"Why do we have to learn this?"
Matthew McConaughey is my inspiration.
I spend a lot of my found-time listening to people talk. While I wash the dishes. While I walk to work. While I ride around on my motorbike. On one of those found-time occasions, I listened to Mr McConaughey talk to Joe Rogan. While you may have your own strong opinions about Mr Rogan, he gets interesting people on his podcast and he talks with them for a long time. Hours and hours. Just talking.
A lot can be learned. About what they are talking about. About how they are talking together. Maintaining a discussion for hours and hours is a skill that Mr Rogan acknowledges he did not have when he began his podcast but has learned and refined over the more than one thousand podcasts he has recorded in the last ten years. In this particular ebb and flow of the three+ hour discussion, Mr McConaughey mentioned he has written a journal for more than thirty years. He makes sure he begins his day with time for himself and writes in his journal. That was my inspiration.
Now, one month on from listening to that podcast, I have just completed a "31-day streak" on Day One, an app designed for journaling. The last time I wrote a journal I was 25 years old and had just relocated to Wuhan, China. It was a leather-bound notebook given to me by my father, with thick parchment-like pages. I wrote in it every evening, documenting the daily wonders that unfolded as I spent a year living in China. That journal now sits in my bookshelf and is a time machine that takes me back to the sights and smells of a China that is long gone but immediately remembered.
Now each morning I sit on my balcony with a cup of coffee and my iPad in my lap and I write. I write about the day before. I write about things that concern me. I think deeply about things that trouble me. I add photos of moments of joy or laughter or wonder encountered with my family. I map out ideas and reflect on missteps taken and commit to doing things that day. Mr Rogan and Mr McConaughey will never know the impact of their words!
As I have been writing, most recently I have begun to think quite a bit about learning.
In the context of my role as a high school principal, learning is at the core of what I am tasked to oversee. The question I began pondering a few days ago is one I am asking as if I am a student of the school I serve.
"Why do we have to learn this?"
The question has led me to ponder the answer. As I see it, the most common answer I would expect from the students I serve would go something like... "I need to learn this so that I am ready for the exam and can get good grades so that I can get into a good university." The enduring sadness of this response has led me to consider what a better answer might be. And thank you to Mr McConaughey, I have had time to follow this rabbit down the rabbit hole.
Why do any of us ever "learn" something? Rarely is it just to be able to say, "I know that." There is invariably a utilitarian purpose. Learning something typically allows us to "do" something. Do it better, or faster, or for the first time, or more beautifully or efficiently or professionally. For any of us to put in the time to learn something there comes with it the expectation that there will be a payoff some time in the future. Deep inside the rabbit hole, I wondered if that connection is palpable for our students. Do they clearly see the future "payoff" for what they are learning? Beyond grades and a transcript and college acceptances? On the large part, I think not.
So how do we change that? What do we need to change in order for them to see clearly a different payoff for the same learning? And is that even important?
These are easy questions to ask but difficult ones to answer.
Research tells us that students cannot write about something until they are able to TALK about something. If we think about that for a moment, we know straight away it makes sense. If you have a complicated issue you are trying to deal with or a complex understanding you are trying to make sense of, what do you want to do more than anything to help you get work it out? You want to TALK about it. But not to just anyone! To someone who already understands it, or at least has a better understanding of it than you.
If a student is presenting their literary analysis to a YouTuber who hosts a book review YouTube Channel with nearly 60,000 subscribers (yes, it does exist... click here!) the ACTION of presenting to a REAL AUDIENCE will result in a deeper understanding for the student. It will also allow feedback from someone other than the teacher. (That’s right teachers… you are not an exciting audience for your students when they could be presenting to a YouTube influencer!)
What about if you added into the mix a real product as well as a real audience. Imagine students incorporating the design and production of greeting cards into their art class, to be sold to raise money for a needy cause. Suddenly the answer to the question is obvious, so much so that the students no longer ask the question!
And now to place the cherry on the top… what about if you added a real problem into the let-me-challenge-your-why-do-we-do-this-attitude. That’s right, a real product for a real audience who has a real problem.
Imagine the engagement that the students would have in that! Designing and building a solar hot water system for an underprivileged family living in difficult circumstances. Building a website for a non-profit organisation trying to spread its message. Editing, redrafting and translating communication materials for a community organisation. Producing community service announcements for community organisations to be played on the local radio stations. I could go on and on and on with ideas.
The eduspeak gurus might call this authentic assessment or project-based learning or some other fancy name. I’m just going to call it REAL STUFF because when you talk about it, that’s what it is. When you use those words, it emphasises the fact that it should be happening all the time.
Talk about “Authentic Assessment” or PBL and you begin to hear teachers saying, “I’m not trained in that” or “I can’t fit that into my curriculum” or “we can’t do that in my program.” Talk about doing REAL STUFF and you hear crickets.
Chirrrrrrp. Chirrrrrrp. Chirrrrrrp. What’s that? Sorry, I didn’t hear you. No excuses about not being able to do real stuff?????
Thank you again, Matthew McConaughey. I’m going to keep writing each morning. I’m going to keep thinking about things as I do so. I’m going to keep challenging teachers to do REAL STUFF.