And Diana was like, I will work with the founding
Chris Lehmann 00:16:17
principal at SLA Bieber, Chris Johnson, who's still there, and
Chris Lehmann 00:16:20
myself and the founding faculty to really help shape that staff
Chris Lehmann 00:16:23
right, and it helps shape that process. And then from there, we
Chris Lehmann 00:16:27
realized we had this amazing thing that Diana is incredible
Chris Lehmann 00:16:31
at helping educators get better at the idea of inquiry in their
Chris Lehmann 00:16:35
classrooms or in their schools. And so to this day, Diana works
Chris Lehmann 00:16:39
with schools literally all over the country and sometimes all
Chris Lehmann 00:16:43
over the world. I'm not on the board anymore, but they have a
Chris Lehmann 00:16:45
project, I believe, in Nigeria, I think, and she can do
Chris Lehmann 00:16:49
everything from come in and work with a faculty on like, Hey,
Chris Lehmann 00:16:52
here's how you tweak the work to complete school redesign to
Chris Lehmann 00:16:56
school startup, you know. And we have a number of folks that
Chris Lehmann 00:16:59
we've worked with over the years who are incredible educators who
Chris Lehmann 00:17:01
help her with that work. They worked with a group of schools
Chris Lehmann 00:17:04
in Cleveland, which were some of the by test score for whatever
Chris Lehmann 00:17:08
that were, some of the lowest performing schools in Cleveland
Chris Lehmann 00:17:10
that were looking to transform their pedagogy. And she did
Chris Lehmann 00:17:13
incredible work with nine schools in Cleveland. She worked
Chris Lehmann 00:17:15
with a group of schools in Henry County, Georgia. She's like some
Chris Lehmann 00:17:18
really big projects that I'm proud to have been there for the
Chris Lehmann 00:17:21
genesis of it all, and then, as Diana's friend happy to watch
Chris Lehmann 00:17:26
this amazing educator make schools all over the country
Bill Stites 00:17:29
better. So Chris
Hiram Cuevas 00:17:31
for our audience, because we're predominantly all
Hiram Cuevas 00:17:34
independent schools, she works with those two. There you go.
Hiram Cuevas 00:17:38
Help our audience understand where SLA fit. It doesn't seem
Hiram Cuevas 00:17:43
like you're quite public. You're almost private. Are you
Hiram Cuevas 00:17:47
considered to be a charter school?
Chris Lehmann 00:17:49
No, no, we are a Philly public school. I mean,
Chris Lehmann 00:17:51
that's the kind of nifty thing. And like, we take very seriously
Chris Lehmann 00:17:56
that we are a proof point, along with schools like MC squared in
Chris Lehmann 00:18:01
Cleveland along like with so many of the really funky,
Chris Lehmann 00:18:03
wonderful public schools in New York City, along with, you know,
Chris Lehmann 00:18:06
many schools across the country that are doing amazing work
Chris Lehmann 00:18:09
inside the public system, but we are very much a proof point that
Chris Lehmann 00:18:14
big public systems can innovate and can do things differently.
Chris Lehmann 00:18:18
And that's not always easy. You know, in 20 years, I think I've
Chris Lehmann 00:18:22
had seven superintendents, so there are moments, but no, we
Chris Lehmann 00:18:27
are not a charter school. We're not a private school. 99% of our
Chris Lehmann 00:18:31
funding is public funding. And then the other, you know, one to
Chris Lehmann 00:18:33
2% a year is grants we write, running educon, doing those
Chris Lehmann 00:18:38
things, like ways that we sort of fundraise for some of the
Chris Lehmann 00:18:40
extras, but 98 point something percent of our funding is all
Chris Lehmann 00:18:43
just public funding. Like I said, we are a union shop. Our
Chris Lehmann 00:18:47
teachers union is the Philadelphia Federation of
Chris Lehmann 00:18:49
Teachers. The principals union is casa, which is part of the
Chris Lehmann 00:18:51
Teamsters. We're a public school. And I you know, as far
Chris Lehmann 00:18:55
as all the contract stuff, all the everything, we work within
Chris Lehmann 00:18:59
all of that, and we make it work inside that system. And I think
Chris Lehmann 00:19:01
that matters, because I think there's a lot of people in the
Chris Lehmann 00:19:04
world who say you can't do this in the public system, and I'm
Chris Lehmann 00:19:07
really proud of the fact that I think we've proven that you can.
Chris Lehmann 00:19:10
I mean, we're on this is our 19th year now. I think
Hiram Cuevas 00:19:13
that's a wonderful story, because I grew up in
Hiram Cuevas 00:19:15
public schools as well, and so it's a testament to you know,
Hiram Cuevas 00:19:19
you have the right motivation, you have the right people in
Hiram Cuevas 00:19:21
place. You guys are doing it right.
Unknown 00:19:23
Thank you. How
Bill Stites 00:19:24
do kids come to SLA then? Because, again, if it's a
Bill Stites 00:19:27
public school, I mean, I grew up right across the river. I grew
Bill Stites 00:19:29
up right over the Walt Whitman, you know what I mean? And you
Bill Stites 00:19:32
went to your local high school. You went to your local
Bill Stites 00:19:35
elementary school. How do you get your students?
