Subject: Learner Centered School Change

Posted by Tim Joy on 2/1/2014

Message:

Larry:

As I think about this model, learner-centered may not actually be an accurate description of it. It's a more a teacher-centered model. That sounds antiquated, school-marmish, I know, but I can't imagine it any other way, at least from a modeling perspective. Bear with this explanation of my evil thought.

While the state (or some entity) may mandate the curriculum, and the neighborhood has the students who live there, the teachers come from many places, have some variable amount of autonomy, and there's a principled principal whose vision is about student learning. In that mix, the teachers are the key factor - they are themselves the lever of change. Hence, a teacher-centered model that depicts how the team adapts to the students in their care.

Presumably, a core pedagogical concern will, in fact, be student-centered learning. What I am interested in that part of this model is how the gap in learning impacts both the teacher and the student.

In addition, I've read some fascinating books lately: Mindset, Carol Dweck, about how the early mental set-point is foundational and a few of Jonathon Kozols epistles on the impact of poverty of learning. These, two, would be interesting to include. You can see that I am having some trouble keeping the boundary tight. How far out can the boundary go and still provide us with a useful model?

Good to hear from you, Larry. Let's keep this going.

Tim