On the first day of school, Meg Kenny has her 5th graders share their most memorable learning experiences and asks them to define what made those experiences memorable. Kenny then promises her students at Manchester (Vt.) Elementary Middle School that everything they do in her class during the coming year will be as memorable as possible. She starts by finding out what questions her students have about themselves and the world. They ask
- Why do we use the term Indian giver?
- Why do we have unjust laws?
- Why do people fight over religion—Hitler, Ireland, Israel, the Crusades?
- Could the Big Bang actually be possible?
- When will I grow a "go tea"?
- Why is the ocean salty?
- Why were blacks slaves and not white people?
- How did religions start?
- What is the biggest mistake people ever made?
- Why do I get depressed?
Kenny finds that there are always questions about the beginnings of things, conflict and justice, the environment, business, rich vs. poor, mysteries, and unknowable things. Seeing herself as more of an orchestrator than a teacher, Kenny builds a curriculum based on students' questions, which she often finds more powerful and rigorous than those posed by textbooks or standards.
Sifting through their questions, Kenny finds connections to Vermont's Framework of Standards as well as to her district's own standards. Together, Kenny and her students brainstorm how they can organize their questions into units of study with activities that will meet the standards.
Next, Kenny asks her young learners to identify resources for their activities. They volunteer moms, dads, and relatives with professional expertise; they suggest museums and field trips; and they search the World Wide Web for information. Finally, Kenny informs her students that they must present evidence for how well they're meeting the standards. "In what ways would you like to demonstrate what you have learned?" she asks. Before the year is over, Kenny's students have staged everything from a seminar for entrepreneurs to an invention convention.
To help her students focus on their progress, Kenny has them keep weekly journals of their expectations. On the left-hand page, students write what they expect to learn from their work during the coming week. On the facing page, they reflect on their learning and evaluate how well they did. Week by week, students grow more self-reliant. "By January," Kenny says, "none of my students ask, What do I do now? even though they know they can ask for help at any time."
Recently, Kenny overheard one of her students say something that both pleased and amused her. The student was telling a younger friend what her 5th grade experience was like. "It's very, very clear that Ms. Kenny is not the one in charge," stated the student in her most sophisticated voice.
Choices and Achievement
Giving students a voice in what happens to them at school is a great motivator, claims Alfie Kohn, author of Punished by Rewards and other works on classroom motivation. "An enormous body of research indicates that academic performance is enhanced when students have more say in what, how, when, with whom, and even why they are learning," Kohn says. "Kids learn better, even by conventional measures, when we maximize ways for them to decide what they're doing."
James Beane, author of many publications on democratic schooling, argues that there are two main reasons educators should involve students in curricular decisions. First, it is a way for teachers to connect with their students' concerns and experiences, and second, it develops democratic communities. "Why is that important?" Beane asks. "Because we live in a democratic society." Beane points out that almost all U.S. schools have goals or mission statements on preparing students to be independent learners and to participate in a democratic way of life. But when we look at how most classrooms are managed, few schools actually promote this goal. "We find less student involvement in curriculum planning as we go up the grades," he notes.
Even when options for sharing responsibility are limited, teachers can find ways to involve students in curriculum decisions. Toni Badone, assistant principal at Cibola High School in Yuma, Ariz., recalls an English class where she faced the curricular requirement of having every student complete a unit on the novel Hiroshima in four weeks. Because her students represented every level of reading ability, Badone offered them three choices: "(1) Join me in a group where I will read the novel aloud, with explanations; (2) take turns reading the novel aloud in your cooperative learning groups; or (3) read the novel silently to yourself." The class had to complete 23 pages a day to stay on course, so they kept a chart of progress. If a cooperative learning group fell behind, Badone offered another choice that affirmed student responsibility and choice: "Someone in your group needs to choose a different option because your group is not keeping up."
Giving and Getting Control
At Shelburne (Vt.) Community School, teacher Carol Smith involves her middle school students in curriculum planning to a remarkable extent while still meeting standards. "Kids want to know serious stuff, and that's what's in the standards," she states.
Each September, Smith, along with two other team teachers, engages the Alpha Team—a multi-age class of 60 middle-schoolers—in a major questioning process wherein they carve out eight topics of study for the year. For example, Origins includes themes on the universe, the Earth, man, life, and civilizations. Adolescence explores themes in intellectual, physical, and spiritual growth. Other topics include explorations of government, history, and business. This interdisciplinary approach takes time, Smith concedes, "but time is what we've got because we're not worried about coverage. We're uncovering the curriculum." Smith also points out that her students do fine on standardized tests.
In Pensacola, Fla., Principal Sandy Ames at Brown Barge Middle School involves the entire student body in curriculum decisions. For example, based on student input, the school changed its schedule from quarters to trimesters because students said that nine weeks was not long enough for completing projects in their interdisciplinary "streams" of studies. The streams—such as diversity studies, flight, citizenship, bridges, or the environment—are based on student surveys and suggestions. Each spring, students choose 4 or 5 streams for each trimester from the 20 streams offered.
Teacher Martha Smith notes that Brown Barge students take the same assessments as everyone else in Florida and have the highest scores in the state on written communications. Parents are thrilled with what their children are learning, she says, and they recognize that their children are often far more advanced than they were at that age.
Ownership and Leadership
"You can lead a student to the best planned curriculum, but you can't make him learn," observes Dorothy Rich, author of MegaSkills, and president of the Home and School Institute. If teachers want confident, motivated, and responsible students, Rich asserts, they should not keep ownership of all decisions. Giving students a voice in curriculum decisions is not about abdicating leadership, but about taking a leadership role that encourages students to be responsible for their own learning, she maintains. "Educators should ask themselves, What kinds of graduates do we want at the end of the schooling process?" says Rich. She, along with many experts, agrees that giving students a larger stake in classroom decisions nurtures greater achievement while truly preparing them to participate in a democratic society.