Since finishing my first practicum, I've been talking with people and thinking a bit about how the students in my science class thought about school in relation to themselves. I saw two extremes: students who thought of school as a definition of themselves, and students who saw school as unrelated to their lives. In between, of course, I saw the many students who found themselves between those two extremes. For this post, however, I want to focus on the students at the two extremes because they have taught me a lot lately.
Some students (as a generalization, this seemed to be more true of some of the young women in my class) adopted school as a very large part of themselves: they spent their free time doing school-related activities, they defined themselves by their marks and therefore experienced even a slightly low mark as a failure of self, and they put school above everything else in life. This view of school was positive in some ways - the students who saw school as an extension of themselves had more commitment to work hard and generally set and met high achievement goals. They produced excellent work which met each expectation I had outlined precisely. This view, however, also posed challenges for those students - they tended to put school above learning, and tended to be more concerned with what was on the test than what they were curious about. They also put a great deal of stress on themselves - when failure in one assignment means to be a failure as a human being, it is clear where the stress and fear of failure comes from. I am worried both about their personal health living with that stress, and the limits on creativity that the fear of failure places.
Other students (again, as a generalization, the students on this end of the scale tended to be some of the young men in my classes) saw school as completed unrelated and disconnected from their life: their conversations even in class rarely centered on any school activities, low marks didn't phase them, and they didn't see value in learning for their life: school just got in the way of life. This way of looking at school was positive in several ways: the students had no fears of failure to squelch their creativity, the students were motivated by authentic tasks only, so their way of thinking challenged me to make my assignments and problems highly relevant to their lives - a teaching practice that I think is very important for all the learners in my class. The students who didn't see value in school for it's own sake were like a sounding board for me to make sure that my questions were truly relevant to them. Unfortunately, the disconnect between school and life was problematic as well, especially in the area of responsibility. These students had an unstated belief that if they fell behind or missed an assignment, it was fully the teacher's responsibility to make sure they were caught up. These students were rarely taking the opportunity to improve their learning skills because they had trouble making the connection between becoming good learners and becoming successful contributing global citizens (whatever that means to a young man who just wants to go huntin', and doesn't yet realize that he's learning an important skill of providing for a family). I am worried for these students too. They have so much potential, but they will need learning skills and a stronger sense of personal responsibility for completing work to reach that potential.
But after all those student observations, it really wouldn't be fair to finish this post without looking at things from the other side of the desk. Who teaches students that school should either take over life or be completely disconnected from it? In one year, it could be me in those shoes.
I'm on my way to becoming just one of the many white female teachers that every boy and young man sees in front of the classroom as he grows up. Why should he connect school to himself, when the whole institution is clearly a "girly" thing? Starting in elementary school, where the proportion of female teachers to male teachers is even more ridiculous, boys see plenty of female role models engaged in learning and teaching, but very few men. I think that their thought process - that school is not related to their gender - flows reasonably (though very unfortunately) from their observations.
Also, I think there is a common thread between the challenges faced by students who embrace school as synonymous with their personal identity and students who see little connection between themselves and school. That common thread has a lot to do with the set up of our schools: removing students from life into an institutionalized building in which it's hard to give learning context.
For example, think of our art classrooms which are located in a factory/institutional setting? It's true that VanGogh did produce some great art while he was institutionalized for insanity, but I can hardly see that as an ideal location to do art! I'd love to exchange art classrooms for art apprenticeships. I would expect that there are many local artists who would be happy to pass on their love of art by taking on a small number of students as apprentices. Of course there are logistical challenges - would it be possible to find enough varied placements for students to try many different kinds of art? And the uniformity and standardization of education would be left floundering, no doubt. But students could be with real artists doing art that matters! At the very least, the art classroom needs to be incorporated into the community - otherwise, what is the point? It's far more valuable to learn colour theory by designing and painting a mural for the kids wing of the local hospital than to colour in boxes on an exercise sheet, which will be dropped in the garbage immediately after class. It's far more valuable to learn perspective by designing and building a stage set with a false sense of depth for a local theatre than to do the three standard practice exercises in one, two and three point perspective. The list of ways to connect the art classroom (even if true apprenticeships are not feasible) to the community could go on and on, and I hope to make use of as many local opportunities as possible when I teach.
It's not just art classrooms, however, which need to be relevant to community life. The same connections to the real world can and should be made in every class. Physics is an especially wonderful subject, since it truly is a description of how the real world works. In my first practicum, I had the opportunity to try various ways of building connections with students. It's a nerdy past-time, I'll admit, but I do love writing funny Physics problems about real people, so on my first day, I surveyed the class to find out what their hobbies, interests, and goals after high school were. Then, nearly every example, homework, quiz and test problem was about them. I used the activities they told me they enjoyed, and wrote practical problems that they encounter in their everyday life, particularly in the activities they find the most fun. It's a nice first start at making connections because it's very easy to do. Rather than copying out the irrelevant problem copied from a textbook which can't possibly relate to a unique class: "A projectile of mass, m, is launched with an initial velocity of 100m/s at an angle of 15 degrees. Where will it land?", it takes just an extra few minutes to write a problem: "Bill shoots a 0.5kg bullet with an initial velocity of 100m/s at an angle of 15 degrees. Will it hit a deer standing 0.6km away?" I got very positive feedback from the students about using them in the problems we worked through, and they tended to pay more attention and make more problem solving attempts when they were the star of a problem. It's an easy strategy to make connections with real life, and it worked well, so that is definitely a keeper.
While it was fun and helpful to use relevant problems, however, I don't think that simple strategy is enough to fully alter the conception that school is either disconnected from life or consumes real life. Students need to do more than just solve problems about their real life; they need to use their solutions in the world. It requires a lot more time and energy, but I want to give my students opportunities to do things that matter. They could design a system of solar panels that we will purchase for the school. I want my students to invent a small energy efficient stove to be used on camping trips. Physics is truly ideal for such practical applications, in which the completion of their school project actually makes a difference in their life, because the real world is exactly what Physics strives to explain. I really want to focus on those meaningful applications in my teaching.
When we connect the classroom to the community, not only do students, who feel that school is irrelevant to life, begin to make motivating connections, but also students, who consider school to be their life, can see a broader goal for learning than simply good grades.
And in my opinion, that's where education gets very exciting.
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