In response to that question from one of my dept heads, after much thought I finally sent the following response. It is somewhat overstated and deliberately provocative in the hope that even motivating people to say, “That’s crap!” would be a useful response if they’d go on to say how and why it’s crap…
Anyway, the peasants are revolting (as the King of Id used to say), and I am provoking….
Well, in general I am going to be more deliberate not just in thinking about but in continuing to implement what I see as the basics of “21st-century learning” (little as I like the term). From what I can tell, the term refers to preparing students for a world that most of us and many of them cannot predict. Such a world is thought to contain certain features such as multiple job-paths as careers (rather than as explorations before settling in to a career), seeing the major “value-added” in the West as creativity implemented in some tangible way (iPhones, Google maps, cars that drive themselves), an emphasis on doing rather than knowing, and an ability to work effectively with varying degrees of independence in different circumstances.
Such features are not valued particularly highly at St. John’s (if you look at what we do in broad terms). Not only do we have an extremely traditional curriculum, we have an extremely traditional pedagogy as well (with certain stealth exceptions). If we were to value more some of the things I mentioned in the previous paragraph, we would have to spend much time and effort
- getting students to ask good questions and then be able to figure out how to answer them–much as we now teach them traditional skills in traditional ways that will lead to good test scores and good grades;
- encouraging students to learn how to come together in effective ways to produce solutions to complex problems much as we now encourage them in 90% of “what counts” to work independently;
- providing students with challenges whose difficulty would require more than algorithmic learning and which would ensure failure of various kinds along the way much as we now provide challenges carefully scripted to prevent failure and prepare for success in narrowly circumscribed circumstances.
- encouraging students to be more efficient in the use of the tools and materials at their disposal (phones, internet, etc)
- managing and promoting student learning in a fluid environment much as we now promote student outcomes in very controlled environments (which are called “courses”)
Such challenges are given an added dimension by the need to maintain, I suspect, traditional methods and areas of success in the short term.
—————————
I also added the following caveat to the email that contained the above message because while I have a pretty good idea of what we should do if we were to move toward these “21st-century skills” more deliberately, there are also reasons (besides the “our kids already do well” mentality) not to move toward them more aggressively without careful reflection.
With the teacher as facilitator concept I am in theoretical agreement, but I also every year get kids who say, as [one senior] did in his evaluation this year, “I don’t care what the topic is or whether you could find better readings for it or not. I took this course to have you, to learn from your wisdom and experience. I’m honestly not as interested in what other 18-year-olds like myself think.”
On the other hand, I know that people remember best and get the most out of what they learn for themselves rather than receive passively; and the best way to learn what you don’t know is to be pushed to defend something you just said.
I really agree with you that the traditional curriculum and emphasis on grades and prevention of failure is not as educational as failure itself. When anyone faces failure, they have an opportunity to learn from it. In that way, students also learn from themselves, which can often be more powerful than learning from a teacher.
I agree with Jake about failure. It’s actually interesting, because back in middle school, I had an argument with my friend Adam Morrison about what he thought of the American vs. British methods of education. According to Adam, the American system was inferior because it always kept students in their comfort zone while the British system ensured that its students were constantly struggling and somewhat confused. I told him he was being dumb, and that of course understanding something the whole way through was better than being confused half the time.
But now, five years later, I’ve come to recognize that in fact the material I now remember the best is the material I struggled with the most at the onset. I guess because I had to try harder initially the neurons eventually formed stronger connections than they otherwise would have, or maybe the uncomfortable feeling of struggling triggered the amygdala? Whatever the reason, it has become evident to me that being “lost” for a while eventually makes the surrounding “landscape” more clear. On the other hand, though, being lost is significantly more stressful—I’m not sure I could handle that sensation continuously for an entire school year. I guess the best system of education would be some sort of balance between being comfortable and uncomfortable—and, of course, finding that balance is probably part of what makes teaching so difficult!
I agree with Jake about failure. It’s actually interesting, because back in middle school, I had an argument with my friend Adam Morrison about what he thought of the American vs. British methods of education. According to Adam, the American system was inferior because it always kept students in their comfort zone while the British system ensured that its students were constantly struggling and somewhat confused. I told him he was being dumb, and that of course understanding something the whole way through was better than being confused half the time.
But now, five years later, I’ve come to recognize that in fact the material I now remember the best is the material I struggled with the most at the onset. I guess because I had to try harder initially the neurons eventually formed stronger connections than they otherwise would have, or maybe the uncomfortable feeling of struggling triggered the amygdala? Whatever the reason, it has become evident to me that being “lost” for a while eventually makes the surrounding “landscape” more clear. On the other hand, though, being lost is significantly more stressful—I’m not sure I could handle that sensation continuously for an entire school year. I guess the best system of education would be some sort of balance between being comfortable and uncomfortable—and, of course, finding that balance is probably part of what makes teaching so difficult!