This article appeared as "Strand Theory" in the Fall 2023 issue of Independent School.When I’m working with boards and leadership teams, I often ask them to reflect on their school’s purpose—why does the organization exist? What makes it unique? I ask them to consider what they would never want the school to lose and the most important work they do.
You might think that they’d reply with a list of specific programs, curriculum, or academic outcomes. But they generally don’t. Rather, community, relationships, contributing to society, and joy are the most common attributes that typically emerge as being core to their school’s purpose. These conversations often converge around the idea that while there are essential content and skills that need to be mastered in school, the signature ingredient of independent schools is their commitment to transcend the assumed aspects of school in order to transform lives. Our missions ground us in a higher purpose.
Yet, when we honestly look at the daily lived experience in our communities, we often see a gap between what we do and the purpose we aspire to live. The machine often seems to get in the way of the magic.
So, how do we design school to realize our aspirations, to be more about transformation and less about what Stanford’s Denise Pope refers to as “doing school?” I’ve been obsessed with this question for more than 20 years. NAIS’s New View EDU podcast was created to explore this idea. What is the purpose of school, now in this moment, and how do we design it to ensure that we are living fully into our purpose?
After 40 podcast episodes and hundreds of school visits, I’ve come to believe that we can live into that purpose we so often describe when we design a student experience that weaves together four unique and interconnected strands. These four strands, intentionally considered and working together, help schools transform lives, give students the skills they need to thrive no matter what they decide to do, and make the world a better place.
Strand 1: Curricular Learning
To get a sense of the first strand, imagine a “traditional” approach to school where the teacher is metaphorically in the front of the room. The goal is to deliver a sequential curriculum that facilitates an individual student’s acquisition of important knowledge and skills. In the first strand, the teacher’s knowledge, expertise, and skill are leveraged to help students make progress. When most people think of school, images of first-strand learning come to mind.When thinking about the first strand, it’s important to consider who is in the center of the designed experience—generally speaking, it’s the teacher who is designing, delivering, and evaluating the learning. The students are generally passive, compliant recipients of the lesson—all doing roughly the same thing, at the same time.
There’s no question we need teachers who are masters in particular domains and there are times when they need to share that knowledge directly with students. Direct teaching done well can be a powerful tool for learning. However, I think we need to ask ourselves, do we rely too much on strand-one teaching?
When I started my teaching career in a fourth-grade classroom, the vast majority of my lessons were firmly grounded in the first strand. I orchestrated the entire classroom experience. Don’t get me wrong, I think I was a good teacher with the best intentions. I think my lessons were engaging and productive, and I know my students learned stuff. And, if I’m being honest with myself, I have to admit that my students didn’t have a lot of choice. I essentially told them what to do—pretty much all of the time.
The designed experience was too much about me. I thought great teaching was tidy. I was fixated on designing lessons that went as planned. I strived to remove ambiguity and struggle. In fact, I felt it was my responsibility to step in whenever students hit a wall. I thought it was my job to break down the wall or carry them over it. I removed productive struggle and, in doing so, took away the opportunity for them to construct their own learning.
How is this strand present in your school today? Consider:
- What percentage of the day are students participating in strand-one learning?
- When is strand-one learning most effective?
- What is in place when strand-one learning is done well?
- What opportunities do you have to reach beyond strand one?
- How do parents feel about strand-one learning? Are they asking for something different?
- What are the challenges associated with moving beyond strand one?
Strand 2: Flow Learning
In the second strand, the designed experience moves beyond teacher-centered content learning to focus on the whole student. This is where individual agency, belonging, and well-being are woven in. In the second strand, teachers learn to step back, to transition from delivery to design, from control to facilitation. In the second strand, we become the architects of the learning environment and leave the cognitive construction to the students, who as individuals are empowered to go deep and, in doing so, gain a deeper understanding of themselves.By doing this, we create the space for students to experience productive struggle, which Tyler Thigpen, founder of the Institute for Self-Directed Learning, defines as “the process of effortful learning that develops grit and creativity. It looks and feels like learners tackling challenging tasks, making mistakes, and persevering to learn.”
We’re also designing an environment where students are able to achieve a state of flow, a concept developed by the late University of Chicago psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in which you are completely absorbed in an activity. Flow is characterized by a sense of energized focus and deep enjoyment and has been found to promote feelings of relaxation and rejuvenation. Research has shown that participating in activities that lead to flow can reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression and increase self-worth. Flow learning unlocks self-efficacy, passion, engagement, and the joy that comes from accomplishing hard things.
To create the conditions for flow, the student has to have choice and time, the activity must be challenging and complex, and there needs to be a clear goal that is both ambitious and achievable. Designing for flow allows us to redefine excellence and rigor and move beyond the traditional measures of achievement typically found in the more standardized first strand.
