October 2, 2023
The universe often brings me things in threes. When I come across a book three times in conversation, I know it is time to read it. If multiple friends are talking about a new trail or destination, I know it’s time to go for a hike. Recently, the purpose of school has been surfacing.
In building our middle school at UP Academy we continually asked what students need to be successful and what skills were most necessary. This is somewhat contradictory to the factory model where school is only for acquiring knowledge. In a recent report by the LearnerStudio, Building the Future of Learning,
“Parents increasingly are attuned to mental health needs and life skills — now explicitly want schools to be places that provide for and foster the development of strong, supportive and sustained relationships with caring adults who can help students grow and thrive, and develop healthy relationships with peers.”
Building the Future of Learning
Similarly, “Students want to fix the passivity and boredom of school, and to have more agency in determining what and how they learn so that their individual needs are met.” These ideas are a far cry from the days of the three R’s, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, which parents still expect from schools. This puts us at an impasse with school systems set up for industrial mass education of facts and parents and students wanting a different experience. Our systems aren’t set up for it and it demands a different skill set from that which we are currently giving our teachers through development and education programs.
My daughter started middle school last year and throughout her year she had study labs during the day to get her homework done. As a parent of a well organized and responsible student, I rarely saw her doing homework and never encountered an issue where it wasn’t complete. This year the school changed their schedule and eliminated study labs in the school day and instead instituted after school study halls that are subject specific and have the educators of those subjects available to answer questions and support the homework. With the study lab model, students have the opportunity to manage their time, complete expectations, and advocate for support if they need more help. The after school mode takes up valuable time which could be spent outside of academia, and provides direct, almost tutoring, support. This format results in a loss of agency and lowers expectations for self-advocacy.
My daughter is struggling with the homework load she has coupled with no way to manage her own time within the school day. She plays on a soccer and a vollyball team, rides horses, and is a girl scout; she has obligations outside of school. Her way of decompressing and relaxing is to create art. She spent her Sunday afternoon drawing and listening to music. That is what she needed to do for her health. But it meant her homework wasn’t done.
We have ways to mitigate our workload, to decide when we are at capacity, to decide when we can take on an extra project, or not. As educators, many of us don’t allow that agency for our students, yet we expect our students to fit everything in and find the time to complete assignments. She doesn’t have the option of not taking a course to lower her workload. She does have the choice of how to use her time outside of school. As educators and parents we need to work to protect her physical and mental health and to teach her to prioritize that over someone’s arbitrary deadline. Parents want schools to teach healthy practices, students want more agency over learning; a packed academic schedule with no ‘free’ time (flex, study lab) during the day is the opposite of both of these goals. How can we reschedule and rearrange our schools to support the agency and health of our learners?
Another example of this comes from youth sport. The air in the Bay Area has been bad this week. Yesterday we showed up to practice and asked the coach if we should be outside or cancel because of the air quality. He sent a text to the parent group who generally responded “What? It’s not that bad.” Instead of following guidance regarding health, they are pushing their children to practice, to work to be better, and ignoring the immediate and lasting effects on their health. Schools cannot be the only one teaching lessons about valuing health and agency. They must also come from parents.
Which brings us back to the purpose of school. Should they be places of “students passively sitting to receive facts for rigidly defined periods of time” (LearnerStudio) or should they be places that teach social, physical, mental, interpersonal, health and development? I would clearly argue that the academic skills necessary for a successful life can be taught in many different places using a variety of modalities, and that the purpose of school is to help young people build a future they love and they can live with. We need to prioritize our physical and mental health; we need to support youth making choices to prioritize their health and using their time wisely. We need to help them build time management skills and give them agency over what they are learning. When our school systems shift in these directions we will see increased engagement, increased community, and increased happiness in our youth.
Full LearnerStudio Report: https://thelearnerstudio.org/buildingthefuturereport/
