Posts from — October 2005

In the conference in Nebraska focused on Rethinking the High School Experience there were a number of conversations about experiments – and how people learn. This morning I was sent a link to an article in the Omaha World Herald entitled – Rocking the boat in class (requires a free account to read it online).

The following is my response back to the person that sent the article:

Thanks for sending this along (I read the article on the online version of the paper).

From my perspective this article frames one of the major challenges to be faced in ‘rethinking the high school experience’.

Here we have a man that paid attention to his experience – that students were bored and not connected to the ‘curriculum’ – and he found a way to both connect them to the curriculum AND get them interested in it. He took the risk to ‘try something’ (he did an experiment) and it seems to have added some value.

The environment he is in is not supporting his risk taking, his experiment nor are they paying attention to the results (there isn’t a lot of information in the article about the student’s experience but it implies the students are more engaged and that his experiment is working). Imagine what the resulting impact on the students will be if he is not allowed to teach in the way that gets them interested and connected. Imagine if the students see someone modeling a behavior they like and the ‘system’ shuts it down.

So, herein lies the challenge. Once you allow someone to take a risk and start doing things differently if you stop it, squelch it, or in some way inhibit that behavior there is potentially a backlash that is harder to recover from then if you didn’t open up for risk taking in the first place.

So, I’m saying if you are really serious about ‘rethinking the high school experience’ than the ESU’s and the state department have to be ready to fight the battles that will surely come from people ‘trying something different’…

One way to mitigate these potential battles is to educate people about what the intention is and what the potential results are – in trying new things. This can be accomplished in the traditional fashion – professional development, workshops, forums, community meetings, PR, marketing, public service announcements, etc. – but another way to educate people is the one we talked about in the conference – dialog. Getting people into these conversations about the purpose of education, why we do things the way we do them, what we might do differently, etc. – will go along way in creating an environment that will support further dialog and the safety necessary for people to both be open to new ideas and to try them.

On the plane ride back from Omaha after the Rethinking the High School Experience Conference I sat next to a young woman attending a University (to remain unnamed at this point). I told her about the conference and proceeded to interview her about her experience in college. Her answers confirmed and mirrored a lot of what the high school students said when they were interviewed by participants prior to arriving at the conference. Here’s the highlights:

• College is Social (with peers)
• Relationships with Professors are minimal
• Learning is not relavent
• They teach to the test
• Passion plays a role in a good Professor

The highlight and her favorite part the University experience are the social aspects – with peers. Relationships with Professors are minimal or non-existent. Classes have several hundred people in them. She said there are lots of things she would like to learn more about but there is not time nor encouragement to follow-up on any of these interests – because the days are filled with short term learning (she said she learns for the moment – which means she learns what she has to for the test). The learning is not translated into meaningful experiences that she can use in her life. Her curiosity about things are piqued but then she has no time to follow up on any of it.

When asked about what makes a great Professor her immediate response was passion. Someone that is clearly passionate about what they are teaching (but again she emphasized that the ‘teaching’ is lectures).

These responses mirrored what the high school students reported when they were interviewed. They said they wanted more hands-on experiences and learning that was relevant to them – not just abstract concepts. They said their favorite part of high school was their friends and the social elements – primarily the extra-curricular activities. High school students want more choice in what they learn and how they learn. And they said they like teachers that are excited about the subject they are teaching (but again they said they wanted to have more collaborative learning and team activities as part of their learning).

So, is the high school experience a reflection of the college experience (has it filtered down) or is the college experience a reflection of the high school experience (has the high school model filtered up)?

During the session last week I asked the question, “what is the fundamental underlying operating principle in education?” The participants suggested a number of ‘right answers’ ranging from: ‘everyone can learn’ to ‘creating contributing members to society’.

In my experience public education as we know it has as a fundamental underlying operating principle – control and compliance.

Educational institutions are modeled after good management theory – from the late 1800s – early 1900s. The hierarchy is based on a model of control and compliance. Now, there is nothing wrong with that model. However, the world has changed in 100+ years and as all organizations that still cling to this operating model are finding out they are having challenges maintaining control and compliance in an information age and a world of rapid change (there is more to say about this but that will come later).

So, how can people that are used to, and comfortable with, control and compliance design and develop models that are more suitable for a different climate?

So, what to do?

The first thing I would recommend doing is bring together a small group of people in your ‘learning community’ and ask the question: ‘What is the purpose of education?’

Begin the dialog – include more and more people in the dialog (especially young people) and don’t stop the dialog. In the beginning (and for some time) avoid getting lost in the details about the “HOW”. In the beginning just talk about the purpose (the “WHY”).

Engage as many people as possible in the dialog.

And the conversations will not stop with the purpose of education. I’ve already introduced several other questions that should be asked – and I will introduce more as I contribute more to this blog…

We just completed a two day collaborative event with about 100 educators focused on Rethinking the High School Experience. We documented the event a little differently from what we typically do – using blogger.com and flickr.com as the two primary tools. The documentation for this can be found at:

http://www.innovationlabs.com/newhighschool/blog.html

The major outcome from this event was a focus on a vision that included 9 planks:

• A sense of purpose
• Personalized learning
• A vision for what ‘it’ looks like when it’s done
• Innovative assessment
• Relationships with students
• Broader responsibility
• Connected learning (integrated, interdisciplinary, relevant learning)
• Teacher as facilitator
• Learning Communities

Each of the 19 different school districts made specific plans to work on at least one of these 9 areas in the next 18 months.