Greenfields Academy leverages the latest in research and technology to reinvent education. Here is some of the work that underpins our pedagogy and inspires us.
Videos
Amanda Horvath created this mini-documentary that focuses on Acton Academy and Disruptive education. This is a great video to watch to give you a quick overview of who we are and where things are going.
This is a great video of Jeff Sandefer’s speech at SXSWedu in 2013. Jeff is the founder of our model school, Acton Academy.
Education scientist Sugata Mitra tackles one of the greatest problems of education — the best teachers and schools don’t exist where they’re needed most. In a series of real-life experiments from New Delhi to South Africa to Italy, he gave kids self-supervised access to the web and saw results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching.
In this poignant, funny follow-up to his fabled 2006 talk, Sir Ken Robinson makes the case for a radical shift from standardized schools to personalized learning — creating conditions where kids’ natural talents can flourish.
Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script — give students video lectures to watch at home, and do “homework” in the classroom with the teacher available to help.
Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.
Kiran Bir Sethi shows how her groundbreaking Riverside School in India teaches kids life’s most valuable lesson: “I can.” Watch her students take local issues into their own hands, lead other young people, even educate their parents.
Gever Tulley uses engaging photos and footage to demonstrate the valuable lessons kids learn at his Tinkering School. When given tools, materials and guidance, these young imaginations run wild and creative problem-solving takes over to build unique boats, bridges and even a roller coaster!
When 13 year-old Logan LaPlante grows up, he wants to be happy and healthy. He discusses how hacking his education is helping him achieve this goal.
Martin Seligman talks about psychology — as a field of study and as it works one-on-one with each patient and each practitioner. As it moves beyond a focus on disease, what can modern psychology help us to become?
Leaving a high-flying job in consulting, Angela Lee Duckworth took a job teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that IQ wasn’t the only thing separating the successful students from those who struggled. Here, she explains her theory of “grit” as a predictor of success.
A nice synopsis of John Dewey’s work and Progressive education.
An interview with Roger Schank about his book, Teaching Minds.
Books
Aldrich Clark, Unschooling Rules
The most powerful new ideas in education are coming from the families that have given up on schools. From his experience with homeschoolers and unschoolers, education guru Clark Aldrich distills a revolutionary manifesto of 55 core ”rules” that reboots our vision of childhood education and the role of schools.
Daniel Coyle, The Talent Code
What is the secret of talent? How do we unlock it? In this groundbreaking work, journalist and New York Times bestselling author Daniel Coyle provides parents, teachers, coaches, businesspeople—and everyone else—with tools they can use to maximize potential in themselves and others.
Roger Schank, Teaching Minds: How Cognitive Science Can Save Our Schools
From grade school to graduate school, from the poorest public institutions to the most affluent private ones, our educational system is failing students. In his provocative new book, cognitive scientist and bestselling author Roger Schank argues that class size, lack of parental involvement, and other commonly-cited factors have nothing to do with why students are not learning. The culprit is a system of subject-based instruction and the solution is cognitive-based learning. This groundbreaking book defines what it would mean to teach thinking. The time is now for schools to start teaching minds!
Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness
In this brilliant, witty, and accessible book, renowned Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert describes the foibles of imagination and illusions of foresight that cause each of us to misconceive our tomorrows and misestimate our satisfactions. Vividly bringing to life the latest scientific research in psychology, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy, and behavioral economics, Gilbert reveals what scientists have discovered about the uniquely human ability to imagine the future, and about our capacity to predict how much we will like it when we get there. With penetrating insight and sparkling prose, Gilbert explains why we seem to know so little about the hearts and minds of the people we are about to become.
Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, Nurture Shock: New Thinking About Children
One of the most influential books about children ever published, Nurture Shock offers a revolutionary new perspective on children that upends a library’s worth of conventional wisdom. With impeccable storytelling and razor-sharp analysis, the authors demonstrate that many of modern society’s strategies for nurturing children are in fact backfiring–because key twists in the science have been overlooked. Nothing like a parenting manual, NurtureShock gets to the core of how we grow, learn and live.
Angeline Stoll Lillard, Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius
One hundred years ago, Maria Montessori, the first female physician in Italy, devised a very different method of educating children, based on her observations of how they naturally learn. In Montessori, Angeline Stoll Lillard shows that science has finally caught up with Maria Montessori. Lillard presents the research behind eight insights that are foundations of Montessori education, describing how each of these insights is applied in the Montessori classroom. In reading this book, parents and teachers alike will develop a clear understanding of what happens in a Montessori classroom and, more important, why it happens and why it works. Lillard, however, does much more than explain the scientific basis for Montessori’s system: Amid the clamor for evidence-based education, she presents the studies that show how children learn best, makes clear why many traditional practices come up short, and describes an ingenious alternative that works.
