TED How schools can nurture every

student's genius?
Let me tell you about the fifth-grade students at Boze
Elementary School in Tacoma. They spend the entire
school year planning to colonize the planet Alpha
Centauri to preserve future generations. They will get
there on a multigenerational spacecraft so that the
grandkids of the people on the ship will arrive at Alpha
Centauri, ready to start a new civilization.

Now projects like these usually start with a guiding

question, and theirs is "How do you sustain life for a
generation on a spacecraft?" These 10-year-olds get into
initial conversations about governance on the
spacecraft, the necessities to have on board. Is it even
ethical to have a generation live and die on a
spacecraft? And what roles are needed to create a
functioning community? There are some whispers and
some head nods as the teacher explains to them that this
quarter, they're expected to deliver a persuasive essay, a
30-second elevator speech, a model of a section of the
spacecraft in diorama form, a system of government
with laws and a constitution, and a research display
demonstrating their knowledge of planets. That's a lot.

But these students aren't fazed, they'd been here

before. What they're interested in is what group they'll
be in and what roles they will play.

Now I don't know about you, but when I was in fifth

grade, I wasn't doing that.

But for many of these students, they have been learning

like this since kindergarten. You heard that right,
kindergarten. Shoot, when I was in fifth grade ... we sat
in cemetery rows in academically segregated
classrooms, and sadly, things have not changed. In most
schools, students are sitting, listening to the teacher, and
many of them scared to death they'll get called on to
answer a question. And too often, students are totally
deflated, because the teacher is spending more time on
classroom management than engaging them. So these
students and the generations behind them ... they are our
talent pool for everything from community
organizing to running business, to running
government, and everything in between. And as it
stands, our public education system is not cultivating
future leaders. And in particular, students of color are
constantly devalued and marginalized.

Regardless of background, students need to envision

themselves as successful in life. And how teachers
deliver the lessons plays a big role in that. The most
common way to teach is through a textbook or a series
of textbooks and a scripted curriculum. And then, let the
test decide if the students learned anything. And while
you get coverage, it leaves little room for student voice,
exploration, intellectual rigor and academic risk-
taking. This is schooling, not educating. And the long-
term impact is that students likely won't have that
autonomous spirit they need in the work
environment. This is not what most teachers signed up
for. It's not. I don't think there's a single teacher
candidate that said, "I want to be a teacher so I can help
kids pass standardized tests."

Twenty-five years ago, I left my 17-year tech career and

cofounded a nonprofit that prepared students of color for
jobs in the tech industry. And over time, we learned
about our students' experiences in the public education
system, and we began to wonder what would happen if
we rebuilt public schools to develop the genius in every
student and give them the tools to be critical
thinkers, problem solvers, ideators and leaders. So we
got a bunch of educators to help us answer that
question. Today, my job is to set the vision and
strategy for how we partner with public schools to create
collaborative, anti-racist learning
environments grounded in equity, where students can
actively participate in their own education, instead of
memorizing for tests, where the curriculum is
delivered in a way that supports the needs of our
students. Where professionals in the community are
invited to participate in teaching and learning.
The teaching and learning is built on interdisciplinary
project-based learning. One of the most equitable ways
to teach. This approach enables teachers to understand
how each student learns, use multiple ways to assess
their knowledge and then make instructional
adjustments based on the results. You know, students,
they get a chance to set their own goals. They have time
to discuss the work. They take academic risks. And
along the way, they get to discover who they are as
learners.

And speaking of learners, let's take a visit to our fifth-

grade Alpha Centaurians, and listen in as their teacher
facilitates a discussion about how Native Americans
live. They talk about the logistics and the preparation
behind the colonizers' move out West, and how
colonizers always had conflicts with Native
Americans. And the students vow that they will do
better on Alpha Centauri. They will ensure that
everyone has equal rights and lives well. And you better
believe it will be part of their constitution. And if you
poke your head in the classroom next door, which is
rather loud, you will see the kids are in their small
groups, using their math skills to calculate the human
capacity for their spacecraft. And another set of students
will be working on their planet research. When we visit,
a week or so later, there might be a visiting
engineer talking to the students about design
specifications. Or the classroom could be empty because
the students are at the Museum of Flight, sitting in real
spacecraft and learning how they work. Bringing that
authentic context to learning helps students retain
knowledge and generate new ideas.

After weeks and weeks of working on their projects and

giving each other authentic, supportive feedback, and
doing that fine-tuning, the students are ready for the big
day -- the exhibition of learning. This is where hundreds
of people from the community, the most important
members being their parents and families, come to see
the students present their work. The students are all
dressed up. They're a little nervous, they're excited at the
same time -- kind of like me right now.
And the teachers are beaming with pride as they
recognize how far each student has come in their
learning journey. OK, and the parents? The parents are
high-fiving, and "You get it, girl!" And "That's my
baby," and "You go, boy." And there's just so much
praise. And the students feel accomplished and more
confident.

This is project-based learning in action. These students

are developing the advanced critical thinking skills they
will use throughout their lives. They are learning
through exploration. There is confirmation their unique
voice matters. These students have the freedom to create
a world, with their ten-year-old imaginations, that's
actually grounded in academic rigor. This is
educating ... versus schooling. Yeah?

There is teacher support, diverse interactions ... team-

building and practical application of reading, writing,
math and science. An environment where real learning
is happening, and students are discovering their own
genius. Plus, I have to say, it's just a lot of fun to learn
this way.
Students who attend our partner schools ... learn this
way in every single stage of their academic
career. Starting in kindergarten, students are encouraged
to share their views, to ask questions and support each
other. They are creating a community and an
environment that is safe and their own. In middle
school, the students are starting to become socially
aware. They care about things like world hunger,
immigration and homelessness.

One year, the seventh-graders at TAF at Saghalie in

Federal Way turned their classrooms into an
immigration museum exploring the historic and
contemporary issues of immigration. And the sixth-
graders use food to learn about each other's
cultures. They created cookbooks with recipes and
stories from their countries of origin. And then on
exhibition night, they cooked for everybody, and it was
actually pretty good.
By the time students get to high school, they have
enough experience that they can address a wide range of
issues and opportunities. A group of 10th-graders
created wearable technology that detected the flare-up
signs in sickle-cell anemia. Experiencing gentrification
in their own neighborhoods, 11th-graders created plans
and models for equitable, financially sustainable urban
neighborhoods. The list goes on and on. This ... This is
how we develop the strong, the strong leaders and
critical thinkers of tomorrow. Our students deserve to
learn in an environment that includes and understands
their unique voice, their individual genius. If we are
going to rebuild public education, we have to be on a
continuous cycle of recognizing, intentionally
undoing, and, ultimately, replacing the institutional
practices that undereducate and harm our children.

And there are a couple of things that we can do right

now. We could reallocate the tens of millions of
dollars each state spends on standardized tests every
year.
And we can invest the majority of that in teacher
professional development so that our teachers can
continually hone their instructional and assessment
skills. And then, we could take the rest and invest it in a
national effort to curate authentic assessment
methods and projects from teachers all over the
country. I believe that this will bring joy and
respect back to teaching. We also need to embed racial
equity in the DNA of how we operate schools.

Achieving racial equity is a journey that requires

dedication, consistency and accountability. It needs to be
normalized as part of the daily practice of principals,
administrators, teachers and staff.

We can do this. We can. All it takes is political

will. Education either functions as an instrument to bring
about conformity or freedom. Let’s give our
children freedom.