Recently, I read Will Richardson's book "Why School?" and it has challenged my thinking and led to me question much about our education process. Mr. Richardson discussed things like: information scarcity vs. abundance, whether standardized tests are the most appropriate measure of student success, and the skills that students will need to be successful as they move on to college and careers. His thoughts and assertions led me to think about student motivation as that seems to be a common concern among teachers and parents.
Why do students enter school at age five or six eager to learn but then, over time, begin to dislike school? I believe that it is because we (the system, not the people) educate the passion for learning out of them. Think of all the content objectives that students are mandated to learn - whether they are interested in them or not. These mandates take ownership of learning from the students themselves and have given that ownership to 'the powers that be' in the name of educational improvement. The problem with that is that the things that are touted as improving schools and students are simply the things that are easily measurable - that is to say the focus is on more content knowledge and not more 'soft skills' for which employers are longing. Finally, at some point in the education journey the focus for students, parents, and others shifts from the learning to the grade. The letter we assign to the learning takes precedence over the learning itself.
So what do we do about this? How can we move forward for students while still 'playing the game' of testing. I believe we need to find a way to reignite each student's passion for learning. First, we give them ownership of at least some part of their learning. There are certainly foundational concepts with which every student must be familiar, but outside of those students should own what they are learning. If we could provide that, what would that do to a student's motivation? Secondly, we must make learning relevant to students. Standardized tests, and the concepts they address, for the most part are seen by students as irrelevant. They are asked to solve problems and answer questions that are of little value to them. As Alan November says, "Whoever defines the problem owns the learning." Clearly, standardized tests are not owned by the students. Finally, we must honor individual student strengths and passions. Each student is 'wired' differently so why are we working to make them all the same? Students need to be allowed to work in their area of passion and on things that excite them. More growth is possible in strength areas than in areas of weakness. Let's work on growing each individual's strengths and managing their weaknesses.
What would this look like in schools? I believe a start is to build at least 20% of a student's time around their area of passion. That number could increase for those that have a solid grasp on basic skills in every content area, but even those that are behind in basic skills would be motivated by spending 1/5 of their time working on something about which they are passionate. (Google has used this philosophy and it has worked pretty well for them.) With technological access, much of the basic skill learning could be done virtually with support from a local teacher if needed. Teachers must shift from the dispensers of knowledge to the facilitators of learning - not knowing everything about everything but being able to guide students to find the answers they seek. This would require a complete rethinking of the traditional school schedule and school requirements. What would happen to standardized test scores? My first thought is 'Who cares?' but that is a little flippant. However, I believe that if we allow students to develop the critical thinking skills that would be necessary for this type of learning, test scores would be just fine. And more importantly, our kids would be prepared for success in whatever each of them chooses to do after graduation.
As I meet with my teachers, students, and other community stakeholders at the start of this school year, I will be asking them one question - "If we take away all pre-conceived notions about school and all the requirements placed on schools and we simply focus on what students need to succeed when setting up our learning structure/environment, what would our school look like?" I hope that question generates discussion and ignites a passion in my staff and community to change the way we do business - because I want my students to know their passion and be able to design their learning around it.
We have been doing the same thing in schools for 150 years. Now, we are trying to do the same things better to get better results. But, as Mr. Richardson puts it so eloquently in his book, we don't need to focus on better, we need to focus on different. Remember the definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. We have to be different for our student's sake. It's time to stop the insanity and ignite the passion.
