Philosophy of Teaching & Learning

DEB OTEY: Welcome to Thunder and Thoughts, the podcast from the Out of Door Academy where curiosity sparks understanding. I'm Doctor Deb Otey, head of school at Out of Door, and in each episode, we'll sit down with the educators, leaders, and experts who know our school best to answer your questions, share ideas, and give you a closer look at the ODA experience.

Today's Thunder cast calls for a chance of big ideas, with a high probability of thoughtful conversation as we dive into one of the foundations of an ODA education. Our philosophy of teaching and learning. Helping us navigate today's topic is Julie Bianchi, our associate head of school. Julie, welcome to Thunder and Thoughts. We're glad you're here.

JULIE BIANCHI: Thank you. Good to see you. Good to see you.

DEB OTEY: Uh, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?

JULIE BIANCHI: Well, I've been in this role for about five years, but I've been in education for 34. Seeing lots of changes. Uh, learned a lot along the way. And happy to spend some time with you today.

DEB OTEY: Yes. Well, you've done a lot of great work in education, Julie, at other phenomenal independent schools in the country. We're just so grateful that you're here at Out-of-Door. So. All right. So let's get started. So the central idea today is we're going to talk about the ODA philosophy of teaching and learning.

So if you just had one minute to share what is that with our families. What is the philosophy of teaching and learning at Out-of-Door?

JULIE BIANCHI: Well, think of a compass with four points. Each point guides the direction of our philosophy: vigor, rigor, competency, and character. Those components make up the ODA model.

DEB OTEY: Okay, so obviously now we're going to break those down so that we can learn more about them. So let's start with vigor and rigor. Besides rhyming, what do those words have to do with our philosophy of teaching and learning?

JULIE BIANCHI: Well, it's interesting because rigor is what is commonly thought of as in a traditional classroom. So you have, you know, a very disciplined approach, a very rigid approach. You may see students in rows, don't color outside of the lines. There are a lot of rules, restrictions. The teacher is the vessel of knowledge, pouring their knowledge into the students' heads and then the students give them back that knowledge.

Vigor is the joy in learning. Vigor is the spark of curiosity. Vigor is the energy that makes you take deeper dives into a subject that you are suddenly passionate about. We consider ourselves longtime learners, lifetime learners. And guess what? That's vigor.

DEB OTEY: That's because we like vigor, not rigor. That's right. Yes. And so really it's a balance. More, it's not like a 50/50. It's like 100 and 100, all at the same time. We're balancing out those two things. Okay.

JULIE BIANCHI: So think about a student who's, you know, a seventh grader conducting a lab in science class with their partner, just like you and me, you know, scientists truly. And they have their hypothesis. They're wondering why something is working that way. And that's vigor.

The scientific method, the scientific process, the collection of data, the following of the steps, the documenting of steps, ending up with the results. That's the rigor. So between the two, you now have profound learning.

DEB OTEY: Yes. And they actually like it. And they want to keep doing it, which is really important. All right. So vigor and rigor we've spoken about. So now let's talk about character. What does character mean in practice?

JULIE BIANCHI: Well, I think one of the strongest foundations at Out-of-Door are the Riser values, and those are our character values. And what we want to do is have kids invested so deeply into these character values that they're doing what's right when no one is looking.

So what does that mean in learning? Um, I picture a high school student. It's getting late. Their homework is complicated. It's confusing. It's due tomorrow. Well, AI can help them finish right now.

DEB OTEY: Yes, it can.

JULIE BIANCHI: Learning doesn't happen, but the assignment is complete. Now, an ethical student — this is hard, because the right thing to do is always the hardest thing to do. An ethical student may show up early to seek help from their teacher and say, I just couldn't finish it. Can I get an extension? Take the 10% deduction because it's late. But the learning is at the core, not the practice of getting it done.

A student who maybe, um, just bombs a test, okay. And they're sitting there and they're thinking, I studied for four hours and I bombed the test. And that teacher doesn't like me. And this is just too hard. And, you know, fill in the blank. Well, a student with character says, how did I study for this test to produce such results? I didn't do extra problems. I never went to get extra help. I didn't write a practice essay. Again, fill in the blank and decide, how am I going to study differently? Because studying harder isn't always the answer.

