True Education

True educators have a passion for education.  It's not just a "job", a mere career choice.  True educators put in full (50-60+ hours) work weeks and then go home and research the newest methodologies and, pardon the pun, schools of thought on school itself.  This ardor, if unbridled, may lead to... dare I say it?... change.  And, it's not as if this change isn't needed.  Everywhere you look, if indeed you are looking, there are statistics, personal horror stories and media attention that all boil down to one simple fact: students today do not or will not learn the way students did in the past.  This is not news to educators, the very people who have been on the front lines of the proverbial battle in the classroom.  So we know the problem, now what?!

Dictionary.com's first entry under "education" is as follows:

(n):the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.

Most public and many private schools administer standardized assessments to determine whether or not and to what degree general knowledge and powers of reasoning and judgement are imparted.  Most educators (and in fact, all that I have personally interacted with) agree that we must somehow determine whether or not we are truly educating our students but they do not agree that standardized "tests" are the appropriate means of assessment.  Another quandary.

But wait, there's more to that definition...  the purpose of education is essentially to  prepare oneself or others intellectually for mature life.  Hmmm.  I don't know about you, but 99% (if not more) of my out-of-school, "mature",  life requires skills, knowledge and abilities that I must demonstrate through application to  real-world situations and problems.  When a [insert random car or house part] dysfunctions, we are not given a three page exam and handed a pencil.  Instead, we have to problem-solve and first assess whether it's a problem we can solve ourselves or if it is beyond our area of expertise.  If we are unable to resolve the problem, we must know who to go to for resolution.  The solutions are results of naturally occurring problems because without a pre-existing problem, there is little motivation toward achieving an actual resolution.

Susan has 10 apples.  She eats one and gives Joe three apples.  

Maria gives Susan two oranges for one apple. How many apples does Susan have now?

a) three

b) four

c) five

d) six

While you may have been busy keeping track of Susan's apples, many students may have already selected an alternate answer: "e) who cares?".  And, really-who does?  There is no Susan,  there are no apples, there is no interest in answering this math "problem".  This is not a problem that needs a solution.  

The good news is that there real problems that need resolution.  You may be confused as to why that's good news, so I'll shed a little light for you using just one example.  Many schools in Northwest Indiana are participating in a food drive called Spread the Love.  Our school, Avicenna Academy, is participating.  During morning announcements I share statistics about hunger and food insecure homes here in "the region" that we call home.  In mentioning this to our students, I realized that we can do more than just participate in an annual food drive.  This year our school will begin designing and hopefully executing a very large community garden.  Students will create and tend to the garden in collaboration with the greater NWI community.  We will donate the bulk of the food that we grow to local food banks.  Avicenna Academy's Community Garden will serve as a learning tool for our students.  This year the bulk of the lessons will likely be science oriented and there is plenty of opportunity for extension to social studies and mathematics/economics.

The current plan has all of our students engaged:

-Preschool through First Grade is responsible for researching and providing happy homes within our garden for earthworms and helpful insects.

-Second Grade is responsible for determining which type of non-food plants can be planted to aid in air filtration.  

-Third Grade is responsible for selection of the types of vegetables we will be able to successfully grow.

-Fourth Grade is responsible for designing and executing a nutrient-rich compost heap while

-Fifth Grade will work on rain barrel irrigation.

-All of our Junior High students will be responsible for determining soil type to help the younger students in their work and they will be working together to organize the layout of the garden.

The entire school, faculty included, will come up with a plan to tend to the garden and will work on environmentally-healthy ways to minimize crop-destroying pests.

The problem is hunger.  The solution is a garden.  The byproduct is that our students learn through doing and helping.  There is an application, a real result and actual work.  All of this work will require investigation and research which will utilize the technology skills that our students already have and will help them to re-fashion some of those skills so that they may be applied to educational endeavors not just video gaming. 

There are plenty more exciting things going on in our school this year, but I do not have time to address all of them right now.  Instead, I'm going to hit "publish post" and wander into classrooms to see how our teachers are engaging our students today.  I am going to continue encouraging alternate paths to education.  

Change takes time but the first step in the right direction requires courage, faith, hope and a fire in your belly.  We have it.  Do you?