[xmca] A Tale of Two Worlds: B-School and High School

[Lois Holzman <lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org>]

Apropos of mutual concerns with how schooling is done, with learning,  
play and schooling, with play and performance, and with inside and  
outside of school learning,  I am passing along this short column - A  
Tale of Two Worlds: B-School and High School - that appeared today in  
the Huffington Post, authored by Ellen Galinsky.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-galinsky/a-tale-of-two-worlds-b-sc_b_424540.html


I've spent the past eight years immersed in the science of early  
learning, working with researchers from the world's great  
universities. We have distilled this science into seven essential life  
skills you can teach your children (not typical academic achievement- 
oriented skills. Real life skills). The result of this journey is Mind  
in the Making, a book, awareness campaign, and teaching approach to  
early learning. The best thing about these skills is that you can  
apply them to your daily life, no matter how old you are. Each week,  
I'll share with you real-life examples of these skills at play, and I  
encourage you to share your observations with me on Twitter  
(@ellengalinsky). Here is my first story:

World One:
Picture this: a group of young people from Youth Onstage have created  
and are performing a play called Work, Play & You--A Love/Hate  
Triangle at New York City's Castillo Theater:

Here is one of the first scenes called "Security Check:"
Some of the young people in the cast play security guards; others play  
students waiting to be checked into their school building. They have  
obviously created this scene from their own experiences attending  
inner city schools. Because the scene is so powerful, I will share it  
with you from the play's script:
Guard 1: Come on, come on. If you were any slower, you'd be going  
backwards.
Guard 2: Take that hat off. And get those rainbows out of your pockets.
Student: Hey, man I got the right to have rainbows in my pockets.
Guard 3: Don't give us no attitude. Empty 'em. Now!
(Student 1 empties his pockets and exits.)
(Second student comes through.)
Guard 2: Wait a minute. Is that glitter?
Student 2: (holding up the bag) Yes, it is--this backpack is sprinkled  
with happiness.
Guard 2: Go back outside and clean it off.
(Student 2 goes back out.)
(Third student comes through smiling.)
Guard 2: Discard that smile.
(Student has a hard time getting rid of her smile.)
Guard 2: Do you want it ripped off your face?
(She stops smiling and is waved in. Fourth student comes through.)
Guard 1: Wait, wait, do you see what I see in that bag?
(Guards 2 and 3 look.)
Guard 3: Yes, it's definitely a glimmer of hope.
Guard 2: (opening bag, taking the hope out) We'll keep that. If it's  
still alive at the end of the semester, you can have it back.
Student 4: Please officer, I need that hope. It won't hurt anyone.
Guard 2: Hope has no place in school. Get to class.
(Student 4 exits. Fifth student come in looking very sad.)
Guard 1: She looks depressed enough for school.
Guard 2: Yeah, she's fine, let her through.
(Student 2 returns.)
Guard 1: Her bag's clean now.
Guard 2: Yeah, but she's a troublemaker. Scan her.
Guard 3: Okay, assume the position. Spread 'em, spread em.
(Student 2 holds her arms out and spreads her legs. Guard 3 scans her.  
Looks in student's hair.)
Guard 3: Wow! There's dreams in her weave.
Guard 1: You've got some attitude problem, girl. Go home and wash  
those dreams out of your hair. Don't come back until they're gone.
Guard 2: I don't know what's wrong with kids these days.
(Sixth student enters.)
Guard 1: This bag has set off every alarm.
Guard 2: Open it up.
(Sixth student takes things out of bag.)
Guard 1: Self respect? You know that's against the rules here.
Guard 2: Songs? Creativity is banned.
Guard 3: Imagination!
(The Security Guards are shocked.)
Student 6: I need my imagination.
Guard 1: Not here you don't.
Guard 3: This one's a real criminal.
All Three Guards: You're expelled!

As this powerful play, directed by Dan Friedman, continues, there is  
scene after scene where a character named Work and a character named  
Play compete for "everyman." As one of the actors says in the  
beginning of the play: "When you go to school, you're forced to leave  
play at home or on the street or wherever. They just don't want it in  
the classroom."

World Two
I saw this play on Sunday January the 10th, and following the play  
served as one of the discussants for a conversation with the audience  
and the cast. Then I went home and turned to the most serious of  
serious sections of the Sunday New York Times, the business section.

And there I read a front page article by Lane Wallace, entitled,  
"Multicultural Critical Theory. At B-School? The point of this article  
is that business school students need to learn the essential skills of  
critical thinking and perspective taking. As the article says,  
students need "to learn how to approach problems from many  
perspectives and to combine various approaches to find innovative  
solutions."

Lest you think that this is only a radical idea, it is being  
implemented at such august B-Schools as Harvard and Stanford and the  
C.E.O. of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business,  
John J. Fernandes, estimates that while about 25 percent of  
association-accredited schools are changing their curriculum to  
develop more sustainable leaders now, he expects that figure to reach  
75 percent in 10 years.

B-Schools are making these changes because they lead to better  
results--future business leaders who can possibly make better decisions.

So it was a day of two worlds--the world of high school education  
where students have to leave their best selves at the door and the  
world of business schools, where some of the leading institutions are  
revising their programs to help students obtain important life skills.

Is A Reconciliation Of These Two Worlds Possible?

That is the hope of the students from Youth Onstage and the play's  
conclusion. I certainly hope they are right.

Having spent the past eight years studying how children learn and  
filming many of the best experiments in neuroscience, cognitive  
science, and child development research, it is clear to me that  
education must focus on what is learned (content AND life skills) and  
how it is taught (using techniques that include what researcher Kathy  
Hirsh-Pasek of Temple University and her colleagues are calling  
playful learning).

I also know that these essential life skills of critical thinking and  
perspective taking develop early and that there are hundreds of  
everyday ways that teachers and parents can nurture them. We shouldn't  
have to wait until graduate school to try to reintroduce them to  
students. If we do, we are losing far too many students and potential  
leaders along the way.

Lois Holzman, Director
East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy
920 Broadway, 14th floor
New York NY 10010
tel. 212.941.8906 ext. 324
fax 718.797.3966
lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org
www.eastsideinstitute.org
www.performingtheworld.org
loisholzman.org



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