A little rebellion
"I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing..."
Thomas Jefferson
I had a serendipitous moment last night. After spending the week reading A New Culture of Learning and contemplating the idea of play in the classroom, a co-worker approached me to ask if I had ever heard of Breakout EDU. I hadn’t. The concept is similar to the current Escape the Room games, where people have to solve a series of puzzles in order to get clues that will allow them to escape (or in this case, unlock a box). In the game that my co-worker used, the puzzles and clues were all tied to the book they had just finished reading, The Outsiders. The students in the class had spent the day before on full day field trip to Gettysburg, so they were tired, and the big end of the year 8th grade dance was that night, which meant that their focus was definitely not on academics. They had, quite frankly, checked out. Despite all of that, she reported that as soon as the game started, her students were completely engaged. The pictures she took showed students working together to solve the puzzles, laughing and smiling, and she said she was amazed at the difference in the class energy level after the game began. It was an embodiment of the idea that bringing play into education is something that can impact learning in a positive manner.
Obviously, running a game like this on one day is different that totally altering the culture of the classroom. However, it did reinforce the role that passion, imagination, and fun can have in inspiring learning, and make me give more consideration to how I can incorporate those aspects into the library. I think that my unique position in the building allows me more freedom to experiment with creating a new culture. While libraries of old may have been quiet, serious spaces, today’s library is not. My library is a hub of activity. Yes, there are still students reading and researching, but they are just as likely to be there to play games with their friends, try out one of our regular “you can do this” projects, film a movie, create a digital storybook, or share books with their friends through the social media feature of our library catalog. The library has already become a place for hanging out, where the students learn to be with others both digitally and in person (Thomas & Brown, 2011, loc. 1429). With the addition last year of games (both digital and analog), and monthly craft stations, featuring DIY projects like altered books and blackout poetry, we’ve started to add some aspects of messing around and play to the library as well.
With some planning and creative budgeting, it would be a small step to start building a makerspace, where students can “bring the concepts of knowing and making into contact with one another” (Thomas & Brown, 2011, loc. 1439 ). A makerspace would allow my students to “share resources and knowledge, work on projects, network, and build” (Educause, 2013). I have already started planning out some of the materials and project ideas I’d like to offer, and putting together resources for a mini-grant application for funding. I love the idea of adding a space to the library where students can work collectively and creatively; where their learning is “not driven by a logical calculus but by a more lateral, imaginative way of thinking and feeling” (Thomas & Brown, 2011, loc. 1404). I envision the library also playing the role of laboratory. Having seen how engaged my students get in the small projects that I’ve made available to them, I am excited to watch what will happen when they have more freedom to experiment and play. I’m hopeful that if I can demonstrate the viability and importance of having a place to do that in school, I’ll be able to get more support to build the space to include more technology and supplies. I think the difficulty will be in proving that what others see as play has a valuable impact on learning, as it’s not something that would be easy to quantify.
The idea of creating a new learning environment is also having an impact on how I’m thinking about the hybrid digital literacy class initiative that I’ve been working on. I had been focused on how to fit the class into the framework of existing curriculum for other classes the students would be taking, with the skills tied to projects they are already working on. Now I’m starting to question whether it would be a better idea to allow the students more choice and flexibility in terms of the context for the information presented. Could I allow them to choose a question that they were interested in learning the answer to as the basis for the class? Or perhaps the entire class could be set up like a game, where there is an end goal they are working towards. The skills that they learn would be the same regardless, and if they have the ability to pursue information that is interesting or vital to them, maybe they would be more invested in learning and retaining the skills that they need to reach the end.
Infusing the classes that I co-teach or push in to teach with a new culture would be significantly more difficult. In those cases, I’m dealing with far more constraints. The existing culture of the class is one that the teacher has developed, and might be at odds with the one I envision. The teachers I’m working with are under immense pressure to cover a set curriculum and to get their students to show growth on standardized tests. When I go into their rooms to teach, it is for a very finite period of time, with limited opportunity for a “do-over” if things go wrong. Convincing some of those teachers to take a chance with their precious time could be a real challenge. In addition, many of these teachers have never had the opportunity to see what this kind of learning environment looks and sounds like, let alone what the outcomes are. I think that if I wanted to infuse play into the lessons that I’m brought in to teach, I would need to start with one or two willing teachers, and prove that it can work before others would be on board for experimenting with it.
The culture in our school today is one where teachers often don’t have the flexibility to play nearly as much as they would like. I don’t know many teachers who enjoy standing and lecturing to their students every day. The professionals I work with are always looking for new and inventive ways to engage their students and to help them become independent, confident learners. The pressure from above to ensure that their students are able to perform on tests, however, is immense. In our building this year, we spent well over a month of class time giving our students diagnostic and standardized tests. When a teacher’s effectiveness is judged largely by how their students test, is it any wonder that a sense of play leaches out of the educational system year by year? Until we can change that mindset, that learning can only be demonstrated by spitting back facts, or until we can find a valid way to measure how our students today actually learn that the state and federal government will accept, it’s going to be difficult to shift the learning culture. I’m starting to see glimmers of hope, however. Superintendents in our area have begun to speak out against standardized testing, and we see more parents opting their children out of the tests every year. They are beginning to recognize what many teachers have always known: that the current level of testing has degraded actual learning. If that trend persists, perhaps there is hope that a vital shift in how we educate can happen.
All I know at this point is that I don’t know enough. I still have so many questions about how this would work, given the existing educational environment. I can picture how I might be able to make small changes in my own classroom, but beyond taking risks and letting others in the building see my successes and failures, have little idea of how to infuse this type of culture into our school or our district as a whole. Clearly I don’t have the vision needed to be a revolutionary leader, but maybe the best rebellions start out small, one room at a time.
References
Educause. (2013). 7 things you should know about makerspaces [PDF]. Retrieved from https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eli7095.pdf
Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change [Kindle].
