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I have one of the best jobs in the world

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because I get to work
with people who are fun, funny,

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energetic, creative and insightful.

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And they happen to be 14
to 18 years of age.

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I really do think
kids keep a person young,

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and I think that's probably why,
when I'm in the presence of adults,

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I sometimes don't know how to act,

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so you'll forgive me.

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So, inspiring the students of the future.

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What really works?

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37 years of teaching experience
have taught me that two things are needed:

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research-based teaching techniques
and relationship.

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Relationship is huge,
but we'll talk more about that later.

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What I'd like to look at first
are the techniques.

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I think probably most of us remember
the teacher-centered classroom;

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this is probably what we
are familiar with from our youth.

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You remember the teacher
was up front in the center,

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the students were in nice neat rows,
not allowed to talk to each other,

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and the teacher, the source of authority,
downloaded information to the kids,

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who regurgitated it back up on a test

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designed to measure
how much content they could remember.

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Now, I have to admit, I love lecturing,

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but my students don't always love it;

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it does not always inspire.

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So I was thinking, what really inspires?

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Years ago, I was doing
lunch duty at school,

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standing in the lunchroom, being visible,

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watching kids go through
the cafeteria line,

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and as I watched the kids
going through the line,

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it occurred to me
they love having choices.

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And so I said to myself, "Self,
maybe that would work in the classroom.

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Let the kids have choices."

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And so that's what I did.

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I converted my classroom

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to a situation where student choice
was a big part of the room

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along with four other Cs:

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Collaboration, communication,
critical thinking and creativity.

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Actually, over ten years ago,
the National Education Association

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identified those last
four Cs on the list

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as essential 21st century skills
that kids should learn,

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and I agree wholeheartedly.

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I've added choice to the top of the list

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not as a skill for kids to learn,

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but rather as a characteristic
of the classroom.

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By choice, I mean a situation

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where many learning activities
are available to students,

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designed to meet the many
diverse learning styles that they have.

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And the kids love it as much
as they love choices in the cafeteria.

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Now,

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I think we're made for learning this way.

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Imagine our early hominid ancestors
out looking for food.

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Don't you know that finding
and tracking that woolly mammoth

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required critical thinking
and problem-solving?

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It definitely required
collaboration, teamwork.

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I mean, you wouldn't want
to do this by yourself.

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No way.

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And collaboration required communication.

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And then I imagine those people
sitting around the campfire at night,

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reliving the adventures of the day's hunt.

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They must have had smiles on their faces

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when they were retelling
the story of the hunt.

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And I know they smiled

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when they put those cave
paintings up on the wall

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because creativity is a uniquely human,

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pleasurable, satisfying activity.

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So I believe our brains
are wired for the five Cs.

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And since they're wired for the five Cs,

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that authentic learning will happen

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when kids are allowed
to engage in the five Cs.

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And not just learning,

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but I think kids will enjoy
a classroom setup like this

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and even be inspired in this way.

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Now, this requires -

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A classroom setup based
on the five Cs requires a shift

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from a teacher-centered classroom
to a student-centered classroom.

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And this requires the teacher to remove
him or herself from front and center,

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becoming more of a guide on the side
rather than a sage on the stage.

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But this opens up opportunities

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to not merely teach,

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but to coach,

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to mentor,

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to nurture and inspire,

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and that's why I love it so much.

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Now, time out.

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It's important for me to mention
these are not my original ideas;

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I stand on the shoulders of giants.

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Remember Plutarch?

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He said it a long time ago:

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"The mind is not a vessel
that needs filling,

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but wood that needs igniting."

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And more recently, Albert Einstein:

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"Education is not the learning of facts,
but the training of the mind to think."

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All right. You're going
to have to bear with me.

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I'm going to get real
goose-bumpy for a minute.

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One of the absolute,
most exciting moments of my life,

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my professional life
was meeting Albert Einstein

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just a few years ago.

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(Laughter)

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Changed my life,

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bumping into him in that wax museum.

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(Laughter)

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What a moment it was.

