Video by Ken Williams

Happy New Year. It’s been so long since we’ve sent out one of our Bright edu-roundups.

It’s been a busy week around here with Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings’ $100 million announcement and President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address… Did you happen to catch the interview CBS This Morning did that morning with Education Secretary John King ? It gave a good sense of him I thought.

But other than acknowledging how sad I was to hear about David Bowie, (his life and the loss seemed so personal somehow for so many of us) I’m going to keep the preamble short, as I am brimming with links to share.

As always, please read, recommend, share, and respond on Medium. If you aren’t already, be sure to follow Bright, which you can do at the bottom of this letter.

By Anya Kamenetz in NPR Ed

This is a depressing piece with a great opening:

Ring Ring. Hello? It’s reality calling. People are shallow, and life isn’t fair.

Hmm.

An argument for more online learning?

By Mary Jo Madda in EdSurge

They are grouped by level rather than grades and they spend their days not in classes but working on projects — all in one giant open space.

In order to preserve a level of comfort with experimentation, KLS’s administration has focused on developing a strong — yet informal — culture, specifically by treating students and teachers as collaborators.

If you’ve been curious what the students and teachers inside of the “bricks-and-mortar” Khan Lab School really think of it, you’ll want to read this piece.

By Amber Ly on Youth Radio /Medium

If you missed it, check out this piece we ran on Bright in December by danah boyd about the internet and age of consent.

I especially loved reading youthradio teenager Amber Ly’s reflections on social media in the context of that piece. (We always hear what adults think is or isn’t best for kids; it’s fun to hear from students sometimes.)

Like most teens, I love my phone — it’s better than any boyfriend, that’s for sure. I use it for everything I do. Listening to my own personal soundtrack gets me through the day. Updating my Snapchat story reminds my classmates that I do actually have a life. I reach my parents with just one speed-dial call. I connect with my cousins from across the world with a tap of a button… So yeah, I like to think my phone and I have a great thing going… But like any relationship, my phone and I have some issues.”

By Patrick Cook-Deegan in Greater Good

Cook-Deegan mentions a study that concluded “65 percent of the jobs that today’s high school graduates will have in their lifetime do not even exist yet. But we are still teaching them in the same way that we trained industrial workers a century ago.”

He goes on to say:

According to research by Kendall Cotton Bronk, a developmental psychologist at Claremont Graduate University, truly finding one’s purpose requires four key components: dedicated commitment, personal meaningfulness, goal directedness, and a vision larger than one’s self. These are not skills that typically get nurtured in American high schools today. Most of the high school experience is oriented around external achievement, checking off boxes, and short-term goal fulfillment… [O]ur high schools do little to nurture this type of personal growth, and as a result we are creating a whole new generation of students who look great on the outside and hollow on the inside.”

By Pamela Brunskill in Bright/Medium

This is a first piece from a mother of three. It’s about family and cancer and the isolation and despair that sets in for a third grader unable to attend school. It’s also about the potential for technology to provide closeness, connection, and sense of community when teachers and principals in a big public school in a small town allow a “telepresence” robot into the classroom so the girl can remotely participate in school.

See that gif above? That’s the robot (being controlled remotely by the subject of the piece — in her pajamas at home) leading her classmates in a dance at school.

By Jennifer Berkshire in Salon

At Bright, we like stories that involve one sector learning from another. Here’s one that dives into a study suggesting that subprime mortgages and charter school expansion may have a little too much in common.

By Lisa Miller in KPLU

Take a peek into a classroom at Druid Hills Academy in Charlotte, NC, where teachers are using a method I’d never heard of called “no-nonsense nurturing.” (Is this what would happen if Success Academy came to Sesame Street?) It’s all about “keeping expectations high by praising only outstanding effort… directions are often scripted in advance and praise is kept to a minimum.”

By Ben Stocking in the Education Lab/The Seattle Times

Flagged by our friends at Solutions Journalism Network, I’m sneaking this one in too. It’s about Foster High in Tukwila, WA, a school where “seventy-five percent of the students are immigrants and refugees, from virtually every strife-torn corner of the globe.”

I dare you not to be inspired.