The opportunity to start an alternative program for high school students, with a steady green light from the top administration, doesn’t present itself all that often. In my own education career, about thirty-five years worth, I can think of one summer camp, one public parks program, and one school that gave the space and time to go out on a limb with truly cutting edge programming. And now again, Fall 2026, another school is providing that opportunity.

We’ve set the curriculum up as a pull system, something I learned about over the last ten years and have written about a few times. Pull systems encourage taking on the next task when you have space and time for it. When that new task is most needed and helpful. When it fits with what you already know and what you need to know. 

Maybe thinking about the opposite of pull makes a pull system clearer. The opposite is of course a push system. I would classify our traditional approach to schooling as a push system. The curriculum is usually prepared before the teacher meets any students, instruction is sometimes planned and scheduled with limited ability to react to what students actually demonstrate in knowledge and ability, and the students themselves are grouped by age level, making the teacher’s job with both curriculum and instruction difficult. Tests are pushed out at certain times, standards are pre-set, Push, push, push.

So we opted for a pull system. We have lots of resources and activities that are ready to be pulled into class, week by week or even day by day. Students pull specific work into the class period according to what they believe will be most helpful for them. We’ll coach along the way, of course, but our default position is learning from observing the choices students make. Do they see what can be helpful, what they need to learn next? And do they learn from the process of having to make decisions about what to learn? We believe they will.

Here are two examples from our first week of the IMPACT program that give me a whole lot of confidence. They both happened on the first Friday of the program. (Names are pseudonyms.)

Brad and I have ten minutes for some informal coaching. The point is simply for me to hear from him what personal passion project he is thinking about. I know he has several projects in mind, so I go into our short meeting thinking I’ll help him narrow his focus. But Brad opens his computer and begins with a professional-looking pitch for the creation of a Learning Management System (LMS) for our program. He isn’t trying to sell me on Moodle, Canvas, or Powerschool. He wants to build an LMS himself. He starts with the Why (the students discussed good pitching the day before) and gives examples of how the LMS would help students and coaches focus more on their projects and less on the administration of the program.

Brad and I talk about possible next steps. I ask who he might collaborate with. There isn’t any reason not to see what Brad, and hopefully a few of peers, could put together for us. He has clearly shown me that the work could have a positive impact on the program. After we consider possible next steps for a bit, Brad sits back and wonders aloud whether or not the school’s administration is already working on an LMS. He decides he had better talk to the administration. My role is mostly to nod and agree. He’s pulled a meaningful project into the curriculum, he is personally motivated, he knows what to do next. I couldn’t be more satisfied.

Nancy has asked for some time to speak with the cohort of students and coaches. There is a sticky note on the board, reserving her place in the afternoon’s agenda. “Student Projects – Nancy.” So we turn our attention to her. Nancy would like to make a movie. She describes to us all, as we sit in a circle around pushed-together tables, what she has in mind. And then she  summarizes with a polite shrug, “So yeah, that’s it.” 

Students immediately begin asking questions and offering suggestions. That’s a great idea! What genre do you think? How long do you think it will be? You should be the producer, but yes, you can be an actor, too. Who is going to write the script? Where will you show it, how about YouTube. You’ll need to get permission from anyone in the movie. Can I have a role? 

I’m guessing these are the type of students who would jump in and ask questions like this simply because of who they are. I also think it doesn’t hurt that we’ve been specifically practicing a Harkness-type round table approach where we look out for each other, try to be inclusive, and avoid dominating the conversation. In fact, after class I have a chance to quietly compliment Lance on how politely he took the floor and how politely he passed control back to others. “Oh, I had more to say,” he told me. “But I didn’t want to dominate.” Right, excellent. There’s a skill that goes far beyond any specific content area! Another student, Ethan, asks me during the break if he can have time on Monday to talk about his project. Sure, I tell him, we’ll make a sticky note, you can propose it when we build the schedule for the week. I’m guessing he’s pulling a personal project topic into the curriculum, just as Nancy modeled for us earlier. We’ll hear more on Monday. 

Pulling, not pushing. It isn’t exactly turning curriculum and instruction on their head. I wouldn’t say it is radical. But it is fairly far from the norm. We are collaboratively building a curriculum in real time through the perceived needs of students and their own motivation. We’ve given them a goal (a passion project that has personal and external impact, with deliverables in six weeks time) and they are working toward the solution. Brad wants to manage the oncoming flurry of work by building an LMS for everyone. Nancy wants to make a movie, and Ethan is going to share his proposal with us on Monday. I’d say everyone has caught on to the pull system very quickly. Maybe, just maybe, this is a repositioning for curriculum and instruction that gracefully aligns with how we think and act. 

And maybe there’s a pedagogical nugget here for all of us, a piece of learning that is applicable in most any teaching context. Entrust your students with responsibility. They will most likely amaze you, not fail you.

Sometimes the juxtaposition of two ways of thinking makes you sit up really straight or feel that you’ve skipped a heartbeat or two. The feeling of worlds colliding, and in my case this past week, bouncing off each other. Some of the LinkedIn posts I’m seeing are messing with me. Really!

We’ve been working hard at Eastwood Montreux to prepare for the start of the academic year, the inaugural academic year at this unique school. Together, my colleagues and I are building a process in which teachers and students co-create curriculum. It’s our attempt to make as much space for authentic student agency as possible. Not just a choice between A or B and not merely tinkering at the edges of traditional curricula, and certainly not student-input-for-show on decisions that have already been made by the adults. We are trying to go all in on co-creation. Processes, materials, timing, projects, groups, feedback, demonstrations, all to be co-determined with students. If you are going to teach agency, after all, you gotta make space for students (and teachers) to practice agency. 

Daring. Scary. Visionary? Maybe. Decidedly out of the box, that’s for sure.

