Lessons from a Taxi Driver

Steven LevyThe Teachers' Lounge9 Comments

View from inside a taxi cab

A taxi ride to the airport turned into an intuitive discovery for understanding the process of professional development. If you are an experienced teacher, you understand that when students walk into your classroom, you never really know what you are going to get, and that, “the success of our teaching depends on those moment-by-moment decisions as much as any lesson or project plan.”

How to Use a Textbook for Deeper Learning: A lesson for our times

Steven LevyThe CACE Roundtable, The Teachers' LoungeLeave a Comment

I always used textbooks in my classes … but never how they were intended. They were valuable for me, as the teacher, to identify the important ideas in whatever subject I was teaching. We didn’t have state standards then, so I relied on the wisdom of the experts to break big topics (Ancient History, Simple Machines, Colonial Life, Force and … Read More

The Third Way

Steven LevyThe Teachers' Lounge, UncategorizedLeave a Comment

The dualistic mind, upon which most of us were taught to rely, is simply incapable of the task of creating unity. It automatically divides reality into binary opposites and does almost all its thinking inside of this highly limiting frame. It dares to call this choosing of sides “thinking” because that is all it knows how to do! “Really good” … Read More

Third Thoughts on Curiosity

Richard EdlinThe Teachers' Lounge1 Comment

When one of my grandsons comes to stay, you can be sure that among the first books he plucks off the bookshelf and curls up on the couch to read is How Things Work. He has a delightful curiosity in how aspects of the created order function (such as photosynthesis or the limbic system) or how human re-creations operate (such … Read More

Second Thoughts on Curiosity

Steven LevyThe Teachers' LoungeLeave a Comment

One thing I am curious about is the heart. I wonder why your heart goes faster when you run. I am so curious about the heart that beats. –Bryannah, 2nd grade I’m curious about how a brain thinks. What does a cerebral cortex do? I want to learn more about people’s brains so I can read people’s minds. —Devon, 2nd … Read More

The Invitation to Learn

Steven LevyThe Teachers' LoungeLeave a Comment

In my previous blog, “The Hook: What’s in a Name?” I promised to share some ideas about creating engaging invitations to learn. I’ve worked with many teachers designing deeper learning projects that invite students to do “real work for real people.” One challenge we always encounter is linking the service component of the project to the standards and skills that … Read More

The Hook: What’s in a Name?

Steven LevyThe Teachers' LoungeLeave a Comment

The language we use has a real power to influence how we understand our world—and act in it. –Kristin Lin, Editor, The On Being Project My wife Joanna and I just finished facilitating two wonder-full institutes on Deeper Learning in Christian Schools and are planning a third in the Dominican Republic. David Smith has been with us (in spirit–see his … Read More