Talent, Space, and Time

Today’s public education system doesn’t understand the importance of talent, space, and time when it comes to producing smarter and stronger learners.

Schools depend on a finite set of teachers, hired to insure student learning. In my old district, our human resources department had to fill 10,000 teaching positions for 200,000 students enrolled in our schools. Elementary instructors were expected to teach reading, writing, and mathematics, along with other content and skills. Secondary teachers focused on content and assessment more than their elementary counterparts. Potential talent, for the most part, was limited to who was hired and who stayed as a teacher. Teachers also had to be certified by the state, or they couldn’t remain teachers.

I always wondered what would happen to a young person’s learning if the world became their classroom, meaning they weren’t limited to a set of teachers hired by a state-sponsored institution known as a school district. As a fellow learning leader once asked me, “What if kids had the opportunity to learn from 1,000 teachers around the world instead of the one, two, or several assigned to them by a district computer?”

We can now use talent and expertise differently when it comes to creating smarter and stronger learners. It’s time to end the practice of limiting talent to learners based on archaic human resource practices. Our kids deserve better adult learning leaders than today’s school district can provide or reward. It’s time to use the world as the new marketplace for matching learner needs to those adult learning leaders best qualified to meet those needs.

We need to stop sending our young learners exclusively to places called schools. Instead, young learners should explore their out of school world, including community centers, downtown businesses, and even coffee shops. Think about a learning system where young people meet their adult coach and, based upon the young person’s learning plan, learning spaces are selected based on an individual’s plan instead of where school district property is located. Traditional school districts don’t like to use other space than their own. School districts have billions of dollars tied up in property, so they expect most of their learning customers to come to them. Traditional school district stakeholders have even invented compulsory attendance laws that demand young people come to these places called schools, or risk getting in trouble with law enforcement. In the personalized learning lab school we piloted in Houston a few years back, learning coaches used the Houston Museum District as their learning space. The pilot’s young learners met many more talented adults and benefited from more expertise than what they would have encountered if they had attended their neighborhood school. Downtown Houston, the Houston Medical Center, and the Houston Galleria (a retail space on the near west side of the city) were interested in donating space for young people to work on their learning plans.

We need to begin to use time differently when it comes to a young person’s learning. It’s time to end the practice of allowing an agrarian calendar to determine the beginning and ending of learning. It’s time to stop expecting all students to attend an 8 A.M. to 3 P.M. school day, when we know kids can and will learn anytime, anywhere. It’s time to end the practice of “taking attendance” at 9:30 A.M., where if you are in your seat, you are “present,” and if you aren’t, you’re “absent.” These days, I don’t even understand what “absent” means when it comes to learning

There’s an adage that says, “Learning should be the constant and time should be the variable.” In today’s schools, it’s exactly the opposite. With a new system, learning time can be determined by an individual’s own learning plan. The quicker the learner learns what they want or need to learn, the faster additional learning goals are added. Grade levels would become a thing of the past. If the learner really excels at meeting their goals, a short vacation from learning might be the reward.

There seems to be strong evidence today’s schools cannot operate the way they need to when it comes to talent, space, and time. Schools were built for a different age, and that age has now passed. It’s time for a new learning system, a system that values a different perspective on how talent, space, and time are used when it comes to our young people’s learning. The future depends on us getting these three very important variables right.