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FIRST EDITION
Chris: For Jakob and Theo—this book represents the best ideas I've had about what I hope school can be for you. And for Kat, without whom I would never have done any of this.
Zac: For my parents, who taught me there are many wonderful ways to learn. And for my Uncle David.
Chris Lehmann is the founding principal of Science Leadership Academy, a progressive science and technology high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Considered a national ed-tech thought leader, Chris was named Outstanding Leader of the Year by the International Society of Technology in Education in 2013 and in 2014 was awarded the prestigious “Rising Star” McGraw Prize in Education.
Science Leadership Academy (SLA) is an inquiry-driven, project-based, one-to-one laptop school that is considered to be one of the pioneers of the School 2.0 movement nationally and internationally. A partnership with Philadelphia's Franklin Institute science museum, the school was recognized by Ladies Home Journal as one of the Ten Most Amazing Schools in the United States and has been recognized as an Apple Distinguished School. SLA has been highlighted on the PBS NewsHour as well as a broad range of publications such as Edutopia, Education Week, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
In 2013, Chris spearheaded the drive to expand the SLA model to a second Philadelphia high school, SLA @ Beeber, and has signed on to start an additional Philadelphia middle school. He continues to work with schools and districts all over the world as a consultant. In 2013, he cofounded the non-profit Inquiry Schools with Diana Laufenberg, where he serves as superintendent and chair of the board. The non-profit's mission is to expand SLA's inquiry-driven approach to more schools.
Among his many honors, Chris has been named by the White House as a Champion of Change for his work in education reform, heralded as one of Dell's #Inspire100 (one of the one hundred people changing the world using social media), named as one of the “30 Most Influential People in EdTech” by Technology & Learning magazine and received the Lindback Award for Excellence in Principal Leadership.
A popular speaker, Chris has spoken at conferences all over the world, including TEDxPhilly, TEDxNYED, the National Association of Secondary Schools Conference, SXSW, SXSWedu, the Building Learning Communities conference, the International Society of Technology in Education, and the International Conference on Technology and Education, and at the Central and Eastern European Schools Association Conference. Chris has written for such education publications as Principal Leadership, Learning and Leading with Technology, and the School Library Journal. He is coeditor of What School Leaders Need to Know about Digital Technologies and Social Media and the author of the education blog Practical Theory.
Chris received his B. A. in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania and his M. A. in English education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Chris returned to his native Philadelphia to start SLA after nine years as an English teacher, technology coordinator, girls' basketball coach and Ultimate Frisbee coach at the Beacon School in New York City, one of the leading urban public schools for technology integration. He is perhaps most proud to be father to Jakob and Theo. You can find Chris on Twitter at @chrislehmann.
Zac Chase loves learning and teaching. For eight years, Zac taught 8–12 grade students English—first in Sarasota, Florida, and then in Philadelphia at Science Leadership Academy (SLA). He is a National Fellow for the Institute for Democratic Education in America. An original Freedom Writer Teacher, he's worked with teachers nationally through the Freedom Writers Foundation. Additionally, Zac works with teachers, schools, and school districts across the country as a consultant focused on reflective practice and the thoughtful combination of pedagogy and technology for teaching and learning. He has also worked internationally with schools and systems in Canada, Kenya, Malaysia, South Africa, and Pakistan to consider the intersection of learning, inquiry, reflective pedagogy, technology, and project-based learning. He is driven to investigate the role and importance of creativity, improvisation, and care in teaching and learning.
When not engaged directly in the work of helping schools and teachers improve their practice, Zac has his head down in a book, a blog, or the latest piece of education research.
Zac earned his M. E. in education policy and management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, his master of teaching and learning in curriculum and instruction at NOVA Southeastern University, and his B. A. in English education from Illinois State University. A founding cochair of SLA's EduCon, Zac has presented at conferences around the country, including FETC, NCTE, IntegratED PDX and SF, and ISTE.
Zac has written for the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy and the Education Week blog, and cowrote and edited the New York Times bestseller Teaching Hope. He blogs regularly at autodizactic.com and has taught and performed improvisational comedy since 1999. He works as an instructional technology coordinator in the St. Vrain Valley School District in Colorado, where he works with other district leaders as well as within schools to help leverage technology in support of learning and teaching. Through 2014–2015, Zac is on detail to the U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Technology as a ConnectED Fellow. He is committed to creating deep, authentic, and engaging learning for all through the innovative use of resources. You can find him on Twitter at @MrChase.
These three essential questions form the basis of instruction at the Science Leadership Academy (SLA), a Philadelphia high school opened in September 2006. SLA is built on the notion that inquiry is the very first step in the process of learning. Developed in partnership with The Franklin Institute and its commitment to inquiry-based science, SLA provides a vigorous, college-preparatory curriculum with a focus on science, technology, mathematics, and entrepreneurship. Students at SLA learn in a project-based environment where the core values of inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation, and reflection are emphasized in all classes.
The structure of SLA reflects its core values, with longer class periods to allow for more laboratory work in science classes and performance-based learning in all classes. In addition, students in the upper grades have more flexible schedules to allow for opportunities for dual enrollment programs with area universities and career development internships in laboratory and business settings, as well as with The Franklin Institute.
At SLA, learning is not just something that happens from 8:30 A. M. to 3:00 P. M., but a continuous process that expands beyond the four walls of the classroom into every facet of our lives.