DEB OTEY: Not always the answer, and learning by trying. So essentially that's in the design of the whole process. Like you don't have to be perfect every time. You mean everybody doesn't have to be perfect all the time?

JULIE BIANCHI: Well, you know, we call that engineered failure. Engineered failure in a just a classroom full of rigor: the teacher imparts the knowledge. The quiz looks like the homework. The test looks like the quiz. It's a perfectly straight line of learning. There's nothing wrong with it, but oftentimes it fizzles. There's no passion behind it. Learning for learning's sake doesn't go anywhere.

So our teachers are producing projects, simulations where we know it's going to be a challenge. It's probably not going to be perfect for a while. And so, you know, I was thinking about band and strings. Each time they get done with a concert and they sound great, the teacher introduces something that's brand new. Really, really hard, really, really complicated and complex, and leaves them scratching their heads. And for a while, it sounds like really bad noise coming out of that classroom.

DEB OTEY: Just for a little while.

JULIE BIANCHI: Just for a little while. And then it clicks. The same thing happens in our engineering design class. They're building bridges with levers and pulley systems. And you know, they can learn that from a book. They can watch a video. They can give you all the formulas back on a test. But to actually build the bridge for the world to see, that's going to be put out to an authentic audience — you know, if their design is off by a quarter of an inch, that pulley will not work. And they're going to go back at it and back at it and back at it. And that resiliency to want to complete the challenge, that's what we're striving for. With all of these things where you say, oh, we're designing for failure — yes, we are.

DEB OTEY: So, Julie, you've really helped us understand rigor and vigor and then how character also plays into that. Now there's a fourth piece, and that piece is competency. So this list is a little more concrete. And I looked at some of the words, like technology and AI literacy, subject flexibility, creativity, communication, critical thinking skills, and performance under pressure. So can you make maybe two of these descriptors a little bit more vivid?

JULIE BIANCHI: Sure. We can start with AI and technology. It's a constantly moving target. That's okay. We could say the same thing when Google was established as part of our day to day, and we had to learn to teach with that also.

You know, AI, we like to think of as the tool, and the human is the thinker. So our teachers are constantly producing lessons, units, projects that challenge kids to think and use AI as an agent on the side.

So imagine you're writing a paper for your English teacher. You have your thesis, your argument, your evidence. You come up with all of those things in a perfect five-paragraph package essay, right? You love that essay. And part of the assignment is now to input and upload your essay into AI and ask it to challenge your thesis.

So it's going to come back and it's going to ask you to prove this, or "that's not correct," "name it" — right? It's AI's job right now. It's going to give you what you want, and it's going to punch holes in your argument.

Then the next part of the process is to take what AI helped you see — because you probably had some blind spots before that — and then recreate the essay. And by recreating it with that voice, that devil's advocate voice in the back of your mind, your argument is actually stronger. Your paper is actually stronger. The process is more complete.

So AI is part of the process. It is not the whole process. And so when we can blend the learning with AI and keep it ethical, I think we're on the right track.

DEB OTEY: Agreed. Agreed. So, um, that was a good description on that one. What about subject area flexibility? You mean things in math should go along with things in English, or things in history go along? How does that work?

JULIE BIANCHI: It's been the ultimate goal for as long as I can remember in education. It used to be called interdisciplinary, and we would have thematic units, uh, you know, where in English you read a book about trains, and in science you study the, uh, you know, the engine of a locomotive, and in math you talk — it can all be very, um, spoon-fed by a teacher. We want it to be more organic, by the student. It's transdisciplinary at this point.

So a student may come out of a business law class where they've just discussed, um, some ethics within cases, and then they go to their science class, and it's a study of genetics. And in the genetics, it's talking about what's ethical in genetics. So this word just keeps buzzing in a student's head until suddenly they have this light bulb moment saying, these things exist away from each other, together, apart, similar. It's all part of the human condition, right?

And so really, it's as high as you can almost make a person critically think — to make those connections on their own.

