The Power to Transform

In this important new book, Stephanie Pace Marshall argues that by focusing on reforming the contents of schooling and not transforming the context and conditions of learning, we have created false proxies for learning and eroded the potentially vibrant intellectual life of our schools. Finishing a course and a textbook has come to mean achievement. Listening to a lecture has come to mean understanding. Getting a high score on a standardized test has come to mean proficiency. Credentialing has come to mean competence. To educate our children wisely requires that we create generative learning communities, by design. Such learning communities have their roots in meaning, not memory; engagement, not transmission; inquiry, not compliance; exploration, not acquisition; personalization, not uniformity; interdependence, not individualism; collaboration, not competition; and trust, not fear.

Preface: The Call for a Radical New Story of Learning and Schooling xi

Gratitudes xix

About the Author xxiii

Prologue: Songlines xxv

Part One: The Journey Toward Wholeness 1

1 Firestorm or Gift? 3

The Power of Story

2 What Living Systems Teach Us 19

3 Nurturing Integral Habits of Mind 37

4 A New Learning Landscape 67

Aspen Grove by Design

Part Two: Designing the New Learning Landscape 77

5 Integrity 79

Naming and Owning Our Integral Learning Identity

6 Vibrancy 97

Generating and Using Abundant Learning Information

7 Interdependence 107

Inviting and Sustaining Collaborative

Learning Relationships

8 Coherence 117

Stimulating Creative and Self-Organizing

Learning Processes

9 Sustainability 131

Weaving and Mapping Networked Learning Patterns

10 Stability 143

Creating Flexible, Temporary, and Adaptive Learning Structures

11 A Generative Community for Integral Learning

Aspen Grove Revisited 171

Part Three: A Call for Leaders 183

12 The Right Moment 185

Answering the Call

13 Elder-Leadership 191

Changing the Current Story

14 Creating the Radical New Story of

Learning and Schooling 197

Afterword: A Letter to My Grandchildren 211

American Psychological Association Principles for Learner-Centered Education 215

Howard Gardner’s “Multiple Intelligences” 217

The Two Stories of Learning and Schooling Contrasted 219

Notes 227

Index 235

"…this is a wonderful book to help guide your story as a person, a leader, a critical member of an interdependent system and to reconnect yourself with the reasons why you became an educator in the first place." (TC Record, December 2006) Stephanie Pace Marshall, Ph.D. is internationally recognized as a pioneer in leading educational transformation. She is the founding and current president of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy; the founding president of the National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science, and Technology; and a past president of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Dr. Marshall has worked in all levels of education—elementary, middle school, high school, and university. "The nature of schooling as we know it has become the unquestioned answer to educating our children. It is not. Knowing what we now know, we can no longer do what we now do. It is time to reconnect our children and our systems to their abundant learning potentials and reengage them in the joy of learning."
—Stephanie Pace Marshall from the Preface

Educational reform is a global conversation. But decades of restructuring schools have not fundamentally transformed our system of schooling or the nature and quality of our children's learning and thinking.

In this important new book, Stephanie Pace Marshall argues that by focusing on reforming the contents of schooling and not transforming the context and conditions of learning, we have created false proxies for learning and eroded the potentially vibrant intellectual life of our schools. Finishing a course and a textbook has come to mean achievement. Listening to a lecture has come to mean understanding. Getting a high score on a standardized test has come to mean proficiency. Credentialing has come to mean competence.

To educate our children wisely requires that we create generative learning communities, by design. Such learning communities have their roots in meaning, not memory; engagement, not transmission; inquiry, not compliance; exploration, not acquisition; personalization, not uniformity; interdependence, not individualism; collaboration, not competition; and trust, not fear.

This book is a passionate and deeply resonant call to reconceive and redesign learning and schooling. It invites a new conversation and offers new language, new design principles, and a new map for creating vibrant, imaginative learning landscapes that integrate the properties of living systems and the principles of learning. It is from this new story that learning and schooling can be brought to life.

Praise for The Power to Transform

"Stephanie Marshall's brilliant thesis invites us to think differently about learning and schooling both in the United States and around the globe. In fact, it does much more. It provides us with ways by which we can change our thinking about learning and thus offers a new map for schooling that can excite all students and leaders of progressive education."
—Robert W. Galvin, chairman emeritus, Motorola, Inc.

