From Consumers to Contributors (Principle #4)

I feel comfortable stating that in most of our classrooms we don’t want young people to solely be consumers in the classroom, but instead want them to contribute and be a part of class in some form.  In Aurora I have seen this range from a more traditional interactive lecture in which teachers engage students with a series of questions about the information being presented to a classroom in which young people choose what they would like to learn and how they would like to learn it through their selected “plunge” in Independent Learning.  Both approaches promote young people contributing to the classroom in one form or the other rather than passively consuming information being presented. However, it is the degree in which young people are engaged and contribute that is stressed in more Modern Schools versus schools that are more traditional.

Principle #4:  Modern Schools see curriculum as something that is co-constructed to meet the needs and interests of the child

     The first thing that came to mind for me when reading principle #4 was a question.  How many of us (educators) see curriculum as the centerpiece of our classroom versus seeing young people as the focus?  I wonder because, I believe your position on that question will determine how your classroom will be designed. (see also Guilty as Charged)  I am “tipping my hand” on my view by stating that the curriculum is meerly the medium in which we work.  As educators we do need to have a certain amount of content/curricular knowledge, but ultimately it is not the content knowledge that separates out the more effective teachers from less effective.  We should not only ask ourselves, “Do you have the knowledge to teach?” but also “Do you have an understanding of how young people learn?”  

     Having solid knowledge of the curriculum along with understanding how young people learn gives teachers the ability to design learning environments that will emphasize  George Couros' eight signs of an innovative classroom.   These learning environments will then give young people and teachers the opportunity to co-design curriculum that works toward the standards, but still meet the needs and interest of the child (principle #4).  The shift is from a teacher centered classroom in which the teacher’s thinking is demonstrated to one in which the young person’s thinking is instead on display. Similar ideas to this principle were shared in “Can Playing and Learning be Synonymous?,” so I won’t go too much farther down that path.  However, I do think it is important to emphasize that if we look at the curriculum as the medium in which we work to help all young people learn we will better be able to teach.   The origin of the word “teach” comes from the Old English term “techon,” which means “to show”...not to tell. Putting students in situations and giving them time to process and make or see connections is what we should be doing, but we must be able to recognize where the students are developmentally, understand the scaffolds of our subject area well enough to know where the students fit, and have the ability to put them into the next best situation that would allow them to see and ultimately make those connections.  That is helping young people go from being consumers to being contributors in the classroom which is principle #4 in a nutshell.