Breaking out of the institution

Breaking out of the institution

When I was obtaining my teaching credential, one of the pre-requisite courses I had to take was Philosophies of Education. It was an amazing class, looking at different philosophies of learning going all the way back to Plato. Different theories of learning focused on different aspects- some on experiential learning, others on the teacher or tutor and student relationship, still others on how our brains process information. The class challenged me to think about how people learn and how different systems could support learning. I was invigorated and excited to start my teaching career.

Once the credential program started, I had the same professor for one of the first courses.   I answered a question quoting one of the philosophies from the previous class. I will never forget how the professor responded. “That philosophy doesn’t work in a classroom. You have to focus on standards and follow state regulations.” I realized there was a dramatic shift in the program. We had started looking at how students learn, but we shifted to the American Public Education System. It felt like we were supposed to forget everything we learned about learning and instead focus on school and its boundaries.

There are multiple sources that can explain how we got to our current system of public education better than I can. A quick one is given in a TED talk by Ken Robinson. This industrial system we have, not even created for the 21st century economy, are the boundaries wherein we have started to define education. But education and learning are not this system we have come to call school. Education can be much more.

Education is not school

We all came through the current school system. It is what we know. It is also the law. Most educational reform still tries to reform within the system.   The problem is that the system and its rituals start to blind us from true education. We focus more on the structure and traditions more than the intended outcomes.

Example: In Physical Education, students “dress out” so that they can engage in physical activities. The dress is a means to an end. I recently attended a Physical Education class where the students were not engaging in physical activities for the day, but were learning about it through a lecture in a more academic setting. The students still “dressed-out.” The teachers still wanted to give them a grade for the day. The means had become the end, even though it did not lead to educational outcomes. This is one of many examples where the system of school had lost its connection to education.

The system needs to change, but that doesn’t mean I think reform needs to happen outside of the system. Movements like the charter movement and other outside focused reform has failed to make a significant impact on the American education system and it has failed to take advantage of the talent already present within that system. We need insiders that think like outsider to affect the system from within. We need to think about education outside of the box of school. We need to think about the best way to learn and build backwards. We need to push the system to fit those best practices instead of fitting practices within the system.

How do we do it? First of all- go for big ideas. The system is not always as big of an obstacle as we make it out to be. I love the Frederick Hess book Cage-Busting Leadership because it shows that you can make things happen inside of the system. There are plenty of wonks theorizing about educational systems and policy makers looking at making changes, but we need inside practitioners, real educators, that can make it happen!

I wanted to start a new kind of school where learning was focused on real-world outcomes.   It took a long time and a lot of starts and stops to get there, but we are building it. It is a public school in a traditional school district. There has been a lot of support to get here, but it started with a desire followed by actions. We also caught a lot of breaks along the way. But it starts with thinking big… and then doing.