DEB OTEY: Right. And we really hope to strive for that in our academics. Now, another couple of words in these descriptors were performance and competition. And sometimes those performances and competitions happen within the school day. But a lot of times they don't happen within the school day. So talk to us about this.

JULIE BIANCHI: Yeah, I mean, our philosophy of teaching and learning goes beyond the classroom. It goes into our arts, goes into our athletics. And really it's about the foundational skills we build each and every day. You go to a practice and you drill, drill, drill. And yet when you take the court, you're not sure exactly how that ball is going to bounce, but you're probably ready if you practiced it enough to have success in that moment.

A performer may be up on stage, and suddenly the person across from them delivers the wrong line at the wrong time. And their job is to adjust on the fly and get everybody back, you know, into sync. And the play must go on.

DEB OTEY: Right. And so getting the right answers to the questions on the test, that's not the only kind of learning that can go on.

JULIE BIANCHI: No, not at all. And you'll see that juxtaposition once again of the rigor, which is the drill, drill, drill, and the vigor of "I can do this better, faster. How do I make it better?" And wow, look at the success we had because of all the practice we put in.

DEB OTEY: That's great. So far we've talked about the what of learning. So vigor, rigor, character, competencies. But none of that works if a kid is not doing well himself or herself, like they're running on empty. How does the structure and the system behind our days at ODA — how does that help support students in their wellness?

JULIE BIANCHI: Right? I like to think of our day-to-day schedule as like a wellness machine. It provides students with some chunks of time during the day in which they can get some work done. And what does that do? It frees up their minds. So when they go to practices after school or rehearsals or you name it, they can bring almost their whole selves, because they're not bogged down by the bricks of their homework that's still waiting for them afterwards.

They get home, they have a little less homework to do. They're not up till one, two, three o'clock in the morning. Um, you know, remember you and I spending all-nighters preparing for tests or writing papers? I don't even want to tell you how many times I did that. And research would tell you that's probably the worst thing for learning. There's nothing that goes from that exercise into your long-term working memory. It just doesn't work that way.

So, you know, you pair that now with your writing lab, your math lab, where you have subject area experts ready, willing, and looking forward to students pouring through their doors saying, "Can you help me? I'm stuck." So the stress that a student can bring home when they don't know how to do the work — and the parent who's sitting there saying, "I haven't done calculus in a very long time" — some of that stress is removed from the home.

And you know, parents may say, well, school looks — you're really making school look easy. My kid's not, you know, gnashing his teeth. He's not up all night. He doesn't have a stomachache because of the test the next day. Well, all of these mechanisms, these systems as you call it, are in place to serve that. And, you know, I look at where our kids matriculate to college, and I know Out-of-Door is doing something right.

DEB OTEY: Well, I'm going to kind of move on to classroom support. It sounds like our classrooms can also tie into character. Um, we talk about the word warm, like, "oh, she's a warm person." So can a classroom be warm? And what does that feel like, and what does that look like?

JULIE BIANCHI: Yeah, I like to say that ODA expects that of their adults. And it happens in these little magic moments. You know, the head of the upper school fist-bumping kids as they walk back to their car at the end of the day, and they feel good about coming to school the next day. I think about the gentle way our lower school teachers help the littles out of the cars in the morning. It is absolutely precious to watch them welcome those kids into a brand new school day.

The middle school advisor who circles up their group of 12 kids, and these tweens have an adult who's actually listening to their ideas and their thoughts and what they care about. And they know that there's an adult on their side. These things — you know, maybe it's not warm, Deb. Maybe it's safe. We're creating a place that's safe.

DEB OTEY: Right. And the opposite of that looks like what? Like it doesn't look like a place where you want to try something new, for sure.

JULIE BIANCHI: No. And it's — you know, one intimidating adult can absolutely flip the switch for a child. And I think about how many AP teachers across the country will stand in front of their kids every first day of school and say, "50% of you are going to drop my class in two weeks, and the other 50% are probably not going to get above a 75% in this class." Well, now you have shaken the confidence of all these young minds that are hoping to learn from you.

