Jeff Utecht at The Thinking Stick posted something the other day that has just been resonating in my head over and over again. (Thanks to John Pederson for tipping me off, by the way…)
He asked, "So what if schools were perpetual?"
And if in case you are unwilling to go read his post, I’m going to dissect it here. I tried to figure out what part of it I would quote, but the realization is that all of it has gotten me thinking…
Perpetual Beta: A theme for many Web services is the idea that software is ever evolving to meet the real-time demands of Web users. Rather than releasing scheduled software updates. Web services like Google will add features as they become available and adapt dynamically to its users requirements, which are in turn de facto testers.
~ PCAuthority Feb 06
So what if schools where perpetual?
Perpetual Schools: A theme for many educators is the idea that schools are ever evolving to meet the real-time demands of students. Rather than release scheduled theory updates. Educators like Google will add features as they become available and adapt dynamically to their students requirements, which are in turn de facto testers.
How about a little educational decoding:
Ever evolving = continual improvement
Release scheduled theory updates = In-services
Adapt dynamically to their students requirements = differentiated instruction
Think about what we could do with this model… think about how much harder it is… but how much more rewarding. We’d never think about doing things a certain way just because "We’ve Always Done It That Way." Assumptions would always be reexamined — even if they lead to the same conclusion, the process of reexamination is powerful — and you get better at it ever time you do it. Staff Development is no longer looked at as something you do outside the building, but rather becomes part of the life-blood of the way we do our jobs. (And by the way, that’s exactly what the head of staff development for the School District of Philadelphia suggested for SLA last week… and I agree!)
And powerfully, we look at our students access to and ability to use information as a key part of the equation. We teach our kids to access us in the ways that matter most to them… that are the most beneficial to them. And we change to meet their needs.
An aside — in all the conversations I’m having lately, I keep coming back to this idea. Education must be transformative for all parties, not just students. How can we expect our students to be changed by their interaction with us if we are unwilling to change because of our interaction with them? Maybe that’s not an aside. Maybe that’s central to this idea. I think it might be.
Isnt this what we want from our schools, from our educators? Wouldnt we all like to believe that teachers have the support and encouragement to run a perpetual classroom? One that is constantly using new methods, fixing or tweaking lessons, and continually trying to improve? If you truly ran a perpetual classroom you would never use the same lesson twice. The lesson would be continually adapted, fixed, and improved based on what the learner needed. In a perpetual classroom, there is no filing cabinet of already made lesson plans, there might be a skeleton of a lesson plan that has been used before. But each one must be updated and adapted to the new methods and tools available to both the educator and the learner.
Now ask yourself what’s needed to do this, though… How does the average high school teacher, with five classes — two of one class, two of another, and one of a third… and 150 kids on the roster do this and find time to sleep? We have to reinvent the model here too… Teachers need to teach less and prepare more if we expect this kind of innovation from them. I remember the first time as a second year teacher that I could print out a lesson that I had written the year before… it was heaven. And yes, I tweaked my old lessons some times, but you can be sure that when I had a few class sets of essays to grade, and I could find a lesson I had taught before, I was a happy man. That’s the reality of our school contracts, and we have to address them before we have a right to expect this on any sort of wide-scale basis from our teachers.
Some people might not be able to stomach the thought of students being testers, but lets not kid ourselves, that is what they are in todays system. We test them with every lesson we teach. We try teaching them and then test them to see if our teaching worked. They are testers testing our teaching. What if we turned our students into perpetual learners?
Perpetual Learner: A theory of many that students need to be ever evolving to meet the demands of the 21st century. Rather than release knowledge to students as schedule classes. Learners like Google will learn information as it becomes available and adapt dynamically to its new requirements, which are in turn tested by the learner.
This puts the learner in control of their learning. They are no longer testers but test makers. They are free to use the information around them to adapt and apply their learning to a new situation. They then test their new found information against others, fixing the bugs, tweaking their thoughts, until a new version is released, which then starts the process all over again. This is the learner of the 21st century, a learner who is perpetually learning.
So then the questions…
How do we have to start training teachers to engender this kind of teaching? It has to come from the pre-service model and then carry into our day-to-day. (Not that I think older teachers can’t become this, I do… but again, if we’re talking wide-spread change…)
How does assessment change? This model doesn’t work with standardized tests, because this isn’t standardized learning. I’m more than fine with that, and I think that — for example — the capstone experience we’re planning at SLA flows powerfully from these ideas, but we have to look at the current system with NCLB and high-stakes testing and be willing to overhaul it. (And there are places in this country where it’s being done: Nebraska is still having success with its School-Based, Teacher-Led Assessment Reporting System.)
Essentially, I agree — this is another metaphor for the new model — for the way we must move. But what I am starting to think about, especially in the context of planning SLA, is what will it take to get us there, on the school-based level, on the district leve, and as a nation. (And world, I suppose…)
