Just like Atlassian has their “Fedex Day” and Google has their “20%” days, education needs to create similar models of days where kids are free to explore areas that interest them and develop new ideas. If we ever want kids to be engaged in what they are doing in everyday class, then we need to teach them that it is relevant to the way they will be asked to innovate and design in their future jobs.
Alas, I think that I might have an idea as to how we can include these in the schedule with minimum disruption of day-to-day classes. We need to create “Man Made Delayed Openings”. Districts can simply label one day a month on the school calendar as “Exploration Day” (or whatever) and let kids develop their own ideas and innovations. Students can work in any room of the school they want and would be able to work alongside the teachers that best fit THEM rather than being limited to the instructor on their schedule. Each teacher would make a sign for the front door of his/her classroom that says something to the effect of “I am a great help with…” This information would also be posted on the school website so that kids can design their day before they even come to school.
Districts can call these days whatever they want, but think about what would happen if students were given an opportunity to explore what interests them once a month for an hour and a half. Imagine the amount of rich learning that would take place in this fail-free, non-standards, non-assessed, developmental environment. Imagine how much work they would be accomplishing especially when they had to share their new knowledge with their peers and make connections to traditional content in schools.
Imagine how much the world could learn from them.
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I love your ideas, but find myself in pragmatic quandary. I do not see an entire building let alone district actually doing this. I do however see myself doing this perhaps as often as once a week. We (teachers in classrooms) must take the initiative to start these kinds of things…then fling open our classroom doors and say “LOOK!”. Then it grows to team and then building and finally district levels.
Whole heartily agree with this idea. Another approach to this might be to set aside one week per year or term. Students and teachers could propose project ideas in advance and a committee of students/teachers could select a suitable number of projects to match capacity and relevancy to the school community/objectives. Students and teachers would then sign-up to work on different projects for the week with a final presentation/sharing day. It would be a great chance for teachers to stretch their skills, demonstrate life-long learning, and work on an equal level with students. It would also be a great opportunity for students to be the leaders. Unfortunately, concerns about curriculum coverage and test scores seems to stall these kinds of initiatives.
Last year, I taught a class where I had more freedom than the normal teacher. It was a content area reading class for students several years below grade level. I actually took my inspiration from Google. For 1 marking period, 20% of the time I let the students work on their own projects. I set it up as a radio show. They could choose any topic that interested them (that they wouldn’t get expelled for) and setup the format however they wanted. They just had to learn about and produce a new episode every other week. It got the students interested in reading since they could read what they were interested in. They produced good products and took pride in them. Some did informationals, some talk shows (1 even had teachers make guest appearances), some skits, but they were all original and driven by the students’ passions. It was somehow teacher determined in terms of medium, but the what and the how were determined by the students. I think it still stands as one of the more successful projects I’ve been involved in.
I’ve also thought about applying Google’s 20% time to education. What if my state had curriculum standards designed to be taught in 80% of the year, and directed the other 20% to be used more freely as you suggested? In reality, I know a lot of schools would just fill their 100% with the 80% in an attempt to maximize test scores, but having one day a week to work with students on a mutually-chosen topic of interest would be nice.
Aaron,
After the edchat conversation about teacher evaluation the other night, I am thinking that this would be a good time for self-reflection for a teachers who had low turnouts in their rooms.
Love this idea. Suggested something similar when we had a period each week where all Lower School classrooms were in their rooms. Wanted different rooms to be different opportunities and kids free to go and explore. Also did initiate an “I Wonder” curriculum in 3rd grade where students were free to learn about anything in anyway- one hour a week. Unfortunately after a couple of year (where it was a favorite of the students) the teachers started teaching research skills during this time and it has been transformed and lost its essence. I was inspired after reading, “The Research Workshop” by Rogovin- but also from Lillian Katz- Project Approach from years ago!
some school base their whole curriculum around project or student driven work. Some school go as far as to have the whole curriculum design by the students ie democratic free schools like Studbury Valley School or Summerhill. Other like Expeditionary Learning Schools design their curriculum to both meet the curriculum but also create meaningful work and project that both personalize the content for the students but also involve or benefit the community. If you are interested in either of these type of schools let me know, I am very passionate about this type of education. I have lots of resources and recommendations.
Love it. Would go far to help promote creativity etc. “Districts can simply label one day a month on the school calendar as “Exploration Day” (or whatever) and let kids develop their own ideas and innovations.” Exactly.