Over the course of the past year, I had the opportunity to hear Kieran Egan speak several times on a very simple idea — that students be randomly assigned a topic to study in depth for 12 years. And just what topics did he suggest? In A Brief Guide to Learning in Depth, produced by the Imaginative Education Research Group at the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University, possible topics included paper, skin, gold, cotton, storms, leaves, castles, jungles and coffee. In addition to the usual curriculum, students would study their assigned topic throughout their elementary and secondary education.
The first time I heard Egan present the concept, I was as skeptical and cynical as many of those who commented on Janet Steffenhagen’s blog post last fall about Egan’s new book, Learning in Depth. I had the “yeah, buts” that Egan addresses in his book, like: “wouldn’t students become bored with a topic for 12 years?” “it is unfair to randomly assign topics?” “it would be difficult to organize;” “how do we know this works?” and “would this learning transfer to their other parts of school?”
With the perceived complications around making systemic changes so many believe are needed to evolve our education system, Egan’s idea is simple, doable, and is already happening in many places. One of the concerns I share with the many, is the minutia in the curriculum — the hundreds of specific outcomes which do not allow one to ‘go deep’ on topics. I believe it matters little what students can go deep on — it is that they have the ability to do so, and move beyond surface level and recall. While I am still not sure I want my five-year-old son studying silk for the next 12 years, I do like the idea he could do deep learning outside the bounds of what we normally think of as school.
In Learning in Depth, Egan suggested that “for each student, by the end of her or his schooling, [the goal] is to know as much about that topic as almost anyone on earth.”
The benefits included a deep understanding of the nature of knowledge; engaging students’ imaginations and emotions in learning; building confidence and pride in knowledge; developing research expertise and organizational skills. There are similar benefits suggested for teachers and schools — enriching experiences, a de-emphasis on assessment and grading and an enriched school culture.
As part of his presentation last week, Egan spoke about the thousands of students who are participating in this program in Canada, the United States and around the world. Participation has grown rapidly over the last few years. While some have modified their study to only one year, or a few years, and in advanced grades some all choice, many schools are carving out time for this in their week.
Before you quickly dismiss the concept like I did at first, take some time to explore the Learning in Depth Project.
While we continue to explore many grander changes to schooling, I am becoming convinced we need to carve out specific time, each week, for this new, deeper, integrated learning (attach the buzz phrase of your choice). It may seem ludicrous on the surface — blocking out time for something intended to be part of everything we do — but, somehow, on the journey we may need to set aside time to do something different. Whether it is a project like Learning in Depth, or an initiative like Destination Imagination, or engagement in DreamBox (more on both Destination Imagination and DreamBox in future posts), we need to systematically move forward and make a commitment to do similar ‘new’ activities — not just one teacher, one class at a time, but entire schools and districts.
Egan’s project reminds me of Dennis Littky’s Big Picture schools that were started in the United States; albeit, Littky builds projects around student choice while Egan’s are randomly selected. On the topic of rethinking secondary school learning, I find Littky to be one of the most thoughtful and important voices and his book Big Picture: Education Is Everyone’s Business is a must-read.
With so many educational reformers speaking and writing about deep learning these days, Egan provides us with a simple entry point.
cultureofyes.ca 
Chris,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and these resources for further investigation. I have heard of this concept and was mildly intrigued with it. I share your concern with the little details outlined in so many curriculum guides. In Ontario I have been pleasantly surprised at the turn in our recent Science curriculum document towards a focus on big ideas and also the interconnectedness – what role do we play?
On the recommendation of Neil Stephenson in Calgary (gotta love the twitter-enabled learning), I am currently reading “Curriculum in Abundance” by Jardine et al. The notion of abundance stands in stark contrast to our typical understanding of curriculum as a long list of learning outomes to be “covered” and then checked off – “done”.
