From Standards to Projects
the Future of Schools
By Michael Umphrey
Over 400 people filled the Bigfork Playhouse to capacity last fall.
They had come to hear Mary Sullivan’s high school students share words and
pictures gathered from veterans in the community. Last winter, veterans in
Ronan came into the school one afternoon to be honored at a special
ceremony conducted by students in Christa Umphrey’s English classes. And
in May, the gymnasium at Simms High School was transformed into a
temporary museum that interpreted the experiences of veterans of World War
II, Korea, Viet Nam, and the Gulf War.
People attending these and similar events were impressed by the work
students did, but they also felt a strong spirit that something was
profoundly right. Something about the youth and the elders coming together
to record and publish their own history was definitely "working."
Across the state, students have been participating in the
Veterans History Project sponsored
by the Library of Congress in cooperation with the Montana Heritage
Project. The materials gathered and created through the projects will be
preserved for posterity by the Library of Congress. Students are given the
opportunity to work as associates with the Library, and teachers are
provided high quality teaching materials.
This oral history project is important for several reasons. For one
thing, the stories our veterans have to tell are important. On this there
is unusually widespread agreement, and the bill to fund the project passed
the U.S. Congress with no opposition.
But there are other important benefits as well. The Library of Congress
models an important direction for American education: authentic research
projects sponsored by cultural and scientific agencies, in which agencies
with deep expertise design projects and materials for schools, embedding
educational standards in real work while providing scaffolding to help
students meet challenging criteria.
The development of educational standards has been an important exercise
in clarifying what students need to know and be able to do. Now it’s time
to get beyond a list of things to teach and to develop high-quality
teaching strategies, embedding those standards in projects that allow
learners to investigate rich and challenging issues in the real world and
that culminate in public exhibitions that provide both accountability and
a chance for students to contribute to the community.
What schools need today are research opportunities that allow them to
develop advanced skills while working with the scaffolding provided by
specialists. The Library of Congress is one leader but there are others.
The Long-Term Ecological Network (LTER), a program of the National Science
Foundation, recognizes that high school students can contribute to cutting
edge scientific research, and that the collaboration between scientists
and students can benefit both.
Scientists at the LTER’s Cedar Creek facility in Minnesota challenged
other scientists "to think of ways in which [students can] collect data of
interest beyond the confines of the school, either as part of a larger
network, or addressing questions from a broader perspective by providing
data useful in addressing state-of-the-art scientific questions."
As we develop collaborative projects between schools and other agencies
several things happen. First, students become better educated through
working with artists, historians, business leaders, scientists, and others
on authentic projects in the real world. Tough standards are more likely
to be met when students have meaningful reasons to work. More students
make enthusiastic trips to libraries and archives. They learn to transfer
classroom learning to the real world.
Second, students and teachers have exciting reasons to use the
technological tools that link local projects to state and national
projects. They become skilled at using web sites that include artwork,
data bases, audio and video files, and writing. The story of children and
adults working together to research and understand their place will
attract funds, and this may be the shortest, fastest route to building the
technological infrastructure that is rapidly becoming as important as
railroads once were to our economic life.
Third, we inject civic discourse, service learning, and character
education into the heart of our academic instruction. The habits of
scholarship and of civic discourse come alive by being enacted by living
communities: carefulness, curiosity, honesty, patience,
and openness to new perspectives. In teaching these habits through shared
community work, we teach intelligence.
We can now see in broad outline the vision that will drive schooling in
the twenty-first century. The digital age leads to the learning age, and
we will create a framework for the shared pursuit of knowledge that
includes local schools and communities, scientific and cultural
organizations, universities, and government agencies. Schooling, like the
rest of life, becomes a series of learning projects.
We now have the tools. The kids are ready. We are surrounded by
opportunity. It’s time to act.
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