Chris Lehmann 00:19:38
Sure, so, like a lot of big cities. Philadelphia,
Chris Lehmann 00:19:42
public system is at the high school level, a system of choice
Chris Lehmann 00:19:45
so kids can apply to five different high schools. We are
Chris Lehmann 00:19:48
criterion based schools. So we do look at kids test scores and
Chris Lehmann 00:19:53
grades. There's, I think, four tiers of criterion based schools
Chris Lehmann 00:19:57
in the school district Philadelphia. We are the third.
Chris Lehmann 00:20:00
Lowest tier. On purpose, we don't believe that this is a
Chris Lehmann 00:20:04
elite way to teach, but we are magnet school. And then, most
Chris Lehmann 00:20:08
importantly, though, KIDS interview, and they sit down
Chris Lehmann 00:20:11
with an SLA adult, either a teacher or an alum and a current
Chris Lehmann 00:20:16
SLA student, and our kids help us interview the prospective
Chris Lehmann 00:20:20
kids and all the kids who do well in that interview, which is
Chris Lehmann 00:20:24
the overwhelming majority of them, they go into a lottery,
Chris Lehmann 00:20:26
and then the district runs a lottery for all of the criterion
Chris Lehmann 00:20:29
based schools, and you get the kids, they tell you, you get so
Chris Lehmann 00:20:33
our biggest thing that we're really looking for is like, we
Chris Lehmann 00:20:37
ask a very simple question at the end of the interview, and
Chris Lehmann 00:20:39
the interview is about seven minutes long. Number one, they
Chris Lehmann 00:20:42
present a piece of their work, a project, something they did,
Chris Lehmann 00:20:44
they're proud of, and they talk about the work, they talk about
Chris Lehmann 00:20:46
themselves as a learner, and then we ask them a question, why
Chris Lehmann 00:20:49
will SLA be a better school? Because you came here. We want
Chris Lehmann 00:20:53
kids who want to be part of a community that believes we can
Chris Lehmann 00:20:57
be better together. It's interesting in in those moments,
Chris Lehmann 00:21:00
because kids are kids, and it's not like we don't have
Chris Lehmann 00:21:03
discipline issues we do, right? I mean, humans are humans, but
Chris Lehmann 00:21:06
kids are kids, and it's kind of a fun moment when a kid has done
Chris Lehmann 00:21:10
something that they're not super proud of, and you consider them
Chris Lehmann 00:21:14
like, Hey, do you remember that question we asked you? Like, how
Chris Lehmann 00:21:17
are you answering that right now? And that's a really
Chris Lehmann 00:21:19
powerful thing. But, I mean, I think the other thing that's
Chris Lehmann 00:21:21
really important to understand, though, is that SLA Middle
Chris Lehmann 00:21:24
School, on the other hand, is a neighborhood school. So we've
Chris Lehmann 00:21:27
actually shown that this doesn't require criteria to work, that
Chris Lehmann 00:21:33
all kids can learn in this way. And we really think that that's
Chris Lehmann 00:21:36
an important thing. I think that, like I said, Philadelphia
Chris Lehmann 00:21:39
is a choice based system. So there was a push when we started
Chris Lehmann 00:21:42
that we needed to be a magnet school. People were actually
Chris Lehmann 00:21:44
surprised when I set that early criteria. People were like,
Chris Lehmann 00:21:48
don't you want to set it higher than that? Don't you want? And I
Chris Lehmann 00:21:50
was like, No, I don't I want a wide swath of kids.
Chris Lehmann 00:21:53
Interestingly, because of where we set our mark, we have in
Chris Lehmann 00:21:57
addition, to be one of the most diverse in sort of classic
Chris Lehmann 00:22:00
racial diversity, one of most diverse schools in the country.
Chris Lehmann 00:22:03
We also have some of the greatest academic diversity in
Chris Lehmann 00:22:06
the city of Philadelphia. We have kids across the sort of
Chris Lehmann 00:22:08
spectrum of achievement from when they come in, and then the
Chris Lehmann 00:22:11
growth we see of them is incredible. So for example, we
Chris Lehmann 00:22:16
get compared to all of the time the other two sort of very,
Chris Lehmann 00:22:19
very, very, very high achieving schools in Philadelphia, Central
Chris Lehmann 00:22:22
and Masterman, but they have as an entrance criteria, 85th
Chris Lehmann 00:22:26
percentile on the state tests. And we have 50, and that's 50th
Chris Lehmann 00:22:30
percentile not on the statewide but of the city wide, which is
Chris Lehmann 00:22:33
not quite as high as the state. And then we also have the
Chris Lehmann 00:22:36
highest percentage of kids with IEPs and five oh fours of any
Chris Lehmann 00:22:40
school in the district, because we think that every kid deserves
Chris Lehmann 00:22:43
a different learning style, and so kids with IEPs here don't
Chris Lehmann 00:22:45
feel different. So we've become a real school of choice for
Chris Lehmann 00:22:47
families with kids who have some learning difficulties or special
Chris Lehmann 00:22:50
needs. And those are all things that we're really proud of,
Chris Lehmann 00:22:53
because we really do believe that the diversity in all of the
Chris Lehmann 00:22:57
manifestations we have every zip code of the City of Philadelphia
Chris Lehmann 00:22:59
representing the school, we have over 30 home languages spoken,
Chris Lehmann 00:23:02
and then we talk about it intentionally, and what does it
Chris Lehmann 00:23:05
mean to have a community that comes together like this? And
Chris Lehmann 00:23:08
it's funny, I was literally just sitting with a couple of seniors
Chris Lehmann 00:23:12
two days ago. They were saying their biggest concern about
Chris Lehmann 00:23:15
college is that when they go visit places, they don't see
Chris Lehmann 00:23:20
diverse groups of kids sitting together in the same way that
Chris Lehmann 00:23:23
they have experienced at SLA, and they are very, very
Chris Lehmann 00:23:26
concerned, and we've heard that for years that kids struggle to
Chris Lehmann 00:23:30
find the intentional diversity of the SLA student body, and not
Chris Lehmann 00:23:38
just the diversity itself, because there are plenty of
Chris Lehmann 00:23:40
colleges that have diversity, but the fact that kids about it.