It really fits well with my belief that it is only through adopting an appreciative inquiry approach that real transformation will happen in education. Through discovering and amplifying those instructional approaches that are happening in pockets throughout our districts and schools where learning and teaching are creative acts, we create the conditions for more teachers and learners to take risks and try new approaches. Like the going deep idea.
Shannon
Chris
Learning in Depth is an interesting idea and one that I’ll have to read more about. One thing that I am growing more concerned about is the expansive nature of our current curriculum documents – often at the expense of student inquiry. Thanks for sharing
Agreed Johnny – I am still optomistic that with whatever changes are coming soon in BC will include a shift in the nature of curriculum that will give more permission for teachers to go deep without the pressure of curriculum coverage so many feel now.
I really like the idea of children becoming an expert at one thing over the course of their years in school. I only wish that children had a choice of topic. As a principal, I have always said that I would love to start the school year with every child knowing what they wanted to learn more about as they walked in the front doors. Would they be excited to come each day? Would it give them a purpose?
You gave me much to think about here. Maybe some version of this kind of thinking would be good for our school.
A fresh, ‘reawakening’ perspective to an idea that unfortunately could easily become as glib as 21st century learning.
Like you, Chris, I too feel that the premise of deeper knowledge has merit and I like how with anything that is truly exciting about learning, this notion extends knowledge acquisition “outside the bounds of what we normally think of as school.”
Destination Imagination is a nice example – another good look at how this could ‘happen’ within our schools is Larry Rosentstock’s High Tech High in San Diego.
I recently had a discussion with a non-educator friend (wow, I really do have a life outside of school!) about Learning in Depth and he made an interesting analogy: how is this different than your marriage or a long term relationship? You’re talking about deep understanding, engaging imaginations and emotions, building confidence – isn’t this what you do within the most important project of your life: your marriage?
Egan provides a ‘simple entry point’ and our relationships around deep learning as connected to the process of ‘understanding’ the one’s we love seems to give the idea credence beyond the hypothetical.
The difference with Egan’s idea is that it would be an arranged marriage – that you might start when you are 5 🙂
I am seeing this work at elementary – but I struggle with the mechanics of what this could look like at secondary given our current model – maybe through an advisory model like the MET does in Rhode Island.
I talked about this idea with a couple of staff members at my school, and they both loved it. I think it an easier entry point into a student centred learning approach. Rather than having to tear down existing systems, we just need to “squish” other stuff a bit more to find time for students to work on this deeper learning.
It is radical to me only in the sense that it is a radical departure from our curriculum which is a “mile wide and an inch deep.” Otherwise it seems like a perfectly sensible idea.
Some issues my colleagues and I thought of (which just need answering, but I think are all surmountable):
1. Given the perceived need by teachers for “classroom management” how could one ensure that students are progressing in their area? What accountability measures would be in place?
2. Could you introduce this when students are already jaded and over-worked? Would they just use this time to “goof off” or work on other homework? Does this go back to the accountability?
3. How would we share what the students are learning? (Maybe a “learning fair” at the end of each year?)
4. How would we convince our less radical colleagues that the time spent each week on this project would be worthwhile? An initiative like this would have to replace something else.
If we can figure out good answers to these 4 questions, then I think this is a remarkable idea that has a lot of promise.
David – I have been having some simmilar conversations with some of our elementary schools, and in some ways it does come back to the challenge of curriculum coverage. Most agree, though, we could carve out an hour a week for a project like this. Some of our schools are finding a block of time each week to do Destination Imagination and I see this in a similar way. It would be ungraded, and perhaps (now this is me not Egan) it could be linked to a digital portfolio – we could link this type of passion project sustained over time with students have a web space to do reflective work that is not marked – only used for feedback. At the end of the journey – after 1,3 or 12 years there would be a celebration along the lines of the Exhibtion we see in IB.
