It’s been such a busy year that we haven’t had nearly enough time to keep up with the website and blog. But our students have done some amazing work! Check out two of our projects from this year, Teens Intervene and Land RAFTS, on the projects page.…

At the Workshop, we spend about the first month of the school year building community: Defining what we value as a group, exploring what makes us who we are as individuals, and learning to share that with one another. We’re getting to know one another, and trying to send and reinforce the message that our students have a lot of say in what kind of community we become.…

It’s a worn out cliche, I know. But the other analogy people usually draw in this situation is to chaos theory. And the truth is that I’ve read quite a bit about that and still don’t really understand it, so I feel like a poseur using that metaphor. So wildfire it is.…

The Consortium for Chicago School Research is out with a new report on “noncognitive” factors affecting students’ academic performance. It’s a comprehensive review of the research literature on the extent to which a series of “noncognitive factors” (a misnomer, as the authors admit) such as academic behaviors, perseverance, academic mindset, learning strategies, and social skills are associated with students’ academic performance.…

Rick Hess’s post today on his Ed Week blog is a must read. Why? Because it’s written collaboratively by two school reformers who disagree profoundly on a range of issues. And it’s about where they find common ground.

I like and agree with some of their conclusions, especially the futility of centralized, command and control school reform.…

Whether I was talking to people who had launched their own nonprofits or NGOs, started schools or businesses, or worked on issues of climate change, a common theme at the Aspen festival was this: the most important skills and attributes of people who were making a difference were that they were highly creative thinkers, they were passionate about what they did, they knew how to execute on ideas, and they were able to maintain focus, learn from failure and persevere.…

Night falls; the traveler must pass down village streets, between the houses with yellow-lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards the mountains. They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back.

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Got a problem? There’s a course for that. That’s generally how we problem solve in education. Maybe that’s one reason why so little seems to change.

Last week I was lucky enough to spend three days at the Aspen Ideas Festival, talking with and learning from entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists, designers, activists, journalists, policy makers and of course other educators.…

Whether talking about glaciers or cities or people or businesses, the big problems confronting the planet reproduce at ever smaller scale: our nations, our cities, our neighborhoods, our families, even ourselves. But the reverse is true too: the work we do on even the smallest scale can literally change the world.…

A big thanks to CNN for profiling Simon and the Sustainability Workshop as part of its The Next List series!

This summer we’re working on a number of exciting projects, including running a pilot for Bright Ideas and retrofitting our garage into an energy neutral workshop space! To learn how you can support this exciting work, click here.…