Here’s a great example of how a news article we might read in the morning at TLC Middle School can be used as a springboard to learn in a truly multi-disciplinary way.
The irony is that children are born with an overpowering need to know. They want to know what every object feels and looks like and what will happen when they attempt to do different things with that object. They want to know why people behave the way they do. This voracious appetite for knowledge defines us as a species. And it doesn’t evaporate when babies become toddlers. Every preschool teacher knows that children between the ages of 18 months and 5 years are insatiable for information. Their curiosity drives much of their learning—through asking questions, watching what others do, listening to what adults say, and tinkering with the world around them. But somehow the incessant curiosity that leads to so much knowledge during the first five years of life dwindles as children go to school.
Why place this article here? For me, curiosity is at the heart of both multi-disciplinary examples!
“The program, said Valerie Holmes, one of its teachers, encourages students to find a subject with which they have a personal connection.”
“At Stuyvesant she continued to explore what she describes as “how interdisciplinary science can be.””
“Part of what the research program teaches students, Ms. Holmes said, is tenacity; Dan and his advisers approached 30 to 40 potential mentors before finding one who would take him on.”
“From there she taught herself cellphone software coding and electrical engineering techniques, using “breadboards” and a soldering iron. “Engineering is the field that worships impact,” she said of her choice to enter it, “and to have the greatest impact, it has to be in the developing world.””
When students are encouraged and empowered to engage in real-life learning, for which they can see the relevance now, strong progress and achievement is made. And not just for the students, but for the larger world of which they are a part.
From the quotes above, one can see five key components of “real-life learning,” something I write about often here. These traits make for some great education. Schooling could be enhanced to facilitate more of this kind of learning.
personal connection
interdisciplinary
tenacity
taught herself
to have the greatest impact
What if school possessed more of the characteristics of scientific research, investigation, and exploration? And I don’t just mean that school should “do more science.” I mean that the very culture and foundation of school could look more like the culture and foundations of science – observing, questioning, hypothesizing, experimenting, reflecting, repeating with additional insights from testing, etc. Sounds a lot like innovating, too.
I’ve rarely (never) been to a lab where the scientists spent most of their time in rows and columns of desks receiving content for much of the day, day after day.
We don’t seem to make learning to be happy and healthy a priority in our schools. It’s separate from schools. And for some kids it doesn’t exist at all. But what if we didn’t make it separate? What if we based education on the study and practice of being happy and healthy? Because that’s what it is – a practice. And a simple practice at that.
– Logan LaPlante, 13 years old. TEDxUniversityOfNevada
When I think about what I want for my own children, and when I think about what I want for all children, my list includes the attributes and ideals and realities that LaPlante shares and demonstrates in his profound talk: “Hackschooling Makes Me Happy: Logan LaPlante at TEDxUniversityofNevada.” It may be one of the best TED/TEDx talks I’ve heard.
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Also this week, I am immersing myself in Tom Little’s tour of 50 progressive schools during the months of February and March. (Thanks, @GrantLichtman!) As I read @ParkDayTom’s posts, I dig into the school websites and links that Little provides about “emergent curriculum,” PBL, and progressive education. I am struck by such things as…
Learning
We believe that learning should be joyful, active, open-ended, project-based, and collaborative in order to foster children’s independence, accountability, intrinsic motivation, and intellectual curiosity.
Engaging
We believe in cultivating a community of civically-active learners, where everyone’s voice can be heard, as decisions are democratically determined through discourse.
Unfolding
We believe in allowing the time, patience and unpressured environment necessary to support the individual developmental unfolding of each child – academically, socially, and emotionally.
Though educators have been challenged in agreeing upon a single definition for progressive education, consensus builds around these defining principles:
Education must prepare students for active participation in a democratic society.
Education must focus on students’ social, emotional, academic, cognitive and physical development.
Education must nurture and support students’ natural curiosity and innate desire to learn. Education must foster internal motivation in students.
Education must be responsive to the developmental needs of students.
Education must foster respectful relationships between teachers and students.
Education must encourage the active participation of students in their learning, which arises from previous experience.
Progressive educators must play an active role in guiding the educational vision of our society.
When Grant Lichtman and I talk, and when I am privileged enough to hear Grant speak and facilitate with bigger audiences, he often says that his own tour of 64 schools in 12 weeks, exploring what innovation in education looks like, could be boiled down to one word – Dewey.
How might we work and take action to help transform schools so that more of them possess these core characteristics? Theses core values?
How might we hack school to more closely resemble good education?
We embed Dream Directors in schools—a new character that we invented after listening to what students and teachers believe is missing most. They’re the only true cost of our model, and they make magic happen.
Part human catalyst and part social entrepreneur, Dream Directors recruit and train volunteer Future Coaches from the community and clear the way for students to dream up and build Future Projects of their own, each with potential to reawaken entire schools. We saw that last year—and this year we’re taking it one step further, committing to inspiring at least eight in ten students in each of our partner schools to either become part of a Project or lead one as a Fellow.
What if we all did more to support missions like The Future Project’s?
We’re on a mission to transform America’s high schools into Future Schools. Places that value taking risks and taking action. That show students they have what it takes to innovate and to lead. That unleash passion. And power. It’s a whole new vision for education, and a revolution in which everyone wins.
it's about learning 