Single Reform Idea from the Ed Wahoo

Ed Wahoo has posted an excellent question designed to spur some brainstorming. Be sure to check the comments section for some good ideas. However, I thought I would post my idea here and let people pick my idea apart.

Ed Wahoo said this:

schools have to be reformed in their pedagogical structures (and everything that flows from them, possibly including but not limited to classroom design and assessments) so that they have the singular goal of critical thinking.

Several of the commenters hinted at my idea, but I will make it more explicit. We need to be treating K-12 education more and more like the real world. Students should be given more and more independent study time. This is not a free for all to sleep, because students would be given discrete tasks that need to be accomplished on a specific deadline. The scale would run from several 20-30 minutes segments in late elementary school, starting at the 4th and 5th grades. The students would have specific assignments, due say at the end of the day.

By the time a students hits the 12th grade, they would spend only about half, 2.5 to 3 hours, of any given day in the classroom. The remainder of the time would be spent working on assignments, reading, lab work, or other work that the student prioritizes.

What is accomplished by this idea?(which I must admit is not my own but the more I have turned Chris Whittle's idea over in my head, the better I like it)

First, it begins to prepare students for both the work and college world, where there is far less direct supervision. In both college and the working world, people are given assignments, perhaps a little guidance and deadlines. The worker/student is responsible for prioritizing time, energy and other resources to accomplish tasks. In the current K-12 school environment, students are supervised for 95% of the day by an adult, but the day after they leave high school and start college or working, that constant supervision is not there and students are ill-equipped to manage their own time or priorities.

Second, students learn to learn on their own. Direct instruction time would be used to provide background and challenge students with different viewpoints based upon their own preparatory work. Instruction would be based on prior reading, rather than post-lesson reading supplementing a classroom lesson. Thus the emphasis in teaching would be to provide depth to a student's understanding, not giving the basic understanding.

Third, you could alter the teacher's day, particularly at the upper middle and high school grades, so that their time looks more like a college professors. Larger classes for lectures and demonstrations (like colleges and professional schools) coupled with "office hours" where single students or small groups can meet with teachers to discuss problems.

Finally, students learn valuable skills like personal responsibility, time management, self-discipline, etc.

We have long known that young children have minds like sponges, able to learn, assimilate and adapt to new knowledge and skills. Yet, we tend to crush that kind of adaptive learning by forcing students into a highly regimented school structure. Free their time (while still being supervised) and you can free their learning.

Of course, some people, parents and teachers included will say, "you can't leave my child unsupervised like that!" of course students will not be allowed to run free like wild animals, but by the same token, we often leave older kids at home alone and even have younger kids under the supervision of a babysitter, who often is no older than 15. What makes this scenario any different.

So that is my idea, structure school for more independent learning time.