Agricultural Learning

This past week I watched multiple Ted talks about education, most of which were given by Sir Ken Robinson. Sir Robinson is a firm believer that critical thinking is key to preparing students for the future that we do not know. The aspect of critical thinking that Robinson talks most about is that of divergent thinking and its factor, creativity- defined by Robinson to be the process of having original ideas that have value. Robinson sees creativity as a natural ability that we all possess. The problem is that our education system tends to squander creativity while promoting monotony and convergent thinking. Like most other speakers on education, Ken Robinson says that we need to change the system; that we need a revolution in education.

I would strongly agree with Sir Robinson and all of these other speakers that I have heard say this exact same phrase. The question that I ask myself is, "how?" What can we change in order to have this revolution of learning mean something? I guess that really is the million dollar question, isn't it?

One of the things that hit me the hardest in the three Ted talks that I watched Sir Robinson give was found in his talk "Bring on the Learning Revolution!" which I have embedded below for your viewing pleasure.

In this talk he compares to the current American education system to a that of a fast food restaurant's system of distributing burgers- all of the products standardized in every way. He then says that we need to structure ourselves after an agricultural model- to provide the proper context for healthy development and knowing that no two ears of corn will be the same. Although this statement was not referring to the Canadian education system I still saw the comparison in what we do with education to be similar to that of a fast food restaurant. We have our standardized goals, outcomes, and courses that we want all of our high school graduates to have. Hoping that they will all be ready to attend whatever university they wish to go to. Some teachers will even inflate grades to make it seem like their product is better than the product down the street.

Earlier on in my blog I  had posted about the amazing accountability that the curriculum gives us with the outcomes that it provides. But Robinson's statement about fast food structured education has me second guessing. Are specific outcomes really the appropriate way to look at education? Or are we to develop outcomes for the individual classes that we have from year to year?

Just recently a friend had described her grade 9 math class as being extremely below level and making the statement that they did not understand the difference between multiplication and addition without a calculator. Now, this scares me a great deal. Another friend of mine said that it is more about the progress than the "being at level" when faced with a class like this. To me the happy compromise would be for teachers to set the curricular goals for each individual class that they have in this case. Meaning that the teacher can create what they believe to be a reasonable outcome for these students and then pass what these students do know on to the next teacher. Something very similar to this process is being done in Finland which is ranked in the top 3 of the world's finest educational systems. I also believe that this would resemble that agricultural approach. As the farmer will look at the stock market, the forecast for the season ahead, as well as the equipment that he or she has in order to help the crop grow.

The problem that I see with this agricultural approach is that it is a lot of work. This work requires skills that I do not think that I will have as a first year teacher. This then leads me to wondering about the curriculum. As a teacher is it truly my job to teach the curriculum? This is what I have been told over and over again so it seems to me like it is. However, Sir Robinson's talks have me wondering if a teacher's job something even bigger than that. Is it my job to be constantly adapting, adding, and possibly removing content from the curriculum for every class that I have so that they will be creative, productive, and contributing members of a global society? Hmm... All from learning about ratios in a math class? Or the length of a quarter note in a music class?

To me it seems like it is a combination of all the classes that they take to be their true education. Maybe it isn't about the outcomes of a single class but instead, through the relation of the outcomes of all of the different courses that they take are they really learning how to learn and what relates to the "real world". Maybe the learning occurs in a reflection on the mixture of all of their experiences and social interactions and not on Black Line Master sheet 8.3.3.

Reflection of the week: At the end of all of my reflections I have just slightly changed the question that I had at the beginning (which was "What can we change in order to have this revolution of learning mean something?) to being, "How do we maximize a student's exposure to learning experiences, social interactions, and reflective thinking?" That is if my reflections are anywhere near or even the least bit closer to the hallowed field of learning.