Free range learning and self-direction

 

Today I had a great discussion with my Year 12 class about the restrictions of the timetable on their learning.  Interestingly, this was instigated by them.  I looked shiftily from side to side and then casually behind me to see if there was a big fat poster somewhere declaring that 'this rush is madness! These bells aren't respecting our work!' But no such headline existed in Room 1, and so we sat and talked a little.

'Oh how I wish we could start at 10 am,' said one.  'Yes,' agreed another, 'and finish at 4 pm,' he added.  Another student, who attended Wellington High School in the past, shared that this was already done at his old school, and that it was great.  'Hard for some parents dropping kids at school, though,' he admitted with a fine sense of pragmatism.  'A lot of parents need to work.'

'You know, at some schools, the timetable is a lot different, and classes aren't just run subject-to-subject, hour-to-hour,' said I.  I could almost hear their thinking, figuring out how that would work.  'So you get blocks of time to devote to projects.  Imagine how much writing you could get done on this portfolio if you had two hours to spend on it.'  There was a lot of nodding.  I left it there.

I'm always delighted by how much wisdom can come from teenagers.  They know that there are different things that work for them, and feel sometimes that they are the square pegs being shoved into round holes.  It's so important to instigate conversations with them to get them thinking about other ways of being; conversations that encourage them to think critically about the status quo - especially if it isn't working as well as it could be.

So while this post isn't so much about the practical ways in which my classes and I are considering free range learning and self-direction, it certainly is about both topics.  It's about students who mostly know what works for them, but don't have the chance to challenge the status quo in their education, because it is so entrenched.  One hour.  A bell.  Some days, it's 50 minutes.  Six or seven bells a day.  And we start at 8.55 and you must be here or else.  Not to mention that your hair must be a certain length and within a certain range of colours ...

I want my students to challenge absurd systems and rules, but mostly, I would like them to offer new solutions that work for them.  I wish students could be included in discussions around their day to day realities - it is their reality, after all!  Free range learning, for me, means exiting the cage.  Self-direction and student agency will come when we start to trust that teenagers, on the whole, have some great ideas about how their days should be structured. 

When those six or seven bells ring throughout a school day, we are telling students that what they are working on isn't important.  That what IS important is regulation and compliance.  There is no way you can be a free range learner if what you're learning is how to enter and exit the cage, and not to complain.  If we expect more from them, then we have to give more to them.