educationtidbits

I was thinking this past weekend about the whole state of education and our public school system.  While talking to a parent of a middle schooler about the current round of testing, I recalled that my state’s test is more or less just a measure of vocabulary.  Basically, a parent (or the child) could go online and print off a list of vocabulary and then work through that list a few items at a time and the student could, in theory, ace the test.  If we look at it this way, the teacher is basically irrelevant as far as this particular  measurement of their proficiency goes.  Of course, this scenario is definitely the exception, but it could happen.

In the past, various measures of success have been tried, some with pretty good success, but discarded because they don’t work for all situations and all students.  The reality is, however, that a one-size-fits-all assessment doesn’t work any better than a one-size-fits-all educational system.

So, what is the answer?  Well, I guess the truth is there is no ONE answer to this dilemma.  In my last blog, I looked at online education as an alternative.  Online education certainly caters to a certain group of students who have the discipline and/or supervision to keep on top of the assignments, but it’s not always the most interactive or interesting approach to teaching a specific subject.  In fact, for some students, it’s even more boring than the regular classroom lecture approach.

Another alternative, which has both its pros and cons is that of expeditionary learning, sometimes labeled as “Outward Bound.”  Of course, O.B. is a specific program and set of funding,which is often in the balance based on availability of funds at both the state and federal levels; however, the results are oftentimes amazing, as such programs get students out of the mainstream classroom and apply learning to real-life situations.

I became intimately tied to expeditionary style learning when I was teaching in an ESL program at a local university.  When I found that we were going to be studying White Fang in the reading/writing class, I instantly thought of a place I had just visited a year earlier, the Wolf Education and Research Center in Winchester, Idaho.  In anticipation of our visit, we watched a video in listening/speaking class about Jim and Jamie Dutcher who started the wolf pack currently at Winchester.  We learned a LOT of vocabulary related to wolves, adventures, the region, and much more.  They wrote short articles and essays on  related topics, and we watched a movie about wolves in addition to the movie version of White Fang.  Then, we scheduled a field trip to the WERC where the students met the caretaker of the facility along with two of the assistants.  They got to see the wolves through the enclosure and take some pictures.  They went to the visitor’s center and listened to our guides explain about the pack and their journey from the Sawtooth Region to Winchester and how the pack has dwindled from the original numbers for various reasons.  When we returned to the classroom, they wrote a reflective essay on their experience and the unit as a whole.  In the end, they learned some valuable verbal and aural communication skills and vocabulary knowledg.  They also had real-life reasons to write that made sense to them and gave us valuable assessment materials to help them advance their skills overall.  In short, expeditionary learning in this environment only makes sense because they needed real reasons to use this new language they were learning.

The basic concept behind expeditionary learning is to provide a real-life use of the target skills and then use the classroom time to preload the skills and knowledge the students will be using in the outing (whether it be for a day, a week, or a month).  When they return, they reflect on their experience and do a self-evaluation.  Instructors who accompany them on the outing, assess their skill levels at various steps along the way, guiding the students to challenge themselves more and more.  The instructors then do a final assessment of the students’ skills, usually on a pass/no-pass basis, but sometimes on a percentage or letter grade basis, depending on the subjects.

The overall value of expeditionary learning, then, is that it engages students in setting goals for their experience and evaluating their progress in meeting those goals.  However, the drawbacks of such programs, thus the major criticism, include the costs, logistics, and teacher training.  In order to transport kids from the classroom to the outside world, it costs more than most schools can afford.  Unless a district applies for and receives Outward Bound funding, it’s generally not feasible for the majority of students to participate in a full-blown expeditionary learning-style classroom.

Expeditionary learning, however, can be accomplished at a smaller scale if a school is devoted to such a practice.  Usually it’s easier when the school uses an alternative schedule, such as block scheduling or 4-day/week classes or a combination of the two.  There are also programs that are devoted to expeditionary learning.  A friend of mine runs a program called Adventure Learning Camps, which is a non-profit, generally inexpensive program, that takes kids and adults to various locations in the U.S. to teach them wilderness survival and ecological awareness skills.  Of course, this is only one of many programs, which could be joined together to form an educational network that is devoted to teaching kids through the act of doing.

Now, as with all alternatives, expeditionary learning is not necessarily for everyone.  Some students do much better in the traditional classroom.  Some do better in the isolation of the online environment.  Others will struggle regardless of what environment they are in.  There is no magic wand to make our educational system somehow fit everyone.  I do think it’s essential for students to have access to a system or part of the system that works for them.

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