So we’ve been talking about our values for the program and modeling for each other processes and sample content. It hasn‘t been easy for us adults. We have to constantly remind ourselves not to over-structure the curriculum, determining when, by whom, and in what way. We’re having to ask questions, not provide answers. And we are unlearning very ingrained habits of teaching. We’ll be asking the students to unlearn equally ingrained habits of schooling, too. I don’t anticipate this will be easy. In fact, from previous alternative programs I’ve been involved with, I know it won’t be easy. Unlearning many of the central assumptions of school, assumptions that individuals have rehearsed for years and generations have grown comfortable with, is heaving lifting. 

I’m happy to say we’re making progress in our initial iterations and that we’ll continue to make progress after the students arrive, iteration by iteration. All year long and beyond.

But those LinkedIn posts. Lots of them now, at the beginning of the school year. Some of the posts inspire me and many give me that jolt when worlds collide. It’s their schoolishness I’m reacting to, I realize. Grading policies, assuming a single teacher at the head of the room, the emphasis on rewards (and punishments), the predictability of curriculum, putting students in classes by age instead of readiness. It’s so schooly, which yes, has sometimes served well. But it’s so not the mindset we’re working on, it’s not our vision for the future of education.

Summer 2002, at an IBM training facility north of Milan, Italy. We’re running an English immersion summer camp for kids of IBM employees, mostly Italians. My colleague Jeff and I had created a curriculum that simulates a town, giving radical agency to students. We set some initial conditions and turned them loose. Once the program took off, there was no way to know what specific interactions to expect and where it all would lead. We had talked it through with our staff members, we were pretty sure it would work even if we had never taught in quite that way, and now after lunch on the first day of the program we were walking down the hall to tell kids how wonderful it would be. Or at least, how we hoped it was going to be wonderful.

“Whatever happens,” we agreed with each other, “make sure your face looks like you believe in this simulation one hundred percent. It’s going to work.”

We looked at each other one last time, eyebrows raised, not really sure if it was going to work, and pushed through the swinging doors into the large meeting room. Staff were getting students to sit. Most of the eyes in the room swung toward us as we positioned ourselves at the front of the room. I was smiling like I had never smiled before and I saw out of the corner of my eye that Jeff was doing the same. Game on.

I’ve pushed through a whole lot of metaphorical swinging doors into situations where I had to convey more confidence than I felt. When I was well planned things generally went well. If I was underplanned my face hurt from smiling, my cheeks burned, and things were a bit dicey.

I’m having that feeling again this week during the orientation meetings with my new colleagues at this new school as we prepare to open its doors for the first time. I’m going to lead an as-of-yet untried progressive afternoon program. I need to do my best to help faculty members feel secure in their roles before the students arrive. 

Comfortingly, I’ve had a lot of practice in life now, a quarter of a century after Jeff and I pushed into the meeting room at the IBM center. Even more comforting is the talent all these educators have. In the first few days together, the faculty, known as coaches, have been sharing their own passion projects, the things they love to do. We’ve heard about flower arranging and inventing card games, authoring and baking. Without fail, when my new colleagues start talking about their passion projects, their faces light up, their eyes shine brighter. Smiles are contagious and we all smile with them. Tears are contagious, too, when the passion sometimes overwhelms. 

This is our collective game face, I realize. The face that we have when we are truly invested in what we are doing, the face we have when we get to share our passion with people who really want to listen, who really want to support us. And we don’t have to fake a thing, because the passion is real.

Now, just how do we pass that on to the students?

This coming academic year I’m focused on creating the best possible progressive high school program I can, collaborating with the students and my colleagues at Eastwood Montreux. I’ve had some successes with progressive programs in the past – and some failures – and am painfully aware that the deck is stacked against us. It’s a little Don Quixote, perhaps, a little naive, perhaps a little too hopeful.

But here we go.

Henry David Thoreau, the American thinker, writer, and activist of the 1800s, quit his first teaching job after two weeks because he refused to hit the children. He started a new school, in line with his own thinking, but it did not last all that long. I share Thoreau’s irritation of not fitting into many of the assumptions of our current schooling (fortunately corporal punishment isn’t often the issue!). I have shared the disappointment of starting something different only to see it fade and end. I also agree with Thoreau that there is a little bit of the divine in all us, in all students and teachers. We don’t hit what is divine, not physically or metaphorically. On my better days maybe I’m just a little transcendental. Maybe.

The school opens its doors on September 1, 2026. I’ll be a coach and I just updated my LinkedIn profile, adding “Coach at Eastwood Montreux” to my professional roles. The school will have a traditional academic curriculum, taught by online teachers in the mornings. I am familiar, in a general sense, with that curriculum, whether IB, IGSCE, Cambridge … There are the expected subject areas, students who are taught in age groups according to preset curriculum; standards to reach by the end of the course, regardless of where students were in their learning at the beginning of the course; and external assessments that sort and rank. I am critical of the approach, but also pragmatic – it is the approach we have co-evolved across the world. It is about as ubiquitous as water is to fish. It is the strange attractor that makes it so difficult for alternate versions of education to survive.

My passion is the afternoon program, when the students learn face-to-face with each other and their coaches, working toward ever higher degrees of agency and self-awareness. I see the afternoons as trying to establish an alternative strange attractor in education, one of collaborative student-led projects, one of design thinking, small bets, iterations, networking, and reflection. A learning environment that the students co-create and co-lead.

The program is called IMPACT and we hope to make one, demonstrating what school could be.

I’ve written down a few guiding statements for myself as I work to shape the afternoon program. They are the ideals I do not want to forget when schoolishness exerts its pull, as I know it will, often and forcefully. These are:

1. Everything starts with the student. Curriculum, instruction, assessment, timetables, year grades, academic grades, standards, etc. do not form the organizational principles of school, rather, the individual student is the organizational principle. Everything must be able to flex with the individual needs of the student.
2.  When the adults, through the benefit of greater maturity and experience, find it appropriate to teach, they do so standing shoulder to shoulder with students, looking out at the horizon of possibilities. When the students are able to teach, they teach, with us at their shoulder.
3. Keep it Simple. 

