Whilst reminiscing with adults about our own experience of school, there are two types of story or description that emerge Classroom stories normally focus on the teacher, be it the way they talked, dressed or displayed terrible personal hygiene. Any other school stories include personal memories from trips, stage performances or embarrassing social moments. Now, notice here that stories that relate directly to the individual are outside the classroom, and most classroom memories do not relate oneself.

Where is the self in the classroom?

Teachers are often proud of their ability to build relationships with individual students but it’s the nature of and reason for that relationship that I want to examine. What I am about to write might frustrate some who see the nature of these relationships as the cornerstone of their practice. But like I have done many times, it’s the fundamental systems that schools use to deliver education that I am questioning and the way in which those systems impact on the relationships many teachers have with their students.

My thoughts this week relate to my recent discussions about factory style compliance being the driver for school practice and decider of success. When compliance with teacher issued work and rules is the primary concern during the school day, it has the tendency to shape the relationships of all those concerned. A topic that is talked about often is the difference between education and learning, where education is a finite something received from others and learning is a personal and authentic journey that doesn’t necessarily have an final destination. My feeling is that relationships formed within an environment of education do not recognise the individual beyond a need to comply with and complete work issued. An education predefines how learning takes place and so one-to-one relationships have to centre on either compliance assistance or issues outside the learning, like recent sporting successes or student hobbies. Relationships formed within an environment focused on learning are designed around the needs and passions of each individual to progress. In this way, education does not equip the individual for further learning as much as a personally driven experience that develops one’s own strategies and tactics.

BECOMING A LEARNER TAKES TIME

I was invited to speak about change at another New Zealand high school this week where I did my best to explain the shift from educating the masses to developing individual learners and why the changing world was busy extending our need to do so. The thing I couldn’t stress enough is that whole school change is not worth attempting. The senior students in 90% of high schools have been trained to be educated by others and will often resent the idea of taking charge and being responsible for their learning.

So play the long game. Start with your youngest year group and have the teachers build a library of learning strategies and classroom expectations that have the learners consider “How might we or I progress towards this goal?” Challenge your students more to practice considering all the available options rather than waiting to be given them. Equip and empower your learners to be more independent but also self-aware in knowing when and how to seek assistance from those inside and outside the classroom.

Same workload – less stress

Confusion exists amongst teacher about student-driven learning. It requires just as much work from the teacher but the focus of the work is strategic and centred on resourcing students (example here) so they know:

• how to go about being productive
• how to hold meaningful discussion
• how to evaluate information
• how to think deeply
• how to listen
• how to communicate ideas
• how to show empathy
• and so on…

These questions must feature as the most common discussions in classrooms if schools are to genuinely recognise the individual learner. Once teachers are brave enough to start the long game and build better learners, the stress levels plummet. As a teacher in such a situation said to me last year: “why didn’t we do this 20 years ago!”

I have covered many aspects of future education trends in my book A Learner’s Paradise: How New Zealand is reimagining education. Here’s the Ad: