Zak's Weekly Musings (August 17, 2022)
Back in 2016 at the American International School of Johannesburg, the high school was struggling with widespread issues of truancy, late/missing work, and generally undesirable but garden-variety student behaviors such as low-level vandalism in the bathrooms. In an effort to curb these persistent behaviors, the high school devised and instituted a more parochial detention policy. On its first day of existence, a whopping 14 students earned detention slips for myriad and wide-ranging infractions. That afternoon, only one student reported to the room where detention was being held. Although expectations had been clearly communicated, 13 of these students simply chose to ignore them.
The next day, when questioned by the staff as to how the administration would respond to and proceed with the implementation of a policy that had clearly stumbled out of the gate, the administration hid behind the focal point of our school’s newly codified mission statement: “personalized learning. “I guess students just don’t like detention,” the High School Assistant Principal shared with her staff. “And, since we’re trying to personalize learning, shouldn’t we just forget about the detention program altogether?”
I don’t know about you, but this gives me pause. I believe that a personalized, progressive approach to education should strive to leverage student proclivities and be responsive to student voice, but I also don’t believe that a progressive, personalized philosophy is a permission slip to eschew systems of accountability. In fact, I believe that the intentional development, communication, and adherence to a clearly defined structure that coheres to our Mission is actually what enables us to bring our Mission to life. The reality is that progressive education exists at that point of confluence where syncopation and spontaneity collide.
Imagine that you walk into an art class. The teacher has laid out a palette and provided a canvas for you to paint on. The teacher instructs you to take the next 30 minutes to paint anything you’d like. Naturally, you pick up your palette, dip your brush, and begin to paint on the canvas. What you decidedly do not do is paint on the walls, the windows, or your fellow classmates. When we think of how to bring a progressive education to life, I want us to think of it as the freedom to paint what you’d like, but not to paint anywhere that you’d like. Clearly defined parameters are not anathema to progressive education. In fact, they are essential to it.
As you think about your own class, ask yourself:
What are the parameters around learning and behavior in my classroom?
How am I making these parameters clear and clearly understandable to my students?
How will I hold students accountable to these parameters?
How do these parameters advance learning, cohere to our Mission, and allow the whole child to flourish?