I plan to say to myself, before I answer a question, before commenting on the direction we might take with whatever issue we are wrestling with, “Start with the student, stand shoulder to shoulder, keep it simple.”

“Student, shoulder, simple.” Now let’s see where that takes us.

I finished up my final report this morning, in which I describe the eleven courses I created for myself this past school year, all in the pursuit of learning more about Scandinavia. I proofed it quickly and then wrote at the bottom:

This final report is formally submitted, to myself, on May 21, 2026.

That’s right. I don’t have anyone else to turn it in to, since my role in this degree is student, teacher, dean, and abroad advisor. I’m the procurement guy, I’m the registrar, I’m it, period. I felt a bit like Kamala Harris when, in her role as Senate leader, she announced the flling of paperwork to fill her vacated Senate seat, reading her own name. She had a good chuckle. So too did I, this morning, as I realized that my report was going to nobody else but me.

To celebrate, I took the dog for a walk in the woods on a perfect Swiss spring morning. Dappled leaves, chattering birds, and a dirt path laced with tree roots that wound its way through the woods. The perfect time and place to reflect on what I learned. Below is a little of what I thought about (followed by the course). It’s a mix of content knowledge, pedagogy, and the big and small. The sort of thinking you do on a walk in the woods.

• Written Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are so alike you could call them dialects of Greater Scandinavian. There are probably other languages in the world that are much more distant from each other but that are still called dialects. In fact, linguists like to say that the difference between a dialect and a language is that a language has a navy and an army (language).
• Apropos power, power and money is a prevalent theme throughout Scandinavian history, and to generalize, the history of people anywhere, anytime (history).
• There are Scandinavian foods I can prepare well and others that I need more practice with. This isn’t the same as saying there are Scandinavian foods I like and Scandinavian foods I dislike, because a few times I think I nailed the recipe but didn’t enjoy the outcome much. Nor some of my family members and friends, just ask them about Flygande Jakob and rømmegrøt (cuisine).
• The personality of a language teacher or speaking partner can be tremendously important to the learner. With some tutors I felt almost fluent in Swedish and at least communicative in Danish or Norwegian. With others I was absolutely tongue-tied. Same learner, same year of learning, different outcomes based on my speaking partner (languages).
• The lives of Europeans settling in what is now Minnesota in the second half of the 19th century was exceedingly difficult. One walked for miles. One built their own house, starting with trees for the lucky. One hoped not to have a grievous accident during highly dangerous work. One hoped to get to Spring before starving in the Winter. The corollary: My life is extraordinarily cushy compared to all other centuries that humans have existed (Emigration to Minnesota).
• As an autodidact, it is easier to maintain your motivation if you share your experience with other people. I don’t think I would have made it without making my project very visible to others (general).
• But I did make it, so here’s proof that if you want to pursue an academic subject in depth, and if you don’t need the stamp of approval from an institution, (1) it is entirely possible and (2) it will cost you a fraction of the money (general).
• It is the norm for political borders to change, for land to change hands, for the majority of people to be shoved around by the few in power. Not that it makes it right, but it is the story of Denmark and Sweden and the countries around them, expanding and receding, sometimes with breathtaking speed (history).
• A good piece of fiction is chock-full of truth (literature).
• Supporting adult learning has been a significant contributor to Scandinavian identity for over 150 years. It is something worth investing in no matter our cultural heritage: for individuals, groups, and regions (education).
• Whatever I’m able to write down that I learned, I actually learned much more. Intangible things, things gained with growth and maturity that we can’t quite lay our fingers on (general).

While my final report is done, I still have the abroad requirement in front of me, one week each in Denmark and Sweden this coming summer. Then I’ll really be finished, even though I know full well I’ll continue learning language, reading literature, and even baking fresh cinnamon rolls now and again. 

I’ve decided I’ll do another year of self-study (in a new subject area), but this time with a group of colleagues who are also taking on self-study of their own. We aim to support each other, to validate each other’s experience, and to serve as soft external motivation for when the internal motivation slips. If you’d like to join us, let me know. 

Experimental archeology with Travis Finneran

We’d like to think that the professional development we spend time and money on garners this enthusiastic a response much of the time:

“No joke, it’s been life changing for me.”

The fact that it doesn’t is a real problem. The fact that we are often stuck in patterns of telling and explaining, of talking at folks instead of with them, of assuming there’s been learning when there hasn’t been much, that’s a problem.

Professional development does not need to follow old models. Here’s what I experienced this morning, firsthand. An experience of joy, enthusiasm, respect, expertise, and collegiality.

Background

For over a decade, Leysin American School has invited teachers to suggest passion projects that extend across the academic year (and often beyond). Teachers with successful applications receive a stipend and some support from those of us leading professional learning. The actual time we spend on support is minimal. The most significant support is the message that we want teachers to experiment and that their self-directed work is worth doing and sharing.

This morning the faculty had a chance to attend two presentations among the eight that were offered, all led by teachers completing a year of self-directed professional learning. I heard project updates from Andie and Travis.

Outdoor education is education – Andie Flett

We’re about ten people, discussing the value of outdoor education, the why and some of the how. The presenter, Andie, is hitting the exact right tone for teaching adults: friendly, not taking herself too seriously, responsive. This is not a lecture, it is a series of structured discussions on a theme. 

This is the third time Andie has been what we call a “resident scholar” since the program began. She and a colleague explored homework support in the resident halls in 2014-2015 and student agency in the activity program in 2020-2021. This current school year she has created a curriculum for an outdoor education class as a regular part of course offerings. 

Our group talks about the importance of outdoor education from a variety of angles. Andie asks us, “What if we called our current academic classes ‘Indoor Education’ and we called outdoor education simply ‘Education?’’ The reframing makes us stop and think. What are our priorities? She asks us if it is okay to excuse students from academic classes for outdoor education experiences. Matt, an IB English teacher sitting next to me, says “of course” for his star students. For a struggling student, he hesitates. He names a student who is very focused on the outdoors but not very into Shakespeare. “Actually, who am I to say he should miss an outdoor activity for more Shakespeare, when outdoor activities are his passion, what he is good at?”

