Reflection #2

I really and truly can’t tell you how I feel about Inquiry based learning. I LOVE learning new things but I can never keep myself on task. You would think traditional learning would help this but I HATE being told what to do and doing things on other people’s timelines. Unless they tell me EXACTLY what they want done. But then they better let me figure out my own way to those results or they’re never going to get it…

You see my dilemma.

The only time I go out of my way to learn something is if I have a project to learn it for. I see a cool hat online? I teach myself to crochet. I need a shelf for my plants? I learn carpentry. My check engine light comes on? I learn how to diagnose and replace an O2 sensor. I want to play and stream a new video game with my girlfriend? I learn how to run audio/video and streaming software and when my laptop can’t handle it, I learn how to build a desktop computer from scrounged parts from friends and family members.

But god forbid I lose interest or something becomes “too hard”. Nowadays I barely even start projects because I just KNOW one of two things:

1. I will lose interest before it gets finished and I will have wasted all the money, time, and supplies I committed to it OR
2. It will never turn out the way I see it in my head so why even bother.

So far this course has me screaming “JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT ME TO LEARN” while at the same time, struggling to finish watching the videos and doing these updates.

Before I get WAY to in my head about all this, I’d love to reflect on Jeff Hopkins and the Pacific School of Inquiry and Innovation.

I think PCII could have been an incredible place for my younger self. In Elementary and Secondary school, I would always get caught up on some side tangent a teacher would mention and I would learn all about that thing instead of what in the curriculum. I see so many kids today (my sister, mother, and partner are all teachers and I work for a school district) that are so disinterested in school. I once heard a kid walk down the hall, while skipping class, saying, “What’s even the point of school? It’s not like we learn how to make money.” And too be fair, he’s right. As Jeff Hopkins mentioned in his TEDx talk, the world has changed drastically since our current school system was developed.

In this talk he discusses how PCII focuses on *Knowing* rather than *Knowing About*. They achieve this by customizing curriculum and learning opportunities for students based on what they want to learn. The structure and background organization that they have built to accommodate this without losing their students to rabbit holes sounds spectacular and I would love to see this implemented more broadly. Their focus on competency through high level learning objectives would give many students a better drive for learning. His metaphor that “education is not the filling of a pail, but rather the lighting of a flame” is very appropriate for this form of learning. Curriculum builders talk a big game about what to ignite the joy of learning in students but never really give them the match. They just give them a bucket and tell them to head to the well over and over again. I think we need a few more “dangerous and cynical anarchists” like Jeff running our world.