I’m carrying on with this discussion, though there seems to be very little conversation regarding… I suspect that it is because many schools are on spring break and that many educators have switched off their computers for finer things. Or it could be that I’m biting bark and totally out to lunch on this one. Regardless, I’m going to trudge along.
Curiosity and a desire to communicate and influence other people are a given. They happen because neurons are firing in their brains. It’s being human. However, the energy that can be harnessed from an orientation toward the future must be cultivated. It is a cultural thing that either happens or it doesn’t. In our case, today, it’s not.
Certainly we are helping our students to prepare for their future. It is what school is about. We offer career education. We ask younger children to write reports and to tell stories about what they want to be when they grow up. We offer a curriculum that we claim will prepare them for their future (the height of arrogance in my opinion). But what we offer, and what we prepare our children for, is merely a snapshot future that a few people have defined and described, and it’s just more content to our students bulging memories.
So what kind of future orientation do I think would provide energy for a flat classroom learning engine? Well, in the first place, the future that we point them toward should be relatively empty, not full. It shouldn’t be a future that they can depend on, but one with infinite possibilities. The evidence is right in front of us. There is no way that we can predict the technologies, cultural and social characteristics, work environments and experiences, or learning opportunities that our children have to look forward to.
For Instance:
My wife is out of town today. I’ll go to Starbucks in about an hour and write, working on a new book. At lunch, I’ll pack up my computer and walk over to Panera Bread for a sandwich and then a few ours of programming (working on Son of Citation Machine) tapping into their free WiFi. Now how could I or my teachers have possibly predicted this kind of work environment in the 1950s and 60s.
So what we have to do is to create an irresistible void of possibilities for our curious and communicative students and say think, dream, wish, and describe. A few years ago, newspapers, magazines, news broadcast shows, and bloggers, were identifying the great people and accomplishments of the last year, century, and millennium. Wouldn’t it be interesting to ask students to blog (or express in some other way) their top ten people or accomplishments of the next decade, century, or millennium — answering the question, “What do you believe will be the greatest accomplishment of the next decade, and describe the sequence of events and the people who were responsible.
It’s this sort of speculative and inventive conversation that needs to be a part of what drives learning in our flat classrooms. Are these conversations completely new? Of course not. But we need to point students toward people who are speculating, science fiction writers and genuine futurists. Keep teaching Shakespeare and Yeats, but lets explicitly integrate speculative science fiction as an essential genre of literature into our reading lists, and units of high school English I, II, II, & IV.
Today’s children think they are familiar with science fiction. But I’m not talking about “Star Wars” and “Planet of the Apes”. To be truthful, I would not be the one to suggest this list. I suspect that it would include Arthur C. Clark, Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, and Neal Stephenson, but this is by no means a complete list.
The point is that our children must gain a future oriented wisdom at the same time that they are learning the wisdom of the ages.
Please do visit the wiki page to participate in the futher development of ideas around the flat classroom learning engine:
http://wiki.davidwarlick.com/?title=Flat_Classroom_Learning_Engines
David,
Don’t be so hard on yourself. This is VERY GOOD STUFF! I like the idea of preparing for an empty future. Though I get very sick of the whole “guide on the side” bit as a phrase, it is very true. The old sage on the stage could stand up and deliver content because the content was known. We need teachers to be guides on the side because we just don’t know what the future will bring.
I was asked recently to consider creating a new book to replace an aged book that collects articles on school library management. I have been thinking about this…How can this work anymore? How can I collect a set of articles into a book with a lead time of probably close to two years without them being totally worthless by the time the product gets to market? There are two possible solutions I see. One is use the tools that make information flexible, or maybe make the articles focused on general best practices. These are what we call literacy. If you ar literate, it means you can read. Not just read what you have been taught to read, but read new combinations of letters, words and sentences that you have never before encountered.
As you pointed out before, science instruction needs to focus on scientific literacy so students can continue to learn beyond the limited situations to which they are exposed in school. I mean think about it, a high school physics class that meets every day for a year for a 42 minute period provides roughly 80 hours of instruction. (160 days because some are lost to vacations, pep rallies, etc; 42 minute period equals at least 30 minutes of instruction we hope; / 60 minutes). 80 hours is not enough to cover every known physics topic, so the only way to proceed is to provide 80 hours of how to be a physicist.
That is the flat classroom approach to the empty future as I see it…
David,
I’ve been lurking here and other blogs for some time. I have found your writings thought provoking perhaps many of your questions and perceptions are mine also. I, too, was impressed (no, stunned) by Friedman’s flat world. And I’m beginning to wonder about the viability of the educational “system” we’ve set up.
For example, our system, while it is supposed to be “educational” in nature, also has other responsibilities assigned to it. To a large and growing extent, schools have become custodial institutions for the young, providing food, shelter, warmth, supervision while others are at work. I think that role hobbles the educational role in that we (teachers) can’t be forthright with out judgments and decisions because where else would a kid go if not in school.