Right. In the twenty-five minute session we consider not just outdoor education, but differentiated learning and student choice and whole child development. Andie gets a chance to share her curriculum work with colleagues. We all get to observe an incredible example of non-teacher-fronted instruction. Everyone wins. And Andie knows we care about her and her interests. She matters.

Experimental archeology – Travis Finneran

The second session begins with a student playing the carnyx. The carnyx is a long horn, a bit like an alphorn, but the straight metal tube is held vertically, ending in the fanciful head of a dragon. The student can find various pitches, working the mouthpiece with an appropriate carnyx embouchure. Hatty, an English teacher, asks if it took him a long time to learn. “A very long time,” answers Travis, as he thanks the student and starts his presentation.

There are eight of us, sitting in a half circle around a table filled with jars and boxes and cloth and tree branches and rocks. And the carnyx and other stuff I can’t really identify. Travis, who is in his second year of introducing experimental archeology to the school, shares technologies with us from a time when this area of Central Europe was inhabited by the Celts. He talks about how the Romans died clothes, he lifts up bottles of dye made from berries, lichen, and other natural materials. He shows us ingots that he and students have smelted, making sure to share the safety measures he takes as well. He demonstrates how simple cutting tools were made by flintknapping, a process of hitting a stone with a hammerstone at the right angle to create a sharp-edge flint. Lithic reduction, it’s also called. 

Travis’ enthusiasm is infectious and we all ask questions and have some good laughs, especially when Travis, who likes to do things as they were done in the past (this is experimental archeology, after all) says that there are limits to sticking with ancient processes. The ammonium he uses, for example, does not come from the source it would have come from back in the middle ages, essentially aging urine. 

As teachers file out of the session, past the table of artifacts, Travis tells me he is considering getting a degree in a related field. These past two years of self-directed professional development have been “life changing, no joke.” 

The big takeaway

Professional development done right is an amazingly rich and meaningful experience, both for the learning of content and skills and for the sense of professionalism and self-efficacy that comes from sharing one’s continuous growth as an expert in a specific field. Almost universally teachers want to learn and grow and wonder and share with each other. If your professional development program struggles to build teachers up, to engage them, to offer a sense of intellectual wellness, well, build new models that do. 

For a list of the teacher-led projects since 2014, see Resident Scholars (www.las.ch/laser)

For more discussion of the promise of highly useful professional learning, see the work of Patrick Alexander (patrickgalexander.org/). We particularly like his conceptualization of “intellectual wellbeing.”

Contact Paul if you’d like to set up a similar program: [email protected]. 

I’m smiling as I write this because I’ve now written these two recent additions to my vocabulary enough times that they feel sort of real. It’s sort of cool how you can create new stuff if you just, well, create it.

And I think that’s going to be the basic message here for how to go about creating an MSelf or a SelfCert. It’s so wide open that you can just create what you would like to create, really, and after you have some sort of idea what you are going to do, whether it is vague or detailed or anywhere in between, you just start doing it. It will take you somewhere where you can adjust and continue on …

This is just my experience. It’s not a prescription to follow, but rather an example to try on, like a pair of shoes. 

My first MSelf

I don’t know when my first MSelf / SelfCert was and you won’t either. We all learn lots of stuff in different ways. In high school I focused on tennis, I tried my hand at Nicaraguan liberation theology and sewing in college, I did poetry for several years after university and got more and more interested in languages, which I’ve worked with off and on ever since. I’ve been working on creative writing now for several years, too. There’s so much that we just go and learn out of interest and curiosity.

In Summer 2025 I decided to dedicate a year to Scandinavian Studies, which I’ve been interested in for a long time, particularly since the summer before my senior year of college, when I took a course in German at the University of Minnesota. In Folwell Hall there was a sign for the department of Scandinavian Studies and Dutch, I think it was called. Now I see they have the Department of German, Nordic, Slavic, and Dutch. Nearly forty years later I thought I’d give the Nordic part of that long department name a whirl.

I came home from a dog walk in mid July determined to look at Scandinavian Studies programs. I scanned through three of them: my alma mater, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Wisconsin and Berkeley. I spent maybe an hour, hour-and-a-half. I had already thought about what I would like to do一 I was basically verifying that what I had in mind might belong to a Masters program. Since the MEd program I teach in lasts just one year, I decided one year would be long enough for an MSelf, and since I really liked the structure of my undergraduate program at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, I decided to have four-and-a-half fall semester courses, a January course (we called it Interim), and four-and-a-half spring semester courses, followed by a short abroad experience.

I drew boxes in three columns (fall, January, and spring) and wrote the names of the courses. For the fall semester I chose Scandinavian languages (two credits), literature (1 credit), the folk high school system of adult education (1 credit) and Scandinavian cuisine (half a credit). For the January term I decided to focus on immigration to Minnesota (of which I’m a product, a few generations removed), and for the spring semester I kept the languages (2 credits), literature (1 credit), and cuisine (half credit), but replaced education with politics, which I eventually switched to history about a week before the second semester began. In the second semester I also focused on Swedish, since I had decided to take a Swedish writing course as part of my abroad experience, so I replaced the second language credit with a course in creative writing in Swedish.

The abroad program was simply three weeks in Scandinavia. I figured I would live one week in each of the three largest Scandinavian countries. I discovered I could live at a folk high school in Sweden and be a writer for a week. A friend suggested I visit the open air museum in Roskilde, Denmark, so I rented a nearby Airbnb. And then a colleague in Iceland invited me to come to Reykjavik in the fall as a visiting scholar. A little later than my original plan, but hey – it is so perfect. 

