If you have been following, you’ll know I have talked about some proposals made by grade 9 students to overhaul the school system.
Last week I referred to their desire to see a lot more of the teaching and reinforcement of basic subject content to be on-line, that is, they would watch outstanding instructors on their own time and then submit assignments to be graded on-line. No need to spend a long day in school and many opportunities to learn at their own speed, on their own time and in their own way (assuming there were several instructors for each lesson with various ways of getting the point across).
That is not to say that the institution of school and the physical presence of a building is not necessary. To the contrary, most students were very much in favour of the school as a drop-in centre, a sports complex, an arts facility and a place where, if they needed some academic support, they could find it. Almost to a student they wanted to study quietly, on their own and at their own pace. But they all felt it was very important to have a well-rounded education and social life and knew that sports, bands, and various clubs would need a place to meet.
So here is my summary of the educational model they seemed to be leaning towards.
On a typical morning, a teen would sleep until he or she felt like getting up. Once up, time could be spent doing some of the lessons targeted for the day, or not. Some students might cram a week’s lessons into a couple of days and have a job the rest of the week or some might spread them out over time.
Likely sometime in the middle of the afternoon, a general drift towards the school facility would take place where band practices and sports teams would be scheduled on a calendar that all students could access on-line or on their phones.
If a student needed some academic help, had to attend a lab in a science course, or wanted to write a supervised exam in a subject that they have completed on-line, that could be arranged either before or after the other activities. The school building would be open from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. on a regular basis to allow flexibility of schedules. Some teachers would also be on-line resources that students could access virtually any time of the day and night and students could form discussion groups on-line with other students from around the province/country/world to exchange ideas on material covered in the course.
The notion of 24-hour “tech support” and global interface opportunities seemed quite reasonable to them, from a customer service perspective.
Once a student completed a credit, he or she would be paid a fixed sum for it. Like the current system, there would be a required number of credits to graduate over a variety of disciplines. But since every student could access every course in the province, there would be a lot more choice. Students could do one course at a time in a condensed fashion or could take three or four at a time similar to a semestered program now.
The use of on-line scheduling of activities like student council or various interest clubs appealed greatly to them. They envisioned being able to get up in the morning, look at the school calendar and plan their study time, social time, athletic time, arts time and leadership opportunities as they wished, obviously with some limitations on personal flexibility, but with much more freedom than they currently have sitting in classes most of the day.
Eventually, I got them to consider the notion that perhaps this kind of freedom might be a bit much for some students, particularly the youngest high school students like them. They did think this might be a problem initially, but felt that once students got rolling with independent learning skills, in combination with some restrictions that would hold students who are not doing anything accountable, students would respond to a loss of freedom.
Those not completing work at a reasonable pace would be required to show up at the school for classes, albeit the same on-line classes, but with a teacher present to ensure they were doing the work.
In the end, we’d looked at a novel way to approach making education, or more accurately schooling, more relevant to students.
But there were many questions still coming up and much debate about the possible solutions to them.
This semester, I am starting the course with a new group of students with this educational design project as a central theme of their work.
I’ll be interested in seeing what more time and more thought produces from all of us.
Graham Hookey is an educator and writer (ghookey@yahoo.com).