How is this strand present in your school today? Consider:
- Where do you see students achieving a state of flow? Does anything surprise you?
- Do your homework assignments inspire students to get into a state of flow? How could homework help advance the second strand?
- Do teachers and staff have the autonomy and time they need to get into a flow state at work? What is holding them back?
- Does your schedule create opportunities for flow learning to emerge?
- What is holding you back from increasing flow learning at school?
- What are the greatest leverage points to help increase flow learning?
Strand 3: Interdependent Learning
In the third strand, we shift our focus from the individual student to an interdependent team, designing an environment where students are working with others to do work that matters. When students do this, they are, according to Matthew Barzun, author of The Power of Giving Away Power, working in a constellation, working together to do something that could not be accomplished by a single individual. In constellation-like interdependent teams, everyone is seen, known, and, most importantly, needed. When I think back to my time as a classroom teacher, I believe that I did an effective job seeing and knowing each student, but were the students needed, did they have an important role to play in my classroom? Not really—my math class wasn’t a constellation.This third strand is an extension of the second; it involves creating flow for a team. We are working in the third strand when we empower a team to dive into deep, complex, and challenging tasks, to create something that has never existed before. One of my favorite examples of interdependence is student-directed plays. When a group of young people come together to produce a play or musical, everyone needs to leave ego behind and work for the good of the team. They have to trust and rely on each other. They work late at night, constantly communicating, thinking together to reach their vision for the production.
When students are working in the third strand they learn to give for the good of the group; they learn to take responsibility, to let go of their own ideas, to listen, to commit. The team’s work is bigger than the individual student, and each student feels that they are part of something important. They experience the joy of being needed and realize that they need others as well. They discover that accomplishing great things requires that they work together. How can we ensure that students and staff are deeply engaged in interdependent teams?
How is this strand present in your school today? Consider:
- Where do students feel they are needed at school? What types of activities create a sense of being needed?
- Where are students part of interdependent teams?
- Do your teachers and staff feel they are working in interdependent teams? Do the adults in your school feel they are needed?
- Does the schedule promote the creation of interdependent teams?
- What is holding you back from truly realizing the potential of interdependence?
Strand 4: Learning in Community
School leaders often talk about community, relationships, kindness, courage, equity, and joy being core values in their schools. While the first three strands certainly help develop these ideals, it is in the fourth strand where we intentionally put them in the center. In the fourth strand, we focus on a selfless commitment to community. We learn to put others before ourselves. We live into our responsibility to make the world a better place.To paraphrase David Brooks, author of The Road to Character, the first three strands help students develop résumé virtues—the necessary skills and accomplishments that prepare them for exciting careers. But in the fourth strand, we move our focus to what he calls eulogy virtues. In a 2015 New Yorker article, Rebecca Mead describes the difference. “Résumé virtues are those that are valued in the contemporary marketplace: the high test scores achieved by a student, the professional accomplishments pulled off by an adult. They are the skills that are met with bigger paychecks and public approbation. Eulogy virtues, on the other hand, are the aspects of character that others praise when a person isn’t around to hear it: humility, kindness, bravery.”
I believe the world needs communities that build eulogy virtues, now more than ever. Independent schools can meet this need. Our schools have always transcended a singular focus on academic learning. We leverage the power of community to climb into the messiness of our student’s lives, we see them for who they are—we engage in the formation and transformation of the whole student.
The fourth strand has always been a central element of schools founded on a religious tradition. Religion and spirituality certainly help advance the fourth strand, but it is not required. I see the fourth strand in action in student-led DEI work, community partnership and outreach, and Habitat for Humanity trips. I also see it in the classroom, in advisory, in restorative justice work, and in athletics. We advance the fourth strand when we focus on empathy, character, and others.
How is this strand present in your school today? Consider:
- Where is the fourth-strand nurtured and expressed?
- How do daily experiences—lunch, the start and end of the day, etc.—advance the development of humility, kindness, and bravery?
- What gets in the way of efforts to advance the fourth-strand?
- How does the curriculum support fourth-strand work?
- How do your rituals and traditions advance the fourth strand? Do they increase or decrease belonging and community for all?
- How does the school’s origin story support the development of your community? If it doesn’t, what story do you tell?
No Perfect Balance
As you think about how each of these strands is present in your community—which is most prevalent, where there are opportunities to shift the balance, what could you add or subtract—remember that there is no perfect way to balance the interplay among the four strands? The important thing is that they are all present and that together they can help you define and deliver on your purpose.
Go Deeper
LISTEN. Season 5 of NAIS’s New View EDU podcast will drop on September 19, delivering another series of interviews and conversations with education thought leaders. Mark your calendar and catch up on past season.READ. “Constellation Culture” in the Spring 2022 issue of Independent School features a conversation between Tim Fish and Matthew Barzun about how schools can build interdependent cultures.