What is the primary purpose of education? I’m not supposed to do this, but I am about to give you a secret that none of your teachers like to think about. Are you ready? The primary purpose of education is to help students develop skills and knowledge, right? We want you to learn. So, what is this big secret? Here it is: Learning is invisible. It happens entirely in your brain. If teachers could identify learning just by looking at it, we would never have to give assessments, and you would never have to take them! Because this is not the case, teachers need to create artificial circumstances wherein students reproduce evidence of their learning, to get some proof that learning took place. Those artificial circumstances- be they tests, quizzes, essays, or other assessments- are all part of what you might call the “construct” of school. They seem inevitable.
What if they didn’t have to be?
Now, until they invent psychic teachers (take your time), we still need to deliver some kind of assessments. However, there is a way to reduce the artifice; that is, to help mitigate the vibe that because something is constructed, it is automatically “fake.” One great solution is actually something we have been doing for years at Kokomo. It is called “Project Based Learning.”
I suspect every teacher (and every student in the Dual Credit Tomorrow’s Teachers class) is familiar with Project Based Learning, or PBL, but many of our students might not have heard it called that, even if you have experienced it in the classroom. The idea is that by giving students time to collaborate on complex problems and then asking them to present to an authentic audience, students will figure out the skills or knowledge they need and communicate that need to the teacher who can then help in a focused way. This helps put the student’s attention on successfully completing a given task, product, performance, experiment or process rather than fixating on obedience in service of an arbitrary letter grade.
You might have noticed several students carrying tri-fold poster boards around the school lately. Two groups in particular have been keeping Mr. Hemmerich in the bookstore on his toes with their material needs- the IB sophomores working on the Personal Project Showcase (a photo gallery from which can be seen here) and a collection of freshman English classes, international students, and clubs who are working toward the KHS International Festival on March 17. Additionally, many KHS STEM Academy classes are already engaged in their STEM project units, and nearly all upper-level KACC Career classes do a version of PBL in their work-based learning and internship programs. PBL is everywhere you look.
Project Based Learning isn’t just a Kokomo thing, either. Teachers all around the world, in public and private settings, report success with PBL. Prestigious and highly selective STEM schools like the Bronx High School of Science, world-renowned IB academies like UWC Atlantic College in Wales and even ultra-elite boarding schools like Philips Exeter Academy all boast their own versions of PBL. It is an approach that has been universally embraced because- and here’s another secret- it teaches students how to assess their own learning without needing a teacher. This isn’t to suggest that it renders teachers unnecessary, but rather that when it comes to the primary purpose of education, that goal of helping students develop skills and knowledge extends far beyond your years with your teachers at KHS and across the rest of your life!
