The video above comes from a panel presentation which followed a screening of the Race to Nowhere, a film we are screening at St. Gregory March 3 at 7pm, and I am using the blog here to promote that upcoming event.  Ticket information is here.  We too will present, following the film screening, a panel presentation (details below).

In the video, some outstanding thinkers in the field of adolescent development and secondary education share their reactions to the film, including Deborah Stipek, Madeline Levine, and Denise Pope.    Also fascinating in this edited clip are some comments from the audience, including the following:

We have to have measurements, we to be able  tofind out how much progress we are making in whatever we are doing, but what  but what are we measuring, and are we measuring the right things?

The Ivory tower is a name we use for measuring people that memorize useless facts, but in business often we focus too much on money and not solving problems.

If people got together and you talk about project based learning–  I think that’s it.  If we got together and actually work on problems and solve them together, maybe we could do our education around solving real problems and get the satisfaction of solving them as a community.

Of course I think this is exactly right: we do need to measure learning and respond to those measurements, but we need to measure what really matters, especially in authentic, problem-solving tasks, and we need to  promote learning in environments where students develop and acquire these kind of real-world situated problem solving skills.

After the 7pm screening, we will present a six member panel to respond to the film and then to comments and questions from the audience.

Our panel will be moderated by Rachel Villarreal, Ph.D., the Chair of the United Way of Tucson’s Youth Development Coalition and St. Gregory’s Director of Development.

Panelists:

Barry Bedrick, Headmaster, St. Michael’s Parish Day School

Michelle Berry, Ph.D, History Department Chair, St. Gregory

George Davis, Ph.D., former Provost, U. of AZ, former President, University of Vermont

Malika Johnson, Director of College Counseling, St. Gregory

Ann-Eve Pedersen, Board President, Arizona Education Network

Eve Rifkin, Principal, City High School

Looking forward greatly to this event.   As it is said in the video:

The film is just a vehicle to bring people together to talk about these issues and inspire change.