Leash-less Student-Directed Learning

I see implications for Student-Directed Learning everywhere. This morning I read a crazy-delightful Atlantic article about the NZ SPCA's latest ad campaign about a shelter dog that was taught to drive a car. Go ahead and read the article, then hurry back here so we can talk about it.
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What did you think of the comments by Clive Wynn (New Scientist) about the nature of intelligence? He said:

 Following commands moment by moment is only a small part of what we usually mean by intelligence. "Intelligence" involves thinking for oneself, reasoning, and most of all, finding solutions without continuous direction. ... Ask any dog owner whose best friend has become tangled with the leash on the wrong side of a lamppost: Dogs do not make a good job of figuring out how to untangle themselves.... In general dogs are poor at solving puzzles.

Stay with me. I'm not thinking about dogs this morning. I'm thinking about my students. How much of what we do in classrooms demands students to reason, to think for themselves and (most of all!) find solutions without continuous direction? I want my answer to that question to be "Everything."

A journalism lab is a natural place to initiate student-led learning. Much of what we already do is on target: determine what to cover, how to cover it, and then...make it happen. But this also means my students have frequent opportunity to tangle with the leash on the wrong side of the lampost. Too often I'm the one getting the leashes unknotted. I appreciate the re-focus a move to student-directed learning this semester gives me. I have permission to stay out of the way, unhook the leash.

My Journalism Practicum (JP) students will be--yet unbeknownst to them--blazing a trail through AHS learning this coming semester, and I am in charge of loading our wagon:

1) We need a map. Wait--the whole idea of trailblazing is map-less. Maybe I mean we need a destination. We'll make the map as we go.

2) We need supplies, but we'll pack light. My room has laptops and cameras. We have a website (AHSneedle.com) and plenty of Legos and lemondrops. We have hoola-hoops and newspaper subscriptions. We have press passes and journalism notebooks. I think that's enough to get us started.

3) We need the trailblazer's mindset: spunky, tenacious, innovative, determined, cautious (as needed) but overwhelmingly brave. When I lay out this student-directed adventure to my students, I'll offer them the chance to opt out. JP is an elective; no one is forced to take the class. But if they sign on, they'll be expected to develop an adventurer's optimism and problem-solving personality. I say "develop" because in truth, optimistic problem-solvers are not beating my door down. If schools want more of this type of student, we need to grow our own.

4) We need some organization. This is probably my biggest fear. My strengths as an educator are my creativity and ability to make unexpected connections. This helps me keep learning vigorous and meaningful--but my "point A connects to point F" way of seeing the world makes it challenging for me to remember to take attendance or put the stapler back in the same place. As my students transform our room into a student-led project-based bastion of high school journalism, I must provide organizational undergirding. TBC...

5) We need space. In reading about others' student-directed and project-based learning environments, "tables" and "space" are the most frequently bemoaned shortcomings. I have a good-sized classroom connected to a small editors' room--plus a big closet and a camera room/office. But my administrators have given me "permission" to go where no man has gone before...which calls for SPACE--the final frontier. While this aspect of trailblazing is still fuzzy in my mind, I'm hoping my students will see the world as their classroom. Where will that take us?

6) Five is enough! As a mother of six, I feel compelled to stop at five (sorry, Stuart). But five items is usually enough: five chores on my to-do list, five papers to read, five points to make in a single blog entry.

"Be not afraid of greatness" --William Shakespeare

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