#IMMOOC Week 3: What If?

Last week in UVM's #EDCI325, we made an artifact to articulate our vision for school in the future---the school that our children or grandchildren would attend (my artifact is the video below, still a draft, without a clear conclusion).  I feel really invested in reimagining education right now, both professional and personally, as my son is a year and a half old and I already get negative feedback about how physical he can be at daycare.

The vision that I created is my WHAT IFs for education, deeply informed by my reading of #InnovatorsMindset.

• What if our schools not only acknowledged but engaged with the natural world? If learning cycled with the seasons? If we spent learning time outside every day, observing and interacting with our world?
• What if learning was experiential and authentic? If it was designed to equip students with practical, transferable skills that are necessary in all work? What if what students learn was guided by their passions? What if anyone who was part of a school was expected to be constantly learning and growing? As George Couros wrote:

We all need to develop the skills and mindsets that will help us thrive, not only in the classroom but also in our lives beyond the school walls.

• What if students moved at their own pace, and there was never the constant undercurrent of "but there's not enough time!"?  Could we create a system where everyone gets what they need when they need it? Where students are empowered and have the skillset to articulate their needs? Where they have the time to reflect on what they have learned?

In this vision, how does the teacher's role change? What would a classroom look like? What do we need to do to get from here to there? Couros has some sage advice:

To move forward in education---to create a vision for education that then comes to life---we must take more than a top-down or bottom-up approach; we will need all hands on deck.