Chris Lehmann 00:23:43
They have friends of all different races, they have
Chris Lehmann 00:23:45
friends from different neighborhoods, they have friends
Chris Lehmann 00:23:47
from different nationalities, and that is something that we
Chris Lehmann 00:23:50
celebrate.
Peter Frank 00:23:52
So let's talk about the schools themselves now. So
Peter Frank 00:23:56
in a nutshell, Chris, as much as that's possible, let's talk
Peter Frank 00:24:00
about an inquiry school, and what makes an inquiry driven
Peter Frank 00:24:02
school different from the public schools. I
Chris Lehmann 00:24:05
think the way that an inquiry driven school,
Chris Lehmann 00:24:07
the way the SLA and I'll speak just specifically, the SLA
Chris Lehmann 00:24:09
model, the way the SLA model differs from a traditional
Chris Lehmann 00:24:13
school, is in two ways, right, because we've talked a lot about
Chris Lehmann 00:24:16
inquiry, we also need to talk about the other sort of how we
Chris Lehmann 00:24:18
care for kids. We believe deeply in the idea that kids need to
Chris Lehmann 00:24:24
feel their own agency to ask powerful questions about the
Chris Lehmann 00:24:27
things that they are learning. It is a far less didactic
Chris Lehmann 00:24:32
methodology of teaching, right? So the inquiry cycle at SLA is
Chris Lehmann 00:24:35
literally inquiry. What are the big questions we can ask?
Chris Lehmann 00:24:38
Research? How do we find answers to those questions?
Chris Lehmann 00:24:40
Collaboration. How do we work together to make those answers
Chris Lehmann 00:24:42
deeper and richer presentation? How do we show what we know in
Chris Lehmann 00:24:45
reflection? How do we step back and learn from what we've done
Chris Lehmann 00:24:48
that iterative cycle is going on all of the time. Does that mean
Chris Lehmann 00:24:52
that we never stand up at the front of the room and lecture
Chris Lehmann 00:24:55
for 10 minutes? Of course, not. The mini lecture has its place,
Chris Lehmann 00:24:57
but it also means the other piece of that puzzle is. So with
Chris Lehmann 00:25:00
the idea of presentation, I don't believe that you manifest
Chris Lehmann 00:25:04
your learning best by answering the questions on somebody else's
Chris Lehmann 00:25:07
test. I believe you learn best when you create an artifact of
Chris Lehmann 00:25:11
your learning that allows you to manifest the learning by the
Chris Lehmann 00:25:13
thing you wrote, filmed, built, blew up, experimented on, what
Chris Lehmann 00:25:19
have you. And again, that's not to say that quizzes don't have a
Chris Lehmann 00:25:22
role. If you want to give a quick little quiz to dipstick on
Chris Lehmann 00:25:25
a skill, sure, if you want to isolate a discrete skill, she'll
Chris Lehmann 00:25:28
give a quiz. But if you really want to see what kids
Chris Lehmann 00:25:31
understand, ask them to do something, ask them to make
Chris Lehmann 00:25:35
something, ask them to write something. And so every unit at
Chris Lehmann 00:25:40
SLA ends on that project that is a manifestation of, basically
Chris Lehmann 00:25:45
the kid's answer of the essential question of the unit,
Chris Lehmann 00:25:47
right? That they have come up with. Then there's, how do you
Chris Lehmann 00:25:50
manifest it from the teacher life, right? So you need to have
Chris Lehmann 00:25:54
a common language of teaching and learning. So like I said,
Chris Lehmann 00:25:56
everything we do at SLA starts with our core values. All of the
Chris Lehmann 00:25:59
planning we do is structured using Understanding by Design,
Chris Lehmann 00:26:02
and every project that we give is graded on the same five
Chris Lehmann 00:26:06
category rubric, the design of the project, the knowledge
Chris Lehmann 00:26:08
displayed, the application of that knowledge, the presentation
Chris Lehmann 00:26:11
of the project, and the process you followed five categories.
