Thursday - Yale Wishnick on a Strength-Based Revolution in Education

Join me Thursday, November 1st, for a one-hour live and interactive FutureofEducation.com interview with Yale Wishnick, author of From a Culture of Dependency to a Culture of Success: Focusing on What's Right About America and the American People. Most recently as the director of (and guiding force behind) the forward-thinking California Teachers Association Institute for Teaching (IFT), Dr. Wishnick has been on the cutting edge of strength-based strategies and practices to increase personal success and organizational excellence. The IFT was built on the believe that school change should be teacher-led, and he is convinced that every individual (teacher and student alike) can be successful by focusing on their strengths and positive experiences and less on deficits and weaknesses.

It doesn’t make much sense to create a school culture of success from a climate of disappointment and intractable problems. The IFT believes school change should focus on what’s working; the great teaching taking place in our classrooms. Further, if we want to know why children are successful, talk to successful students and their parents.  The IFT believes that the best strategy for school improvement is to investigate what’s working, not what’s broken. By focusing on what works in our schools and encouraging teacher independence and increasing capacity, we are more likely to have success. (From the IFT website.)

Date: Thursday, November 1st, 2012
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate). Log in at http://futureofed.info. The Blackboard Collaborate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Blackboard Collaborate, please visit the support and configuration page.
Recordings: The full Blackboard Collaborate recording is at https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2012-11-01.1720.M.9E9FE58134BE68C3B413F24B3586CF.vcr&sid=2008350 and a portable .mp3 recording is at http://audio.edtechlive.com/foe/yalewishnick.mp3.
Mightybell Space: Resources, videos, links, and conversation about the interview can be found HERE.

From the website:  "From a Culture of Dependency to a Culture of Success reveals how more and more Americans are missing out on the greatness of their country; its passion for excellence, its commitment to the dignity and self-worth of each individual, and its belief that every person has the right to achieve their own vision for success.  Chaos, confusion, disappointment, and hopelessness have pushed and pulled Americans into a state of dependency.

"From the individual, to the family, to our local communities, Americans are constantly looking for others to solve the problems and challenges they face. This has lead to victimology, class warfare, and ultimately bad public policy where a culture of dependency is becoming the new normal.

"As people think themselves into believing that they can’t make it on their own they are rejecting their own potential and capacity to act. Worse, they are missing out on the person they were destined to become.

"Go beyond the headlines and discover what is really driving a culture of dependency. Discover how deficit thinking is being used by politicians, bureaucrats, and the private sector elite to turn America into a dependency society.  From a Culture of Dependency to a Culture of Success brings a sense of clarity to the problems facing America by offering not just solutions but fundamental reasons why America is becoming a dependency state." 

Thursday - Jamie McMillin on Lessons from Legendary Learners

Join me Thursday, October 25th, for a one-hour live and interactive FutureofEducation.com interview with Jamie McMillan, author of Legendary Learning: The Famous Homeschoolers' Guide to Self-Directed Excellence. This interview is part of my continued interest in how lessons from the homeschool world may increasingly inform discussions of traditional education. Jamie looks at what she calls "Legendary Learners[:] big thinkers, creators, leaders and achievers who earned success on their own terms."

"Read about famous homeschoolers such as: Andrew Carnegie, Agatha Christie, Louis Armstrong, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, Robert Frost, John Muir, and Walt Whitman. Find out what these legends had in common, how they were raised and how they found success. Their fascinating stories will inspire you to think about homeschooling [and schooling?] in a whole new way - beyond curriculum, test scores and 'keeping up with the school kids.' You will discover how to: unleash your child's unique creative genius and power; cultivate passion and determination; allow your child to direct his or her own education; create an authentic atmosphere of learning; and live the habits of success." (From the publisher's description.)

"The great men and women of history had a certain kind of education. Find out how to duplicate it in Jamie McMillin's excellent book! A great read for parents, teachers, and self-educators." - Oliver and Rachel DeMille, authors of the "Thomas Jefferson Education" books 

"Jamie McMillin offers a well-researched and compelling look at what little-known factors bring forth the best in each child. This is a book every parent and educator should read." - Laura Grace Weldon, author of "Free Range Learning: How Homeschooling Changes Everything"

Date: Thursday, October 25th, 2012
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate). Log in at http://futureofed.info. The Blackboard Collaborate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Blackboard Collaborate, please visit the support and configuration page.
Recordings: The full Blackboard Collaborate recording is at https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2012-10-25.0946.M.9E9FE58134BE68C3B413F24B3586CF.vcr&sid=2008350 and a portable .mp3 recording is at http://audio.edtechlive.com/foe/jamiemcmillin.mp3.
Mightybell Space: Resources, videos, links, and conversation about the interview can be found HERE.

About Jamie McMillin (from her website)

I have been homeschooling my three kids since 1996, trying nearly every method you can think of in that time. Fortunately, my kids are good sports.

Before that, I was in the U.S. Coast Guard, graduating from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 1989, then spending the next five years working in the Coast Guard aids to navigation program in Texas and Alaska.

In all that time, I was (and have been) a voracious reader and addicted to research. I first heard of homeschooling back in 1993 from a “Harrowsmith Country Life” magazine featuring Rebecca Rupp. Enchanted, I read everything I could get my hands on about teaching my son at home, though he was only a baby at the time. Was it legal? Did it work? How do I do this? Fortunately, my husband was game and by the time our second son came along, we had decided that homeschooling was the way to go. Rebecca Rupp was my first mentor, although she never knew it. Her books were always within reach, and our early days were modeled after hers. We read lots of books, played games, constructed Viking ships, made salt-dough models of the Mediterranean, grew pole bean teepees and had lots of fun.

As the homeschooling movement grew and I connected with more families, I researched other styles of teaching: classical (The Well Trained Mind), unschooling, Charlotte Mason, unit studies, leadership (A Thomas Jefferson Education) and others. It was so hard to decide! They all sounded right. How to choose? It really came down to experimentation and finding what worked with each of my kids – and they were all very different. But I was still a tad worried, so that’s when I started reading biographies of people who had unconventional educations. I thought that if I could pick out any common threads among the childhoods of these successful people, it would give me some indication of which homeschooling method worked best.

Well, I got more than I bargained for. I learned so much I had to put it in a book! It turns out that there was indeed a common thread in the education of the people I studied, but that was just a small part of it. I also found similarities in how they were raised and the experiences they shared. It was fascinating!

Unfortunately, my homeschooling days are almost over. My oldest is in college and my second son is attending community college part-time. My youngest has decided to go to a local charter school for the arts this fall. But now is when I really have the experience and hindsight to know what worked, so that is why I decided to create this blog. I have a lot of stories about my kids and other people with unconventional educations to help put your homeschooling worries in perspective. Don’t worry – homeschooling is much more fun than you might think!

If you would like to contact me, please email JamieMcMillin (at) legendarylearningnow (dot) com    (please excuse the coded email address – I’m trying to stop the robots from finding me)