"For many years, Stephanie has been a wise, passionate, and courageous educator. Nobody cares more about children; no one honors their innate qualities more than she. Her book makes this visible to the world. She knows our children, she knows our schools, she knows the future if we don't change—we must take heed of her message."
—Margaret J. Wheatley, author, Leadership and the New Science

"At a time when 'education reform' is dominated by hollow slogans and political sleight of hand, here is a book that is wise, grounded, visionary, practical, and wonderfully well written. Authored by one of our nation's leading educators, it offers a model of teaching and learning forged in the real world that has the potential to transform public education. May this superb book be not only read but taken to heart by everyone who cares about our children and their future."
—Parker J. Palmer, author, The Courage to Teach,Let Your Life Speak, and A Hidden Wholeness

"Drawing on a lifetime in education and her experiences as the founding leader of the world-renowned Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, Stephanie Pace Marshall offers an original and compelling synthesis on the fostering of learning in the worlds of today and tomorrow."
—Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Education and Cognition,Harvard Graduate School of Education

"Stephanie Marshall’s brilliant thesis invites us to think differently about learning and schooling both in the United States and around the globe. In fact, it does much more. It provides us with ways by which we can change our thinking about learning, and thus offers a new map for schooling that can excite all students and leaders of progressive education."
--Robert W. Galvin, chairman emeritus, Motorola, Inc.

"For many years, Stephanie has been a wise, passionate, and courageous educator. Nobody cares more about children; no one honors their innate qualities more than she. Her book makes this visible to the world. She knows our children, she knows our schools, she knows the future if we don’t change—we must take heed of her message."
--Margaret J. Wheatley, author, Leadership and the New Science

"At a time when ‘education reform’ is dominated by hollow slogans and political sleight-of-hand, here is a book that is wise, grounded, visionary, practical, and wonderfully well written. Authored by one of our nation’s leading educators, it offers a model of teaching and learning forged in the real world that has the potential to transform public education. May this superb book be not only read but taken to heart by everyone who cares about our children and their future."
--Parker J. Palmer, author, The Courage to Teach, Let Your Life Speak, and A Hidden Wholeness

"Drawing on a lifetime in education and her experiences as the founding leader of the world-renowned Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, Stephanie Marshall offers an original and compelling synthesis on the fostering of learning in the worlds of today and tomorrow."
--Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Education and Cognition, Harvard Graduate School of Education

"A lucid, beautifully drawn map to schools of the future by an exceptional educator who has made the journey. Every teacher should read this book and do it, every administer should read this book and enable it, every parent should read this book and demand it, because every learner aches to experience it."
--Dee W. Hock, founder and CEO Emeritus, VISA; and author, One from Many

"Education is in crisis and therefore our children are adrift and ungrounded, trained to memorize knowledge but unable to cope in a turbulent world. Stephanie Pace Marshall offers a provocative vision of how education can be re-infused with wonder, enrichment, and transformation. She challenges all of us to understand that it is our capacity to learn that characterizes our most essential humanity."
--James Garrison, president, Wisdom University

"Stephanie Pace Marshall gives us a transformational school model that inspires our children to ‘invent their own minds, reconnect to life and wisely engage in co-creating a sustainable future.’ As a financier and social investor, I believe that her ‘whole child’ model is crucial for species survival. Every human can understand her riveting recommendations and enjoy her delicious story!"
--Susan Davis, president, Capital Missions Company

"For years Stephanie Pace Marshall has been one of the clearest and most insightful voices on school reform. Her book, The Power to Transform: Leadership that Brings Learning and Schooling to Life solidifies this reputation. In this highly readable book, the reader will be provoked into a deeper understanding of what schooling is and more importantly, what it can become. It is as elegant as it is deep. Simply a must-read for school leaders."
--Paul Houston, executive director, American Association of School Administrators

"This book explores education from a perspective rare in the field: that we become the stories we tell about ourselves, and that, to create systemic change in education, educational leaders need to craft new stories. The deep insights on learning and children shared by Stephanie are mirrored in the success of the amazing school she leads. As an antidote to the purely “data-driven” testing mentality that robs students of joy and the chance for real learning, the ideas in this book help any educational leader facilitate the creation of the kind of environment all students need to properly prepare them for life as they strive to achieve long-term mastery of the challenging subjects they study. This view into the thinking of a renowned education leader should make her ideas a steady topic of conversation among educators for years to come."
--David Thornburg, director, Global Operations, Thornburg Center

"Stephanie Pace Marshall draws from systems and complexity theory, cognitive science, and more in introducing us to the rich body of knowledge waiting to guide us through the sweeping changes we must make in educating the young. It is not easy to restrain one’s anger on realizing the degree to which this knowledge and its implications have been so shamefully ignored in school reform."
--John I. Goodlad, president, Institute for Educational Inquiry

"Stephanie Pace Marshall offers a powerful and unique framework for scholars, policymakers, school reformers, and practitioners who have the capacity to shape our children’s future. This book aims directly at the heart of our most fundamental educational goal – to nurture the power and creativity of the human spirit. For any leader working to build a new covenant with our children, this book is a must read."
--Gene R. Carter, executive director and CEO, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development