Reflection - Sir Ken Robinson Video

     Education as a production line. I have honestly never stopped to think of it that way.  Really though, it is true. Students are grouped in education based on age, despite ability or interests.  As students get older they may be mixed in with different grades during electives, but during the formative years they are kept separate by grades.  When the video went into greater detail about this production line mentality - bells, separate subjects, etc. - it really struck a chord.  Why do we separate that way? It seems to make sense as a jumping off point.  How do you decide when a child is ready for formal education when they are 3, 4, 5, or even 10? I think that Robinson is right to question this; however, I think that this piece of education would be the most difficult to change.  Having a standard age when students begin formal education is needed to give a societal guideline.  Once students are in school, however, I think the education system has plenty of room for changes.

     In my position as a media specialist, I am particularly a fan of Robinson's divergent thinking.  I once has a teacher (a media specialist, actually) who would give assignments with the rule that we could not come ask her how to use a particular piece of equipment or technology until we had grappled with it ourselves for one day.  As students, we each had to figure out what worked for us as individuals.  I still attribute this tiny piece of her class to my success in college, my career before teaching, and my career now.

    So, how can we as educators give our students the tools they will need to figure out how to solve problems in life? I once told one of my students the story above and she immediately said, "that sounds like the meanest teacher ever." Our students are trained to get to the one right answer.  They do not know how to take the time to grapple and struggle with information and piece it together in a necessarily meaningful way.  One way that I am going to attempt to bring back creative, divergent thinking is by piloting a "Genius Hour" or "20% time" (Google it if you have not heard of it - it is awesome, in my opinion) project with a Humanities teacher in our building.  We are giving students one period per week to explore a topic of their choice.  They will be able to explore their own interests, questions they may have, or problems they wish to solve.  It is a scary thing for both teachers and students, as it has very few guidelines.  Along the way we will pepper in research skills, lessons on pieces of technology, and conferencing as needed, but the time is really going to be theirs.  I am excited to see what this freedom will bring.