One of the biggest challenges for schools is also one of the most impactful for demonstrating the value of schools. This challenge is to get the schools into the community more and the community into the schools. This interaction happens most effectively in the fine arts and through sports. The pride our young people and parents share through the production of a musical, attendance at a concert, or cheering on a team on the field or court goes a long way in promoting pride in the schools for many communities. However, there are very few schools that take this same approach to the learning taking place within the school and overcoming this oversight is the focus of Modern Learners’ fifth principle.
Principle #5: Embrace and emphasize real-world application and presentation to real audiences as assessment for learning.
There is no reason that the same pride a community feels after a win on a Friday night football game can’t be applied to the learning taking place within the school day. In fact, many communities place a tremendous amount of pride, and local realtors capitalize on this pride, through the announcement of state test scores and the corresponding ranking of districts. Unfortunately, this pride is misplaced, as test scores alone neither demonstrate the learning taking place nor equate to a quality education. It should be no surprise that test scores and rankings are utilized because in order to determine if the schools are providing a quality education, parents who do not get the information they need from the schools, are forced to “clutch at the straws of test scores as substitutes for richer relationships that concern their own children” (Hargreaves & Shirley, 2010, p. 78). This is why it is important to get the schools into the community more and the community into the schools. If we can be successful in doing this (Principle #5) it will change the narrative for schools as parents will now have those aforementioned richer relationships.
One of the most powerful ways to share experiences is through stories and each day young people are in school they add to their own story. That story is carried home at the end of the school day and often shared with parents. This is especially true at the earlier grade levels. As a result, when we design our learning environments we need to keep in mind the school experiences of young people because these experiences will become the narrative of the stories going home each day. A bad experience can lead to a bad story, yet a positive and enriching experience can lead to a much better narrative. This is the first place we, as educators, can have a positive impact on the narrative parents will hear. If those learning environments we design in school can tap into the passion and interests of young people it can become a powerful message going out to the community. I have already shared the specification of these powerful learning environments in A New Narrative for Our Schools, so I won’t reiterate them here. Instead, I would like to focus on the back end of the design which begs the question, “How do we share the learning taking place in school more effectively with our community?” As soon as I asked myself this question a second popped in my mind: “Who do I mean when I use the pronoun ‘we’?” If “we” means the adults, then we are missing an opportunity. If “we” means young people and adults than I think we have something. So, how can young people share their learning more effectively with our community?
One idea is currently being piloted in our 8th grade classrooms. This group of teachers are using student led parent conferences as an avenue to allow young people to demonstrate the learning taking place in school. Although a small step, it is a step in the direction of providing parents with a richer narrative of their child’s education that goes beyond test scores. Classes which get young people out into the community, such as Service Learning, also enrich the narrative as they provide opportunities for connecting the schools to the community. One of the reasons that a class such as Service Learning is a natural connection to the community is because it causes young people to focus on real world problems. That insight leads to a question that just might help us make the next step toward our goal of positively adding to the narrative of schools. In each of our classrooms, what real world problems or questions are students and teachers building their work around? That answer is going to be unique for each group of young people in each classroom, but that is the power of the question. I can’t sit here on my couch and provide a clear picture of what the product might be, but I can confidently state that the process is where the value will be reaped. “The skills that go into problem finding and solving, communication and presentation of ideas and doing world-changing work are among the most sought after in the modern workforce” (Richardson & Dixon, 2017, p. 12). By creating environments in our classrooms that provide opportunities for this process, we will not only be working toward a school culture which prepares young people for life, we will be embracing and emphasizing a connection to the community which will enrich the narrative of our schools far beyond scores and rankings.
References
Hargreaves, Andy & Shirley, Dennis (2010). The Fourth Way: The Inspiring Future
for Educational Change. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Richardson, Will & Dixon, Bruce (2017). 10 Principles for Schools of Modern
Learning. White Paper from modernlearners.com.
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