The book exists because of the incredible spirit, joy, and hard work of everyone at the Science Leadership Academy—students, teachers, parents, and partners. The book also would never have happened without our friend and colleague Diana Laufenberg. She puts up with us both, and her friendship and counsel make us both better, and many of the ideas expressed in this book were workshopped with Diana. We probably need to apologize to her for all the stress this book caused her, just because she's our friend.
The book is peppered with references to friends and mentors we've known and collaborated with over the years, whose ideas and passion have informed our ideas and made us better teachers—folks like Mike Thayer, Chris Johnson, Jose Vilson, Audrey Watters, Tom Sobol, Bud Hunt, Will Richardson, David Warlick, Gary Stager, Sylvia Martinez, Jaime Casap, Marge Neff, Shelly Pavel, Janet Samuels, Melinda Anderson, Ira Socol, Pam Moran, John Spencer, David Jakes, Christian Long, Trung Le, Marilyn Perez, Simon Hauger, Lisa and Michael Clapper, Darlene Porter, Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, Paul Oh, Christina Cantrill, Dean Shareski, Dan Meyer, Stephen Stoll, and Ruth Lacey.
This book owes an incredible debt to the most patient editor in the world, Kate Bradford, and all the folks at Jossey-Bass Wiley who were incredibly patient with two very slow writers. Finally, thank you to our families who have put up with us through all the drafts. For Chris, that means a special thank-you to my incredible wife, Kat Stein, who probably hopes I never write another book ever again.
These pages also owe their existence to the students, teachers, and families of SLA. The work and learning they do together each day and through the years shows that these ideas are more than theories. They live and breathe these ideas as practices to be refined and reflected on toward building a better future and society.
Finally, thank you to those teachers in our lives throughout our years as students. To those who took the time to know us, to engage our curiosities, and to help us discover our worlds and the world at large: we stand on your shoulders and do what we can in hope of honoring your work.
It's an unusual high school that attracts teachers from across the country to work there. When the first SLA opened in 2006, I read along from my home in Flagstaff, Arizona, as Chris told the story of turning a Philadelphia office space into a school. The next year, when Zac left students he cherished in Florida to join the SLA faculty, I too thought about what it might mean to leave a place I loved to also walk that path.
While adventurous, I am still a Midwesterner at heart. Instead of just taking the leap, I dipped my toe in the water by attending the first-ever EduCon in January 2008. It was there that I first met Zac and Chris in person. The conference was intimate and thought-provoking, and as I headed home to Arizona I already had an inkling of what would happen next. By April, Chris offered me a position teaching kids history for the next year.
Joining the staff of Science Leadership Academy was like coming in from the cold for a little while. The environment for learning was superb, the teachers were and continue to be the most densely talented teaching staff, and there was still so much to vision and create as the school grew. Our days were spent minimizing the administrivia that can overwhelm the job and focusing on how to craft meaningful educational experiences, how to support the students and ourselves appropriately, and how to build the systems that would foster this environment. It was a heavy lift for all of us, but so worth the effort.
The school continues to be a magnet for people who feel that something has been missing from education, and teachers continue to pack up in other states to take jobs there. This book is the record of that work, the result of thousands of hours of verbal banter, arguments, jokes, heartfelt confessions, and frustrations, all of which breathe life into the school we all needed—students, parents, and staff alike.
During my four years there, I spent countless hours with Zac and Chris taking care of the administration and long-term planning for the school. Our work flow was definitely unusual. We spent (too) many late nights working around Chris's desk, cycling between watching West Wing clips on YouTube, sharing thought-provoking blog posts, quoting pithy tweets, being full-on ridiculous, and cranking out the work. I could tell you that we were efficient, but I'd be lying. Effective, yes, but efficient, no. Though the two of them may tell you that I was the “least fun” one, always trying to keep us on task, I stretched myself greatly while I was there with them. The farm kid born of efficiency had to stop and question not just whether the work was getting done, but whether our work honored the people we were working and learning with along the way. We were the model of distracted productivity, and it was grand.
Building School 2.0 is born of that distracted productivity, a blend of humanity and scholarly inquiry that fuels the daily dialogue at SLA. When we had a particularly challenging stretch, we truly would search to find the value of each school day. When we started taking ourselves a little too seriously, we reminded each other that humility matters and to not become ego-invested in our work. On those really amazing days when the teaching and learning flowed ever so smoothly, we reveled in how lucky we were to be teachers. And on almost a daily basis, we would be silly—and I mean really silly, the kind that leaves you teary-eyed and with sore abs. This book captures so much of what we cherish in that school environment, so much of what we are all still working to sustain at SLA and create in new learning environments.
Building School 2.0 is not a checklist of measurables or quantifiable data. The ninety-five “theses” here are the conversations to have with your friends over dinner, questions you can explore with your colleagues throughout the year, challenges to construct more modern and humane spaces for our most cherished resource: our students. When pondering the idea of School 2.0, stop arguing about the tests and the standards and the apps. Start considering that within this book are the beginnings of a dialogue that can change the way you create learning spaces for all the people at your schools. A dialogue that needs to be as unique and varied as the educational spaces that inhabit our world.
Chris and Zac have taken painstaking care to craft for us a window into a school committed to a set of classic ideals powered by modern tools, a place willing to critically question its own best ideas. While the three of us no longer work in the same space, reading this book was like coming in from the cold again. This is what it was like to sit in that office for four years while bantering, celebrating, crying, laughing, debating, and working. I miss it terribly, but this book takes me to a timeless place where that ethos can live and inspire more learning communities.
Diana Laufenberg