http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opinion/27taylor.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1

Following up on the previous thinking, we will want to create learning situations that are not heavily directed, where young people are not told exactly what to do, where the outcome is not pre-determined. We will want to create situations where there are many choices, and you can’t tell which is a right or wrong choice. In fact, “right” and “wrong” are irrelevant categories; each choice just leads to different outcomes. This does not sound like school as I know it.

It sounds more like play – like being on the playground, where there are complex dynamics and interactions, lots of choices and many points of view, where young people have to navigate and negotiate. It sounds more like unstructured time with peers. Can we create more of this kind of unstructured time, or minimally structured time, within the classroom, or within an arts in education residency? In what ways is this already happening?

One hurdle to creating these more open-ended kinds of learning situations is time. In an already crowded and stressed class year, or in a limited-time residency, it will be a challenge to make room for this kind of learning. What’s required, I would imagine, is lots of time, more than thirty minutes (in an art or music class), more than forty two minutes, time for young people to find their own way. And time over days or even weeks to tackle complex situations, work out solutions, see results, reconfigure. Project-based learning.

The Veterinary College at Cornell University moved several years ago away from content-delivery (lectures and note-taking and labs) to Problem-Based learning. They now educate veterinarians through a four year carefully sequenced set of real life problems, which the students work through in small groups, moving ahead as fast as they go. Professors are available as coach and resource, and the problems are structured so that the students learn in problem #1 the information and skills they will need to solve problem #2, and so on. Totally inter-disciplinary, rather than chemistry, anatomy, etc. each in a separate class. An interesting model for schooling. Could we do it like that?

Well, thinking about this further, I realized that, of course, this needs to be addressed developmentally, thinking about what this would look like for a seven year old child, all the way to a senior in high school.

So let’s think about what it might mean for little kids. We know that routine, repetition, and ‘the known’ are reassuring for little kids. Regular schedules and routines actually foster their stable sense of themselves. In what ways might we begin to introduce unfamiliar challenges while supporting them to find ways to keep their equilibrium and meet these challenges?

It seems to me that the arts are powerful in just this way: the arts can pose challenging, creative problems with no obvious answer. Of course this means we must present open-ended projects, allowing for a great deal of individual choice in materials, approach, and final product. Do you think this would help develop an individual’s strength to deal with the unknown?

Let’s take an example in the visual arts. We can’t say “We are all going to roll clay and make sun cutouts. You can choose your sun’s expression and the colors you want to use.” Instead, we must pose questions, raise issues, incite investigations, look at artists’ work, and then ask students to address similar challenges or questions in their own individual way.

Does this get us closer to what we want, namely a strengthened ability to deal with unknown and challenging situations? In a mild way I think it does. We want to create situations within the classroom that are unfamiliar, that have no prescribed answer, that require the child to find their own way, or find their way together with their classmates. I think the most important thing is that all the work is child-centered, child-led as much as possible, that children are making their own solutions. So that we are not imposing the answers or the final products; we are just asking the questions. And then we just keep scaling it up, asking more difficult questions, making the situations more and more challenging as the students get older.

What do you think?

I am thinking that our young people face a danger (as do we!) of feeling overwhelmed, out of control, of being immobilized by the sheer size and number of problems, or immobilized by fear of what will happen if these problems are not addressed. What do young people need in order to be better prepared to cope?

I think one of the first things they need is the ability to deal with the unknown. To do that they need to be able to keep one’s equilibrium in a situation that is unfamiliar, complex, challenging. They will need a stable, core sense of self; a center that is secure. And they need to know how to take care of themselves to maintain this.

What can we do in the classroom that can foster these qualities? What kinds of experiences help foster these strengths? How can we teach to maximize this in young people?

Maybe 21st Century teaching and learning can return to that most ancient of practices: people establishing connections and relationships that make them feel valued and appreciated.