Chris: If we really looked closely at what kids are doing, I think we’d find many rich examples of those who are all ready deeply engaged in their own special topics. I once taught a grade 2 penguin expert. She had been immersed in that subject for almost three years at that point. My point of disagreement is with the notion of the random assignment of topics. Kids need broad exposure to many high interest areas to discover what hooks them. That is a core premise of Joseph Renzulli and his work with gifted students. The other point of reference here is the recent book Fires in the Mind: What Kids Can Tell Us About Motivation and Mastery by Kathleen Cushman and The students of What Kids Can Do. Here you’ll find many examples of young people deeply engaged with their passions and understanding the psychology of deep engagement. Most of these examples are from out side of school. Hmmm!
You are right Bruce, most kids have something about which they are deeply interested and a bit of an expert about already.
I don’t think they get the time or support they need to build their expertise beyond a superficial level in most cases. They also don’t have an audience to share their expertise in an area with their peers.
I can imagine that if you are expert about something, it can be quite gratifying to teach your peers about it. At least, I’ve noticed that in myself when I’m teaching my colleagues about ways to use technology…
David – I still think there is a value, particularly at a young age, of having students go deep on a topic outside of what they already know. While it would be great to have a room full of experts on fire trucks, pirates or dragons how many would ever become an expert on silk if we didn’t guide their choices.
Yeah, I’m not clear that the random assignment of topics is a good idea. I’d recommend students choose a new topic each year (or choose to stick with a topic for multiple years).
On the other hand, I would shy away from kids being able to change their topics after their initial choice for a year.
Hi David – I guess the question is whether students at a very young age have the ability to pick a good topic. If we were to give open topics – there would be a lot of children selecting fire trucks or dinosaurs. We could give a closed set of topics, but as Egan said – we don’t give choice all the time over what kids learn – and that might be ok.
I think for older students choice would be important – linked to passions. This is what I like with Dennis Littky and the Big Picture Schools.
That is a good point, part of our purpose as educators is to curate knowledge for students.
Could you produce a long list of suitable topics, and let kids pick from that list? You’d know in advance that the topics were all ideas that would allow for proper exploration.
Of course, if a child had a different idea, they could explain why they want to actually learn about something else.
Here is Egan in his own words (Thanks @davidwees)
A great read Chris and it is an area I am fussing with as well. My students, (who have a long history of disengagement) are often reluctant to get deep into anything and are happy to just get the job done.
I use the Big Picture learning model (and have done for the past 3 years and even when the students get to follow their interests and passion it is still challenging to get them to break the cycle of ticking the box and moving on.
There is much to be gained by diving deep into learning and building on ones research and skills. In BP we call this academic rigor.
I think the idea of learning topics in depth sounds great. However, I totally disagree with the notion of randomly assigning a topic to students. The exciting thing about the BC education reform zeitgeist is that we are finally talking about allowing students to have real input into their education. How is randomly assigning a student a topic that will stick with them for 12 years any less capricious or arbitrary than the topics in our current curriculum?
Having recently read Dan Pink’s “Drive” and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s “Flow,” the importance of capitalizing on someone’s intrinsic motivation is at the top of mind for me. If the goal is deep learning, I would much have a student meander through topics as their interests evolve over time. Like other posters have said above, I think having students choose a topic for a period of time (maybe 1-3 years) would allow for changing interests, but still encourage deep learning.
Hi Nick – Like you I agree with the idea of choice and passion – but at what age are students able to make these kind of choices. Can we ask five year olds to select a topic to “go deep” about for 1 – 3 years? I absolutely think we can do this with fourteen year-olds. At the very least, I think we need to give some closed choices for younger aged students.
That’s a good point. There’s also a fine line between providing a topic that will interest a 5 year old and providing a topic that will expand their horizons.
When I was a kid, I really enjoyed Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” and James Burke’s “Connections” because they were like detective stories. They illustrated the interconnections of so many things by starting with one concept or object, then working forwards or backwards through history. It was fascinating to see how one thing could be linked to another.
