Has School Become Misplaced?

"The most meaningful learning happens outside school." — Kevin Bushweller

...But this depends on what we mean by "school." If we are using the word in its traditional sense, this is a true statement for many students. Why?

Equity and Equality

First, let's look at equity in learning for all students, often confused with equality. "Equality" connotes that everyone receives the same access to a goal regardless of individual differences in background circumstances and assets. The intent of this statement has great value; it has become foundational in education growing out of the Civil Rights Movement. But truly personalizing learning can't happen within the traditional architecture of school learning. It assumes that every student will get an equal shot at success in learning because the conditions for it are equal — i.e., standardized across time and space. Increasingly in our modern education era, the definition of content learning success has also been standardized. This kind of equality appears efficient and simplifies reporting of success measurements to the community, where all kids' learning is measured from the same pathway, a system that has been in place since the Industrial Revolution.

On the other hand, the goal of true personalized learning is one of equity. This requires the learning process and its delivery to be relevant and meaningful to each student; it can't be standardized to make it "equal."

The Traditional Architecture of Schools

The usual physical expectation of "school" is a place, a building within which teaching and learning activities happen. Inside we would not be surprised to find long hallways from which classrooms are accessed. We would find a group of students within each classroom where a teacher is employing a single curriculum for the entire group. Most adult readers would expect from their own experience that students in each of these rooms as a group must complete learning expectations on a fixed timeline, regardless of their own assets and life learning they bring to that room.

So, the physical architecture of most schools strongly influences the pathway of student learning. For example, a "classroom" is built for a class of students for a course through which a group of young people are expected to proceed together in the same time frames. All students must adapt to the classroom's uniformities, something that for some students is too irrelevant to their assets and backgrounds.

Reinventing Place in Learning

The places used for learning must serve students' learning, not define it. Considering that learning happens anywhere and everywhere, we must expand our concept of learning place. In this ongoing discussion of equity factors that truly allow and nurture personalized learning, we must ask how the places we use for kids' education serve them best. Specifically,

• What places allow for individual students' sense of relevance and meaning, curiosity, creativity, and motivation?
• How can educators expand a place of learning beyond standardization?

Reimagining the Teaching and Learning Spaces in School Buildings

As we look at a different orientation to time in students' learning, it's helpful to couple that with more flexible ways to use school building spaces. Administrators normally develop a "Master Schedule" for the building by attending to assumed limitations first: time, numbers of teachers and students, content of classes, and grade levels. It's very hard to imagine use of a building without the master schedule. But this is where creative collaboration among students, community members, parents, and educators can challenge the assumptions of spaces which inhibit personalized learning. Are there better uses of various rooms, hallways, and big spaces like the lunchroom and auditorium, at least in significant parts of each day or week?

Vanguard communities and schools around the country are exploring the possible answers to this question by first considering what is relevant to individual students' needs, and for advancement through competency-based learning. Building areas become "centers" for a variety of supports, creative application opportunities, and self-actualization. Students themselves determine where they need to go. Center designations change as needed — and as determined in collaboration with student voice.

Anytime, Anywhere Learning

Bushweller's article quoted above goes on to say, "There is a growing argument that the most powerful, relevant learning for today's students is happening when they connect with the rapidly changing world beyond the school walls to solve problems, explore ideas, rally for a cause, or learn a new technical skill."

Many teachers understand how potent locations outside of a school building can be, but the usual "field trip" is limited by availability of transportation, or by approval of the site to be visited. The onus for having any field trips at all is on the teacher to make the arrangements well in advance, with a learning/teaching plan that can be approved. Increasingly, such excursions are challenged because of the perception of overall limited time for students to meet curriculum standards.

Few would deny that learning continuously takes place outside of school time and location. But despite that, those everyday experiences are rarely considered valid and accountable for school-based required learning. Yet when students are encouraged to frame targeted understandings in terms of experiences outside school doors, they own the learning and advance their experience of discovery and skill of articulation. They become more mindful of what is around them in their outside realities which stimulate their learning. That process also elevates individual students' native assets that may not fit in-building resources and facilitations well. This is especially true for students whose diverse backgrounds don't fit a traditional classroom environment.

This series has now discussed how traditional systemic practices present inequitable boxes of time and space for many students, and broadly how to begin thinking about shifting away from those limitations. Of course, other factors need to change concurrently for this paradigm shift to occur. In the coming article, I'll start with how the teacher's role must change in this shift — one that would give teachers a more fulfilled sense of purpose and effectiveness than what today's traditional, externally prescribed expectations impose upon them.