Jenifer Fox, M.Ed., How to Discover and Develop Your Child’s Strengths: A Guide for Parents and Teachers
With this groundbreaking work, renowned educator Jenifer Fox argues against the flawed and maddening paradigm that “fixing”kids’ weaknesses is the way to achieve success. Rather, Fox promotes focusing on kids’ natural inclinations in three interdependent areas: Activity Strengths, Relationship Strengths, and Learning Strengths. Pairing inspiring firsthand accounts of success with practical workbook tools, alongside an outline of the award-winning strengths-based Affinities curriculum Fox has implemented in her own school, Your Child’s Strengths is a user-friendly and indispensable guide for parents, teachers, and administrators alike.
John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
With over 70,000 copies of the first edition in print, this radical treatise on public education has been a New Society Publishers’ bestseller for 10 years! Thirty years in New York City’s public schools led John Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory schooling does little but teach young people to follow orders like cogs in an industrial machine.
Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative
Ken Robinson offers a groundbreaking approach to understanding creativity in education and in business. He argues that people and organizations everywhere are dealing with problems that originate in schools and universities and that many people leave education with no idea at all of their real creative abilities. Out of Our Minds is a passionate and powerful call for radically different approaches to leadership, teaching and professional development to help us all to meet the extraordinary challenges of living and working in the 21st century.
Ken Robinson, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything
The Element is the point at which natural talent meets personal passion. When people arrive at the Element, they feel most themselves and most inspired and achieve at their highest levels. With a wry sense of humor, Ken Robinson looks at the conditions that enable us to find ourselves in the Element and those that stifle that possibility. Drawing on the stories of a wide range of people, including Paul McCartney, Matt Groening, Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, and Bart Conner, he shows that age and occupation are no barrier and that this is the essential strategy for transforming education, business, and communities in the twenty-first century.
Patric Lencioni, The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family: A Leadership Fable About Restoring Sanity to the Most Important Organization in Your Life
In this unique and groundbreaking book, business consultant and New York Times best-selling author Patrick Lencioni turns his sights on the most important organization in our lives—the family. As a husband and the father of four young boys, Lencioni realized the discrepancy between the time and energy his clients put into running their organizations and the reactive way most people run their personal lives. Having experienced the stress of a frantic family firsthand, he and his wife began applying some of the tools he uses with Fortune 500 companies at home, and with surprising results.
Salman Khan, The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined
A free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere: this is the goal of the Khan Academy, a passion project that grew from an ex-engineer and hedge funder’s online tutoring sessions with his niece, who was struggling with algebra, into a worldwide phenomenon. Today millions of students, parents, and teachers use the Khan Academy’s free videos and software, which have expanded to encompass nearly every conceivable subject; and Academy techniques are being employed with exciting results in a growing number of classrooms around the globe.
Ron Berger, An Ethic of Excellence: Building a Culture of Craftsmanship with Students
Drawing from his own remarkable experience as a veteran classroom teacher (still in the classroom), Ron Berger gives us a vision of educational reform that transcends standards, curriculum, and instructional strategies. He argues for a paradigm shift – a schoolwide embrace of an “ethic of excellence.” A master carpenter as well as a gifted teacher, Berger is guided by a craftsman’s passion for quality, describing what’s possible when teachers, students, and parents commit to nothing less than the best. But Berger’s not just idealistic, he’s realistic – he tells exactly how this can be done, from the blackboard to the blacktop to the school boardroom.
Michael Ellsberg, The Education of Millionaires: Everything You Won’t Learn in College About How to be Successful
Some of the smartest, most successful people in the country didn’t finish college. None of them learned their most critical skills at an institution of higher education. And like them, most of what you’ll need to learn to be successful you’ll have to learn on your own, outside of school. Michael Ellsberg set out to fill in the missing pieces by interviewing a wide range of millionaires and billionaires who don’t have college degrees, including fashion magnate Russell Simmons and Facebook founding president Sean Parker.
Michael Strong, The Habit of Thought: From Socratic Seminars to Socratic Practice
Teach students to think for themselves. The Habit of Thought describes the theory, practice, and vision of Socratic Practice, a novel and increasingly widespread approach to classroom instruction. In this series of thought-provoking essays, Strong argues that Socratic Practice fosters a culture of learning in the classroom and ultimately helps young people to become mature independent thinkers. The issues discussed range from the philosophical (intellectual dialogue and integrity) to the practical (classroom models and evaluation rubrics). This book is an essential resource for educators seeking to prepare their students for the challenges of the 21st century.