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So I stand on the shoulders of giants,

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giants like Montessori and Piaget,

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and Dr. Sam Postlewait,
who was doing a lot of these things

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in his biology classes
at Purdue University,

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back in the 1960s.

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I'm a product of the Purdue
Biology Department;

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that's where I fell in love with biology.

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I stand on the shoulders of giants,

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like Tom Watts and Steve Randak,

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who were doing this back in the 1970s
in their high school biology classes.

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I stand on the shoulders of many giants
called elementary school teachers

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and special ed teachers.

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So, I'm a product of all of those mentors.

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So, collaboration, communication,
critical thinking, creativity

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and student choice,

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what's it look like?

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If I could just share with you briefly
the experiences that I've tried with this:

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I've taken my ninth-grade biology classes

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and divided the school year
up into two- to three-week units.

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At the beginning of each unit,

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the students are given a menu

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of all the smorgasbord activities
that are available on the menu.

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Now, this has been challenging

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because I've had to write
all of these activities

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so that no matter what combination
of activities a student chooses to do,

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based on their learning styles,

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and no matter what order
they choose to do them in,

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they'll still achieve
the required objectives for the unit.

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It's been fun; it's been a challenge.

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But the kids love it.

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They love having the choice,

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and there are many times when they
forget that I'm even in the room,

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and that's okay.

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One of the things that is not required -

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There are two activities normally
in every unit that are not required:

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One is the test at the end of the unit,

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and the other one
is the computer tutorial.

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I've taken several summers

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and written these self-paced,
interactive computer tutorials

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that the kids work through.

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They're designed to take the place
of the stuff I used to lecture on.

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Kids have told me in private,

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"Mr. Ruhl, we like the tutorials
better than your lectures."

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And that's okay,

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that's perfectly okay,

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because it's all about them.

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And so if you came to visit
my class on a typical day,

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you would see some kids
working through the computer tutorials.

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You would very likely see some kids
working on some website activities online.

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It's possible you would see some kids
in a corner of the room with headphones on

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watching a video related to the unit,

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writing out answers to questions
that accompany the video.

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I'm sure you would see students
doing laboratory activities.

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You would probably notice some kids

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tending to their ongoing
science fair projects,

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and I know for sure,

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you would probably find
a group of kids off in another corner

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around an educational game
designed to teach them

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about some biological concept
related to the unit.

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And you would likely see some kids

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doing some hands-on, minds-on simulations,

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learning about some other
biological phenomena.

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I know you would see
some kids off in a corner

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filling out what are called
"reflection sheets,"

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that are designed to get them
to think about their learning,

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self-evaluate their efforts,

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take past knowledge
and connect it to new knowledge.

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And there's one other activity on the menu
that a lot of kids really enjoy.

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It's called "Arts and Entertainment."

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It's on the menu in every unit,

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and this is where the students take
any concept they've learned in the unit

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and at home, develop some kind
of a project presentation

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and then present it
to the rest of the class

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on the last day of the unit.

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Arts and Entertainment

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has to be nontraditional;

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it's only limited by their imagination.

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So they can come in and perform a song,

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a skit,

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present a movie,

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present a model that they've built,

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poetry,

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any nontraditional way
of demonstrating their knowledge

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of something they've learned in the unit.

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For example, these two young ladies
in our biochemistry unit

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took it upon themselves to build
a model of a chlorophyll molecule

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using gumdrops to represent the atoms.

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These two young ladies - they're sisters -

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they happened to decide
to demonstrate in a very creative way

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the fact that they each inherited
half of their genes from mom

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and half of their genes from dad.

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(Laughter)

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Got to love them.

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This method of teaching,
for me, I have found -

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37 years experience -

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is not only effective, but it's fun

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because it allows me to sit down
with small groups of students

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while I'm team-teaching
with that fleet of ten computers;

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it gives me the opportunity to sit down

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with a group of two,
three or four or five kids

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and respond to questions
that they initiate.

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It allows me the opportunity
to listen to their thinking,

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and, teachers, when you do this,

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if you do this,

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the whole situation creates
somewhat of a teacher paradox.

