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Living in the Future
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"Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today."
-Malcolm X
“Time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.”
-John F. Kennedy
I wrote in a previous newsletter about innovation. In this newsletter I want to talk about why innovation will be at the heart of our new school district.
Malibu resident, entrepreneur, and 2013 Dolphin Award winner Jeff Stibel wrote this in his best selling book, Breakpoint: “In 1880, the United States brought together the world’s leading experts to determine what New York City would look like in 100 years… The team came back with unanimous consensus: New York City would be destroyed within 100 years…New York City (was) doubling in size every ten years. At that rate, the experts concluded, the city would need more than six million horses to transport all of those people by 1980 (p. 76).” The problem of accumulated manure was already enormous in 1880. Six million horses would, it was projected, literally bury the city. This, in short, is the problem with predicting the future. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb suggests in his book The Black Swan, there are many things in life that we do not know and cannot know.
Let’s talk for a moment about changes we do know. I am running on a treadmill a bit more often these days because I’ll be going to Yosemite with Webster’s 5th graders next month. I want to be in better shape for the hikes there. As I ran yesterday, I was thinking that perhaps I should run longer to get my body used to Yosemite’s long hikes. Then I wondered how I might adjust my workout to be the same amount of work but over a longer period. When I got back to my computer, I googled it and found the answer in the first two hits: one a table of equivalencies across time, incline and speed and the other a calculator which took my treadmill settings and converted them to equivalent other values. Too easy, right? Now imagine the same situation 15 years ago. No Google. Check the treadmill instruction book: no table. Go to the library. Where would the librarian even look and what would he or she be looking for? That resource might not have been available at all. If it was available, it would have been prohibitively difficult to find. Certainly not the 10 seconds it took on Google.
Already our children have resources and tools we never had. My treadmill question is only one of a nearly infinite set of questions that might possibly enable a future improvement in human experience. With the answer to a question like mine, plus the next question, and the next again, something new and important might be created. Like Facebook. Like Quora. Like Google. Like a self-driving car. Like an ink pen that records what it writes on a USB drive too. Like a washing machine that uses nylon beads instead of water. And it’s not just that the accumulation of breakthrough ideas is changing our children’s world. It’s the ready availability of completely new tools to enable the ongoing creation of new ideas and even more new tools that is really changing what’s required in their education.
We must adapt our schools to teach for the new tools that we do know. To teach for and with these tools, we must innovate. But the more powerful reason we must commit to innovation as one of our highest priorities is, like the best minds of 1880, we cannot know what we cannot know. We can only find the future one day at a time, seeking to adapt and explore rigorously and always in service of each child’s education. By doing this and by embracing success and learning from failure, our children’s education will stay current and they will meet the future each day, fully ready, as it arrives.
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AMPS Town Hall Meeting
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We'd love for you to join us at the next AMPS Town Hall Meeting on Wednesday, May 28th from 6:30 - 8:00 pm in the Community Room at Malibu City Hall.
Catch up on the latest AMPS progress and updates as we move into our next phase in achieving our goal of a locally controlled, independent Malibu Unified School District!
Please bring your questions, concerns and ideas. Hope to see you all there!
http://www.ampsmalibu.org/
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
5:30 - 7:00 pm
Malibu City Hall
Community Room
23825 Stuart Ranch Rd
Malibu, CA 90265
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AMPS Endorsements
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We have been officially endorsed by:
- All four Malibu PTA's: Webster PTA, Juan Cabrillo PTA, Point Dume PTA, and Malibu High School PTSA.
- Malibu Boys & Girls Club
- Malibu Chamber of Commerce
- All five Malibu City Council Members and all City Council Candidates
All of these organizations and individuals have endorsed AMPS and the effort to create an independent Malibu school district.
We appreciate and thank all of our endorsers. This is a huge step for all of us as we progress toward our own independent school district!
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Fiesta Malibu
On Sunday, May 4th, AMPS will be at Fiesta Malibu, a special event celebrating children and the local Malibu community. We are happy to participate and sponsor such a great event!
While you’re there, stop on by our booth and say hello! We’ll be passing out the latest AMPS swag and updating you on our current progress and exciting new updates!
We can’t wait to see you there, for a happenin’ good time!
Sunday, May 4, 2014
11:00am to 3:30pm
Juan Cabrillo Elementary
30237 Morning View Drive
Malibu, California 90265
Young Frankenstein at Malibu High
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IT'S ALIVE! Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan sew together an immaculate blend of tongue in cheek, double entendre, and downright goofy comedic moments in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN.
The hilarious musical comedy is a wickedly inspired re-imagining of the Frankenstein legend based on Mel Brooks’ film masterpiece. The story follows young Dr. Frankenstein (that’s Frankenstein) as he attempts to bring a corpse to life, but not without scary and hilarious complications.
Every bit as relevant to audience members who will remember the original as it will be to newcomers, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN has all the panache of the screen sensation with a little extra theatrical flair added. YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN is scientifically-proven, monstrously good entertainment.
Buy Tickets: here.
Crunching the Numbers:
Math at Malibu Middle School
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Attention parents of 6th-grade students!
There will be a parent-sponsored meeting to discuss the various options for the current 6th-grade HP Math students in the revised Accelerated Math Program at Malibu Middle School for the 2014-2015 school year. It will be this Thursday, May 8th, at 11 am in the Michael Landon Community Center at Bluffs Park.
Attention parents of 5th-grade students!
There will be two parent-sponsored meetings next week to inform the community and parents regarding the revised Accelerated Math Program at Malibu Middle School. The first meeting will be Tuesday, May 6th, at 8:30 am, at Pt. Dume Marine Science School, Room 16. The second meeting will be Thursday, May 8th, at 9:00 am at the Michael Landon Community Center at Bluffs Park.
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Success, failure and the drive to keep creating
March 2014, by Elizabeth Gilbert, Ted Talks
Elizabeth Gilbert was once an "unpublished diner waitress," devastated by rejection letters. And yet, in the wake of the success of 'Eat, Pray, Love,' she found herself identifying strongly with her former self. With beautiful insight, Gilbert reflects on why success can be as disorienting as failure and offers a simple — though hard — way to carry on, regardless of outcomes.
Watch video: here |
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Juan Cabrillo upgrades Fiesta Malibu fundraiser
April 21, 2014, by Ashleigh Fryer, The Malibu Surfside News
Read more: here
Four Local Elementaries Deemed 'Distinguished' Schools
April 30, 2014 By Penny Arevalo, Malibu Patch
Read more: here
Samohi Teacher Reinstated After Scuffle With Student
April 23, 2014, By David Mark Simpson, The Malibu Times
Read more: here
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Khan Academy, Open Ed. Providers Evolve with Common Core
April 15, 2014, By Stephen Sawchuk, EdWeek
Read more: here
U.S. Government Pursues New Rules for Teacher-Training Programs
April 25, 2014, By Will Dunham and Elvina Nawaguna, The Huffington Post Education
Read more: here
States' Rollout of Common Core Goes Under the Microscope
April 15, 2014, by Andrew Ujifusa, EdWeek
Read more: here
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