The Landscape Model’s Three Elements
Whether the image is one of a salt flat or the jagged peak of a mountain, the idea is that each person has not only his, her, or their own path but also his, her, or their own destination. Defining our horizon does not mean lowering standards. It does mean providing both high challenges and high support. It is both the limitless potential of the curved horizon and the striving for the highest peak at the same time. It is allowing for different students to strive for different peaks, and to make room for a jagged profile of our graduates.
The Pathway There are many paths to success. We know this in our own lives: some of us find success on the sports field, others as musicians or artists, while others navigate the traditional classroom with ease. Educators and philosophers of different generations have made this point, that learners don’t all follow the same path; they move through learning in a myriad of ways. Some have written about different types of intelligences. Others have advocated for differentiated degree programs, splitting vocational education from a university pathway, for example. When we standardize education, we force all students toward the same goals regardless of the broader context they bring into the learning ecosystem. Instead, the pathway refers to how the student makes their way toward the horizon; it is the personalized path that allows them to succeed on the landscape.
The Myth of Standardization Standardization of education was sparked by movements such as the United States’ federal No Child Left Behind Act (2002) and Race to the Top (USDE,
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From Kapono’s background, the Native Hawaiian saying kulia i ka nu’u, meaning to strive for the highest peak, captures another way to explore the horizon. The current educational paradigm is to set outcomes for all students that are the same, while kulia i ka nu’u means to challenge oneself to the highest personal peak of excellence. This then demands that we set goals that are relevant, attainable, and challenging for each student. Is that fair? Does this mean lowering standards? To understand this saying and all it implies, it’s important to consider the educator who takes pride in the number of students who fail. Many of us have been that teacher at one point in our career, or have at least worked with that teacher, who boasts about how rigorous their class is, bragging that “half of my students don’t make it out with a passing grade!” It wasn’t until Kapono was exposed to the work of the Perception Institute that he truly grasped the potential damage of rigor-as-outcome and how measuring success as progress toward the horizon and toward personal peaks can powerfully transform education.
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