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Because by removing yourself
from front and center,

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you seem to become less important,

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but paradoxically,

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in reality you become more important

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because when working
as a guide on the side,

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you're freed up to use
the most powerful teaching techniques

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I have ever run across in 37 years.

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They're as old as the hills;

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it doesn't matter
what techniques are used,

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these two always work.

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I'm talking about two loves.

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First, the teacher's love for the subject
and passion for the subject.

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And secondly, the teacher's
genuine love for the kids.

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First, let's talk about the passion.

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You know what I remember
about third grade?

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I remember Jenny on the bus.

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I'm not kidding.

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Third grade.

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No, the thing I remember most
about the classroom in third grade

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is I remember our teacher
every day after lunch

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would read to us for 10 to 15 minutes;

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she would read to us "Tom Sawyer."

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What an adventure!

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We had black-and-white TV,

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we had cartoons on TV,

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but this was different.

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It was obvious to us
that Miss Hershey loved reading,

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and she was passionate
about reading to us.

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Tom Sawyer! What an adventure!

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At the end of the 10-minute
reading period,

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I couldn't wait until the next day

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to find out what would happen
to Tom and his friends.

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I don't know if Miss Hershey
realized it or not,

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I should have written her a letter
a long time ago.

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She inspired me to be a reader.

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But you see, she wasn't saddled
with state-mandated standards

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and state-mandated,
high-stakes standardized testing,

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and so she was free to teach and inspire.

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I'll never forget her.

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She means the world to me.

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I should have written her a long time ago.

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Then for that other love.

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Teacher's love for the kids.

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If there are any teachers
in the audience, don't get nervous.

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I'm not talking about warm,
fuzzy, emotional love.

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I'm talking about genuine, decisional,
put-the-other-person-first kind of love.

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It motivates;

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it inspires in a powerful way.

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I'm talking about the kind of love that -

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C.S. Lewis wrote about it
in his book "The Four Loves."

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He described it as "agape love,"
the highest level of love known,

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a self-sacrificial kind of love,

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a love that's passionately committed
to the well-being of the other.

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This kind of love is not always emotional,

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but it is always decisional.

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So, teachers, great news.

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This means you can love your kids
even when they're not likable.

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Does that ever happen?

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Because this kind of love
is not emotional,

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it's decisional,

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and it motivates and inspires
in a powerful way,

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and it's as old as the hills.

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So, teachers ...

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an airtight lesson plan is important.

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A well-organized, consistent
discipline plan is important.

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Effective use of technology is important.

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The standards are important,

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but, please, don't let them
stifle your creativity.

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All these things are important,

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but what the kids
are going to remember most of all

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is you.

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Don't forget that sixth C:

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Caring.

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That is the most effective, most powerful,
most inspiring way of teaching:

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getting their attention,
motivating them, inspiring them.

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What they're going to remember most
is that you looked them in the eye

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and asked them about
their extra-curricular activities

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and their part-time jobs.

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What they're going to remember most

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is that you just asked them in the hall
how they were doing.

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What they're going to remember most

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is you worked really hard
in the first couple weeks of school

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to learn their names
in the first couple days.

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What they're going to remember most

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is that you went to their athletic events

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and their concerts.

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What they're going to remember most

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is that you led the class

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in loud, off-key choruses
of "Happy Birthday."

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What they're going to remember most
is that when they made the newspaper,

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you put their newspaper clippings up
on the wall in the classroom,

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and you told them to autograph them,

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and you told them to do that

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so that some day when their autographs
were worth lots of money,

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it would fund your retirement.

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(Laughter)

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What they're going to remember
is that you were transparent,

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and that you were real,

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and that you had the ability
to laugh at yourself

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and laugh with them.

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So, what's really important?

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How do we motivate?

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How do we inspire?

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Allow kids to involve themselves
in the classroom

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in student-choice collaboration,

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communication,

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critical thinking and creativity.

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But don't forget that sixth C.

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It's probably the most important one

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because the greatest of these is love.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)