A friend of mine believes that there should be two school systems: one for those teachers and students that want to “play” school; the other for those who are really, sincerely, profoundly interested in doing the hard work of earning an education.
BTW, I’ve read your book Classroom Blogging and got lots out of it. I’ve also read Will Richardson’s Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts. I owe both of you lots for your writing. I’m ready to start my own blog now because the conversation is too important not to nurture. I’ve so many questions about our system, our values, our kids. That’s what I’ll reflect on.
Thanks again.
Skip Olsen
“Certainly we are helping our students to prepare for their future. It is what school is about.”
I wonder if that’s what school WAS about. I wonder if education is NOW more about empowering students to co-create preferred futures.
Students need to be part of the conversation that creates futures in the present rather than waiting for “the future” to appear unpredictably from “the past”. Perhaps we need a flatter sense of time… 🙂
Roger,
I think that we all believe that we are preparing our children for the future. The difference, as I see it, is the some believe that there is a set and definable set of standards that are time tested, and scientifically tested strategies for accomplishing those standards, and that doing so prepared children for their future.
Others, myself included, believe that it in a time of rapid change, what children are learning (asside from basic literacy and cultur-societal skills) is much less important as how they are learning it — that it is critical that we stop teaching children how to be taught, and instead, teach them how to teach themselves. This type of classroom would be driven by conversation and the energies that I’ve tried to describe so far in this series.
I do not understand the details, but I know that Australia is undergoing some curriculum reform that aligns much more with my way of looking at things, and I assume that it applies to Tasmania as well. We should learn from your example.
2 more pennies… (or what ever you call them in Tasmanian 😉
I have to agree with Christopher, this is thought provoking stuff. With regard to the rethinking and “repackaging” of these concepts into a new picture for todays and tomorrows learners, I have this metaphor which goes like this; There are numerous strands to these discussions about teaching and learning for the future – new ways of applying pedagogy, new literacies, new roles for teachers and learners, new learning environments, new media, etc. What happens with these discussions is that we pick up strands that we believe to be important and weave them into our own picture. Different patterns and pictures, but many common threads.
The reason I like particularly the flat classroom analogy is that it addresses the power relationships in the classroom. I see this as a critical factor in developing self-managing, autonmous learners – it allows students a voice, the opportunity for students to negotiate the what and how of learning. This in turn gives students ownership of their learning – the motivation for learning. I particuarly favour James Bean’s curriculum integration work, which is centred on what he calls the demcratic curriculum, where students design their year’s programme based on issues and contexts that are important to them. This of course involves specialist teacher skills, expertise and curriculum knowedge.
http://www.educ.uidaho.edu/middlegradesconnection/summer_institute/james_a_beane.htm
As with Roger in Australia, New Zealand educators are fortunate in the relative freedom we have to work with the curriculum, allowing schools to incorporate various aspects of the flat classroom learning engine. Local weave, local patterns, same threads.
Don’t worry Dave we’re here…just taking it all in!
What keeps going through my head is ‘How’
How do we start this happenings, how do we retrain teachers to understand that the conversation, the learning to be a physicist is more important then learning physics? Especially when the SAT still tests knowledge of physics. I feel for teachers. How do we change the focus of a 200 year old system?
I wholeheartedly agree with Jedd’s multi-strand analogy – and yes in Tasmania we’ve had the opportunity to identify existing and new strands and lay them all out. We are now attempting to weave them into a new 21st C curriculum tapestry… The picture is still a little fuzzy…
PS 2 cents for Oz (and Tasmania) – the penny dropped for us 40 years and two months ago 🙂
I so wholeheartedly agree that learning occurs beyond the classroom. Educators focus so much upon testing simply to maintain their jobs. Test scores have become the product, not educated citizenry. I’m finding my role as rabble-rowser to be vital with my students. Inspiring them to ask “Why not…?” and “What if..” may become far more important than “How?” My teenagers keep assuring me that they are not relying upon their teachers for instruction anymore because those teachers are only concerned with end of course tests for certain classes. In the elementary school world where I teach, I am often dismayed to see entire grade levels where the teachers haven’t opened the science and social studies books all year. Within the integrated library information lessons I teach, I am inserting as much real-world knowledge as possible and idealism so that students look beyond the basics. Incorporating “essential questions” and deep thinking into every lesson is key. Every worksheet and quizz I create has one question with open-ended, thought-provoking, no-one-right-answer question. The globe is my best friend. Nearly every lesson includes a child touching the globe to pin our ideas down to locations and possibilities.
But, as for the organized curriculums with their misleading and not-followed-through-equally emphasis on standards, hogwash! We must continue to provide opportunities outside the regular classroom for true learning.