You got to love this guy: Chris Lehmann is among the most inspirational of all 21st century school-leaders today.  This speech is excellent-coming from TEDxNYED, which I would have killed to attend (and blog!)

There are now 14 of these talks available on the site, and I hope to view, and blog about, most in the weeks to come.

From Chris:

I love school!  Some say we need to reinvent learning, but I love school.

The Maddening paradox of education 2010.  Kids are taking information and sharing it and doing amazing work with it.   I don’t know that technology helps you pass the test, but I do know it helps you learn.

Data decision decisionmaking assumes you use good data, and the data we use in standardized testing stinks.

Why would we trust a bubble sheet on one day of the year better than what we see everyday in our classrooms.

Data decision decisionmaking assumes you use good data, and the data we use in standardized testing stinks.

Why would we trust a bubble sheet on one day of the year better than what we see everyday in our classrooms.

My kids want to be interactive, not just watching TV.  They want to get information on their own.

We have to build Caring Institutions:  We teach kids, not subjects.

Schools need to be places of great inquiry.   It is about asking great questions, and going and find the answers.

It has to be student-centered.  It is not about us.

We have to let kids work together; we have to let kids and adults work together.  Collaboration, because Synthesis works.

Schools can be place of great passion, and it has to matter.

What if high school were not just preparation for real life, what if high school is real life?

Days have to be integrated, and the day has to make sense.   Classes cannot be silos but lenses.  Classes must be longer in block length.

Schools must promote metacognition; we need to learn how to think.

Technology must be like oxygen: ubiquitous, necessary, and invisible.

We need whole new schools, where technology allows us to redefine everything.  Schooling should now be about Create, Research, Collaborate, Present, Network.

Keep Asking Questions: And don’t settle for easy answers.  If asking questions is good for kids, it is good for us too.   Let’s ask the hard questions.

I dare all of us: Go back to School!   How do we Dream of how we want our schools to be?

Empower the Kids: It is their education, and it will be their world.

We must be learners ourselves, and we must be willing to be transformed, and we must be willing to accept that we must be transformed ourselves.