On Life, Learning and Leadership

As I’ve processed my decision, I’ve thought a lot about school buses, fondly remembering the bus that faithfully picked me up at the end of my family farm’s half-mile-long, sugar-sand road in South Carolina’s Low Country.

While school bus technology has evolved, its symbolism in how we view education has not. The doors that swing open on our buses lead to doors that open into our schools, which in turn open the doors of opportunity for all children, regardless of their station in life.

End of Autonomy

When my career began in the 1970s, I was fortunate to work in a cutting-edge middle school committed to hands-on, minds-on learning. I recall teachers who designed learning to be engaging, fun and challenging and students who experienced the team-based learning that later mostly disappeared from schools.

Long before the era of standardization rendered students motionless at their desks while poring over worksheets, teachers had the autonomy to create opportunities that engaged students. The photographic images from my early teaching years contribute a narrative of inquiry, manipulatives, interdisciplinary teaming and projects that sadly became lost in the fixation on testing during the No Child Left Behind era.

Exploring big ideas through children’s questions and curiosities may be the greatest loss to learning caused by the accountability-driven school reform movement that began in the 1980s. Learning should be fun. It should be challenging. And it should keep kids coming back for more.

Unintended Benefits

As I contemplate the next learning path in my life, I think about my most important takeaways from working with amazing educators over several decades.

My primary advice to educators today: There’s more to educating kids for life than passing a standardized test. Learning to question, discuss, debate, defend and listen is useful over a lifetime, long after the start date of the Battle of Gettysburg has been forgotten.

Relationships matter more than anything else. We have the power to hurt or heal or find common ground. When we put relationships first, we are more likely to value the strengths of others.

No matter what academic standards students are expected to meet, unintended experiences often deliver the most influential learning, whether it’s a luna moth discovered on the outside of a school building or a presidential election upset. The white spaces in our unit designs can lead to discoveries that stick with us for a lifetime.

Risk taking pays huge dividends, while comfort zones barely break even. Classroom experiences need to align more closely with the experiences in the worlds around students, even if they deviate from convention.

I think of the 3rd-grade teacher several years ago who introduced his students to Twitter. At the time, they were discussing whether a drinking straw was a simple machine. After they posted the question on Twitter, the responses flowed in for five years and the students heard from scientists, engineers, corporate CEOs and university professors from across the U.S. and overseas. The students learned a great deal about more than just drinking straws.

Despite new technologies that allow students to participate in a global learning network, nothing will ever be more important than caring adults who teach, coach and model the epitome of what educators have to offer.

Student Voice

The best of education always will be grounded in the gifts of a diverse community that make it possible for young people to find the power of their own voices, their agency as learners and their influence in the world. And it always will be found through the timeless learning of hands-on and minds-on experiences that prepares kids for their century, not ours. That’s why we educators are here.

She blogs at https://medium.com/@pammoran and https://spacesforlearning.wordpress.com.