When was the last time you had that moment where you are working or sitting or reading or watching something and out of the blue this sliver of a thought nugget comes barrelling through whatever it is you are doing or not doing that just makes a million little explosions erupt in your brain?
I will be honest in that I have not had one of these moments in a very long time which is probably why I have some of the thoughts and feelings I have when I shared my first authentic learning journey post the other day.
This morning I had that experience. It was magical. It was such a surge of adrenaline to know that my brain, my creativity, and spirit of being excited for discovery is still intact.
Let me set the stage. I have been working to figure out how to focus. I have been in this constant cycle of late where I have a To Do List a mile long and find myself swirling. I dabble a bit in this one task, then bounce over to another, decide to do something new that has nothing to do with any of the tasks until I hit a point late in the evening when I feel like I have accomplished very little despite working all day. I recalibrate, make a list, set timers to be focused, and yet I still struggle. I was recently reading about this concept known as internal resistance
If you resonate with me on this, then you know there comes a point where you freeze. Or that other point where your stress levels increase and you cannot sleep because you cannot stop thinking.
Yes, welcome to my world. Perhaps this is just part of settling into new routines of a new school year, but I have had this struggle most of my life and recently it feels like it is ALL I DO.
So……
This morning I working on the finishing touches to some lessons, activities, and supports for educators with the upcoming Artemis I Launch taking place next week(new blog post coming on this) and while I was beginning to develop the new website for our Survival project(here is the project from last year) I had the AHA moment.
It felt like an asteroid knocked me upside my head. Or maybe it is an “say oops upside your head say oops upside your head”
I was creating a new page to place the lessons and activities for the Artemis launch and as I was building out the structure of Past, Present, and Future I realized that this launch is no longer a “Future” thought. The future is here. It is Present
And therefore I cannot pass up the chance to say the quote shared and used a million times by all speakers and authors.
But it is true. And here is the point to all of this. The future is here. We are preparing to send people to the moon to live long term so that we can head to Mars. It is real. It is happening. It is bonkers.
We cannot figure out how to be decent global citizens or digital citizens and yet we need to begin to prepare to be space citizens. Let that sink in.
And here is the part I want to address when it comes to why I believe so heartedly in authentic learning and moving away from the how education currently works. The future is not evenly distributed. While we are preparing to launch to the moon we are moving backwards in education. We are heading back to industrialized models. Buying curriculum so that classrooms can be on the same page doing the same things at the same time to ensure “equity”(not really the goal of this word at all). We say we want kids to be creative, innovative, or in Iowa all the powerful aspects of our Universal Constucts, yet we want to do it moving in a linear step by step approach.
So why is it that when the whole world was hit hard and forced to rethink how to keep moving forward during the pandemic and now after, education went backwards? Perhaps fear and feeling the need to recalibrate mixed in with what is safe to teach are key factors, but while the world has expedited change out of necessity education has remained stagnant overall(I know there are amazing examples out there).
In order for authentic learning experiences to occur we have to let go of how things have always been. We have to learn to bundle and combine standards and stop teaching in isolation all the time. We have to allow space(physical, mental, emotional) to grapple with iteration and problem solving. We have to learn let go of some control. We have to learn to trust our professionals again. We have to understand that when we sit in PD and are told that each child is unique and different(as if any teacher does not know this already) and we must meet their needs, then that means not doing the same curriculum/content the same way, the same time, with the same method to whole groups of students.
If we are preparing to launch to the moon, then we must really begin to prepare our students for a space economy where we grapple with solving problems with not all the time or information or resources available. We must prepare our students to believe in themselves and be vulnerable in the sharing of ideas that might work or might not. We must prepare them to see how their interests can be career related( like this for example)
And there it is. While I have sat in my own Muckety Muck phase of my own learning to bring authentic learning experiences to classrooms I realized that this AHA moment would not have happened had I not persevered. It would not have happened had I not had an authentic audience to attend to. It would not have happened without the space to work through the struggles of production of a product. It would not have happened if the work was not authentic.
And this is what students need in schools. Authentic atmospheres and academics for AHA moments to occur.
It is time to evenly distribute the future by moving education forward.
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