Just as one example, I still remember watching the Connections episode where Burke outlined how old underwear was an important factor in the spread of literacy following the invention of the printing press. As it became more customary for people to wear underwear in the late Middle Ages, there were more rags available to be recycled into cotton paper. That change in fashion was also combined with the Black Death to make vast quantities of rags available very cheaply. The lower price of paper, combined with the newly invented printing press, enabled people in the emergent middle class to be able to afford books for the first time. Those types of things absolutely blew my mind and provided a thrill of discovery and schema disruption that (I’m sad to say) I rarely had in school.
I wonder if for younger children, the guided choice could involve taking a topic that a student is intrinsically interested in and then hiving off a seemingly tangential piece that the students will see is actually more important once they have really investigated the topic.
Chris,
Though this sounds like a strange idea, but is it really? What about the children of farmers who grow up only knowing how to farm? Or how about the families who only bake, or publish newspapers, or have any other type of business? The children are focused in one area – an area in which they expand naturally on their own – their entire school age life. Why is this such a bizarre concept? Because the children are not called “students” in this manner? Or maybe because the children are not graded or tested? I would argue they are graded and they are tested just like in real life: by trust and by earning through time and effort. While I may not necessarily agree with subjects like paper or string on the surface, but subjects like these may be just the ticket students need to get started. However, one difference between the children in the family business and a student getting assigned a topic for 12 years is that the entire family is involved in the first, and hardly involved in the latter. I am not sure how much support a family would give a five year old if they came home with the word “paper” masking taped to their shirt. Interesting notion, but I think it would only work in the right context.
Jennifer – from what I understand where this has been most successful are places that have had a major investment in parent education to go with the student education. For a project like this to work and be effective there would have to be complete community buy-in.
Deep or wide, the debate continues… I think some of both is important. Kids need to be exposed to all sorts of learning they may not choose but giving them an area to go deep in would provide opportunity to experience sustained and full learning. Survey type learning and project learning perhaps. I like what others have suggested here of a menu of age appropriate choices for kids and changing it up every 2-3 years. Going deep in something for 12 years is unnatural (learning is not like marriage – marriage is so much more). But a 2-3 year “project” would be good, it happens all the time in the real world so why not in school? It would teach kids to persist, to learn grit, to hang in there, to fully explore ideas, etc. The process in itself would be tremendously valuable.
Wow, what an amazing concept! I am fascinated by this, of course I can see some of the “downsides” but goodness, think of the positive impact this kind of learning could have. I teach grade 3, and my students are loving the opportunity to do their own research. In our case I chose Space because it is part of the curriculum but I really do believe it could be anything. I’m on holiday right now just checking my emails when I read the blog. Now I am getting professionally excited about all the possibilities of choosing random (is anything truly random?) topics to hand out to my class for a third term project. Perhaps, “silk” could be one of them and the areas of study it would cover; biology, botany, history, geography, fashion design, military and industrial usages, medical needs and research, mathematics, it is mind-boggling. All I can say is, Division Nine, be warned … Mrs. Segers is going to shake it up a bit!
Please invite me out – I would love to see it in action!
The website gives a great list of possible starting topics.
In 1992, under the guise of STS (Science-Technology-Society), Saskatchewan played with a similar kind of idea in the Science Curriculum. In an idea proposed by Glen Aikenhead, a U of Saskatchewan prof. at the time (Go Huskies), the Science program for an entire year revolved around one topic. The Physics, Chemistry, Biology and societal implications of the breathalyzer. It was piloted in schools, but most students and teachers did not like this course very well at all. Biggest complaint. They were sick of the breathalyzer. They still had other courses and still took science modules separate from the main topic, but they always came back to the breathalyzer. Many of your readers may have done major projects in their lives that are related to academia (this being the difference from examples Jennifer used). Was there not a point in a year or two of a major paper, thesis, presentation, pilot project, whatever, that you just wanted to move to something different? And that was over one or two years. 12 years? I may like to see trying self directed projects that span perhaps 2-3 years as some have already suggested. Til next time Chris, keep your stick on the ice.
