Real World Example: Iowa BIG
This post is part of a series. The earlier posts are linked at the bottom of this post.
In the last post we shared what it means to be an Objector.
Now let’s connect this compass point and its mindshifts to a group of real people..just like you and me...
Meet…Iowa Big.
In 2008, a flood devastated the town of Cedar Rapids, IA. Community members not only saw this as an opportunity to revitalize and rebuild their midwestern town, but to change the conversation around education..
Driven by curiosity, the people of Cedar Rapids saw possibility and opportunity...even in a natural disaster.
Community members enlisted two educators---Dr. Trace Pickering and Shawn Cornally---to lead the education conversation...to be objectors challenging the assumptions behind high school.
So they began with a curiosity:
How can we create the schools our community wants?
Well...what did the community want?
They wanted outcomes like...be collaborative...work in diverse groups….learn quickly from your failures...pivot...have a passion and interest area...empathize…and contribute to democracy.
And the solution to getting to these outcomes? In community conversations, Trace and Shawn continued to hear the same old solutions...…tougher standards, longer school days, fire bad teachers….
And then they had an idea….an idea for what would become The Billy Madison Project...
What if...we put business and community leaders into high schools for a day...as students? What if we created a visceral experience for adults to really feel what’s going on in the current system?
It was pretty brilliant leadership!
Driven by their radical curiosity, Trace and Shawn invited 60 business and community leaders to be high schoolers for a day.
What did they learn from their community members? Three things…
First...high school was down right boring. One community member put it bluntly: “I felt like I was in a zombie movie.”
Second, teachers were busting their tails and working harder than anyone, including their students.
Third, the idea of breaking learning into subjects? That same community member shared this…
“That’s the dumbest thing schools do. Learning without context is boring. It’s just fake.”
So then Trace and Shawn asked a new question...
How do we design a school for the outcomes this community wants?
As a result of their curiosity and their leadership, Iowa BIG was born.
Iowa BIG… a learner-centered public high school built on the principles of passion, projects and community. They’re helping redefine high school education….
IowaBIG has had an impact on hundreds of learners and thousands of community members because a couple of educators pursued their curiosities, engaged their community with a visceral experience around student learning, and embraced the call of leadership to make an impact.
What are you most curious about when it comes to being an Objector?
In the next post we’ll share some tools you can use to become a better objector.
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