Chris Lehmann 00:26:13
Each category is worth 20.5 times 20 is 100 now it's a grade
Chris Lehmann 00:26:17
that everybody understands. But now think about that. You have a
Chris Lehmann 00:26:20
language of inputs with the core values, you have a language of
Chris Lehmann 00:26:23
process with ubds, and then you have a language of assessment in
Chris Lehmann 00:26:26
the rubric. Think about what it means when kids go to every
Chris Lehmann 00:26:29
single class and it's not like you have a standardized
Chris Lehmann 00:26:31
curriculum, it's not even close, or nothing standardized about
Chris Lehmann 00:26:34
us, but there's so much that is common, like think about a
Chris Lehmann 00:26:38
traditional school, public or private. Think about how much
Chris Lehmann 00:26:42
time kids spend figuring out the adults, because every teacher
Chris Lehmann 00:26:45
has a slightly different way they talk about the work or the
Chris Lehmann 00:26:49
thing or the that. And then think about what it means when
Chris Lehmann 00:26:52
kids cognitive load is spent on the work, not the adults, and
Chris Lehmann 00:26:56
when you have a common language of teaching and learning that is
Chris Lehmann 00:26:58
progressive, that is inquiry driven, that is asset driven and
Chris Lehmann 00:27:02
stuff driven. Kids can shoot the moon and they know it and they
Chris Lehmann 00:27:07
feel it and they believe it, and I think that is a very different
Chris Lehmann 00:27:11
model than what kids usually sit in in classes all over our
Chris Lehmann 00:27:15
country.
Bill Stites 00:27:16
So Chris, one of the questions I've got focuses
Bill Stites 00:27:19
on, like, what's the buzz? And the buzz seems to be around,
Bill Stites 00:27:23
like stem, or some derivative of STEM, or what STEM is, right?
Bill Stites 00:27:28
Listening to you talk about what you do, there is stem talked
Bill Stites 00:27:33
about at SLA because having visited the school years ago for
Bill Stites 00:27:38
some of the earliest the educon stuff, you know, and listening
Bill Stites 00:27:41
to you talk now, it's like, in my mind, you were doing this
Bill Stites 00:27:44
stuff before they were talking about this stuff, right? Do you
Bill Stites 00:27:48
talk about STEM or is it just simply implicit in what you do,
Bill Stites 00:27:52
in the way in which you do things? Where do you see that so
Bill Stites 00:27:55
you can fit in with all the buzz worthy conversations?
Chris Lehmann 00:27:59
That's a great question. The kids like to joke
Chris Lehmann 00:28:02
around that, like the school is misnamed and yet not right,
Chris Lehmann 00:28:07
because over 40% of our kids every year major in STEM or STEM
Chris Lehmann 00:28:10
related fields. That's one of the highest percentages in the
Chris Lehmann 00:28:13
country. We have two CTE programs. One is digital video
Chris Lehmann 00:28:17
and the other is engineering, and both our programs are
Chris Lehmann 00:28:20
amazing, but the engineering program is, I think, a model for
Chris Lehmann 00:28:24
and again, both of them. And think about both of those, right
Chris Lehmann 00:28:26
engineering and dig vid, both lend themselves to inquiry,
Chris Lehmann 00:28:29
right? Both lends themselves to like, how do we ask a big
Chris Lehmann 00:28:31
question? Then, how do we make something with our answers? But
Chris Lehmann 00:28:35
our science department and our science discipline is amazing,
Chris Lehmann 00:28:38
our math discipline is amazing. But I think the thing is this,
Chris Lehmann 00:28:41
which is that, to your point, the overarching theme of, like,
Chris Lehmann 00:28:44
how do we learn is really the driving piece of the school. Now
Chris Lehmann 00:28:49
the thing is this, which is that, I think what I would argue
Chris Lehmann 00:28:52
is that this idea of that inquiry cycle has its roots in
Chris Lehmann 00:28:56
science. But like, tell that to a historian, and they'll tell me
Chris Lehmann 00:29:00
that I'm wrong, and history has can make just as good a claim.
Chris Lehmann 00:29:04
And so what our big bet was, and it goes back to the story I told
Chris Lehmann 00:29:07
about the Franklin. What our big bet was was that this idea of
Chris Lehmann 00:29:11
inquiry, of asking big questions, seeking out answers,
Chris Lehmann 00:29:14
and making stuff, and then asking hard questions of
Chris Lehmann 00:29:17
ourselves about what we learn, that that is the scientific
Chris Lehmann 00:29:20
mind. But the thing is, it's good for poets too. It is a way
Chris Lehmann 00:29:24
of thinking about the world that allows you to attack a problem.