This sounds a little to me like Montessori, as I understand it. That being said, I’ve fired off a query to my favourite Montessori Principal, and I’m off to the library/bookstore to read up some more. Thanks for the thought-provoking conversation!
I would be very interested in the links with this and Montessori. For me, the first links I thought of were with our primary IB programs, but the nature of multi-age classrooms might be a great fit with this – let me know what you find!
I have enjoyed reading through the posts. Thank you. I am a secondary administrator and see the issues through this lense. Apathy and disengagement serve as the elephants in the room. The achievement of our boys is of particular concern. Learning in depth could be a powerful and useful response. But, the fundamental issues are toooooo complicated to think that this is the answer. We need lots of answers.
Unfortunately, answers are the easy part. We need to improve our assessment practices, find ways to give students choice in how and what they learn and organize our days of instruction in a student friendly manner. Implementation is the hard part. The culture of content coverage, marks, and professional development ensure that we change at a snails pace. We need implementation strategies/practices that allow ordinary teachers to be change. Our current implementation models work for our superstars! We need to create some structures in schools that allow teachers to change.
Our superintendent has supported our school staff by providing collaboration time built into the timetable. Teachers have 60 minutes of talk time each week. Our student safety net is strong and curriculum discussions are starting to move our school “roughly” in a Westward direction.
All Teachers will change. It just can’t be an add on to an already busy day. Learning in depth can be a powerful part of the response to student apathy and disengagement.
Great comment Cyril. We are also finding our most powerful learning in West Vancover to come from our “collaborative teams” and other opportunities to work together away from the traditional pro-d day format. Each of our three secondary schools have different collaborative time models that give them between once-a-month to once-a-week opportunities to work together.
Just as we want students to own their own learning, the same goes for the adults.
I have followed the unfolding of LID for two years now, particularly as through the experiences of my two boys, enrolled in a Burnaby elementary school that has adopted the LID program. I’ve read Kieran Egan’s book, and a great deal of supporting material as well. I’ve also taught at the university level for the past 13 years (Sociology), am married to a professor, and come from a family of educators (Mom taught high school and remedial ed.). One of my areas of emphasis is the Sociology of Education. But, I am not within the public school system, so I am coming at the issue as an outsider-of-sorts.
There is a great deal to Professor Egan’s LID scheme that I appreciate and agree with. The notion that today’s system of schooling teaches to breadth (and superficiality, toward mere information) and away from depth I agree with (a mile wide but an inch deep). Developing within today’s students the capacity for sustained thought, disciplined inquiry, an appreciation for the connected and interdependent, the historical (or rooted) and so on is, I think, of great importance (esp. when considering the challenges of the 21st C.) That said, by far the greatest problem my colleagues and I have with today’s students does not concern a lack of in-depth knowledge (or capacity to go deep) but rather concerns a profound “institutionalization” they carry out of public education and into the rest of their lives. By this I mean the students that come to us are generally low in their capacity to self-regulate and self-motivate, they are apathetic and typically only motivated via carrots and sticks. To use psychological terminology, they lack an “internal locus of control,” they are much too intellectually and emotionally dependent upon external authority to whom they turn to make sense of the world and their own lives. This tendency takes on the whole a great deal of effort and time to overcome. Amongst our students we see a phenomenon mildly analogous to the institutionalization a convict experiences from their years of incarceration. That is, a reduced capability to act upon the world instead of being merely acted upon, a need to be told what to do rather than an ability to take initiative. Given the historical origins of our modern system of schooling, intent as it was on turning out a docile and malleable citizenry content with a life of mass consumption and mindless labour, this situation does not surprise me. I’m with Sir Kenneth Robinson here, when he speaks of an educational system premised in the industrialism of the 19th or early 20th century but attempting to (rather poorly) address 21st century realities and challenges.
