Let's get started on this project

There’s plenty happening in the desert if you choose to look for it. (Image by Pezibear)

The Atlanta Public Schools have decided to shorten their school year by two weeks.

Due to teacher contracts, the district may not have been able to do the pre-planning necessary to launch a virtual school year effectively. The administrators have a lot of professional development planned in order to do so, and they’ve pushed back their start date in order to accommodate it.

My team and I can certainly relate. Time is short. We have dozens of students starting school this week, and we could definitely use another few weeks to put the finishing touches on our programming.

However, we don’t want to delay our start. We want to get going. Every day of school is an opportunity to help a student move forward: to learn, to grow, to connect, to be seen. It is urgent and necessary.

Our approach to online school is that of an ongoing conversation. We are constantly inviting students to contribute to that conversation through their schoolwork, whether it be via writing, asking questions, solving problems, or making art. We build on their efforts through cycles of feedback and questions, subsequently presenting new puzzles for them to solve and materials for them to engage with based on what they have already done.

Our collaboration with students happens on a human-to-human level. Though it requires preparation, it’s so full of surprises that some of that preparation must necessarily happen after the interactions have begun, just like a dialogue in that what you say next depends on what the other person says to you. The path unfolds, day by day.

Students can learn even without teachers. If they have hobbies and interests that they are passionate about, they have been learning all summer long. Our role, then, is to give them something that they might not encounter on their own. Material — an article, a math problem, a short story, an excerpt from a letter written long ago, or a photograph — that contains fresh ideas, unexpected challenges, or a new context that encourages them to expand their understanding and experience of the world. “What did you learn today?” may not be the right question. Perhaps we could ask, “What thoughts did you think today that you’ve never thought before?” Another is, “What did you do today that weren’t able to do before?”

When students are thinking, they are growing. It’s convenient if that growth happens along a defined sequence of topics that comprehensively addresses all of the information and skills that the government or district thinks that a child of that chronological age should know and be able to do. However, it’s not always necessary. That’s not how life works, and it doesn’t always have to be how school works. At times like these, when the traditional curriculum doesn’t fit neatly into the medium of presentation that’s suddenly required (i.e., online), we can ourselves the freedom to change things around in order to more quickly, easily, and effectively meet students’ needs.

Thus, students can learn to think, reason, and problem-solve from day one of the semester. In fact, they might be called upon to help solve some of the very challenges that their teachers and administrators are frantically trying to deal with. Granted, such work doesn’t fit neatly into a particular school subject, but most things in real life don’t. What if attempting to find solutions for real problems is actually more meaningful preparation for adulthood than the traditional curriculum?

There are a lot of choices and there’s plenty to cover. We’ve got to go deeper than matching and fill-in-the-blanks. The intensity of the work we do makes breaks necessary. Weekends are sacred and vacations are critical. But when students are ready — for instance, after a long summer break — we don’t want to deny them. We can tinker and build and change out parts, but we’ve got to get going someday on this project of educating our fellow humans. It may as well be today.