We partner with individuals, classrooms, schools, and organizations to foster new conversations and a new vision for schooling at the local and national levels.
Here we share the stories from students, educators, parents, leaders, and community members across the country. Each story is an expression of an individual's hopes, fears, joys, and aspirations. Each story is unique and powerful on its own. Together they are the collective dreams of a nation.
We hope you will enjoy browsing and sharing your thoughts. You can search for your state, or people you know by using the search bar. Intrigued, Inspired?! Sign up to be a Catalyst!
"I supposedly went to one of the best schools in the world and I felt like I got very little out of it. I felt a sense of shame because I didn't take 5 advanced placement courses or go to one of the top schools in the country. When everyone gets accepted to schools, they would list all of the colleges everyone went to--Brown, Stanford, etc. And then they listed my school, which was misspelled. They never expressed that it’s okay to not go to one of the top of schools in the country."
Read MoreEducation specifically is something that’s similar to parenting, where everyone thinks that, because they went to school, or because they had a parent, they are somehow experts. So it’s like “Oh, it went fine for me, that’s proof enough that it works.”... People spout a lot of opinions as fact, without a lot to back it up with.
Read MoreSome people would blame the teachers, some people would blame poverty, some would blame our values as a country, some people would blame unions, some would blame the “corporate reformers,” or charter schools, etc. My main feeling is that everyone’s right in some respects, but all of our views are also incomplete. In our field, we’ve had so much focus on ‘why not’ that I think we’re better off working on how we all can think differently about what’s possible for the future.
Read MoreWhat I see is a lot of little things being addressed but the whole child outcome isn’t really changing. That’s a common view with people I talk to. It’s highlighted in this area: there’s a huge percentage of kids who just don’t make it through, or they make it through and then what? What is the path? If there’s no path that helps them to that life of choice and independence and healthy relationships, then what has been the point of the 18 years?
Read MoreI want them to appreciate that financial security can give them an element of freedom in their lives, while also recognizing that buying things isn’t where that joy is going to come from. Another way to look at it is that stability starts with balance. So really, a balanced life is what I want for them.
Read MoreThe useful lesson was that you’re not just consuming a world created by other people – you’re living in a world that you’re creating and what you create is just as good as what other people are creating. That really affects my life – feeling like you’re creating parts of the world with people around you, not just living in a world created by others.
Read MoreI think that school should make them feel comfortable thinking about what a good life is for themselves, and encourage them to value their own perspective on what it means to be successful, and pay attention to what it is that makes them feel the most satisfied. That doesn’t mean necessarily that school will allow them to feel satisfied all the time, but it should help them understand how to listen to that within themselves.
Read MoreI would like an education system in which we would have space for kids to develop at their own pace without being labeled, where kids could pursue and explore various different things, where they weren’t bound to desks and could be doing all kinds of other things, where they could have a democratic sense of the world around them - with a voice and a stake.
Read MoreShouldn’t that be the goal of education?....To make you grow up – and become a productive adult member of society. At the time you finish college or whatever school experience you want to do, that’s what you should be – someone who’s contributing to society.
Read MoreWe essentially decided it was better to have her happy in one language than unhappy in two...
We felt like the most important thing a school can do is keep alive her sense of curiosity and sense of enthusiasm for learning. Which, I think, most kids at that age have. There’s a natural joy to most five and six year-olds. They like to play and enjoy engaging in new things. If the school can keep that alive in them and not “school” it out of them, we figured that would be the best possible thing.
Read MoreYour education is not just facts – those change all the time – especially when your career is on the edge of science. In 2-3 years, everything I know will be outdated, but the mechanism of how I got to the knowledge I have now is what’s valuable.
Read MoreThat’s the hardest part of it all: It’s not mean people making these decisions to hurt kids, it’s good people, decent people, people who genuinely believe themselves to be doing the right thing who are all kinds of caught in the system where they’re having to mediate and turn the same crank because of the consequences. ... That’s where the struggle is. It’s not between good people and bad people, it’s between all of us as just people trying to do the best we can and having very, very different opinions about what that looks like.
Read More"You want them to be academically successful. But, part of that skill building is ideally helping them become good people. Somebody who is an activist and an advocate for those people on the fringes, somebody who doesn’t shy away from saying the unpopular thing even though it’s the right thing."
Read More"I think the idea of the “standard child” or the “baseline child” or test score ranges...that’s all very limiting. It doesn’t leave room for the unique child, which is probably what we would be better off having. I think everything is so standardized and when you do that, you take away what’s on the fringes. What’s on the fringe is often times the most vibrant and most powerful.”
Read MoreI just don’t think any two students learn the same way, even identical twins. As an identical twin, Chris was always much better in numerical subjects and I actually was better in science and he was just a way better test taker. He was the first one done and he was the top of the class, and I would not be. Chris got better grades than me and typically in classes that had more tests he did a lot better. The grading system made it so that there is a very explicit comparison point between my brother and I.
Read MoreThere needs to be a shift in terms of public perception and agreement about what it is were trying to do. Over the years its become so outcome based in terms of testing that we’ve lost sight of what were really doing is helping human beings to develop and grow. So I think I would say if we could get to an educational culture that valued growth and development and was less interested in measurable outcomes because were not creating little robots and I think that’s what the educational system has evolved into. We almost treat children as little entities or production units.
Read MoreYou should learn morality and things in a public school. Something I want to see my kids have as an experience that I didn’t have is exposure to diversity. By that I mean being surrounded by people that aren’t like you and learning how to form relationships with them. Also just exploring really diverse ideas and being developing a global mindset is important from a really young age. When I think of that, I also think about being a child and if you were presented with all of these different ideas, how do you ever figure out what is right or wrong? How do you make sense of the world? Schooling must be coupled with a moral base.
Read MoreI think it’s natural for us to think about schooling as that road to a career. I think that’s very traditional and I think that’s a part of it but I think the other part is nurturing some of those passions in ways that kids might not have envisioned for themselves or their parents might not have envisioned for them.
Read MoreThe most important thing school has done for me is to teach me how to learn new stuff. I went to school for a lot of years and I remember very little of what I learned in any class. What I get paid to do right now I didn’t learn to do in school, but I was able to learn it because in school I learned to not be afraid of learning.
Read MoreI would draw the distinction between education and development, because I think the two are not the same thing. I’ve had the opportunity to have a great education. I got to go to MIT twice and there are great teachers in every possible field at MIT. But the things that changed me a great deal were the adults who took an interest in my life, which included my first real boss when I was in high school, when I was working for a chain of laundries, who was a small businessman and he had employees and he treated them well and it was a long-term business. I learned a lot from him.
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