Chris Lehmann 00:29:27
And you almost go back to, like Jamie cassips, you know, great
Chris Lehmann 00:29:30
quote, what's the problem you want to solve? And I think that
Chris Lehmann 00:29:34
when you think about things that way, this lends itself to stem
Chris Lehmann 00:29:37
and then we have this incredible engineering program that sort of
Chris Lehmann 00:29:40
powers like an experience of, you know, what, a fifth of the
Chris Lehmann 00:29:43
school every year that sort of then becomes part of this as
Chris Lehmann 00:29:46
well. But I think that most importantly, what we are able to
Chris Lehmann 00:29:50
show kids is that all of these lenses, math, science, all of
Chris Lehmann 00:29:53
these lenses, become lenses for which you can question your
Chris Lehmann 00:29:56
world. And I think that that creates a relevance. Sense and a
Chris Lehmann 00:30:00
power and an agency in what the kids see themselves doing. That
Chris Lehmann 00:30:05
is at root stem. And then the other piece of the puzzle, of
Chris Lehmann 00:30:08
course, we use technology. I mean, you know, the the techs
Chris Lehmann 00:30:10
everywhere, right? We use it all the time, and the kids just
Chris Lehmann 00:30:13
aren't afraid of it, and they don't think they're going to
Chris Lehmann 00:30:15
break it, and the teachers aren't afraid of telling kids,
Chris Lehmann 00:30:17
open up your laptops and all that stuff. So I think you're
Chris Lehmann 00:30:20
right. Like, that old question of, what is an English teacher
Chris Lehmann 00:30:23
doing? Wanting to run a Science High School is still a fair
Chris Lehmann 00:30:26
question. And the answer is that, like, more than a
Chris Lehmann 00:30:29
discipline, the really important thing is, what's your pedagogy
Chris Lehmann 00:30:32
and how does that pedagogy inform the way you teach the
Chris Lehmann 00:30:35
disciplines?
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:37
I love the way that your teachers have that
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:39
vernacular already in place. It resonates with me frequently
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:42
when trying to emphasize Standardization has its place,
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:47
and it's really essential if you're going to try and
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:49
communicate effectively to your students, because their job is
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:53
not to try and figure out the teacher, right, and really
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:56
they're supposed to be working together. You mentioned that we
Hiram Cuevas 00:30:59
don't necessarily have stem, but we're the highest. You'll get me
Chris Lehmann 00:31:03
in a lot of trouble if you say that. I said
Chris Lehmann 00:31:04
we don't have STEM. We have lots of STEM. You
Hiram Cuevas 00:31:07
don't call it stem necessarily. And what's
Hiram Cuevas 00:31:09
interesting to me is our Upper School head at one point when we
Hiram Cuevas 00:31:14
were trying to figure out how to brand stem here at St
Hiram Cuevas 00:31:17
Christopher's, he's like, Well, it's stem this year it's
Hiram Cuevas 00:31:21
steamed. The next year, it's stream. The following year, why
Hiram Cuevas 00:31:25
don't we just call it school? Right? And I was like, That's
Hiram Cuevas 00:31:29
SLA. It's school. They get it. And it really honed in for me by
Hiram Cuevas 00:31:36
having inquiry base or experimental design, however you
Hiram Cuevas 00:31:40
want to call it. It crosses barriers and crosses disciplines
Hiram Cuevas 00:31:45
more often than it's isolated in an individual silo. And it's
Hiram Cuevas 00:31:48
just so great to hear your passion. And so I want to go
Hiram Cuevas 00:31:52
there.
Chris Lehmann 00:31:55
Well, we'd love to have you. So there you go. I
Chris Lehmann 00:31:57
think that's right, I think, and again, it is that hysterical
Chris Lehmann 00:32:00
steam stream evolution. When everybody starts cramming it in,
Chris Lehmann 00:32:04
we've got old words. We've got old words that have meaning and
Chris Lehmann 00:32:08
power. And sometimes I think we rush past those old words to
Chris Lehmann 00:32:12
find the latest and greatest acronym, and in doing so, miss
Chris Lehmann 00:32:16
the power of the fact that we all stand on these incredible
Chris Lehmann 00:32:20
shoulders of the educators that we can learn from, I say all the
Chris Lehmann 00:32:23
time, like people ask me, What do you want for SLA graduates?
Chris Lehmann 00:32:28
And I say, my North Star is very simple, thoughtful, wise,
Chris Lehmann 00:32:32
passionate and kind, and those are old words. I want their
Chris Lehmann 00:32:35
heads full of thought. I want them to have the wisdom to apply
Chris Lehmann 00:32:37
those thoughts in meaningful ways. I want them to have the
Chris Lehmann 00:32:40
passion to push through when the world tells them something
Chris Lehmann 00:32:42
cannot be done, and damn it, I want them to be kind. That's as
Chris Lehmann 00:32:46
far away from Ed you speak as I can imagine. Those are old
Chris Lehmann 00:32:50
words. Those are words our grandmothers would understand.
Chris Lehmann 00:32:53
And as a dad, those are the values I want for my children,
Chris Lehmann 00:32:57
thoughtful. Have your heads full of thought. Be wise. Be
Chris Lehmann 00:33:00
passionate, be kind. Again, you don't need edu speak for that.
Chris Lehmann 00:33:06
We need good words. Maybe that's the English teacher running the
Chris Lehmann 00:33:09
Science High School. There
Bill Stites 00:33:11
you go, and that's perfect. And one of the things
Bill Stites 00:33:14
you mentioned in what you just said was the technology at your
Bill Stites 00:33:17
school is just everywhere. It's just there. It's like oxygen.
