In my view, all schools should be required to teach peace and conflict resolution to all students at all grade levels. Peace and conflict resolution must have a seat at the curriculum table to achieve lasting peace in our world. Peace education is dramatically more valuable and important than many courses students are required to take in school. Did you know that high school students forget about 85% of what they learn, due in large part to the fact that many required courses are totally irrelevant to their lives and interests? They sit for hours in boring classes, sleep or listen to boring lectures, read textbooks, take notes, cram for tests and promptly dump the data from their brains after the tests. I believe nearly everyone is interested in getting along well and peacefully with others. If peace education and conflict resolution at interpersonal, local, national and global levels played a significant role in education globally, our world would be far more peaceful and prosperous for all. Organizations such as Peace Education Center, http://www.tc.edu/peaceed of Teachers College at Columbia University are certainly doing their part to move us forward.

Distracted, the mother said to her boy,
“Do you try to upset and perplex and annoy?
Now, give me four reasons – - and don’t play the fool – -
why you shouldn’t get up and get ready for school.”

Her son replied slowly, “Well, mother, you see,
I can’t stand the teachers and they detest me;
and there isn’t a boy or a girl in the place
that I like or, in turn, that delights in my face.”

“And I’ll give you two reasons why you ought
get yourself off to school before you get caught;
because, first, you are forty, and, next, you young fool,
it’s your job to be there,” she said.
“You’re the head of the school.”

There were days during my headship tenure when I didn’t feel like getting up and going to school. Thankfully, there weren’t many, in part because I’m a disaster junkie. Schools are breeding grounds for disasters, crises, sabotage, political shenanigans and all sorts of trouble. So if you’re a disaster junkie too, you should consider getting into the business of school leadership. I loved it and you will too.

But I wouldn’t have survived without my executive coach. If you’re the head of a school and don’t have a mother to get you out of bed, I highly recommend executive coaching.

Students learn and remember what they learn when teaching, learning and curricula are inquiry-based and authentic—relevant to the “real” world, and transdisciplinary—integrated and enriched across and by the disciplines or subject areas. Learning must go beyond memorization and skill acquisition to the mastery of content and “higher level” thinking that provides students with the ability to apply what they learn to new situations, solve problems, and create new ideas and knowledge. Memorizing facts and information is not the most important skill in today’s world. Facts change, and information is readily available. Humans of all ages construct understanding of the world though inquiry. Inquiry is not so much about finding the right answer, because often there is none, but rather seeking solutions to problems and understanding of issues.

Although the content of disciplines is important, learning content is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The knowledge within disciplines is constantly expanding and changing. It is impossible to learn everything, but everyone can develop inquiry skills and attitudes. Our arcane high school education system is a massive waste of time and resources. The mandatory feeding by teachers and regurgitation by students are reminiscent of the Roman excesses depicted in Fellini’s Roma.

As Roland Barth articulates so well, “All too often, the adult relationships are (in that wonderful phrase from preschool education) parallel play. For hours at a time, two- and three-year-olds in a sandbox can be so engrossed in themselves, in their own work and project and tools, that they are oblivious to anybody else in the sandbox. This is thought to be a stage of development through which two- and three-year-olds soon pass on their way to far more sophisticated forms of human interaction. But I’d say that parallel play characterizes most of what I see going on in schools.

The self-contained classroom is parallel play. The English department that doesn’t interact with the math department is parallel play. One school doing one thing, the school a mile down the road doing something different, oblivious to each other, is parallel play. Parallel play is endemic. It’s as if we have a case of professional arrested development. When adult relationships in schools are interactive, too often they are adversarial. As one teacher said, “You know we educators have drawn our wagons into a circle and trained our guns…on each other.” As if there aren’t enough people outside shooting at schools.”

Research clearly demonstrates that student learning correlates directly to adult learning. A faculty culture characterized by enthusiastic commitment to learning and personal growth, collaboration, and unremitting devotion to each and every student’s success is essential. In our schools, we need to elevate learning at all levels above all other concerns, activities and goals, and value dearly experimentation, new ideas, adventure and discovery. Teachers must teach teachers, observe each other, give constructive feedback, and collaborate across disciplines and languages. Learning is at its best in a school culture, created by adults and students, that values leaning above all else.

EDUCATION and LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Hollinger International helps clients establish and improve schools and education programs, and strengthen education and nonprofit leadership.

Education

• School and Education Program Design, Start-Up and Improvement
• International Baccalaureate Programme Implementation and Authorization
• Language and Dual-Language Immersion Programs
• Inquiry-Based, Interdisciplinary and Trans-Disciplinary Curriculum, Teaching and Learning
• Student Performance Improvement
• Faculty Training and Professional Development

Leadership

• Leadership Development and Coaching
• Organizational and Faculty Culture Assessment and Improvement
• Collaborative Team Development
• Strategic Planning and Governance