21st Century Relevance: Some Kindred Spirits about Real-World PBL

More education. Less schooliness.

21st Century Relevance: Some Kindred Spirits about Real-World PBL

Borderland » Blog Archive » Small Projects Loosely Joined

Doug is seeing similar things:

When kids begin to see the connections between what they and others are doing, they’ll become more globally conscious and locally conscientious. . . .I believe that experience is the prerequisite for understanding broader issues, and that students need to connect their personal experiences to larger social contexts in order to understand the world.

These ideas are not the product of long-standing convictions of mine but come from a growing realization that education advocacy should address a larger domain than individual cognitive benefits or cultural deficits. I haven’t been satisfied with my own students’ use of technology, which has seemed too unfocused and narrow to me, and I’m thinking about my approach for next year, here.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that teachers should somehow subvert the authority or values of parents or school boards - but quite the opposite. School projects should advance the development and expression of community values. We need to include all members of the school community in these projects, and encourage everyone to bring meaning from their own lives to the work of creating a shared narrative and compelling reasons to engage it. The discussions that result from those projects is what will promote the critical understandings.

I love reading teachers spending their summer vacations reflecting on their vocations. Dana reading UbD, Doug “thinking about [his] approach for next year.”

And I think the “Carbon-Neutral Pledge” taken by American universities last month creates a natural wake in which K-12 communities could follow with school projects like Doug considers. Sometimes timing is all. And I’ve already written a long, detailed post on how such a school project could find applications for skills across the entire curriculum, a la Understanding by Design, in The Year of Global Cooling Project and Understanding by Design.

Doug very wisely clarifies that it’s not about “subversion.” To see students attempt to improve the school community by respectfully engaging the administration in proposals to start with simple changes - often economically profitable at the same time - such as committing to energy-efficient light bulbs at school and home, for example, and then to (one hopes) witness their administrators’ and parents’ willingness to make those proposed changes. . . .what a real-world initiation into citizenship and agency that would be for students.

If only we had the energy, we could do so much.