Bill Stites 00:33:22
That's where I was going. Thank you No, but it's one of the
Bill Stites 00:33:27
things that I can honestly say, that I've heard you say, I've
Bill Stites 00:33:30
taken from you and I've used time and time again, that
Bill Stites 00:33:33
technology should be ubiquitous, that it should be like oxygen.
Bill Stites 00:33:36
It should be just there. You shouldn't notice, that you
Bill Stites 00:33:39
should just be able to use it part and parcel of what you need
Bill Stites 00:33:42
to work and to survive on a day to day basis. And what is great
Bill Stites 00:33:48
about that is I think it encapsulates the way in which I
Bill Stites 00:33:53
think we need to think about the tools that we choose to use, how
Bill Stites 00:33:57
we have to work on building them into what we do to make students
Bill Stites 00:34:02
successful and to achieve in those ways that an inquiry
Bill Stites 00:34:07
driven school, a stem driven school, can simply do and not
Bill Stites 00:34:10
have to worry about it. And it speaks to an equity issue as
Bill Stites 00:34:13
well that I think is incredibly important, because it just can't
Bill Stites 00:34:17
be those that can afford the tool it should be available to
Bill Stites 00:34:21
everyone, so everyone has equal access to it. So I really just
Bill Stites 00:34:24
want to thank you for that statement, because I think that
Bill Stites 00:34:28
it helps solidify a lot of the conversations that we were
Bill Stites 00:34:31
having here at our school, and the conversations I have with
Bill Stites 00:34:33
other schools about their technology programs and their
Bill Stites 00:34:37
technology use. So thank you,
Chris Lehmann 00:34:39
my pleasure. I think that, you know, what's
Chris Lehmann 00:34:41
interesting is that I still believe that right like
Chris Lehmann 00:34:45
ubiquitous, necessary and invisible. And I think coming
Chris Lehmann 00:34:48
out of the pandemic, we see kids have a different relationship to
Chris Lehmann 00:34:51
their phones that they did pre pandemic. We now ask kids to
Chris Lehmann 00:34:57
keep their phones away. We don't collect them. We don't believe
Chris Lehmann 00:34:59
in the yonder path. Couches, but we say to kids, you shouldn't
Chris Lehmann 00:35:01
have your phones out in class unless it's for a reason, and
Chris Lehmann 00:35:04
that's why, no reason we don't collect them like so for
Chris Lehmann 00:35:06
example, Matt Kay does this wonderful thing where he puts
Chris Lehmann 00:35:10
kids in pods for discussion groups in his English class, and
Chris Lehmann 00:35:13
he has one of them take out their phones and record it, and
Chris Lehmann 00:35:15
then they upload the discussion as an assignment, and then he's
Chris Lehmann 00:35:19
able to be sort of listening in on kids cover, right? Because on
Chris Lehmann 00:35:24
kids conversations about the text, even if there's eight
Chris Lehmann 00:35:26
conversations, right? Because one of the classic problems,
Chris Lehmann 00:35:29
like one of the classic conundrums of the English
Chris Lehmann 00:35:31
teacher in the classroom, is you have a choice. You can either
Chris Lehmann 00:35:34
run, you know, I mean, I'm oversimplifying this, but you
Chris Lehmann 00:35:37
can run the big conversation where you're able to, sort of
Chris Lehmann 00:35:40
like, listen in and help the kids with their ideas. Or you
Chris Lehmann 00:35:42
can run pods, you know, small groups, but then you're running
Chris Lehmann 00:35:46
around to eight groups trying to, like, help and whatever, and
Chris Lehmann 00:35:48
you'd miss some of the really cool ideas kids have. And Matt
Chris Lehmann 00:35:51
found a way to solve that dilemma and like, split the
Chris Lehmann 00:35:54
difference, which is, yep, go in your pod to have a conversation,
Chris Lehmann 00:35:56
but then upload the conversation so I can take part in it. But I
Chris Lehmann 00:35:59
do think that the thing we all missed is the billion dollar
Chris Lehmann 00:36:06
industry around keeping our attention and the algorithm and
Chris Lehmann 00:36:11
how addictive that algorithm is. We did a reboot two years ago
Chris Lehmann 00:36:16
where we said to ourselves, all right, zero cell phones in
Chris Lehmann 00:36:19
school. None, nobody. And we talked about why, and we read
Chris Lehmann 00:36:23
articles. We did all those stuff we did as a school Ed thing,
Chris Lehmann 00:36:26
teachers, too, me, too. And then we said, what did it mean when
Chris Lehmann 00:36:29
we didn't have this thing beeping in our pockets all the
Chris Lehmann 00:36:31
time at us? And we talked about how much easier it was to learn
Chris Lehmann 00:36:36
together and how much more present we were. And we said,
Chris Lehmann 00:36:38
Look, we're not going to ban them. You can have them at
Chris Lehmann 00:36:40
lunch. You can have them in the halls. Let's keep the learning
Chris Lehmann 00:36:43
spaces, learning spaces. But we want to help kids, and honestly,
Chris Lehmann 00:36:46
quite frankly, help ourselves, because I'm the worst offender,
Chris Lehmann 00:36:50
be more intentional about when we use the tools and why, and
Chris Lehmann 00:36:53
when we use, especially these tools, which are designed to
Chris Lehmann 00:36:57
hold our attention. And I can tell you that since we did that
Chris Lehmann 00:37:01
two years ago, I have cut my daily cell phone use by over an
Chris Lehmann 00:37:07
hour and a half. So I was well over four and a half hours like
Chris Lehmann 00:37:10
when we did this. We the kids do that. We all tracked our usage.
