Center Of The Universe

Recently, I glanced at an article that I think was in the New York Times business section. The article was contemplating the changes that technology are making to the way we view the world. Anyway, what I started to think about was the following: Cosmological discoveries since Galileo have continued to indicate that humans are less significant than it appears when looking at the night sky. Ptolemy had the planets and star revolve in perfect circles around the center of the universe, a stable Earth. Copernicus and Galileo proved that the Earth actually revolved around the sun. Soon it became clear that that our solar system was part of a larger galaxy, which was part of a bigger universe, which may be part of the multiverse. We now know that many planets exist around many stars and many Earth-like planets revolve around many sun-like stars. The scientific consensus now allows that life is not unique to Earth but exists throughout the cosmos.

What is the consequence of these discoveries on the human psyche? Well, we should be more humble that we are not the center of the universe. Drawing an analogy to the preadolescent who often thinks he is the center of the universe might be helpful. The typical 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grader rarely is grateful for the act of others (especially parents), often expects that others (especially parents) will clean up their literal and figurative messes, and can be seen as relatively selfish. As this child grows and matures, they become more aware of their actions and their effect on others. They work to improve their own and other people’s lots. I hope a similar evolution is happening to our species. We have become more aware of the effect our actions have on the ecosystem, we are working to clean up our messes (the BP oil spill to the contrary) and have more empathy for the suffering of others.

The computer revolution threatens to psychically put humans back at the center of the universe. Think of all the time we spend alone in front of screen doing what we want, when we want. (I can take a break anytime I want from writing to play Scramble on Facebook, either solitaire, against strangers or against my friends.) Speaking of being able to do what I want, when I want--I can now control my personal environment in ways I could not five years ago. I watch any television show whenever I desire, either on my DVR or my computer. (And I can fast forward through the commercials!) Further, through Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare I can advertise to my friends, real and virtual, my thoughts, my whereabouts and my activities, no matter how trivial at any time and all the time. I wonder what effects this person-centrism causes. Might it not decrease empathy? Might it not delay autonomy? Will it further delay the onset of adulthood? (See the New York Times Magazine article that identifies a new developmental stage—emerging adulthood. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?pagewanted=all.) It must add to an unwarranted feeling of self-importance which cannot be to the good.

At Duke School, where we are striving to prepare the next generation of problem solvers, we must help our students realize they are not the center of the universe and the world does not revolve around them. We need them to understand that other people’s problems are their problems and making the world better for others is a greater good. We need to teach them to use new technologies without becoming a captive of them. We want them to see their place in the cosmos and the contributions they can make to their universe. It is a tough task.

Critical Thinking?

The first days of school are upon us, and starting my fifth year, I remain amazingly excited about being associated with Duke School. And I remain so for the exact reasons that attracted me in the first place—our commitment to preparing the next generation of problem solvers and the methods we use to meet our commitments.

One of the most important things that Duke School focuses on is engendering critical thinking skills. Much of my summer reading has reinforced my belief that critical thinking is both in short supply and (well) critical.

Most of us agree that the best decisions are reached by objectively surveying relevant facts and letting them lead to a rational decision. However, most of us do not make decisions this way most of the time. Indeed, we are hard-wired not to think critically and objectively but instead be influenced by lots of other factors.

Duke’s very own Dan Ariely, in Predictably Irrational , discusses many ways the mind is not only irrational but consistently irrational. He notes that people place a higher monetary value on items they own than ones they don’t. This helps explain why the current owner of home thinks it is worth more than an interested buyer or why the possessors of Duke final four tickets (who camped out to enter the lottery) thought the their tickets were worth 1300% more than those who also camped out and did not get the tickets. Ariely also talks about the fact that an aspirin “known” to cost 1¢ will be less effective than one “known” to cost $1.00 even if they are chemically identical. Clearly these folks are not thinking critically—they are not relying on objective facts to reach decisions.

Another interesting book Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz explores why people make errors. She mentions that not only are people often wrong, they are quite poor at “knowing what we don’t know.” She talks of folks who listen only to those who agree with them falling prey to “confirmation bias.” She talks about the power of like-minded communities to bolster “our convictions that we are right and shielding us from the possibility that we are wrong.”

