Stephanie--Responding to "Kiran Bir Sethi teaches kids to take charge"

Kiran Bir Sethi is an amazing and inspirational woman! I watched her nine-minute TED with chills, in wonder over what she had envisioned and brought to being. Empowering students to be the change and lead the change they want to see in the world is brilliant. It left me with the questions: how would that work here in the U.S.? How would/could something like that come to pass at my school? This train of thought leads to questions that ultimately challenge the current paradigm of education in our country.

Several years ago, when I was teaching seventh and eighth grade English, there were many days when I believed that 12 and 13-year-olds simply were not meant to sit still in a classroom. For fellow educators, I hardly need to elaborate. I tried to imagine what an appropriate alternative would be. What if the years of middle school were structured around a series of apprenticeships in various fields where kids were simultaneously taught concepts (in math, science, English, or history) and then were included in a work environment where they could both witness and interact with the real world implications? As Kiran Bir Sethi says, blurring the boundaries between school and life would be a very empowering experience. The reasons for learning specific concepts would be obvious to students; the experiential application of their knowledge would ensure that they would retain the information and have a foundation for further instruction; the inherent feeling of success and accomplishment of their “apprentice” work would build confidence in themselves as not only learners but contributing members of society, and the real-world knowledge would give them greater curiosity to learn more when it came time to return to a more conventional learning environment.

Mine is a wonderful daydream for a frustrated teacher, but I didn’t know then how something sustained like that could be implemented—even on a small scale. I still don’t know, but Kiran Bir Sethi’s example of focusing on an area of social change through awareness, enabling, and empowering, seems like a good place to start. It would first take buy-in from administration, then key faculty members, then all/most of the faculty. Parents—at least those at my school—would need to be reassured, just as those at the Riverside School, that such a long term project served the academic (read “test-driven") needs of the students as well as their needs that are less easily measured (citizenship, confidence, sense of accomplishment, etc.). I do think that the most likely place for something like this to happen in the U.S. is in an independent school. An independent school with a Christian mission, no less, really should be doing something like this as an annual, division-wide or school-wide project.

(Dr. Skipper, if I posted this wrong, please let me know.)