What Studios Have Taught Me About Teaching Today

Recently, I rode on a bus full of high school and middle school kids with another educator. We reflected on all the parts of teaching that professors don’t cover in your college education classes or don’t even consider. For example:

• How do you share a bus seat designed for 3 (but let’s be honest 2) children with another grown adult?

• How do you properly organize/entertain your class outside while waiting for the all-clear during a fire drill?

• How do you respond to the first cryer or puker in your room?

After returning to the school safely, the conversation ended, but I did not stop thinking about it. Fast forward 3 days later, where I had the pleasure of meeting Adam Rubin as he toured our school at Northern Cass and spoke to our learners about learning in a Studio world. I found myself again in a conversation about all the things they don’t cover in education classes, only this time the topic was more serious. Mr. Rubin asked me:

• How do you make learning relevant for learners?

• How do you co-design lessons with kids?

• What does my job look like when kids can search for and create responses online?

This discussion revolved around a central idea we at Northern Cass have been trying to highlight: How learners learn needs to change.

This statement strikes a chord with so many people, but I believe that it is more true than ever. Kids are walking out of our doors into a world with limitless opportunities where they must think differently. I use the word “kids” on purpose here because we still see them as the kindergarteners we had years ago or the freshmen who struggled to write coherently; when they leave the safety of our schools the kid gloves are off. To succeed, these newly-minted young adults are expected to perform “perfectly”:

• Ask questions of people, search engines, and AI technologies to find results

• Analyze limitless sources of information while considering bias and relevancy

• Seek and utilize feedback to grow and improve
  

To help learners develop these skills, educators need to give them opportunities to try them in the safe spaces we provide. Our role is no longer defined as the dispenser of knowledge, the lecturer at the pulpit five days a week.

We need to provide opportunities to explore sources and ask questions that sometimes challenge us, the educators, to not know the answer but to work with our learners to find the answer. 

We need to focus on helping learners figure out how to learn differently. 

I think of a learner, who built a “Learning Pod” a space for kids to sit and learn while focusing on improving his public speaking and formal language by asking for funds to pay for it. 

We have to teach learners how to find an answer not because they were asked to but learn how to find answers because they want to know. 

I think of another learner who wanted to check the accuracy of physics in Marvel fight scenes and to do so they researched the physics overnight and taught themselves the math to disprove the scenes.  They taught themselves what was “prepped and planned” by the educator which evolved into a genuine curiosity by both parties to the accuracy of the work. 

I think of a senior who didn’t want to finish school but this year has completed 3 courses for graduation designing them 6-weeks at a time. All of these topics would be great to have been taught in Education 600 Preparing Kids for the World That Doesn’t Exist Yet.

I think of another learner who didn’t want to study history in the learning center because they were tired of learning about “old white dead dudes.” 

Some of these learners can succeed in traditional learning and go on to successful lives and careers, but how many are we not reaching? 

So, how do educators do this? 

We continue to find others who are trying to prepare kids for that world, we read books, or we ask Google or ChatGPT. We find seminars, learning institutes, and schools that discuss what non-traditional teaching looks like. All of these are helpful and they exist (and collectively let’s promise that we will all share when we find the good ones). 

We have to talk and listen to our kids when they respond. 

We have to teach learners to create deadlines, not just meet them.

We need to give them opportunities to try and have a plan for when they screw up that isn’t purely punitive. 

What happens when a learner has 6 weeks to investigate and learn and doesn’t have a final product?

I think of our Studios at Northern Cass where we focus on the learning throughout rather than the final result. Creating a fancy poster or a cool model isn’t the learning, the learning is what it took to get there.

While this might seem daunting, and it is, we need to try. We are going to try, fail, learn, and do it again, modeling for our kids to see what authentic learning looks like.