The need to seek other perspectives on our views was highlighted by David Brooks in his Op Ed piece in the New York Times on August 24. Brooks states we have a “metacognition deficit.” He claims that “very few in public life habitually step back and think about the weakness in their own thinking and what they should do to compensate.” Again, he is bemoaning that not enough of us engage in critical thinking.

Finally a couple of TED videos make the same point. (If you are not aware of TED, you should become so. They produce short videos by brilliant people on lots of cool topics.) Two speakers, David McCandless, www.ted.com/talks/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization.html , and Hans Rosling, www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_at_state.html , talk about the effective and ineffective use of data. (This might sound dry but these are fascinating, particularly Rosling who insists that his data set should change your mindset). Both speakers claim that we must be able to judge data to see if the point being made is understandable, rational, and relevant. Without critical thinking skills, that cannot be done.

When you visit a Duke School classroom, you often see the hard work of promoting critical thinking. Students are in small groups discussing how did the building of the Durham Freeway affect race relations in Durham. Others are timing the length of a pendulum swing trying to discover what variables effect swing frequency. Preschoolers are investigating wheels trying to understand why some vehicles have two wheels, some three and some four. Others are involved in debates struggling to understand both sides of an issue. This is the kind of work that makes me most proud.

So, a new school year embarks. And we want to make sure our learners know their math facts, understand how to use a comma correctly and know the accurate dates of when events happened. More importantly though, we want to make sure they can read, listen, and see with care and wisdom. We want them to be able to garner relevant facts and draw logical conclusions from them. We want them to be able to avoid the pitfalls associated with group think. We want and need them to be critical thinkers. For only critical thinkers will help make our world a better place.

Take Time to Recharge

My daughter graduated from Vassar a few weekends ago, and I took the following Monday off to drive her and four years of stuff home. (Ok, I will stop here to brag on my daughter; she graduated with college honors and Phi Beta Kappa. How lucky she is that both her brains and looks came from her mother!) Anyway, I arrived back in Durham exhausted from the eleven hour drive from Poughkeepsie and started thinking of returning to work on Tuesday. So I turned on my computer to start planning.

Logging onto my e-mail account I saw that I had received over 110 e-mails—in a day. It took me a few hours to respond, delete and organize them. My planning time evaporated. And perhaps more discouragingly, not one of the e-mail pieces was even mildly important, no less critical, despite the red exclamation points accompanying ten of them. Once again, e-mail made me its servant; I felt the need to respond to nearly every email. As a result, I am serving information; it is not serving me. I remember when e-mail and the internet were hyped as a way to increase leisure time; instead it has transformed any time into work time. It has become an unquenchable monster. And e-mail is just one example of a sea change.

In the last twenty years the information game has transformed. The game is no longer finding information; it is now sifting through and synthesizing information. Not long ago, research was a hide ‘n seek game of finding the right article in the right journal and being able to obtain it. Those that held the key to finding information had the power. Today, a Google search will provide more information on a topic than a person can use. Now those who can analyze, synthesize and prioritize information hold the power.

So it is with e-mail. It flows and flows in, and I must learn to manage it. More importantly, we must teach our children to manage and make information work for them; not they for it. Being addicted to Facebook is no better than being a crackberry addict. So, what can we do to get in control again?

Well I, for one, am going to take at least one week off the grid. I need the peace and quiet. I need time to ponder and wonder and perhaps by removing myself from the stream of information, I will be able to better analyze how to manage it. At the very least, that week will let me recharge.

And that is my summer wish for all of you—take some time to recharge. Take time to enjoy the old fashioned pleasures--cool lemonade, chatting on a porch, reading a potboiler (not as an e-book), swimming, napping and enjoying a juicy slice of watermelon. The world will continue to function even if you do not add your voice to the cacophony for a week or so. And that time to recharge will allow you to better face the challenges of the world.

And in my quiet reverie, a great idea on how to manage the flow of information may pop in my head unbidden but most appreciated.