Chris Lehmann 00:37:12
We did it together. I was well over four and a half hours a
Chris Lehmann 00:37:15
day, and now I try to keep myself under three hours a day
Chris Lehmann 00:37:18
where that phone is being used, and that includes ways for
Chris Lehmann 00:37:21
driving that includes all the things. So I think that this
Chris Lehmann 00:37:24
notion of like, Yes, we love the tools and all the things. And
Chris Lehmann 00:37:27
obviously this doesn't change how much we use Google Docs, how
Chris Lehmann 00:37:29
much we use Canvas, how much we use all the other tools. But
Chris Lehmann 00:37:33
when it comes to this question of like, what does it mean to be
Chris Lehmann 00:37:36
intentional about our attention, and how can all of us do a
Chris Lehmann 00:37:40
better job of that. I think we've learned a ton in the last
Chris Lehmann 00:37:43
five years. For sure,
Peter Frank 00:37:46
it easily aligns what I've learned about inquiry
Peter Frank 00:37:49
schools and your approach and the idea of community, and how
Peter Frank 00:37:52
important the community aspect is. So you're helping the
Peter Frank 00:37:54
students, you're helping yourselves. That's a key element
Peter Frank 00:37:57
there. Before we let you go, I want to make sure you get a
Peter Frank 00:38:00
chance. I know you hosted edu con. Yeah, just a couple months
Peter Frank 00:38:02
ago, 2025 Do you want to just give our listeners some idea of
Peter Frank 00:38:06
what that is, maybe something that they're interested someday,
Peter Frank 00:38:08
and then we'll let Bill wrap things up here. Absolutely. So
Chris Lehmann 00:38:11
educon is this conference we've hosted, I
Chris Lehmann 00:38:13
think, since 2008 January. 2008 was the first one. This actually
Chris Lehmann 00:38:18
brings us full circle to go birds, because the conference
Chris Lehmann 00:38:22
every year is in between the NFL conference finals and the Super
Chris Lehmann 00:38:27
Bowl, because hope springs eternal. And in the years that
Chris Lehmann 00:38:31
we've done this twice, we won. And I mean, it really is true
Chris Lehmann 00:38:38
that you can't do anything in Philadelphia, if the Eagles are
Chris Lehmann 00:38:40
playing, no one will show up. So we list this conference. You
Chris Lehmann 00:38:43
know, it used to be the last weekend in January, then the NFL
Chris Lehmann 00:38:45
expanded their schedule, so now it's the first weekend in
Chris Lehmann 00:38:48
February. That's really the only reason we move the weekend where
Chris Lehmann 00:38:51
the Friday is a site visit. We open up the school to anybody
Chris Lehmann 00:38:54
who wants to come and spend time with us. Friday night is a panel
Chris Lehmann 00:38:57
discussion of really interesting people that serve to sort of
Chris Lehmann 00:39:00
frame the big idea for the conference for us for the next
Chris Lehmann 00:39:03
two days, and then the Saturday and Sunday, we turn the whole
Chris Lehmann 00:39:06
school into a conference center. The entire conference is run by
Chris Lehmann 00:39:09
SLA adults and kids, right? So it's me and my AP, it's a couple
Chris Lehmann 00:39:13
of teachers, a couple of students, it's parents. And
Chris Lehmann 00:39:16
then, like the conference itself, there's 60 SLA kids who
Chris Lehmann 00:39:19
are helping us run it, and we invite people who are doing this
Chris Lehmann 00:39:24
work from all over the world to come and facilitate a session.
