Reconceptualizing Schools

Our public school system is in serious need of some backwards design. In the present, it feels like schools are built to process students through a process based around the way we’ve always done it. Though some teachers and even some schools have attempted serious change, it is almost always change built around the existing model rather than a true reconceptualization of the way schools work.

The greatest reconceptualization schools need is to be built around future-oriented goals for our students. The drive in high school now is to meet curriculum standards and graduation rates. Students may be engaged, challenged, and involved, but only around the margins of what is required. Instead, schools that are designed to be effective in 2025 will aim to guide students to the development of essential skills for their personal and professional lives. Additionally, schools need to look more like the real world – much like the laboratory bias in any sort of experiment, we have to be careful what effect we are measuring. Schools are great at identifying which students are good at school. However, the oft-repeated anecdote about Albert Einstein failing high school math bears repeating one more time; the real world does not measure compliance with a teacher’s rubric, memorizing formulas, or answering multiple-choice questions. Without a concerted effort to think of schools as preparation for the real world, students will continue to be turned off to their education and our educational system will continue to fail our students.

So, what needs to be done? First, schools need to identify a set of learning goals for students – we need to be able to imagine what a successful high school graduate should look like. What are the minimum acceptable standards, and what are the ideal objectives? Rather than target content knowledge, these goals should target skills such as critical thinking, presenting and organizing information, research, analyzing complex problems, and group-based problem solving. Content is the vehicle through which students should practice and demonstrate proficiency (or excellence) in these skills. There is a place for identifying a common curriculum of, for example, historical events and works of literature that all students should experience. However, these should be the exception rather than the rule. Content standards organized around themes, which students can explore using whatever specifics are interesting to them, will lead to the most successful schools and students. Innovation, not standardization and memorization, should be the priority.

Second, schools need to rework the entire pacing and structure of studies. Though it makes sense to keep students with age-peers in most cases, it is wrong to assume that all students are capable of learning at the same time, on the same day, and moving on to the next unit at the same speed. Instead, students should be given a set of goals and tasks for a set time period, and be asked to demonstrate their knowledge and skills by the end of that time period. By the end rather than at the end opens the space for advanced students to pursue their own interests. Joseph Renzulli’s research into gifted programs indicates that students who are capable of “compacting” their studies may benefit from exploring additional projects rather than additional repetition of things they already know. This will be uncomfortable for schools and teachers who are used to all students progressing along the same track, but will generate better outcomes for all students.

Clearly, then, the next step is schools need to find teachers who are comfortable working in tandem with other teachers, and across multiple disciplines. The real world does not divide itself neatly into issues that can be dealt with knowledge and skills one content area; dividing education into boxes serves to compartmentalize student knowledge and make it more difficult for them to make connections across content areas. Furthermore, successful teachers in 2025 will need to be able to guide students in multiple projects, and sometimes in unpredictable ways. Adults who need clear pacing rules and strict control of the classroom cannot be successful in this environment and are holding their students back from what they could achieve.

The most real-world way to organize schooling is around project-based learning. Students can complete projects both independently and in collaborative groups, allowing them to demonstrate what they are capable of on their own but also to develop their skills at interacting with and working with others. Schools should also make a plethora of technologies available, especially by tapping community resources and local businesses. Students could obtain valuable work/internship experience and apply what they know to solve a real-world problem for a real business, in exchange for space and resources that only for-profit businesses may have available. Everyone benefits from this type of transaction.

Selling this plan to schools and the broader community should be a simple proposition (as long as money isn’t discussed!). First, the above mentioned ideas about school-business partnerships will be a great selling point to the business community. Furthermore, many reports have shown that businesses do not feel that graduates have the appropriate skills they need to succeed in the workforce. Schools do not do enough to focus on critical thinking and problem solving and collaboration – but this reconceptualization emphasizes those things.

Second, making graduates more productive after high school or college will help sell this idea to parents. Parents will also love the fact that students learn more and act out less when they are engaged in schools, and realistic and authentic project-based learning is one of the most effective ways to increase engagement and enjoyment of schools. It should certainly be easy to enlist the support of students who will finally be free of boring lectures and standardized testing. Research shows that test scores and attendance increase with these types of school programs, which everyone can get behind.

Finally, whenever school reform is discussed, the public (or maybe just the media) tend to express their alarm about how far behind American students have fallen in international educational measures. This reconceptualization will lead to greater academic performance and critical thinking skills necessary to excel on international tests and improve America’s ranking on these measures. Furthermore, it will produce a cadre of prepared and excited graduates to fill American businesses with productive and innovative workers, keeping America’s productive and economic edge alive for generations to come. Certainly the media will like the sound of that!