Curriculum? For languages I was already using Duolingo and iTalki. I added online subscriptions to a Danish and Swedish newspaper and committed to reading some of the texts in both the literature and immigration courses in Scandinavian languages. (I followed through, reading in both Danish and Swedish. Norwegian, I’ll get to you eventually.) I watched a few Netflix shows in Scandinavian languages. Luckily the course about folk high school programs steered me to  free online Swedish courses and inexpensive online writing courses. I also reconnected with Barbara Cartford, who tutors Swedish online, and we’ve been having fun language meetups ever since.

I googled what literature was considered part of what someone should know about and I asked my language tutors on iTalki and at the folk high school what they read in school in their countries. I bought a Kindle for immediate gratification and portability and I discovered Bokus to order regular books in Swedish. I also got a few texts in Danish from Orell Füssli in Switzerland. There is also a fantastic online site with free Swedish texts: Literatturbanken.

I didn’t know at the beginning where my reading would lead me, nor that I would eventually focus on Swedish. (I actually took placement tests in Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish before and after the first semester – also free from a Swedish folk high school. At the beginning of the year I was better at reading Danish than Swedish. That has since flipped.) I didn’t know that I would sign up for an online course in Scandinavian bildung, but it fit very well with the folk high school work. And I had no idea I’d be able to do a weeklong writer’s course in Skölding, Sweden in the summer, but yes, anyone can sign up, from anywhere in the world.

I also didn’t know I’d have a shield with a Viking ship and Old Norse as a symbol for my MSelf, but I made one, so now I have one. And this afternoon I made a symbol for my SelfCerts 2026-2027, too. It’s just one symbol, perhaps I’ll add the month … or perhaps I’ll just give myself as many of them as I actually accomplish.

In summary, I planned in a very general way; I created a framework. And then I let the learning take me where it led. I was successful not because of the specifics created beforehand, but rather the flexibility of following where things led as they emerged from the learning itself. That flexibility is perhaps one of the important distinctions and advantages of an MSelf: the curriculum fit me very well because I kept creating it as I learned. I didn’t know I would be able to read Swedish crime stories, but once I read one it seemed logical to read several. I had never heard of Johan Hassan Khemiri, but the first novel was so good I read a second (which a student in one of the writing classes recommended). Same thing for Tove Ditlivsen, only that was a trilogy and I read it in my strongest second language, German. Oh, and while I loved the Swedish poetry class, the other writing class? I paid to attend ten times, but quit in the middle of the third session, with a polite but final “I’m sorry, I have to go” message in the chat. The teaching didn’t fit my level or my expectations, and it was in English. So I dropped the class. Easy as that. Leaving the class didn’t harm my learning, it improved it, because I was able to focus on more productive avenues.

That’s how I planned my MSelf. I created a framework. I followed my interests. I added and subtracted as I went with an eye toward motivation, effectiveness, and enjoyment.

Oh, and one other thing. I blogged about the process along the way and I shared with people what I was doing. Going public was important. I even picked up the book “Little Experiments” during the second semester, which underscored how being public about your self-learning keeps you accountable and motivated. The book is pretty much a handbook for anyone interested in creating an MSelf or SelfCert.

That was my personal formula. It’s just one formula. It’s only an example.

Moving foward with a SelfCert

In Fall 2025, after posting about my MSelf progress (that whole going public thing), I connected with Irina, who was among the first to express interest in doing something similar but a bit less intense. We created the SelfCert on the spot. The SelfCert is virtually the same as an MSelf except for the duration. SelfCerts are shorter. How much shorter is up to every individual person creating a SelfCert. That’s part of the joy of it being self-directed.

For my part, I’m planning in 2026-2027 to do a series of SelfCerts. They will be thematically linked around the theme of health and nutrition, an area I’m committed to more out of necessity than a burning interest. This will be much different for me than a year of Scandinavian Studies. I’m making little bets by keeping each SelfCert independent and only three weeks long – the first three weeks of the month. During each three-week time frame I will focus on one modification to my current eating habits and one type of physical activity. How I feel will be my main assessment.

If the three-week period goes well I will perhaps extend the practice longer, combining it with the next SelfCert. If I’m ambitious I’ll do one SelfCert every month, September through May. Considered all together, that will almost be an MSelf, I suppose. But I’m not committing to that. I may take a month or two off. I may or may not create a Healthy Cooking component like my two half-credit Scandinavian Cuisines courses. I’m keeping it at the SelfCert level because (1) I know my motivation is more pragmatic than passionate and (2) I’d like to experience a SelfCert in order to be a better coordinator of both the MSelf and the SelfCert for others who will join me in the pursuit of their own interests.

And what are those interests, you ask? Are there really others who want to join? Well, yes, I’m glad to report! Those who have already picked a 2026-2027 topic are interested in pursuing:

• Agentic AI in Education
• Creating Textiles
• Creative Writing
• The Language and Culture of Bolivia
• Photography
• Shedding Light on Dark History
• Using AI tools for business analysis and integrating AI solutions in business environments.

If you’d like to join us, let me know. I think it’s going to be a hoot! We plan on meeting online once a month to swap stories and motivate each other. Reach me at [email protected].

A colleague asked me for some examples of action research, or “teacher experimentation.” She used the word “snippet,” which is a fantastic word. 

snippet (n.) – “small piece snipped off,” 1660s, from snip (n.) + diminutive suffix -et.* 

So here are eight snippety examples of real teacher projects illustrating what I consider the Most Needed Professional Learning Practice: action research and teacher experimentation.

1. Experimental Archaeology

What do you do when you have a staff member who is into early Scandinavia, the Middle Ages, and padded combat? You support his efforts to smelt iron, prepare food with the ingredients and technology from hundreds of years ago, and start boffering (the padded combat part). Ever had a student serve you mead and flatbread during a demonstration of the Celtic carnyx, a medieval war horn? Pretty cool stuff.

Why is this teacher experimentation particularly interesting? 

Travis is an activity leader at the boarding school, teaching students what he himself is interested in and currently learning about. Together they are building an after-school curriculum in history, archeology, and sport, pushing the limits of what is possible at school. 