So, in terms of the many efforts afoot today to reform our ailing educational system, the strain devoted toward improving student efficacy, autonomy, and power of choice is the strain that has my vote (foster an “internal locus of control”). The in-depth is nice, and also much needed, but not at the expense of student choice (or at least informed and guided choice). My misgivings regarding LID concern the absence of choice, the primacy of compulsion, such that I feel that in effort to correct one shortcoming of the system, a much greater sin is being committed (or opportunity to instill choice squandered).
Now, I have read through Egan’s material on the matter, and he does appear to be more flexible on the issue of choice than those implementing the program are (who in our experience are much too programmatic and inflexible in their approach, more Marxist than Marx himself, so to speak). I have two boys, both of whom had the LID program imposed upon them during grade 4. Neither are enamored. They have not fully appreciated the topics they were arbitrarily assigned, though one was lucky enough to get a relatively “good” topic while the other received a topic for which he has no interest in whatsoever (and to which I am opposed). This topic is aircraft, and given that about 80% of the material out there concerns the military, whether in application or origin, this imposed topic has created a fair degree of dismay. In our home, we have a strict no-military-anything policy (no guns, no tanks, no violent video games, etc.). The two other children “assigned” aircraft have, reportedly, reveled in all things military. I’ve asked for a topic change, but thus far have been denied. At this rate, I am bracing for a fight, am contemplating taking my concern to the Superintendent, or even quite regrettably finding a new (non-LID) school (probably private, despite our strong desire to not abandon public education). But, of greater concern, is the extent to which we have watched my son’s enthusiasm and love of learning steadily evaporate this year, with the primary concern being LID, the fact that he hates the topic, and the looming concern that he is stuck with this topic for “the rest of his life” (from a 9 year old’s perspective, until the end of Grade 12 is virtually an eternity). My son is complaining about school pretty much weekly (every Wednesday, when LID occurs, is an especially problematic day), and is developing some behaviour concerns (acting out) as well. He knows he is being forced to do something he does not want to do, he recognizes that the imposition of topics was arbitrary if not capricious, he is angry that his brother has a “better” topic, he is especially angry that the participating teachers chose their own topics (double-standards), and particularly angry that the high school students who visited the school, to talk about LID, also had a fair degree of choice in their topics. And so he is just plain angry, and from this we can see his love for learning begin to fizzle and drain away.
In Egan’s book, he justifies this lack of choice as simply consistent with the overall lack of choice that characterizes public education. To my way of thinking (Bingo), there’s the real problem. Working toward an education system that is less coercive, less standardized, and more generally flexible is where I would put the emphasis. LID does have the potential to be perfectly compatible with this aim, but thus far has chosen to be the opposite.
A LID program that modulates choice, that attempts to work with the students commensurate with their age/level to find for them the right topic would, I think, garner more support. And, permitting students to change their topic at the end of each year would like create in students greater “ownership.” Of course, an educator would seek to inform the students’ decision-making, perhaps encourage them to stick with a topic for another year, or choose a new topic that is complementary (say, go from apples to trees to agriculture). But where there is the appearance of meaningful choice there is greater student (and parent) buy-in. Topic choice should also be permitted to evolve as the student’s grow. Starting with apples in Grade One is fine and dandy, but by Grade 10 or 11 students may want to study in-depth topics such as justice, civil rights, creative intelligence, World War II, or what have you. There should also be a widened scope of what a student can study or explore in-depth, such that the topics can range well beyond the confines of the traditionally academic, left-brain stuff. What about topics grounded in the creative, artistic, kinesthetic, spiritual and so on? Why the overwhelming emphasis on the academic?
Finally, the LID program as presently conceived and implemented strikes me as intent on producing something akin to a professor, someone who is a specialist in a narrow area of inquiry (piled higher and deeper), and not particularly knowledgeable in anything outside of their expertise (island of brilliance in a sea of ignorance). A trend afoot today in many universities (mine included) is a drive away from such hyper-specialization, to break down disciplinary/departmental silos, to foster greater inter-disciplinarity, to improve our ability to communicate with one another across disciplines and to society at large. In the academy, we have reached a level of hyper-specialization that is quite probably seriously hampering our collective ability to address the myriad challenges of the 21st century. So, I find it quite ironic that we are attempting to impose an educational reform upon our public schools that is in some ways similar to what we are trying to undo at the university level.
