Schools Must Reach All Learners
Our future may depend on it.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a crisis in education. Whether it’s hybrid or virtual learning, schools have struggled to find a way to deliver the curriculum with consistency in these inconsistent times. By now it’s no secret that student engagement in online learning is frequently poor, attendance even more so.
When this pandemic ends, students will be warmly welcomed back by teachers eager to return to the business of teaching. But what will the learning environment look like? Will it be a resumption of the profound boredom, exhaustion and stress that Yale researchers reported in a 2020 nationwide survey of 21,678 high school students, in which an astounding 75% reported a negative attitude toward school? Or will public school leaders realize that the solution to improving student engagement and learning outcomes is hiding in plain sight: let students choose the subject matter they wish to study and allow their innate curiosity and talents to blossom.
This is not a new idea. The Enlightenment philosopher John Locke, whose philosophy heavily influenced the twentieth century’s progressive education movement, argued that schools should value a child’s “native propensities.” The current mainstream notions of differentiated instruction, student-centered learning, and the whole-child approach all flowed from Locke’s assertion that it is a teacher’s job to help the learner discover their passions first, and learn the content second.
Fast-forward to today and you see, with few exceptions, a national school system mired in data-obsessed measurements and high-stakes accountability. Why the reluctance in placing the affective domain of education front and center? Ask anyone who’s ever run an extra-curricular club or sports team, and they’ll describe the passion for learning that follows when students are given agency and choice in their learning.
It is a teacher’s job to help learners discover their passions first, and learn the content second.
I witnessed this first-hand while teaching a class of twelve special-needs, third-grade students. It was apparent after two months that the students weren’t buying what I was selling, and individual behaviors had escalated to the point where the whole class was routinely disrupted. This resistance to my teaching forced me to make a choice: stay the course with the district curriculum or try something different.
Keeping Locke in mind, I gathered the students on the carpet one morning and asked them, “What would you like to learn?” We came up with a lengthy list of topics. Excited, the class and I marched down to the library and checked out the books and resources we needed for our studies. Although the students were not yet fluent in their reading, it hardly mattered. Aides, AIS instructors, and parents frequented our classroom. They read with and to the students and helped them fill out their learning logs and journals. Students enjoyed mixing with classmates from the other “expert” groups and sharing what they learned.
Imagine expanding student choice to a whole-school model. What would it look like?
For starters, it would shatter the paradigm of the deficit model of schooling we’re used to now. We’d have to let go of looking for patterns of failure among children and prescribing treatments for their so-called learning “disabilities.” Instead, each public school would morph into a community learning center, much like the ones already in existence, such as the Beacon School or New Haven’s Schools of the 21st Century. These schools connect families and children not only to education, but to vital support services like daycare, nutrition, and health.
Classrooms, led by teachers with a passion for their subject, could easily convert into “hubs” focused on different areas of study. Parents, family members, and experts from various fields of study could be invited to facilitate learning. Artistically inclined students would predictably choose a curriculum filled with art and music. Similarly, students with an interest in STEM subjects would focus their innate curiosity and skills in these areas. It takes little imagination to see how this would drastically improve student engagement, productivity, and success without the need for coercive and mostly useless “behavior management tools.” Learning to read and write with motivating content would surely go farther than scripted programs, and for those who need more intensive literacy or math instruction, schedules would allow for the flexibility to meet student needs.
Would administrators and teachers shift to this new way of teaching? Or will the rush to “get back to normal” post-COVID include doubling-down on the old way of doing business? We live in a rapidly changing, technologically advanced world. Who can predict what experts will be needed 20, 10, or even 5 years from now? Will we need more ecologists, astronomers, data analysts, doctors, archaeologists, computer scientists, mathematicians, or musicians? Not to mention the fact that there is no consensus on what constitutes a canon of knowledge every American should know. Why do we act as though we believe otherwise?
In our current information age, with computers ubiquitous in our schools, what is stopping us from throwing open the flood gates and letting children explore their native propensities to their heart’s content?
Subscribe to Insights from Educate for a midweek dose of professional learning and inspiration with the latest news and research from the education industry.
