“Pai’s work brilliantly showcased the potential for some of the ideas currently generating the most buzz in education policy circles: Blended learning, personalized learning, data-driven instruction…

“Pai’s brave experiment is fun to hear about, but the point of the EE video is that organizations resist change. (And the nonprofit is very careful to note that the resistance in this story does not accrue to a school, district or agency; it’s a systemic issue.)…

“The video is well worth a watch, particularly because its point is not that technology will save the day for all. Rather it advocates a ‘Split Screen’ approach, ‘working simultaneously to develop new and different models of school while continuing also to do everything possible to improve the existing schools in the traditional district sector.’…

Autonomous teachers seek to prepare students for life, work, and civic participation. They believe that students’ “beyond-academic” achievements, as well as students’ attitudes toward learning and working, are at least as important to students’ success as academic achievements. So they design learning programs and other school structures to support beyond-academic achievement. In some cases, teachers require students to achieve in beyond-academic areas in order to earn credits toward graduation.

Areas for beyond-academic achievement include, but are not limited to, the following: character development; students’ belief in their own abilities; students’ ability to take responsibility for their own ongoing learning and failure; students’ learning of twenty-first century skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, communication, and collaboration; and students’ acceptance of increased, serious responsibilities such that they’ll be able to navigate life as an adult.

Chapters 4–8 described in detail a number of ways in which teachers put students in a position to achieve in nonacademic areas, including:

Giving Students the Opportunity to Direct Some or All of Their Learning
Students and teachers in about half of the eleven schools said that they frequently quote the superhero Spiderman when discussing students’ higher-than-average levels of autonomy. That is, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Students in a position to direct their own learning come to understand that their level of voice and choice both inside and outside of school has to do with their willingness to be responsible and accountable for their successes and failures, their attitude, and their ability to work collaboratively with peers and authority figures. Many students practice these skills regularly and are evaluated for their progress.

Giving Students the Opportunity to Develop Habits of Mind
At the elementary level, some teachers focus on encouraging students’ Habits of Mind or other similar behaviors. The goal is for students to learn an approach for responding to problems they face, and to develop a sense of confidence in their ability to respond appropriately. The “habits” are a collection of sixteen thinking dispositions identified by Professor Art Costa. They include dispositions such as “persisting,” “thinking flexibly,” and “taking responsible risks.”

Granting Students Freedom of Movement and Encouraging Use of Teachers’ First Names
When teachers establish learning cultures that remove hierarchical boundaries, students learn new skills simply by being a part of the environment. With freedom of movement, for example, teachers report that students learn how to self-correct when off task. And teachers report that giving students the ability to call teachers by their first names provides students the opportunity to learn how to communicate, negotiate, and work effectively with people who are in positions of authority but who are also a part of their team.

Giving Students a Real Opportunity to Fail and Start Again
High School in the Community (HSC) teachers report that students’ complacency about poor performance is a real problem when they first arrive at the school. For years, many students who now attend HSC passed classes in their previous schools without mastering material, despite teachers’ threats that they would fail. Students who experienced this have come to believe that little is required, and they are astonished to learn that their academic achievement is far behind.

Erik Good reported of HSC ninth graders, “Twenty-seven percent of our students are at or below third-grade level in reading. Seventy percent are at or below sixth-grade level. Few of them believe us, and understand the potential consequences, when we tell them this truth. ‘It can’t be,’ they think. ‘We’ve made it to ninth grade!’ So we have to start by getting them to recognize the truth while still seeing their potential to succeed.”

Autonomous teachers allow time for students to realize they are responsible for their own graduation. A student at TAGOS Leadership Academy reported, for example, that during his first semester he earned a very small amount of credit compared to what he was supposed to earn. The teachers explained the potential consequences of his actions, and suggested pathways to completion, but he didn’t listen.

The teachers refused to give him credits he didn’t earn. But, to his surprise, they also didn’t kick him out. He’s grateful for both. The student now realizes that he is responsible for his learning. He’ll graduate later than a typical student, but for the first time he was put into a position to figure out how and, more importantly, why he wanted to graduate.

