Pub. 9 2019-2020 Issue 2

20 “Schools that Transform Learning” W hat an interesting time we are in as charter school profes- sionals and as a society. As we accommodated COVID-19 required school closures in the past few weeks, I found myself thinking of how this dramatic change in school operation impacted instructional delivery and will influence charter schools going forward. In the March 17, 2020, MIT Technology Review, Gideon Lichfield suggested that “We’re not going back to normal.” He advises that changes brought about by “social distancing” will likely disrupt our way of life in some ways forever. This certainly seems to be likely for the school and its core learning mission. In the mem- orable Washington Irving short story first published in 1819, Irving tells of fictional Rip Van Winkle who lived before and after the American Revolutionary War in the Catskill Mountains. He wanders off into the mountains and falls asleep. When he awakens 20 years later, he discovers he has missed the American Revolutionary War with all of its profound impacts on the lives of people in his community. While we are not waking up this fall after sleeping for 20 years, there are unprecedented impacts we now see from the global pandemic that are profoundly influencing how we frame our think- ing around learning. In his 2012 book “Schools that Learn …” Senge reminds us that we are all products of the age in which we live. We tend to organize our schools to approximate what we experienced as students going through an industrial-aged system and yet we are no longer living in the world we were prepared to enter. Senge suggests an old joke that goes, “it is difficult to know what fish talk about, but you can be sure it’s not water. It is difficult for any of us in ‘advanced’ societies to overestimate howmuch the effects of the industrial age have shaped the way we see the world. This ‘water’ — our culturally embed- ded assumptions and habitual ways of operating — comes back to haunt us when we try to fundamentally rethink and reinvent the industrial-age institution we call school.” As we plan for the new year, may I present several industrial-aged assump- tions of schools that Senge references and that we should rethink in our own learning settings to prepare our students better to flourish in the world they will enter upon graduation. First, children arrive at schools with deficiencies and we repair them. We don’t like to discuss this assumption, but it is often, nonetheless, present in our current designs and limits a students’ ability to cultivate their sense of personal responsibility for their learning. To help mitigate this assumption, take time this year to more deeply explore your students’ assets for learning and their capacity for driving their learning. Second, learning takes place solely in the mind of the child within the classroom. This assumption pushes students to seek conformity of their knowledge with what they are experiencing in the classroom and largely ignores how to use that knowledge in their lives to frame their experiences and to solve fresh challenges. This year, in each learning interaction you have with students, try to explain how the knowledge you are exploring with them impacts your life and provide them opportunities to share back with you how they are animating this knowl- edge in their own lives as they interact with the world beyond the classroom. Let’s remember as we rethink our approaches to supporting student learn- ing that application of our knowledge happens in the context of our lives and is framed by what we are experiencing in the world we live in. It is profoundly influenced by the access technology presents to us related to our connec- tions to the world. We have to innovate around our concept for schools beyond our unquestioned devotion to the tradi- tional classroom. Senge suggests that, “… it is important to ask what might a classroom full of children and adults be like if it were truly designed for learning and seen as only one of many settings in which learning occurs.” I hope as this year begins, we take seriously the promise provided through Utah charter schools to profoundly rethink student learning and innovate newways to better position each student to flourish no matter what their unpredictable world throws their way. Senge P. (2012). Schools that learn: a fifth discipline fieldbook for educators, parents, and everyone who cares about education. London: Nicholas Brealey. BY DR. PARKER FAWSON EMMA ECCLES JONES ENDOWED CHAIR OF EARLY EDUCATION DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR THE SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE EMMA ECCLES JONES COLLEGE OF EDUCATION AND HUMAN SERVICES UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY