I Love My Wife, But…

Last week I shared an article written by Getting Smart’s Nate McClennen and Tom Vander Ark titled “The Great Education Unbundling and How Learning Will be Rebundled.” The concept of “Unbundled Learning” is part of a six pillar campaign Getting Smart launched last summer.

I thought it would be nice to cover the other five pillars in today’s post.

According to McClennen and Vander Ark,

“Credentialed Learning believes that students have ownership of creating their academic selves, determine where they’re headed and with whom they share their journey. Credentialed Learning throws out the traditional measurements of success and signals a new way to show human development. Credentialed Learning allows students to carry digital credentials and learning records with them everywhere they go so they are always ready for every opportunity.”

“Accelerated Pathways move learners past imagining success, but instead experience success through curated learning experiences. By providing opportunities for accelerated, articulated learning through Accelerated Pathways options of early college, boot camps, dual enrollment, earn and learn ladders, technical training and apprenticeships, learners have access to an opportunity playlist built for them. Accelerated Pathways allows learners to have the best of all worlds by layering the high school journey with meaningful experiences that save time and money.”

“New Learning Models combine accelerated skill development with project-based and work-based learning. With New Learning Models, the learner experience is co-authored with students. Centered around personalized and competency-based learning, social-emotional learning and skill credentialing, New Learning Models link experiences to create new and emerging school architectures. New Learning Models is the heart of how pathways work.”

“Support and Guidance creates safe places that equip learners to fully express themselves with confidence. With Support and Guidance, strong advisory systems build purpose, help learners explore careers, build their social capital and skyrockets their potential. Strong Support and Guidance systems are critical for learners to increase their agency and sense of belonging. When Support and Guidance is linked to pathways, learners know where they’re going, how to get there and who can provide support and resources along the way.”

“Policy and Systems allow pathways to be brought to scale without only relying on the traditional ways of learning. Whether a grant, platform, technical assistance, diploma or curriculum network, aligned Policies and Systems are necessary for pathways to thrive. This pillar plays an integral role in shaping accessible and equitable experiences for all learners so that learning can be personalized, co-authored and sustainable.”

My wife is my biggest critic when it comes to my insistence that a new system of learning be created. She tells me I’m dreaming if I think a new system of learning, built on a personalized learning plan with learning coach support at scale, is possible.

I love my wife, but she’s dead wrong.

The reason why we will need to create a new learning system – especially if what Nate McClennen and Tom Vander Ark wrote above made sense to you – is that the current traditional school system can’t do any of what McClennen and Vander Ark want to happen.

I remember 30 years ago when the Houston Independent School District created a “Portrait of a High School Graduate (yes, we were working on stuff like this back in the 1990’s, so don’t let anyone try to convince you that graduate portraits are new and transformative). What we came up with was compelling, but there was only one problem. A great majority of the coursework currently approved by the Texas legislature and the state board of education didn’t align at all with the expectations and goals laid out in the graduate profile. And no one bothered to change the coursework so that alignment could happen.

I remember when Texas introduced five career pathways for all their high schoolers to build their four-year plans around. What did Lone Star public school districts do? They took all their existing electives and packaged them into the five career pathway choices. Nothing changed in what was taught and learned, even though state legislators and school board leaders applauded and patted themselves on the back for creating something that was really going to matter. The traditional system can’t execute on Accelerated Pathways.

For the most part, traditional schools don’t know how to do project-based learning, and they sure don’t want to share responsibility for learning with current employers. Schools aren’t really interested in new learning models. They continue to be committed to doing the same things they’ve done over the past 50 (maybe more) years, hoping to recruit and retain better talent, and expecting improved results for a student population that becomes more diverse every year.

Too many of today’s schoolteachers, especially those on the secondary level, aren’t interested in providing support and guidance to their students. Too many told me that they were hired to teach a subject, and that spending time on student support and guidance issues would just take time away from getting their students ready to take high-stakes tests. What is sad today is that post-pandemic there are so many young people needing the support and guidance that the traditional system is so poorly constructed to give.

Have you ever visited state legislative offices or testified in front of a state board of education? I have and let me tell you that very few of those elected public school leaders have any creative potential to improve the system. They continue to be committed to doing the same things they’ve done over the past 50 (maybe more) years, hoping to recruit and retain better talent, and expecting improved results for a student population that becomes more diverse every year (notice I just wrote that above explaining why more traditional schools don’t commit to project-based or work-based learning).

What really confounds me is that groups like Getting Smart, Education Reimagined, and the Aurora Institute continue to believe they can change the traditional system by presenting them with persuasive ideas on how to change the current way we do school.

To me, even though they are contributing much to the discussion of how to created a new system, they are wasting precious time by thinking the current system is remotely interested in changing into that new system.

They aren’t, and they won’t.

And that makes me sad.

Til tomorrow. SVB