The Wind Behind Their Backs

Last week I was at a conference in Chicago. Taking advantage of the hour time difference, I got up early for a run. I left my hotel and jogged (I never go faster than a jog) up Monroe Street toward Lake Michigan. When I arrived at the lake, I decided to run toward the west. The weather was unseemly warm for Chicago in April—about 55 at 6:30 a.m., and the sky was a clear blue. Watching other runners, seeing the sunlight reflect off the lake and guessing the value of the harbored boats helped pass the time. I must admit this was an easy run, and I was feeling good.

However, when I turned around and started back home, I noticed a strong headwind. No longer was the run so easy. I had to battle the wind which winded me. The way back was much slower and much more painful. My enthusiasm for a Lake Michigan run faded some.


Upon my return to the hotel, I realized I never noticed the wind when it was helping me, just when I had to fight it. And that led me to contemplate all my blessings that act as the wind behind my back. I am healthy; I have a great job, and all my material needs are met. I have resources saved for a rainy day. Perhaps most importantly, I come from a loving family who ensured I had an excellent education and provided me with the opportunity to gain the skills and habits of mind that have allowed me to have a secure and happy life. And on most days, like the wind behind my back at the start of my run, I never notice these blessings. When I think of what I accomplish, I think of the hard work I put in. I do not give credit to my life circumstances.

Likewise, Duke School students do not realize how their education will forever act as the wind behind their backs. The skills, habits and relationships our students are currently developing will support them as they move forward in their education, through high school, college and graduate school. They will also help them as they enter the workforce and strive to live a happy, fulfilling life. Those of you who make this education possible are acting as wind machine providing a tailwind for life. What a wonderful, if often unnoticed, blessing.

Realizing our blessings should also make us more cognizant and empathetic to those who are continually running against the wind. Just as I should not define my success only by my hard work, I should refrain from judging others whose life circumstances make their journeys much harder than mine. This is another important lesson we must impart to our children. Realizing that others must work harder to achieve should lead them to be kind people and just and fair leaders who will help solve tomorrow’s problems. What could be more important?

Core Values

In 1995, Neil Postman, a Columbia University Professor of Communication and well-known cultural critic, http://www.neilpostman.org/, wrote The End Of Education. Postman posited that schools have lost their raison d’etre; they have become factories churning out test takers that have no higher purpose than moving on to the next step, no matter what that may be. If schools are "without a transcendent and honorable purpose, [then students believe] the sooner we are done with it, the better." Our students, however, are committed to Duke School. Do you ever wonder why?

Our new core documents ask and answer the following question:

Why Do We Do It?
To prepare the next generation of problem solvers for our complex world.

Duke School’s transcendent and honorable purpose is to prepare our students, your children, to help solve the legion of intractable problems facing the United States and the world today. No more lofty or important goal exists.

How do we prepare our students to be such problem solvers? Once again, look to the core documents:

What We Do
Inspire learners to boldly and creatively shape their future

Our children will create a brighter tomorrow only if they realize they are capable. Part of the Duke School experience is to present difficult, messy problems. Then we allow students the autonomy and self-awareness to approach them from a number of avenues and to persevere if the journey seems challenging. I want our students to emulate Thomas Edison who commented, “I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Once they achieve something difficult, they will feel capable, leading to the realization that they can be what they want to be and do what they want to do. In one of my favorite poems, Eldorado by Edgar Allen Poe, the poet advises “ride boldly ride….if you seek for Eldorado.” We empower our students to boldly pursue and arrive at their own Eldorados.

Not every academic approach inspires engaged students. Memorizing and regurgitating information (even if it earns you an “A”) develops passive thinkers looking for the “one answer.” Duke School’s program approaches learning from a different angle. Again, I refer to our core documents.

Look at Ideas We Live By:

Learner-Centered

Learners are the center of a dynamic and collaborative learning,inquiry, and discovery process.

Active Inquiry

Intellectual curiosity through project-based learning propels learners to explore multiple paths to creative solutions.

Bold Thinkers

A deep love of learning and respect for our community forms bold, critical thinkers for life.

All of these ideas talk of active learning. Problem solving is an active process; a process in which we massage ideas and look to be creative. Duke School encourages learners to “explore multiple paths” to answers. The world is complicated and one approach, one answer is almost never sufficient. Our students will be prepared for such a world.

