To be blunt, we have too many people in the system of American education who are just blowhards. They sound good. Their presentations are well-polished. Fancy new acronyms are employed. Research from some obscure source supports their presentations- maybe even funded by the person talking. Everyone nods their heads in approval, and off we go like Bilbo Baggins with that ring hanging tantalizingly by a necklace. We never stop and roll the tape forward. We rarely examine the long term impacts on families, students, and the learning environment. Unfortunately, many of the neatly packaged products by modern day snake oil salesmen have invaded our public education classrooms. We have invested heavily in data driven products and decision making products which are helping us create great test takers….but maybe not so much promoting an environment which produces creative thinkers and lifelong learners.
This is how bad our classroom environments have become. We are medicating children so that they can sit still for hours on end, especially boys. They are not designed to remain still for seven hours a day. Children are vigorous learning machines, and their minds are active from sunup to sundown. 100 years ago…active, adventurous, children with an endless supply of energy would have been welcomed and gladly accepted by homesteaders who needed those extra hands to grow food, feed livestock, bring in hay, and perform the chores that allowed them to stay alive. Today, those same qualities are frowned upon. And we best ask ourselves why? Why do we not celebrate active learners? Now, I am not saying that children should not learn to discipline themselves. We have gobs of young people who do not know boundaries today, but that is a discussion for another time. Back to the point, we need to design classroom learning environments which capitalize on the accelerated abilities of students to learn through all five senses. Teaching to a test should be at the very bottom of best practice. In fact, teaching to a test should be jettisoned as modern day teaching – no more probes, not more DRAs, no more common assessments.
Originality of content delivery should be celebrated, and canned lessons should be gathering dust on the shelf along with the directions on how to operate a VCR.
During most of my two decades of teaching, I was what was called a self-contained teacher in third and fourth grades. That means I taught all subjects. It took me a while, but I learned to integrate subject areas. For example, during science we would build a see-through replica of a combustible engine. We would talk about forces, energy, and inertia. We would research those concepts. Then, we would write about our experiences during literacy and maybe even research the history of combustion engines(social studies). In mathematics, we would calculate how much it might cost to build that engine or even calculate the force require to make a piston move. Even better, they would learn applied, units of measurement in the process. Every level of Bloom’s taxonomy would be utilized.
My mom is also a teacher. She made sure that I attended a school (k-4) which has a Montessori approach to learning. In all of my years of k-12 learning, those were my best years of learning. I loved school. I loved learning. And I remember only taking one standardized assessment in all of my years in that school. I do remember building a maze which resembled a maze in Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. We even borrowed a mouse to run it. It got even more interesting when that mouse got loose for a 2-3 days in the classroom. I remember going to school in a barn, and listening to wonderful read aloud books. We used to listen to those right after lunch. I could have done it all day. Ralph S Mouse, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, the aforementioned Frisby. and so many more. I was immersed in literacy, and I loved it. Now, we still had to learn basic skills in order to provide a foundation for the higher level of thinking that would follow, but my teachers never stalled on just learning basic skills. They were always used as a building block to the good stuff. My read alouds for my own classroom utilized a lot of Kate DiCamillo books – Because of Winn Dixie, The Tail of Despereaux, The Magician’s Elephant, Edward Tulane, and Flora and Ulysses anchored hours of great discussions in which ALL students participated. More on Literacy instruction during later posts.
On a sidenote, my dad can recite the opening to Beowulf. He learned it in elementary school. How crazy is that. Nearly 76 years old, and he can recite every bit of it. That is rich, complex literature, and I am sure was not easy to do. But that learning has lasted nearly 70 years!!!!! Think about that, the ability to teach somebody something that lasted for seven decades…wow.
The next several posts, and maybe the entirety of this blog is going to be dedicated to thinking about how best to provide rich learning experiences for our students that inspire them and propel them forward as learners – experiential learning. The person that cures cancer is likely going to come from that type of classroom. Our astronauts which take us to the moon are quite likely sitting this classrooms today. We need to build individualistic thinkers who are unafraid to challenge themselves and others to achieve past our wildest dreams.
I want to leave you with this question. Are the learners of today going to remember the hours of test prep as the drivers which founded their success. Or….are they going to remember performing in plays, or marching at BOA Nationals in Indianapolis, or building an underwater robot, or running with their teammates on long runs through beautiful places? I know what I would remember, and our classrooms need to reflect the latter.
In order to do this we are going to need courageous political and educational leaders who will swim against the current of collectivism and stifling teaching practices. Steve Jobs endeavored to create Apple products which were different, unique and challenged the way we accessed information and communication. He dared to be different. Don’t think so? I bet many of you are reading this article on one of his inventions. We need that type of imagination to seep into our teaching.
Even better, I believe our nation is full of individuals(educators who create like Jobs) who are already doing this, and we need only tap into what they are doing!!!
