Co-Creating Curriculum: An Inside Look
One of the foundational principles of Project Lab St. Louis is that middle school and high school students need to have a say in what they’re learning. At the very least, they need to know WHY they’re being asked to learn this or that. When there’s no curiosity, no urgency, and no desire to learn something, curriculum has no context. It’s an outsider’s agenda. It’s what some else is telling you you have to learn.
Sometimes curiosity can be prompted by introducing something new and interesting into the learning environment. Sometimes it’s best to just ask young people what’s going on in their lives and then figure out what kinds of project-based curriculum that leads to.
That’s why we began our second semester at Restoration & Wellness Center with a student intake survey. What we learned, among other things, is that many students are frustrated and exhausted by the conflicts that arise from social media. They’re on their phones almost constantly, and the phones (more specifically, the way phones are being used) are causing trouble. Needless to say to anyone who spends any time at all in a classroom, the phones are a giant distraction. Personally, I think the word distraction is an understatement. Unless they’re being used as tools for very narrowly defined purposes (timers, calculators, quick retrievers of information), cell phones in classrooms are attention-shredders.
Taking this feedback and these observations to heart, and knowing that the garden is going to be a phone-free space, Val and I have developed and begun to implement lessons on monotasking. These lessons are leading naturally to lessons on how to create space and time away from our phones. Our lesson objectives will be gradual and scaffolded, taught with care and affection and respect just like any lesson. Discussions and writing exercises will be essential to the learning process.
What we’re not doing is punishing students or confiscating phones because of some administrative mandate or because "students are in trouble” for breaking a rule. What we are doing is directly addressing a problem that students themselves have perceived, something that everyone everywhere is facing in one way or another. We're building a particular set of skills and we need to practice these skills for specific purposes.
Our objective – the unit objective – is for students to feel a huge sense of accomplishment and freedom, knowing that they’re doing something hard and uncomfortable and important. Throughout the unit, we will emphasize with care and affection that we know this is difficult — learning new things can be difficult and challenging. Facing our challenges directly, through what we do and learn in school, is the Project Lab way.
We’ve initated this project in full partnership with classroom teachers and building administrators, and we are so grateful for everyone’s support. Stay tuned for how this all unfolds. I can share that after Day 1, we’re feeling extremely hopeful.
Inda