There are times when Marshall McLuhan’s observation that “the medium is the message” hits home in a rather poignant way. In an effort to gather some student voices around the newly-built voicEd.ca table, I received twitter suggestions from @DrGarcia and @bryanjack that the voice and insights of one @LiamTheSaint might be worth hearing.
Liam St. Louis graduated in June 2011 from Bryan Jackson’s TALONS program in British Columbia and, as a final assignment, created this 10 minute reflection on education.
It is posted here with Liam’s permission, and the hope that he will consider become a regular on voicEd.ca. Enjoy!
Liam, I appreciate the work that you have done on this. So often, we make assumptions about what our students think about everything, including the very institution that establishes that student-teacher relationship!
Your video is both passionate and poignant. It’s a message that I’m hoping more adults, especially those with some policy-making responsibilities, will take time to watch and discuss.
But even at the ground level–the school and classroom–there is a great deal to think about here. It fits in nicely with our 21st century learning theme.
I’m hoping that others will comment!
Great video. Thanks for the perspectives! Students have been asking “Why do I have to learn this?” for centuries. It is likely the answer was never satisfactory. By allowing students to choose their own path, we give them the responsibility of their learning. I love this idea!
Still, I struggle with the possibility of the youth not really knowing which path to take.
Thanks for the comments! On your last point, that’s certainly a very real issue. But schools exist and should exist to provide assistance with exactly that. When a student does know, or does have some idea the direction they wish to go, that opportunity should be there. When they don’t, or when they want to explore something else, teachers and counselors will always be there to help them decide, or even to provide a default tasting of everything so they can figure out their priorities.
As I said, there will always be a need for some discipline, some direction – but the important thing is to give the opportunity.
Yes, I agree with you Liam. Right now, it is difficult for many–mostly adults–to picture a system where freedom is given and used effectively by all. But I think that a system that, from the very beginning, was tuned to the idea of nurturing the passions of its participants would do a better job of “releasing” some of the decision making authority back to students when the appropriate time came.
As it stands, however, that is not the purpose for which the current system was designed. In fact, it was likely the fact that the originators of public education had discipline, compliance and a fair amount of standardization in mind. The society and culture that gave birth to the current model that many are attempting to reform (or transform) was about uniformity and socialization into a workforce that wouldn’t necessarily function on a whole lot of individual ingenuity.
So you’ve probably keyed in on an important distinction when we think about 21st century learning. Today, more and more demand for creative innovation may require a retooling of the way that we nurture people through the system.