Thank-you for permitting me to vent my spleen.
Thanks Richard for taking the time to comment. I have reached out to the folks who champion LID and hopefully they will respond here to the issues you have raised. I appreciate the time and thought you put in to this analysis.
Perhaps I might respond to Richard’s comments about the LiD program. First, let me express my sympathy–I think he has been more patient with what seems like an inflexible situation than I might have been. Maybe I might suggest that he points out to the teacher that one of the criteria for topics mentioned everywhere in the LiD material, on the website, in the book, in the new LiDKit of support materials, is that parents MUST approve the choice of the topic. One of the aims of the program is to enrich parents’ involvement with their children’s school work, and this is not going to happen–as Richard’s comments show so clearly–if a parent disapproves of the topic, which clearly is going to increase the child’s disenchantment. Also the program is supposed to be voluntary.
The issue of choice is clearly a problem. Simply as a matter of experience, even though it seems counter-intuitive (to say the least) to many, we have found that the arbitrary allotment of topics for very young children works best. All other methods of choosing topics with young children have caused greater problems. The initial ceremony in which the children receive the topic about which they are to become expert is very important in making this work well. When done well, we simply do not find the kinds of problems that have occurred here–mind you, this particular problem might have been resolved by attention to the criterion of the necessity of parental acceptance of the topic. As you likely know, we do encourage choice when children begin the program after about grade four or five–we suggest they choose from the set of topics or teachers may discuss other topics with the class and individual students as long as they stick to the set of criteria on the website (http://www.ierg.net/LiD/topics/). For students beginning the program after about grades 8, 9, or higher, we suggest they choose whatever they want, as long as it sticks with the criteria. (This recommendation that they stick to the criteria is only guided by experience of what has worked best.)
I guess this is not the place for an intensive discussion about the aims of education–though I would be delighted to have a chance to chat about such things with Richard over a coffee on Burnaby Mountain, or wherever might suit him better–nevertheless I would like to defend LiD against the charge that it is not addressing the problems he sees as most in need of work in schools today. First, again, the choice issue. The point of LiD is that it is student-driven and student-directed. It is a pity that the suggestion that random assignment of topics for very young children works best then colours for some people their whole sense of the program. (The underlying principle that “Everything is wonderful–if only you know enough about it”–does become apparent to the huge majority of children who become so enthusiastic in their accumulating expertise about their “arbitrarily assigned” topic. After a short time nearly all students powerfully identify with their topic–it is “theirs.”) Once the program is underway, the teacher’s role is simply to help where students might need some encouragement or suggestions–and the new LiDKit is full of suggestions and help for teachers in this regard–but the direction, the choices of what to work on, what to study, are the students’. In-depth learning is not in any way at odds with developing student autonomy; indeed, most students value the program because it is a part of their schooling that is uniquely theirs. The rest of the curriculum is required: there is no choice about whether and when algebra or the French Revolution will be studied, etc. Odd to dump on LiD as which is one of the few areas of the curriculum in which such constraints don’t exist, or shouldn’t.
There are a number of other comments Richard makes that I would take issue with: about his sense of the restrictiveness of studying a single topic over a long time span; about the lack of material “out there” to support a study of airplanes in other than their military forms (“out there” perhaps being the internet, whereas we encourage working initially with local, experiential features of the tops–has his son built a model airplane, tried to alter shapes of wings and bodies, worked out some principles of flight from that, etc.?); about the fact that “apples” can lead in teen years to potential political and social action stimulated by increasing knowledge about the few varieties currently relied on in supermarkets (from the 7,200 varieties available) and the potential costs of such policies; about sensitivities to developmental ideas that are a part of the support materials for teachers that come along with the LiD program (in the book, the kit, the website), with guidance about how teachers can adapt the students’ engagements with their portfolio as the years pass. But most profoundly is maybe a disagreement about the intellectual and social values of expert knowledge, in a world that values expertise only in the limited forms we see it in academia–I agree about the “little professors” complaint. But I urge Richard to visit LiD classrooms on days when they program is underway. In nearly all cases he will just find enthusiastic and energetic inquiry happening.
