Reflection follows comment . . .

If you follow he comments to this blog you will see some from LoomDog. In response to yesterday’s post Ken shares this thought.

As for the bulk of this post I fully understand the necessity to teach life skills, regardless of one's content area and yet I am consistently amazed at the dichotomy I encounter when kids are asked about their desires. I begin every new Marine Science class by asking every student (anonymously), "what do you want to learn about in this class?" I've yet to get a single response along the lines of "I want to learn how to manage my impulsivity better" or "I sure hope I get a chance to be a Quality Producer" or even "This class better be relevant!" In fact, EVERY student asks (begs!) for C-O-N-T-E-N-T...like a parched person staggering through a desert looking for water. "I want to learn about sharks, whales, tides, and the scientific names of sea life, what lives in trenches and on and on." Will learning these things help these kids enter an NPR blue ball? Will they retain this knowledge on into their future? I highly doubt it but it's still reassuring to know that, at the very least, curiosity is alive and well...validating the importance of content.

I know that many share this same experience that contributes to the need to have a balance of process and product in our curriculum. All of us agree that there is a body of content that must be learned in each of the disciplines. What that is becomes the point of departure for numerous debates across our country and in our school systems. The Common Core initiative is attempting to make that mute by identifying what that content will be in math and language arts across the country. Though I have concerns with this process, it would be nice to have this debate behind us and be that much closer to a focus on the instructional focus of Classroom 10.

The important learning for me is that to acquire the knowledge and skills of Classroom 10 there must be content and we need these learning opportunities in all disciplines. How we support students in understanding the need for process/content balance and away from the need to acquire more factual information about a topic is a key question that we must answer. How do we move students away from the grade as the outcome to a focus on the learning when so much of their future is influenced by GPA? How do we, in all content areas, create relevant group learning opportunities that provide for content acquisition while supporting the collaborative problem solving skills industry tells us are necessary for success? There are many questions such as these in our future that provide fuel for rich conversations and wonderful opportunities for learning and growth as we continue our Classroom 10 journey.