The American High School
Weary monday mornings, strict bell schedules, snoozing students, vulgar critiques of math class written on the inside cover of the textbook. Genuine excitement for learning is hard to come by in these halls. Why is it that? Why is it so hard to generate enthusiasm in the student body, especially when we are living in such a fascinating world? There is no one single solution, but one basic element of productive learning is missing in education: passion.
Merriam-Webter defines passion as "a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept." In American schools, there are two types of people: those who have a passion for learning in the standard school environment and those who's passions lie elsewhere. But the latter form of student shouldn't penalized for being hard-wired differently. It should be the schools goal to constitute an environment with the conditions for these students too. Everybody should be able to follow their passions, but not just after graduation. Dennis Littky has started many schools based on passion-driven learning.
Merriam-Webter defines passion as "a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept." In American schools, there are two types of people: those who have a passion for learning in the standard school environment and those who's passions lie elsewhere. But the latter form of student shouldn't penalized for being hard-wired differently. It should be the schools goal to constitute an environment with the conditions for these students too. Everybody should be able to follow their passions, but not just after graduation. Dennis Littky has started many schools based on passion-driven learning.
Littky's schools are revolutionary because they aren't just a tweak in the system, they're built differently from the ground up. They are largely project-based, so students are able to find what they are passionate about and go out into the world do it. This allows for kids to learn for themselves (the best way to learn). In order for this to work though, teachers have to treat their students as adults and not as infants. High school students don't need to suckle on a teat of information. They need to get out into their community and do something with their learning. Of course you can't learn everything from being out and about, so supplemental instruction would be needed. But a student can learn a wide variety of skills and information from a single project.
Also Check out:
Angela Maiers
Dennis Littky
Nikhil Goyal
A stunning post Logan! Erudite and interesting in both content and digital prose. Your points at ….
ReplyDelete“Why is it so hard to generate enthusiasm in the student body, especially when we are living in such a fascinating world? “
“In American schools, there are two types of people: those who have a passion for learning in the standard school environment and those who's passions lie elsewhere.”
“The idea that kids are the future of innovation should be put to rest. Kids are the innovators of today.”
….are especially rich. So what to do about it.... how might you create an experience this year that starts you down a passion driven path?
How did you find Littkey (a hero of mine!) and why Maiers?
Thanks for the positive feedback Mr. S! I have been thinking about trying to incorporate passion-driven learning into my schooling this year but it's tough because the concept differs so much from the standard way of doing things in our classes. It might have to be an indie study or in collaboration with something like VHS because I haven't a clue what my teachers would think about it.
DeleteI found Littky while searching for forward-thinking schools and educators. His Big Picture schools sound awesome! I included Maiers because I like some of the ideas on her site and they were related to what I wrote. She also wrote a the book on passion-driven learning.