Clayton Christensen, Disrupting Class: How Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns
According to recent studies in neuroscience, the way we learn doesn’t always match up with the way we are taught. If we hope to stay competitive-academically, economically, and technologically-we need to rethink our understanding of intelligence, reevaluate our educational system, and reinvigorate our commitment to learning. In other words, we need “disruptive innovation.”
John Holt, How Children Learn: Classics in Child Development
This enduring classic of educational thought offers teachers and parents deep, original insight into the nature of early learning. John Holt was the first to make clear that, for small children, “learning is as natural as breathing.” In this delightful yet profound book, he looks at how we learn to talk, to read, to count, and to reason, and how we can nurture and encourage these natural abilities in our children.”
Daniel T. Willingham, Why Don’t Students Like School?
Cognitive scientist Dan Willingham focuses his acclaimed research on the biological and cognitive basis of learning. His book will help teachers improve their practice by explaining how they and their students think and learn. It reveals-the importance of story, emotion, memory, context, and routine in building knowledge and creating lasting learning experiences.
Steven M. R. Covey, The Speed of Trust
Trust, says Stephen M.R. Covey, is the very basis of the new global economy, and he shows how trust—and the speed at which it is established with clients, employees, and constituents—is the essential ingredient for any high–performance, successful organization.
Amanda Ripley, The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got That Way
In a handful of nations, virtually all children are learning to make complex arguments and solve problems they’ve never seen before. They are learning to think, in other words, and to thrive in the modern economy. What is it like to be a child in the world’s new education superpowers?
Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D. and Edward “Chip” Anderson, Ph.D., StrengthsQuest: Discover and Develop Your Strengths in Academics, Career and Beyond
StrengthsQuest gives students and educators the opportunity to develop strengths by building on their greatest talents — the way in which they most naturally think, feel, and behave as unique individuals. Grounded in Positive Psychology and the Clifton StrengthsFinder, StrengthsQuest has helped more than 700,000 people at 600 schools and universities achieve academic, career, and personal success.
Lynn Stoddard, Educating for Human Greatness
Educating for Human Greatness is the long overdue paradigm shift for the way we educate children in our public schools. This field-tested model, created by a group of master educators, broadens and deepens education so it all makes sense, yet it simplifies the process we call school. Educating for Human Greatness restores joy and enthusiasm to teaching and learning, enabling to produce superior outcomes with students. EfHG empowers everyone -students, parents, administration, legislators, and it will especially restore honor and respect to teachers- empowering them to develop as great contributors to the profession. In general, Educating for Human Greatness helps everyone fall in love with learning.
Blake Boles, College Without High School: A Teenager’s Guide to Skipping High School and Going to College
High school can be boring. High school curriculum can be frustrating and out of touch. So what is the answer for young people whose creativity, bright ideas, and boundless energy are being stifled in that over-scheduled and grade-driven environment? What would you do if you could go to college without going to high school? Would you travel abroad, spend late nights writing a novel, volunteer in an emergency room, or build your own company? What dreams would you be pursuing right now?
Nikhil Goyal, One Size Does Not Fit All: A Student’s Assessment of School
Every nine seconds, a student drops out of school. Why? For a majority, school was not relevant to them. The education system isn’t broken – it’s doing exactly what it was intended to do so – create compliant cogs in machines. It’s outdated. It’s dangerous. And it’s suppressing millions of children around the country.
Sylvia Libow Martinez and Gary Stager, Ph.D., Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering and Engineering in the Classroom
There’s a technological and creative revolution underway. Amazing new tools, materials and skills turn us all into makers. Using technology to make, repair or customize the things we need brings engineering, design and computer science to the masses. Fortunately for educators, this maker movement overlaps with the natural inclinations of children and the power of learning by doing. The active learner is at the center of the learning process, amplifying the best traditions of progressive education. This book helps educators bring the exciting opportunities of the maker movement to every classroom.
Alfie Kohn, The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing
So why do we continue to administer this modern cod liver oil-or even demand a larger dose? Kohn’s incisive analysis reveals how a set of misconceptions about learning and a misguided focus on competitiveness has left our kids with less free time, and our families with more conflict. Pointing to stories of parents who have fought back-and schools that have proved educational excellence is possible without homework-Kohn demonstrates how we can rethink what happens during and after school in order to rescue our families and our children’s love of learning.
Paul Tough, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character
Why do some children succeed while others fail? The story we usually tell about childhood and success is the one about intelligence: success comes to those who score highest on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs. But in How Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues that the qualities that matter more have to do with character: skills like perseverance, curiosity, optimism, and self-control.
Lori McWilliam Pickert, Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners
Project-based homeschooling combines children’s interests with long-term, deep, complex learning. This is an essential experience for children: to spend time working on something that matters to them, with the support of a dedicated mentor. This book is an introduction and guide to creating the circumstances under which children can teach themselves.
Greenfields Academy 