Chris Lehmann 00:39:27
And I say facilitate, not present, because the pedagogy of
Chris Lehmann 00:39:31
the conference is the pedagogy of the school. We don't want
Chris Lehmann 00:39:34
people sitting and getting we want sessions that are inquiry
Chris Lehmann 00:39:37
driven, that are project oriented, that get people
Chris Lehmann 00:39:40
talking and doing and making and we've been doing this now, minus
Chris Lehmann 00:39:44
the COVID years well past 15 years, even subtracting the
Chris Lehmann 00:39:47
COVID years where we couldn't do it, and we brought together
Chris Lehmann 00:39:50
literally hundreds of educators every year to take apart these
Chris Lehmann 00:39:54
ideas together. Sam sheltayne, years ago, said, like, this is
Chris Lehmann 00:39:57
the educon tribe, and it really is this incredible. Incredible
Chris Lehmann 00:40:00
experience every year where, like, educators, who either feel
Chris Lehmann 00:40:02
like they're doing it alone in their building or a school in a
Chris Lehmann 00:40:06
place that maybe doesn't have a lot of CO conspirators around
Chris Lehmann 00:40:08
them, are able to come together and learn together and be in
Chris Lehmann 00:40:11
community and communion with one another. And it's an amazing
Chris Lehmann 00:40:14
experience. And every year we ask ourselves, like, is this the
Chris Lehmann 00:40:18
last year? Are we going to stop doing this? And then every year
Chris Lehmann 00:40:20
it ends, and we get told, you can't stop this. So we keep
Chris Lehmann 00:40:24
doing it. This year, we're gonna try to get the word out a little
Chris Lehmann 00:40:26
earlier. We're gonna probably open up for our call for
Chris Lehmann 00:40:29
proposals in early in May. I've got this is the mean, like, my
Chris Lehmann 00:40:33
big spring break job is to get ready to open us up for
Chris Lehmann 00:40:36
proposals with the idea of like. So when everybody comes back in
Chris Lehmann 00:40:40
early August, The sessions are up. Everybody sees what we're up
Chris Lehmann 00:40:43
to, and they've got all the time in the world to kind of plan for
Chris Lehmann 00:40:46
it and do it. So take a look@educom.org It's really a
Chris Lehmann 00:40:50
special time. And I think that if you're looking to learn with
Chris Lehmann 00:40:53
other people who are around the pedagogy, around the big idea,
Chris Lehmann 00:40:57
it's a pretty
Peter Frank 00:40:58
unique space. Great. We'll have links to all
Peter Frank 00:41:01
that in the show notes. Many links here from your content and
Peter Frank 00:41:05
what you've done here. So we're gonna let Bill wrap things up.
Peter Frank 00:41:08
He's got a key
Bill Stites 00:41:09
question, highly controversial. Okay, here we go.
Bill Stites 00:41:14
All right. You ready for this? I am. Where are you going for your
Bill Stites 00:41:18
cheese steak? Ah,
Chris Lehmann 00:41:19
great question. My favorite cheese steak is the
Chris Lehmann 00:41:24
same place I've been going since I was in college. It's Chubbies
Chris Lehmann 00:41:28
up in Roxboro, and it's a great cheese steak, but they also
Chris Lehmann 00:41:31
really good waffle fries. Now, this is a controversial because
Chris Lehmann 00:41:34
Chubbies is on one side of the street and delessandros is on
Chris Lehmann 00:41:37
the other. Oh, there you go, and d'alessandros has a very
Chris Lehmann 00:41:43
passionate fan base. It does indeed I love Chubbies. It's my
Chris Lehmann 00:41:48
favorite. But the cool thing about Philly, and this is what I
Chris Lehmann 00:41:51
will say, is, unlike other cities and I like, the cool
Chris Lehmann 00:41:54
thing about a Philly cheesesteak is, chances are yacuna Pizzeria
Chris Lehmann 00:41:59
has a pretty good cheese steak, oh, 100% 100% every Philly
Chris Lehmann 00:42:05
pizzeria knows the secret to a good cheese steak is good bread.
Bill Stites 00:42:09
No, exactly, no. It's not so Chris, I will tell
Bill Stites 00:42:16
you, growing up, I was a little skate rat. I lived on South
Bill Stites 00:42:19
Street and IN LOVE Park, and I grew up underneath the fan at
Bill Stites 00:42:24
Jim's shop on South Street. My father would say you'd gain five
Bill Stites 00:42:29
pounds just standing underneath of that fan as it blew all the
Bill Stites 00:42:33
grease off the stovetop there, as they made it I still go back.
Bill Stites 00:42:37
I take my son there. You know, I'm up here in North Jersey. I
Bill Stites 00:42:39
still drive down. That's where we go, and we just have a great
Bill Stites 00:42:42
time with so thank you for
Chris Lehmann 00:42:43
that, Chubbies, there is no Philadelphia without
Chris Lehmann 00:42:46
Jim steaks. I
Bill Stites 00:42:47
haven't been there since they reopened, but they
Bill Stites 00:42:49
got the place next door, and have even expanded from what I
Chris Lehmann 00:42:52
understand. Yeah, it might have finally cleaned
Chris Lehmann 00:42:55
the grease
Bill Stites 00:42:56
and then they'd lost the flavor. Why would you
Bill Stites 00:42:58
do that?
Peter Frank 00:42:58
Highly unlikely. Exactly. Nice, Chris, thank you.
Peter Frank 00:43:02
We really appreciate you giving us your time. Thank you so much,
Peter Frank 00:43:05
Chris for giving us all this great stuff we're going to give
Peter Frank 00:43:08
out to our people here soon.
Unknown 00:43:09
My pleasure, my pleasure.
Peter Frank 00:43:12
This has been talking technology with Atlas,
Peter Frank 00:43:15
produced by the Association of technology leaders and
Peter Frank 00:43:17
independent schools. For more information about Atlas and
Peter Frank 00:43:21
Atlas membership, please visit theatlas.org if you enjoyed this
Peter Frank 00:43:25
discussion, please subscribe, leave a review and share this
Peter Frank 00:43:29
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Peter Frank 00:43:31
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