Walk About Surrey

In his article, "Searching for the Right Passage from Childhood and School", Maurice Gibbons suggests that our education system needs to reevaluate what we are focusing on as requirements for graduation. He recalls a movie about a young Aborigine's walk about; the practicality of the experience, the individual experimental nature of the actual walk, and the community involvement in grading and celebrating the return of their new "useful" adult member. He suggests that western society needs to adopt this practice in various metaphorical and literal senses, providing all sorts of new activities that would fulfill the categorical requirements of Adventure, Creativity, Service, Practical Skill, and Logical Inquiry. All of these ideas are interesting and becoming more and more a part of teaching practice in Surrey in the form of portfolio assessments, work experience, apprenticeships, and leadership classes. Clearly there is room for continued growth but the paradigm shift has at least begun.

What interests me the most about his proposal is that it is a return to a student centered and student driven educational model. Instead of teaching all students the "required" courses on the off chance that they may one day need one of the many subjects they were told to memorize, the onus is on the student to find something useful and meaningful to delve into. Too often the biggest frustration high school teachers face is the lack of interest, involvement, and productivity of students who feel like they have to be at school and go through the motions before they can leave. Teachers carry the burden of making class interesting, exciting, meaningful, and relevant to thirty plus students per block, four times a day. No wonder even the best of students get bored and feel unattached and uninspired by their class work; or that teachers feel like students don't care about anything and don't "get it", don't know what the "real world" is like. So let's show them. I had often heard that a little responsibility can make a young person step up to the plate, and in my practical experience it has proven true again and again. In my practicum I had a low achieving, drug using English 10 class that produced very little work at all. When given the task of meeting, interviewing, and creating a story for a grade 1 buddy at a local elementary school, some of the older students with the most behavior and academic problems did the best job of putting their buddy at ease, showing off the high school, and creating a story that was based on their buddies interest. After four years of alternate school I have seen numerous cases of students that nobody wanted, that most had written off as useless, and yet these students when provided the opportunity to take control and ownership of some part of their own learning had grasped it and suddenly become driven and engaged learners.

Does it always work out wonderfully and magically like a movie? No, of course not. Like the real world, there are many stumbling blocks, failures, relapses in attitude and behavior, and sad situations where they are not able to handle the load given to them. In these times I reflect on the the traditional approach to education and ask the students and myself if they would be better off without the risk? Without fail, the answer is no, and in the education system failure doesn't usually mean death, so the opportunity to pick oneself up and go at it again is often available. Do I believe students should be allowed to choose whatever they want to do, or that the Montessorri system has it down perfectly? No, and I am sure the Aborigines who inspired this story have some structures and rules in place for young children to learn the fundamentals of life in the outback. It is the transfer of responsibility and the opportunity to focus one's energy that appeals to me the most. This shift happens in the students personal lives at some point, with the obtaining of licenses and jobs, the question is how to best do it in the schooling as well. I hope advancing technology and continued studies will help me find small and big ways to help do just that.