the why

simon sinek’s ted about the importance of why, actually had me curious at first. why why first? how seemed awfully huge. as did what.
but it kept proving itself true.

we, the world, have been quite obsessed with the how school is done. years of study of pedagogy. our own research starting 3 years ago, asking, how would you redefine school, was focused at first on the answer to our own presupposed question, how.
what we’ve come to find from that, a smaller version of the rest of the world, is that everyone learns differently. nothing is for everyone in the how.
not very many push back on that these days. in fact most of our moneys and energies and resources go toward differentiation. how to get those core standards into each child.

what if we’re focusing on a how to a wrong what, because we haven’t taken the energy, strength, time, to ask a more critical question, why.

we presuppose a what. yet if we would but question the what, the game completely changes. for whatever reasons: the increase of web use/access in the last 5-10 years; we’re smarter; we’ve found we know so little; we’re getting back to holistic basics; back to our culture(s);.... the relativity of the what is now in question. well it always has been, but now in public ed (whatever that means) we can facilitate that.

the way to facilitate what we do under the guise of school, is to personalize to the why. the why determines the what. which determines the how.
only none of it is standard. there is no normal.