2. Curriculum Revision for a Grade 11 and 12 English Course

A few years ago, Hatty began teaching a high school English class new to her. In the first year she noticed that the curriculum could fit the students’ interests and abilities better, that there was room for improvement. So she set about doing something about it by experimenting with new units, reflecting about them as she taught them, and documenting what she did.

Why is this teacher experimentation particularly interesting? 

Hatty and I had several email exchanges over the course of the year as she worked on her new curriculum. She introduced something new, then reflected about it in an email to me (and no doubt in conversations with other teachers as well). I (we) then got to reflect further about her reflections, carrying the conversation forward. The resulting exchanges were deep, meaningful, and sometimes quite emotional. To emphasize a theme that you’ll see runs through all these snippets, teachers need to know that (1) they are encouraged to experiment and that (2 they have the time and the venue to share their reflections with other teachers.* The formula for professional growth is really that simple.

3. Teaching through Simulations 

For three years, Brian created and tried out several simulations in his tenth grade history class. I watched and participated in simulations about trade between China, India, and Africa and the fall of Constantinople (in a simulation that included a bombardment of a Lego wall with increasingly large projectiles). A colleague and I wrote about Brian’s work under the title Simulating to Get Real. The “real” part is the unfolding of events, instead of the teacher telling about events, as well as the emotions one has as a player of a game in which you reach a goal or are thwarted by the complex interactions of the competing interests of other players.

Why is this teacher experimentation particularly interesting? 

Professional learning takes a lot of time. One reason that one-shot PD sessions have such little impact on teacher practice and even less on student learning is that they rarely play out over any significant period of time. Personally introducing and refining a new approach to teaching over three years is vastly different from hearing about it for an hour or two. Real improvement takes real time, that’s just the way it is. Brian took real time—and created memories for his students that will last a lifetime.

4. Tools for Supporting Neurodiverse Multilingual Students

Mari is particularly interested in the intersection of multilingual students with special needs. From what she could tell in her own English as an Additional Language class, there were perhaps more than a few unmet needs among her students. So she collaborated with the Multilingual Learning Research Center from the University of Wisconsin*** to train on using action research. She then set up a study that included other teachers and staff at her school.

Why is this teacher experimentation particularly interesting? 

Action research is really what we as teachers always do, informally. We recognize an unmet need or an issue in curriculum, instruction or assessment that could work better. Then we try things out. Sometimes we find good partners to help us. Mari formalized her experimentation further, eventually publishing her research in a curriculum journal. For Mari, who is enrolling in a PhD program next fall, this was a logical way to leverage her personal experimentation in the classroom. 

5. A Small Business Website

I was reminded of this project yesterday when I saw Vanessa driving her company van, Pattes et Pic, in town. She is a dog trainer. When she was teaching business at our school she collaborated with a student who was learning to build websites. They created her first website together.

Why is this teacher experimentation particularly interesting? 

Vanessa had a real need and reached out to one of her students to help. The student gained real world experience in an area he was interested in. Since Vanessa’s project I’ve noticed that many teachers are interested in turning their action research projects into small businesses. Just last week a science teacher piloted the latest version of her simulation with several of us teachers. A colleague of hers has created an app for IB and AP biology review based on student needs in his classes, and another teacher has created online training for PE teachers from what she has learned over years of experimentation with student agency.

6. IB Math Studies: A Challenge Based Approach

Rob leveraged two years of action research at our boarding school to further develop an idea he and a colleague initiated in Washington DC public schools. He created resources and practices in the evening and tried them out in class during the school day. This is, in fact, what teachers regularly do: Create new methods and materials, usually small variations from what they have previously tried, to see what might work better.

Why is this teacher experimentation particularly interesting? 

Rob and his business partner Karim eventually launched Modern Classrooms Project, a professional development program that has reached tens of thousands of teachers around the world. While teacher action research and experimentation is important solely for the impact on the teacher doing the action research, from time to time, the scope of a project exceeds everyone’s wildest dreams. 

7. Leading Professional Learning (Helen)

Leading professional learning that respects practices associated with effective adult learning (autonomous and collaborative projects taking place in the classroom over a long period of time) also requires experimentation. Helen organized teacher volunteers so they could pursue their own passion projects, essentially making sure they knew that administrators “had their back” for experimenting and learning in the classroom.

Why is this teacher experimentation particularly interesting? 

Helen is learning, through doing, how best to support individual teacher interests, how to bolster motivation, and most importantly, how to demonstrate to teachers that what they are experimenting with is important and valued by her school.

8. Leading Professional Learning (Néhemie)

Like Helen, Néhemie is leading a group of teachers who have volunteered to work on their own professional learning. Unlike Helen, they are all exploring one theme: creating greater student agency. They experiment in their classrooms and then share with each other what they have done, how well it worked, and what they might change next time. 

Why is this teacher experimentation particularly interesting? 

Néhemie’s approach is a nice example of working in small iterations in an action research cycle of Plan-Do-Reflect. Their learning unfolds as they try things out and talk to each other. Simple and effective.

*from the app “Etymonline” 

**for more, see Justin Reich of the Teaching Systems Lab at MIT.

***for more, see mlrc.wisc.edu.

Paul is joined by Irina Lupu, both as author of this blog and future autodidact!

We all make an effort to learn new things, particularly stuff we are interested in, all the time. Sometimes we set ourselves goals and a timeframe. Less often, perhaps, do we formalize a chunk of learning into something parallel to the learning you might do at a university, with depth and breadth and focus for an established period of time. 

That’s what Paul did for the 2025-2026 school year. He started experimenting with creating his own degree, from A to Z, for himself. It turns out there is lots to think about when you do such a thing!

Paul

In the summer before the 2025-2026 school year, to get a feel for the standard requirements, I googled three university programs that offer MAs in Scandinavian Studies. Combining what I read with what I was interested in learning, I created a fall and spring semester of classes, a January term, and a follow up summer abroad experience. In other words, I made myself the equivalent of a Masters program. A university of one!