Flip that around and say, "You are about to embark on one of the hardest things you've ever done, and I'm going to do everything I can to help you succeed. Will you have to work harder than you've ever worked before? Yes. Will you have to do it alone? No."

DEB OTEY: So rigor — it's not, rigor doesn't have to be cold. Rigor and the striving for excellence doesn't have to be something that you have to be miserable doing.

JULIE BIANCHI: No. In fact, if you don't have that safe, warm environment, rigor doesn't happen. Rigor doesn't happen.

You know, I was in a second grade classroom last spring. Eight years old, right? It's adorable. These little kids are sitting on the carpet. Their teacher's up in front, and it looks like she's probably going to read them a story. But that's not what she was doing. They were doing algebra. Now, they literally were solving for X. Here's an equation: this plus that equals this. But the "that" was a circle. It was empty space, and they had to solve for it.

And she said to the class, she says, "Tell Mrs. Bianchi, what are we looking for?" Well, they, all giggling, were like, "We're looking for Bob." She made solving for X "looking for Bob." This is fun. This is an adventure. They're in it together. They're doing a complex math problem at the end of second grade that, probably, if you said "we're solving for X," would be absolutely inaccessible to that young mind. But here they are having fun, can't wait for the next problem. And I'm thinking, this is hard, and they're enjoying it. What more could you want?

DEB OTEY: It's seeing the best in action, for sure. I love it. So when we put all this together — vigor, rigor, character, competency — what do we want students to walk away with? Like, what's the payoff here?

JULIE BIANCHI: Payoff is, you know, self-efficacy and agency. They are going to be faced, after ODA — even during ODA, but let's look at after — college classes, new jobs, social situations that are brand new, brand new challenges. We keep talking about this ever-changing world. They're walking into it. We are giving them the tools to adapt to whatever that world is and succeed.

And so, a child who is sitting in rows and regurgitating information can't handle that in the moment. And our kids are nimble and they're smart and they're resilient and they have this passion for challenge. And we see it every single day.

As I said before, we know so much more about the brain and how kids learn than we ever did. Um, we know that a single adult, as I said before, can trigger the amygdala, and the fight-flight-freeze response can happen in a moment.

When I started teaching, the first bit of advice I got — maybe she was my mentor, I don't know, she wasn't very good at it — because she said, "Julie, don't let them see you smile for the first six weeks." Because then you're going to have management. They'll listen to you, they'll have respect for you. It didn't work for me. I tried it for like two days. I'm like, "This doesn't work."

DEB OTEY: This isn't fun.

JULIE BIANCHI: This isn't fun. We — you know, join me in the learning. Join me in the journey. Don't push people away. You know, and the other thing I always thought was that best practices — all those years ago, Deb, when we started — the best practices that we employed as teachers, almost all of them have been flipped upside down and debunked as not true anymore.

DEB OTEY: Well, and thank goodness we're still learning, because else we'd still be doing it the way we were taught, which we know now is not always the best way.

JULIE BIANCHI: And I think it's really hard for our parents who walk into a classroom and things are done a little differently, right? Because best practice when they were in school looks different than now.

DEB OTEY: It sure does. It absolutely does.

JULIE BIANCHI: And so, you know, I think sometimes it doesn't look as formal. It doesn't perhaps even look as structured. But trust me, the learning is deeper, and the kids are growing exponentially every single day. And that's the product at Out-of-Door Academy.

DEB OTEY: Yes. Well, thank you for leading that charge, Julie. It's so important not only that we're doing the work of education, but that we know the why behind why we're doing the work. And I think you've really helped us understand that today. So thank you.

Um, we are so glad you were here with us today. And I appreciate Julie helping us unpack all that goes on around the philosophy of teaching and learning at Out-of-Door.

So to our families, thank you for spending a few minutes with us. We hope today's conversation gave you a deeper understanding of teaching and learning at The Out-of-Door Academy, and perhaps even sparked a little curiosity for you along the way. You can be learning with us. If today's episode inspired a question, we'd love to hear it.

Thunder and Thoughts is built around the questions that matter most to our families, so keep them coming. Your question may inspire a future episode. So until next time, I'm Deb Otey. Thanks for listening.