The Nobel-laureate philosopher Jean-Paul Satre reminded us that things don’t have to be the way things are. We live in possibilities, and we have the opportunity to ordain anything with purpose and meaning. We don’t have to live in “bad faith”, constraining ourselves to norms, living a certain way, closing ourselves off to opportunities, shackled to our capitalistic societies, pursuing money instead of passion. If we could liberate ourselves from these ideals, we could be truly free, meeting our full potential. He urged institutions to create new concepts and habits, rather than continuing to be ensnared by dogma and tradition. Although his battle cry of existential was influential and thought-provoking-it has yet to truly realize its potential for disrupting the status quo, but it seems that technology indeed has the capacity to transform many long-held beliefs and practices. Like it or not, we MUST change. The pick-ax has been replaced by the smartphone, in which our hands are no longer as useful as our minds. Nowadays our “Knowledge Economy” is transforming access to information, and so be it, we live in the “age of ideas”, in which creative thought and expression is our currency.

I think the time has come in education when we start to apply some of these notions to our schools, carefully examining our beliefs and practices and asking if what we are doing is even relevant and pertinent to the future world that our students will inhabit in 20 years.

As I ponder what Satre would say about our current school systems, I think he would lament that we have yet to “enhance” our schools in order to nurture truly alive individuals, who feel free to create and invent.

I think there are 3 things that need to shift radically if we really want to transform our schools into more agentic centers of learning.

Time

Recently I sat next to some design teachers at the United Nations International School who were sharing their ideas for re-designing their MYP design program so that it was less about paperwork and more about agency. Their team had some really brilliant ideas about personalizing the learning and making it less about grade levels and more about mastery and FUN. One of their inspirations was the teacher, Mark Barnett, who teaches design to K-12 in Hong Kong. When he added up how much time he got to see classes, it was the equivalent of 2 weeks for the WHOLE school year. So, instead of doing a two 40 minutes blocks a week, he took a grade level for 1 whole week a semester and engaged them in project-based learning experiences. For one whole week, they were absolutely engaged in their unit of inquiry. There wasn’t “Math from 8:30 to 9:10” and then from “9:15-9:55 Languages”.  It was one solid week of students engaged in learning and the single subjects were in service of the project.

When I heard that, it made me think of the book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. After I read that, I was profoundly affected, thinking about my use of time and productivity. In his book, he makes a case for extended periods of time for developing our “craft”, in which we apply continuous blocks of time to focus and concentrate our efforts in researching and creating. We’ve dabbled with that in doing “block periods”, but I think it would be worthwhile to have schools start experimenting with how we can have different time table structures that are flexible so that we can engage in meaningful projects.

Content

I think most of us can agree that the “what” we teach hasn’t changed much since technology has taken hold of our schools. We plan backward from our standards, developing a scope and sequence so that everything gets “covered”. Most of us have teacher-directed lessons, in which everyone sits down and we dispense the standards in whole-group fashion–what I have come to realize that this is still a One Size Fits All approach to learning. Flipped learning has been in our vernacular for a while now, yet only certain grade levels even dabble in it, and rarely have I seen it done in the primary grades.

Personally, I have been wondering if I have to give my Reader’s workshop “mini-lesson” to the whole class, at the same time. To get all of my 1st graders transitioned and on the carpet is a waste of time. I could just easily record my lesson and have them work at their own pace, with a partner, to get through the learning objective in less time that it would take me to go through the whole-group lesson. Meanwhile, it would free me up to conference more and pull groups. Although I have yet to try it, I think it would be a much more productive use of time, but I’ve been thinking about what types of learning management systems (LMS) I could use that would work with little ones. Plus, if I put the content into a LMS like Schology, then I could find better ways to differentiate and meet the individual needs of a student. Hmm….

Of course, if we were looking at this through the lens of S.A.M.R., I haven’t really gone deep into the “pool”, which isn’t bad, but I have to ask myself if I could do better than just “flipping” the content onto a screen. I think I have to ask myself, what can my students actually DO with this knowledge? How might they apply this through a project or idea, which doesn’t necessarily mean a summative task, but a context that is authentic to them–what do people do in the REAL world with this knowledge? I need more time to sit with this question, AND, I need to survey my students to ask them what they think so that we can co-create ways to demonstrate understanding. But I’ve come to a place where the “what” of the content isn’t as important as the “why ” and the “how” of what we do with that knowledge. I think we need to place more emphasis on this in our classrooms, and then find the tech to support this.

Assessment

I was recently listening to a webinar by Modern Learners about re-imagining assessment. One of the things that they brought up is how demotivating our assessment practices can be when we assign numbers to a student’s identity. I don’t think any of us want to be objectified like that and yet that is what our school systems do every day.  In this presentation, we are reminded that the root word of assessment (assidere) actually means “to sit beside”, so our focus needs to shift, in which we see assessment AS learning, recognizing that they are where they are. It’s not bad, it’s not good. It is a moment in time that we have put our attention on and can glean insight into how we can move them forward in their understanding. Consider this notion put forth by Modern Learner:

We need to develop partnerships between students and teachers, built around relationship, as co-learners, seeking to understand, guide and nuture new ideas, capabilities, and deeper understandings.

Does it remind you that your role as a teacher in the classroom needs to shift? We have to be the “researcher” and not the “knower”, being deeply curious about our learners and coaching them into deeper learning and appreciation for their unique perspective and gifts that they can offer the world. So assessment needs to stop being “evaluative” and quantifiable but instead reflect a more holistic approach, in which we are fostering life-long learning through authentic interactions and experiences that develop self-confidence and autonomy.

I think re-defining assessment in our schools would create a shift in power structures, which may be really challenging for some educators, and I think would definitely be difficult for our parents who grew up in these traditional paradigms. I’m not suggesting it is easy, but I do believe it is necessary.

It’s Time to Rock the Boat

I think these are the foundational pieces (Time, Content and Assessment) that create “bad faith” in our schools. Although I have ruminated a bit on these topics in this post, I have hardly dug deep into how we can transform them. I believe that is the business of EVERYONE to do in their unique educational settings. Maybe, as teachers, we start with Content, thinking about how we might “rock the boat”. And as leaders, we need to examine the other elements of Time and Assessment and start to challenge our dogmatic approaches.

One thing is certain, we cannot go into the future with one foot in the past. We must question and collaborate, working together in order to free our students to become the very best of who they can be. This is the only mission worthwhile, as I see it, as an educator.