In the 3rd grade I remember learning how to write and multiply through wrote repetition. My memory is as an 8 year old kid, feeling like I was in prison, because I had no control over my own learning. I needed to complete worksheets or practice writing the same sentence over and over again. I drew a line down the page and added dashes to form the "T". I spent most of my time daydreaming or socializing, thinking of kickball or Star Wars. Because I was not as gifted as my older sister or other kids, they wanted to put me in special education. When I was older, I learned the game, and could complete the work without giving it my full attention. But that was only after I decided I would never judge my self-worth from a grade, because the stress I felt from the workload in middle school almost gave me a nervous breakdown. I kept my inner life rich through friendships and books, my family and imagination, bidding my time until I could make my own decisions about where to live, who to work with, and towards what purpose. My formal education was complete by the age of 21, but my real education was just beginning!
Work, the place where most of us spend our time, the activities that give us our status, that stretch or dull our minds and connect us to a wider world needs to be transformed. It should be more flexible, and purposeful, self-directed, and autonomous. Living is about mastery, not seat time. Rigor is about complexity not quantity. Success is not a number.
Everywhere I turn I read the same argument. Daniel Pink and Howard Gardner are writing about the kind of mind we need to be cultivating for the 21st century. People who can synthesize information, who are intrinsically motivated, and work collaboratively on real world problems will have jobs. Those that only know how to follow directions or draw inside the lines will be automated or outsourced.
Assembly lines are great at doing things fast in one direction. But if you need to make adjustments, if you need to think on your feet and adapt, assembly lines snap. We live in a world where the jobs of tomorrow have not been created yet, where we need to find opportunities and create our own value, and so many of our institutions are stuck in the pre-information revolution age, Skinner's behavioral modification model, Ford's factory. Too slow to react, people are stuck doing meaningless tasks, instead of discovering the challenging world around them.
How many people do you know really love what they do? I bet its the same number who get to create our own work day? Institutions are so scared of freedom because in a Hobbsian world people need to be controlled or they will not produce value. But what science is telling us, is what many of us have known all along. Curiosity, a desire for mastery, collaboration is self-organizing and needs no task master.
How do we transform institutions, like schools, so they actually facilitate innovation and collaboration, build off of learner interests and prepare youth for a world with no guarantees?
No comments:
Post a Comment