Maybe I might conclude with an anecdote told at a workshop by the Chair of a local school board. She had seen some LiD classes and had become increasingly impressed and sought out some more. She found herself astonished talking with these small children who not only already knew a huge amount about their topics, but talked with real enthusiasm about what they were doing. One little boy whose topic was “trees” was telling her what he had learned, showing her some of the items from his portfolio. She was so enchanted she kept asking him more questions, until he said politely, “Thank you. I’m sorry, but I’ve got work to do.” He only has an hour a week on his LiD topic in school, and here was the Chair of the school board eating into his time. Well, I’m likely giving too positive a picture, and I do tend to see the better implementations of the program. Thanks to Chris for the hospitality of his always interesting blog.
Best wishes,
Kieran.
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“Having recently read Dan Pink’s “Drive” and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s “Flow,” the importance of capitalizing on someone’s intrinsic motivation is at the top of mind for me. If the goal is deep learning, I would much have a student meander through topics as their interests evolve over time. Like other posters have said above, I think having students choose a topic for a period of time (maybe 1-3 years) would allow for changing interests, but still encourage deep learning.
I have been a Montessori Elementary “guide” and now own my own Montessori school. As a teacher of over 30 years having explored and truly accepted the Montessori philosophy as an example of the culmination of many of the examples of constructed knowledge based on the nature of the child and the developmental ideals that come to play, I fully support the ideal of “going deeper”. We run on a three year cycle , and specifically elementary age children a multiple of that three year cycle-for six years. Children have all the opportunities to do deeper into many areas, integrating their “sparks” and interests into many combined areas of study during that time. Hands on, manipulative based learning is structured fostering the three levels of learning, concrete, symbolic and abstract. Over a 9 year time period and for some children from ages 3-18 years of age (in the US)(or even birth to 3 included) it has been proven through researchers as in the above quote that these children gain a very deep understanding of the “choices” they have made in the accountability for their learning as well as gained a very thorough and thought provoking understanding of societies expectations almost to the point of continually questioning and challenging the boundaries of societies expectations.
I have read many of the above author’s extracts on “Drive” and “Flow theory” and many of these articles have singled out Montessori’s ideals and methodologies as profound even with 21st century learning ideals at the forefront of today’s learner.
-Shauna Hay B.Ed. M.Ed. A.M.I. Dip.
Thanks so much Shauna for contributing to the discussion. It is a very interesting topic.
In reply to Shauna Hay, perhaps I may make a few comments. First, of course, children choosing topics for a year or so is not so unusual. The Project Method has been a part of schooling practice in many places since it was advocated by Kilpatrick nearly 100 years ago, and continues energetically through the work of Lilian Katz and Sylvia Chard (http://www.projectapproach.org) and others. The variety of forms such projects have taken in the past hundred years has been considerable.
I have long been an admirer of Montessori education, with grandchildren enrolled and a family member teaching in a Montessori school. “Learning in Depth” is consistent with Montessori education, but the oddities of LiD, which many posters find uncomfortable or undesirable, are designed as they are for education reasons. The reasons are laid out in the book “Learning in Depth” and, more convincingly, in the lives of the many thousand of students in a dozen countries who are currently enrolled in the program. The “portfolios” of students who have now been in the program for 4, 5, and 6 years are unlike anything produced in the history of schooling. If someone wants to really explore the program, rather than, as is common, dismiss it on the basis of some feature that seems perhaps eccentric, it is worth looking at it in action in a school where it has been running for a while. See the website for examples http://www.ierg.ca/LID.