Expecting Students to Self-Govern Their Behavior; Providing Students with Real Roles in School Governance, Hiring, and Discipline
Teachers reported that when students have real responsibilities—instead of empty opportunities to practice responsibility—they learn how their behavior affects the functioning of their communities. Students experience that they have an important role in defining and solving community problems. They also learn how to participate in collaborative decision making, gaining the capacity to identify common ground and negotiate compromises.

With accountability for school success, autonomous teachers collectively decide to place a strong emphasis on encouraging students’ engagement and motivation. These teachers realize that students choose to learn—adults can’t make them—so they need to find means of adapting to students’ individual learning needs. . . They design innovative learning environments in an effort to find the best means of encouraging students to be active learners, not passive learners whose job it is to receive and memorize information from teachers. They seek to accommodate students’ varying levels of readiness, aptitudes, interests, and rates of learning. . .

Adapting to individual needs requires teachers to be open to the idea that conventional tools and training may not be sufficient. They come to see themselves as unfinished learners rather than experts who know all there is to know about teaching students.

Karen Locke at EdVisions Off Campus (EOC) said, “We’re always learning how to teach in new ways. We are so challenged to try new things that will keep students interested, especially in our online setting. We have to be innovating all the time.” Stephanie Davis at Tailoring Academics to Guide Our Students (TAGOS Leadership Academy) reported, “I shifted from [a focus on] teaching to [a focus on] learning when I came here. I’m constantly learning new things and [broadening] what I consider to be my responsibility to help students learn. I’m not planning lectures and grading papers.”

Almost 98 percent of the teachers surveyed rated their collective commitment to continuous learning and improvement as excellent (57.5 percent), very good (26.4 percent), or good (13.8 percent). And about 89 percent said their attitude that they are not experts whose role is to impart information to students was excellent (41.4 percent), very good (32.2 percent), or good (14.9 percent).

Teachers said that autonomy greatly increases their willingness to take on a learner role. Some had been involved with improvement efforts where teachers had input, but no real authority. Without authority, they said, it wasn’t worth the time investment required to learn new things and innovate. It was almost impossible to sustain their changes, they said.

James McGovern at Mission Hill K–8 School (Mission Hill) said, “We’re all learners here. That’s because of [the autonomy]. At my previous school there was no culture of learning among the staff. It wasn’t the people. It was the structures preventing any real change. We had a progressive principal, but we couldn’t move ahead. People didn’t want to create something that would just be pulled back.”

With a strong sense of accountability for the success of the entire school, autonomous teachers collaborate for the good of the whole. When these teachers taught in conventional settings, they said, they felt accountable for their classrooms but not for their schools. Their principals were accountable for whole-school success, so teachers saw it as the principal’s job to support other teachers’ success and students’ overall success.

Stephanie Davis at Tailoring Academics to Guide Our Students (TAGOS Leadership Academy) explained autonomous teachers’ behavior:

Sue Rodahl at Academia de Lenguaje y Bella Artes (ALBA) said, “Collaboration at ALBA happens because of the structure that makes adults accountable to one another. There is more than one person accountable. I am a stakeholder. I’m accountable. If I made the decisions, then I’m willing to collaborate to make them work.” Nichole Kotasek at Minnesota New Country Schools (MNCS) said, “Elsewhere, you don’t have as much at stake. Here you feel obligated to participate. . . . [As individuals] we’re more likely to seek help and others are more likely to offer it. We know the school’s success depends on it.”

Autonomous and accountable teachers know that whole school success requires them to collaborate for students’ success outside of their own classrooms. Teachers work together to know their students as individual learners who have varying needs. “We’re all responsible for every student,” said Jack Stacey at High School in the Community (HSC).

Stacey and his colleagues remind themselves of this at every staff meeting. They spend thirty minutes discussing two individual students, one who is doing well and one who is struggling. Everyone collaborates to understand what works and what doesn’t work for those individuals, and implements those strategies whenever they see the students. “We all learn how to be better teachers,” said Heather George.

Laura Bowie described a similar collaborative culture at Chrysalis Charter School (Chrysalis):