Then I started to read for the literature course, I scheduled with language tutors for the Scandinavian languages for the language course, for Education 101 I began researching the history and current state of the Scandinavian folk high school, and I collected Scandinavian recipes from friends and family for my self-imposed cooking and baking requirement.

I shared the program on LinkedIn and asked others to join me, not specifically for Scandinavian Studies, but for some area of study that they have always wanted to learn in depth. I imagined I’d make a support group, a study-your-own-thing-but-check-in-with-each-other group. I didn’t get any takers at first, but I have one now, Irina.

Irina

When I saw Paul’s post on LinkedIn, I thought to myself: well, that’s a really interesting idea! 

While informal learning often happens spontaneously, I personally need a structured approach when exploring topics I’m interested in. Structure helps me stay focused and make steady progress.

What particularly caught my eye was the fact that Paul took inspiration from several existing Master’s programs when designing his own. This strikes me as a great way to identify what is relevant in a particular field or topic, as well as how it is typically delivered. It also provides a useful indication of how, and at what pace, the learning might unfold.

While everyone seems to agree that lifelong learning is one of the most important competencies for an unpredictable future, my take on continuous learning is that it plays a crucial role in one’s cognitive and mental health, regardless of the impact it may have on a career path.

Paul

I described what I was doing to my friend and colleague, Gϋlendam Akgül, while spending a week together at her university in Ankara. She was interested and supportive, which encouraged me to spend one evening in my hotel designing a shield for the diploma. I used Old Norse for “And so we learn,” taken from a text about Old Norse, runes, and the sagas. I didn’t want to privilege any of the three Scandinavian languages I was learning, so Old Norse seemed logical. Plus it looks cool. 

I also decided on a name for the degree, something akin to degree abbreviations you’d associate with a university. I settled on a variant of MPhil (Masters of Philosophy) and named the degree the MSelf. That seemed to convey the project I had started—a masters level collection of content created by myself. Now I just needed to keep discovering resources – and motivation—to keep moving through the fall semester. I still didn’t have any colleagues for support, but Irina was following my posts on LinkedIn, as I learned later.

Irina

I’ve long reflected on which topic would be interesting enough for me to dedicate to a self-designed program spanning several months—or even several years. I believe that this choice largely depends on the stage one is at in their professional life, and on whether the learning is meant to support career development or is driven by pure curiosity or more personal motivations.

While I haven’t settled on a specific topic yet, at this stage of my career I would be more inclined to invest time and effort in a self-designed program that benefits my professional development. One possible approach would be to start by browsing programs offered by various institutions in fields that are professionally relevant to me.

Paul

I was very motivated through the first semester and the January term. In all courses, save perhaps Danish and Norwegian, I accomplished more than I had initially planned. My family was inundated with lefse and rømmegrøt and cinnamon rolls and meatballs. Then in the last week of January I had a week off before the official start of the second semester, February 2, 2026. That first week I had one Norwegian lesson (I forgot everything, it seemed, that I had learned.) and I read Independent People by Hálldor Laxness, the Icelandic Nobel Laureate. Not a great showing, thank goodness I’ve got Irina now for motivation!

Irina

Staying motivated in the long run is one of the biggest challenges of informal learning. Even in formal education, it can be hard to stay focused from September to June; however, when enrolled in a mandatory program, one does what needs to be done to get through the year.

So what happens when there’s no obligation? What I think helps is having a program that is designed and carefully planned ahead of time. It’s far easier to complete a daily or weekly assignment when you know what’s expected in advance than to plan learning in an ad hoc way.

Additionally, the key to staying motivated may lie in being part of a community of learners who are also pursuing their own self-designed programs, even if they’re focused on entirely different topics. Regular check-ins with fellow learners help maintain momentum, while being part of a purpose-driven community provides additional motivation.

Where do we go from here?

Paul will graduate, so to speak, in Summer 2026 after fulfilling the abroad requirement of the program: a week-long writer’s retreat at a Swedish folkhögskola and a week in Roskilde, Denmark, home of Danish kings and open air museums with a chance to row a Viking ship with other tourists willing to pay for such a thing. The diploma is the shield Paul drew in Turkey, as a tattoo, finished by a tattoo artist in Roskilde. If Paul doesn’t chicken out.

And then what?

We hope to reflect on the experience and share some more thoughts via blogging. What is adult education? Who should direct it, and to what end? How do we keep ourselves motivated? What has changed in  today’s world, if we don’t need the official recognition of a degree from the university? We certainly have all we need to study just about anything and to collaborate with just about anybody.

In Fall 2026 we will pick our topics and launch ourselves into an MSelf, this time together, supporting each other collaboratively with our independent programs. We hope to invite additional people to join us as well. Maybe you, if you’ve read this far, maybe you are interested in going in depth on something you love, whether to support your career, as Irina envisions, or to pursue a personal interest, as Paul did in this first iteration.

Perhaps we’ll have to expand our degree offerings, depending on the scope of projects any future colleagues imagine. Someone might join us who doesn’t want the full Masters equivalency. How about just a certification, for the length of time and depth of study that they deem appropriate? They might create the SelfCert, or some other new recognition of learning. When we are independent, creative, and fun, why the heck not!

Contact us at [email protected] and [email protected] if you’d like to join in. Seriously. But also in fun.

A conversation about teacher-researchers with Gülendam Akgül, Sevda Kır Çelik, and Paul Magnuson

You are going to need a little bit of context here. Gülendam and Paul have traded visiting scholar experiences, first Gülendam at Leysin American School in Switzerland and then Paul at Ankara University in Türkiye. Paul’s role at Leysin American School straddles practice and academia and Sevda has a similar role at her institution, Yenimahalle Arts and Science Center, so Gülendam got us together on a Zoom to talk about the value of this in-between way of being: the value of being a pracademic.

And the last bit of context. Paul consulted this past fall with Eastwood Montreux, a unique boarding school set to open in Fall 2026. The school founders are interested in developing teacher-researchers, it says so right in their materials. A start up fostering pracademics … it sounds right up our alley.

