“Let the Kids Rule” by Susan Engel was an eye-opening article that offered something for education that I have never heard of before. Having students run their own education system and be responsible for their own learning would be a huge change from the current system. This “school within a school” worked in the example this article talks about, however, I do not have confidence this would work on a broader scale. I have trouble envisioning an entire class taking equal responsibility in developing a curriculum, teaching it to others,and learning on their own will. This article does not state how many students participated in this program. I think this may work better with very small groups where individual accountability would be much higher. I think most students, if they had to choose what to do for the “literary and mathematical arts” part of their program, would not choose eight novels to read in eight weeks. I do not know of any students, including myself, who would design their own curriculum to be that strenuous if they had the choice. I do not think this is realistic. I think a better approach would be to have a required amount of reading, but let the students pick which novels they want to read.
I think the skills the students learned through this experience such as inquiry can be learned in a regular classroom setting if the teacher designs student-centered engaging lessons. For example, a lesson on whether the National Anthem is based on fact or fiction could be designed two different ways. A traditional and boring method of delivery would be a teacher who turns this into a PowerPoint presentation with facts about the history of the National Anthem and lists what is based on fact and
what is fiction. However, a student-centered engaging alternative would be group work centered on primary sources. Students would work in groups analyzing either documents or pictures to find what parts of the National Anthem are based on real events. In this second approach, students are responsible for their own learning but under a much more structured environment. They can interpret the primary sources, question them, and discuss and debate them with each other. These types of activities engage the students and they will be better able to remember what they learned because
they are not being told what they should know.
what is fiction. However, a student-centered engaging alternative would be group work centered on primary sources. Students would work in groups analyzing either documents or pictures to find what parts of the National Anthem are based on real events. In this second approach, students are responsible for their own learning but under a much more structured environment. They can interpret the primary sources, question them, and discuss and debate them with each other. These types of activities engage the students and they will be better able to remember what they learned because
they are not being told what they should know.
In conclusion, I think elements of the Independence Project could be implemented in schools across America. I think their needs to be more structure then this system which should be designed by the teacher, but I do agree that students should have more freedom to discover and learn for themselves.
You already know I thought this article was ridiculous. Part of it comes from the vague group of students that were used. I believe it was like 8 kids or something like that, a couple in the bottom and a couple from the top of the class. I dont believe the type of enviroment was stated. I doubt at all an inner city school would have the same results. Studies like this needs to be huge. This example seems more like an exception to me. I do agree student centered learning is vital to keeping students enages in the lessons. I also found the author to be cntardicing. He claims "children don’t need another reform imposed on them. Instead, they need to be the authors of their own education". If this is not reforming schools what is it then? I guess in his eyes children wont need teachers anymore. I guess students can just sit home and google their future away.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. I think students need to have more freedom to learn for themselves. I think if schools didn't have teachers use direct instruction so much and students had to find information out for themselves they would learn more.
ReplyDeleteI agree that even though students should have more freedom there is a limit to how much freedom they can have. As Mike said, what would they do, google their lives away? I think that if there is an equal balance between reasonable boundaries and a student's independence much can be achieved on behalf of the teach as well as the student. I am interested to see if they do more studies on this other than what the article provided, if this is a success why is it not being implimented in schools more often?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that elements of this could be useful with the structure implemented by a teacher. I think that this idea of students teaching to themselves and evaluating themselves is a good idea, but teachers need to monitor it and there should be some type of consequence for not doing work.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading everyone's posts I have come to the conclusion that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. We shouldn't trust students enough to have full power over their curriculum, nor should we dictate every aspect of it.And, in reality, we don't. Most schools have a good selection of electives and after school programs designed for further student enrichment.I wish we had the time and resources to personalize the curriculum of every student but we cant. No country has ever had the collective will to place that big of an investment in its own future - although it is fun to imagine and talk about in the Educational Studies bubble!
ReplyDeleteI love your response Alan! It is so true that letting students take the reigns in a classroom setting can be a dangerous act. I would say that most students, especially high school students, would probably take the easy way out every chance that they got. Can you imagine what would happen if you told your students that they will not receive grades? I can bet that not a whole lot of learning would take place.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do believe that it is so important that students find their independence academically. Furthermore, I believe that it is the teacher's responsibility to ensure that this happens. So many teachers actually inhibit the learning of their students by doing a lot of the work for them. Who exactly does this benefit? If students can become independent learners, this will foster positive results all throughout their lives and not just while in school.
Like you said Alan, this experiment was done on a small scale. This would not work in a full classroom of students. There would be no direction, no differentiation and no order. Students must have a sense of choice but also a sense of direction. Teachers must bring creative lessons to class that show students new discoveries that they would not explore on their own. At the same time give students choice; maybe in activities, projects and homework assignments.
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