The 21/22 school year marks the first time Do.Think.Learn (DTL) has had school on Fridays. However, like many things we do, Do.Think.Learn’s Fridays differ slightly from other schools. We have Choose Your Own Adventure Fridays. This means that no one goes to the office for school. Instead, each student has to spend the day ‘doing stuff.’ For the students of DTL this ‘stuff’ may include a range of activities: surfing, skateboarding, meditation, music, art, hiking, yoga, reading, baking, etc. So far this year the adventures have focused primarily on music and exercise. Students have played gigs with a few bands, taught themself to play drums and the bass, surfed, boxed and learned new skateboard skills.
Now your first question might be why we’ve never had school on Fridays. That’s a pretty simple one to answer - we don’t need to have school on Fridays. No one really needs school on Fridays. Seriously. Think about it - there’s a lot of wasted or lost time in the standard school day. At Do.Think.Learn we strip most of that fat off the typical day. With smaller classes that individualize curriculum and instruction we can minimize wasted time. When students control their schedules and teachers hold them accountability for meeting their academic responsibilities more gets done. Really this is another variation of our “less is more” philosophy at DTL. And, let’s not kid ourselves, school does not always equate to learning. If you want to create “lifelong learners'' (which so many mission statements claim), two things need to happen. First, students need to stop associating learning solely with school and understand that learning can happen anywhere. Second, students need help connecting their academic skills to the world beyond school.
A student that only associates learning with school will have numerous problematic experiences throughout their life. For example, consider a student that crushes it in their geometry and economics classes. Area, perimeter, volume = no problem. Questions around salary or rent per month are no match to their knowledge. However, what happens when that student looks at rents for hypothetical retail space and needs to know whether the rent per square foot options in different buildings work for their budget? Many students struggle with this subtle transfer. They conceive of math only in terms of problems on worksheets or Khan Academy. I love me some Khan Academy but we as teachers have to support students as they transfer that academic learning to the world outside of school. One of our goals is to help students understand that learning is really a process of self-discovery and building skills that translate to “real” lifel. Hence Choose Your Own Adventure Fridays.
Way back, way in the Before Time, there was a Choose Your Own Adventure book series. I loved these books. As the reader you had some control over what you wanted to do next and each choice led to new choices. I would sit in my room and read each book over and over; making different choices each time through, and seeing the many possible adventures and outcomes.
Last April as I organized my collection of Choose Your Own Adventure books it dawned on me - Choose Your Own Adventure Fridays. And while I talk about learning as an adventure of self discovery, etc. this also solved a rather practical issue for Do.Think.Learn. As we move towards accreditation I need to ensure that we have ‘enough’ days of school each year. However, my students have busy lives outside of school. Their Fridays are full of meaningful activities so taking those activities would anger a few critical constituents. Instead of taking those days away, I decided to add them to our curriculum. Adding Choose Your Own Adventure Fridays also pushes our count of school days up closer to 200 days of school each year. Plus, I like my Fridays as is, as well.
I am a huge fan of adventure and the role of adventure in learning. Unfortunately, most people only subscribe to adventures that have prescribed and predetermined outcomes or they conflate ‘adventure’ with epic journeys in far away places. Adventure is really about self-discovery and exploring ideas. This can happen anywhere (even in the classroom). You don’t have to leave your house, your neighborhood, or town to adventure. Many fantastic adventures have occurred in a comfy chair with a good book or just down the street. So tomorrow, the students of DoThink.Learn will go for and Do. By the sounds of it, plans may include some skating, maybe some surfing, a Logic lesson (music program), maybe an art show, some reading, and there was talk of learning to cook some new dishes. On Mondays we follow the “what, so what, now what?” framework for reflecting on their adventures. After the Do-ing, students will do some Think-ing about what and how they did what they did, and work to understand the various skills involved in what they did. The groundwork for Learn-ing happens when they decide what skills from those activities they want apply to other areas of their life. School and life should not be mutually exclusive. To paraphrase Martha Stewart, adventure - it’s a good thing.