Paul

I sent you both a screen shot from the brochure of Eastwood Montreux, the newest school of Eastwood Global. I know advertising is perhaps the most optimistic view of what a program might be like, but I really believe that this organization wants to support teacher-researchers in a big way.

Sevde

I saw it, the school is taking teacher-researchers seriously.

Gϋlendam 

And the school is taking a risk because it’s doing something different. I wonder if they’ve tried this in their other schools? Is this new? 

Paul 

I don’t know. I do think they want to grow the experience further at their new site here in Switzerland, and then inform their other sites through doing so.

Gϋlendam

Well, the world has changed a lot, and is continuing to change faster and faster, but education doesn’t seem to change very much. Just passing on knowledge isn’t the role of school anymore, or at least it shouldn’t be. Perhaps an approach like this will help the teachers adapt more quickly to more modern demands of teachers.

Sevda

When teachers are acting as researchers they can help focus the school’s attention on what is most important, what is most current. Teachers are closest to the learning, they know the students best.

Paul

Right. And the school’s vision, and how it acts on that vision, can evolve with what teachers are learning.

Gϋlendam

Yes, and at the same time teachers can step back and observe themselves. That helps them continue to develop.

Sevda

And that’s how you create a culture of learning in the school. It’s not the teachers telling the students to learn, it’s the teachers learning and modeling that learning with students, for students. 

Something else. I think a big issue with action research in schools is that the school administration doesn’t generally allow teachers to do it, or they don’t actively create the time to be able to do it. At least here in Türkiye it is difficult. It must be difficult in many places.

Paul

That’s right. The advantage a teacher will have at Eastwood Montreux is an administration that actively asks them to be teacher-researchers. Being a pracademic is valued, not something that is put up with and not well understood. Oftentimes teacher-researchers are brave souls who feel it is the right thing to do so they just get on with it, even if it’s not well understood. But when they don’t have the support from above, it’s so easy for so many reasons to stop moving forward.

Gϋlendam

Can I say something about the in-house think tank mentioned in the school’s materials? I hope that the teacher-researchers are part of this. That anybody exploring how they teach and how students learn are invited to be in the think tank. They’ll have their own data in their hands, their own ideas and projects in their mind, and they can be an important part of the discussion.

Paul

Just to play the devil’s advocate a bit, wouldn’t all schools say they have an in-house think tank; at least, that teachers are thinking about stuff and talking with each other?

Gϋlendam

Well, informally, perhaps. But a formalized think tank for the purpose of professional development will help teachers wear different lenses to evaluate their experiences. In the teachers’ room, we talk about students and lessons of course. These discussions are mostly about sharing experiences. They are valuable. But the formalization of a think tank will bring new perspectives, the focus can move to trying new ideas and finding ways to make a difference. Teachers will know that the administration values trying things out. And new solutions might come from those trial and errors.

Sevda, do we have think tanks in schools in Türkiye? 

Sevda

Only informally, those short discussions in the faculty room, maybe. Teachers might share ideas, but there probably isn’t a structure to it, nor is there support from the administration. The curriculum is really centralized, that doesn’t help.

Paul 

But what about instruction? Teachers have flexibility with instruction, don’t they? How do teachers improve?

Sevda

They have to find their own way. It’s something personal and not required by management. Any in-service training is decided by management.

Paul

Cultural context really matters, traditions and practices may not always open the door for teacher-researchers. Maybe it’s important to mention that the parent company, Eastwood Global, has schools in the Middle East, perhaps in some cultural contexts where we wouldn’t expect openness to teacher-researchers. So it’s possible in a variety of cultures and in a variety of education systems.

Sevda

There’s probably a difference between state and private schools, you know.

Gϋlendam

I think being a teacher-researcher is good for teacher wellbeing, When teachers feel respected and free, they are happier. They have more ability and power to get better at what they do.

Sevda

It’s also good modeling, when the teacher is obviously learning. Like when students are expected to know the scientific process, if they know that their teacher uses the process, they might be more motivated. And if teachers use the scientific process, they will get better at helping students learn the process, too. So it’s modeling and training both.

Gϋlendam

Teachers are closest to the student, teachers understand their schools, the opportunities in the schools, and also the constraints. If they are free to make decisions and put their own thinking into practice, it is likely that the school is headed in a direction that is suitable for the students. Without teacher input, or with too much top down influence like Sevda says, school will probably be less relevant for students.

Plus teaching is sort of a routine job. It can get monotonous. But if you work with the mindset that you are constantly experimenting to get better you can get away from the routine and have more variety. You have fresh thoughts, you aren’t just doing the same again and again, you have the opportunity to change yourself so that you are not the same, so you can respond to the changing times and the needs of the students. Teachers need to be able to adapt, otherwise school will remain the same while the world keeps changing.

Paul

It’s not too hard for me to imagine that school leaders could create a culture that says to teachers “we have your back, experiment!” What’s hard to imagine is that administrators actually set aside time for teachers that isn’t filled with teaching classes.

Gülendam

Perhaps schools need to do it like Exeter University, where I was last year. They had time set aside for teaching and research.

Paul 

As long as the teaching load is also reduced. You can’t just add more to what teachers are doing – they are already burning out.

Sevda

Could there be special courses for students that are designated as courses teachers innovate with?

Paul

But then are you creating more work?

Sevda

Well, not necessarily, if the course counts as part of their load. It would just signal to students and the teacher that being a pracademic is not only welcome, it is expected. 

Gülendam

When I think about my own teaching, I change how I teach every year, even though the content is the same. I don’t need too much additional time to do this, really. If I’m watching what I am doing as the class is going, if I take some notes, in a way I’m preparing for the next class while I’m teaching  the current one. 

Sevda

And that is exactly what we want teachers to do, as pracademics.

Further blogs about pracademics on The International Educator

Two approaches to research centers at the high school level

Teacher passion projects as professional learning 

Example classroom research of a teacher at an international school

My life as a pracademic

Your job is to facilitate peer learning