In a famous scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Ben Stein takes attendance. The boredom and stagnant feel of the classroom are palpable. He calls out each student's name, finally repeating, "Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?"
If you're in an even halfway decent traditional classroom, it should not feel like that at all. But the scene is funny for a reason—it hits upon something we've all felt. A lot of young people do feel zoned out, bored, and lost in a traditional classroom. An adult would feel the same in a particularly mind-numbing office job or an incredibly boring professional development seminar. Remember the movie Office Space?
Teachers in a traditional classroom have autonomy, and they work their best to make their classroom environment as engaging as possible. But the learning design, the goals of the learning design (assessment), and the larger goal that has inspired both, are going to have a big effect on the classroom environment.
At Aspire Savannah, our studios are different from a traditional classroom. They are less bureaucratic and more personalized. There are fewer learners, more freedom of choice, and more customization of content. This alone makes our atmosphere an alternative to traditional school.
But the main driver of our alternative atmosphere, as mentioned, is all about larger goals and inspiration. When you are working on and measuring competencies like Build Community, Navigate Conflict, Learn Interdependently, and Sustain Wellness—not just knowledge acquisition—your classroom environment is going to feel very different from a classroom that focuses all of its measurement (assessment) on knowledge acquisition. A lot different.
This is not to say that knowledge acquisition isn't important, but it is bare-minimum, low-hanging fruit. If you ask the parents of a 6-year-old starting school what abilities they hope their child will have at 18, they're going to say things that look like the Future9 competency framework we use.
Maybe they'll say these things because they truly are what is most important. Or maybe they'll say them because deep down they know traditional school isn't measuring these things, making them easy to neglect over those 12 years.
What you measure tells a lot about what is meaningful to you. What is meaningful to you dictates a lot about your classroom atmosphere.
Social Icons