The Board’s approval of these new core documents solidified Duke School’s special approach to learning. They ensured that Duke School students will not only be prepared for the 21st century but also that they will help craft solutions to a better tomorrow. I could not be more proud of a school’s direction or to be part of such an exciting community.

A Real Snow Storm

As I sit trying to determine if I should cancel or delay school tomorrow, four days after a winter storm, I am reminded that there are so many things I enjoy about being Head of Duke School. I love being with children; I love the rhythm of the school day. I enjoy seeing faculty grow and deliver a great lesson. Project culminations excite me, and the pace of the year is great. I have even made peace with the downsides--long hours, evening meetings, overseeing carlines. However, there is one part of my job with which I cannot abide.

I hate (even though my mother told me never to use that word) having to decide whether to call off or delay school because of a winter storm. Never is it lonelier, or colder, at the top than when wintery weather is on the way. The night of the impending “winter event,” I do not sleep well. I awake every hour and peek out my window, trying to pierce the darkness and see tomorrow’s weather. Then, at 5:00 am, I stumble from bed knowing I need to make a no-win decision. And what is worse, I need to make the decision with little expertise and knowing I carry a Northeastern bias.

For I am from the Northeast, where you go to school when it snows an inch or even 6. Indeed, when I first moved to the Southeast, before I was a Head of School, I appeared at my school’s parking lot more than once to learn that school had been closed because of an anticipated event or because of a flurry or two. I did not and do not understand that state of mind. However, I now work hard to realize that I am in an area that is not equipped nor experienced with snow. Where Wake County thinks fifty snow plows at the call is being “totally prepared” for a storm, I know the game has changed. Yet, I do not want to overreact and I do think that attending school is important, a good quality for a school person, I think.

So, I try to collect data at 5:00 am in the morning. I listen to the television weather reporter, who wants to oversell the storm because that draws in viewers and ad revenue. I look to see what other schools are doing, knowing the public systems must consider a myriad of factors, I do not—student drivers, buses on the road at 6:00 am and the memory of having students stuck in school overnight, not so long ago. I then look at other independent schools, knowing many of them also have student drivers. I, then, often take to the roads in my car. I try to ascertain how bad the roads are, looking for evidence of the dreaded black ice. Of course, many times the storm is predicted to hit at 7:55 am, right at drop off and my drive is for naught.

And then the loneliness hits. I know the clock is ticking. I must make a decision before 6:15 am and I know I cannot win. Students, and dare I say, teachers would love a delay or a cancellation. Two working parents need to get to work and want school opening on time. If school is open and a real storm hits, I have endangered a whole community. If I delay or call off school for a few flakes, I am a snow wimp, taken in by the Triangle snow panic. Most of these mornings I just want to go back to bed and let someone else make the decision.

However, a decision must be made and make it I will. But just once, I would love a real storm, a storm that drops a foot of snow; a snow that starts Sunday night at 8:00 pm and by the time I go to bed has dropped six inches on the ground and is going strong. Then I could make the decision that night and enjoy a restful sleep. I doubt it will happen.

-Thanks to Paul Bianchi, Head of Paideia School whose laments on snow days inspired my own.

Holiday Anticipation Starts Early

My children (and their significant others) are coming home for the holidays. Believe you me, I have envisioned how sweet it will be. The children will get up early and have breakfast with my wife and me and then happily join me on my last minute shopping trip. When we return they will be so excited when I suggest a rousing game of dominos that they will whip up some homemade cookies, and then let me win at the last moment.

Or maybe it won’t go exactly like that!

We have allowed the anticipation of the holidays to preempt the holidays themselves. As we anticipate an unrealistic, perfect event, we are, ironically, condemning ourselves to disappointment. This season let’s spend less time striving for holiday perfection and more time embracing life’s imperfections. Any occasion which brings family together and allows us time to contemplate our myriad blessings is more than enough.

So my wish for you is to have a slow holiday; a holiday that revolves around family and friends, and love and laughter. And to allow that warmth to carry you deep into a happy and healthy new year.

Happy Holidays!