5 minute read
“Oh, You’ll Learn”
— by Wayne Jenning
I’m an enthusiastic advocate of experiential learning having graduated in the 1950s in a teacher prep program with a major in core curriculum. Core was a progressive education approach emphasizing an integrated curriculum, goal-setting, personal learning plans, use of community resources, experiential activities, life competencies, and the like.
The core curriculum—nothing resembling today’s nationallytouted curriculum core—was an outgrowth of progressiveoriented research such as the Eight-Year Study during the 1930s (info about the study on the Internet). Its results were lost as a result of World War II. After the war, scholars reviewed the study and found it valid and relevant. Their comments were disregarded during the McCarthy era when progressive educators were considered “red” or communistic.
Core featured school practices then, now touted as new. It was fortuitous that I received training in the late 1950s for progressive education. That prepared me for experiential learning to displace textbook-bound practices that I came to believe fallacious.
Early in my teaching career at Phillips Junior High School, Minneapolis, before the two-week winter vacation, my ninth-grade students planned a winter party. They pushed chairs to the room’s periphery and played a game in the center with much enthusiasm and noise. I stepped into the hall for a brief respite from the spirited action.
There was Mrs. Kennedy, who taught across the hall. I could see her class through the open door. Students had a paper napkin squarely on their desks and a cookie centered on the napkin. They were waiting for Mrs. Kennedy’s signal to eat the cookie as their party celebration. It was totally quiet.
I asked Mrs. Kennedy how she did that (the order and pin-drop silence).
She said, “Oh, you’ll learn.”
Sensing my doubt with her scanty answer, she continued, “Here’s how. See that kid in the back with the green shirt? I could tell from the first day he was going to be trouble. You will learn to spot that. So, I waited for the first instance. Sure enough, he dropped his book on the floor with a loud bang. I wasted no time heading over to him.”
I pictured her footfall. It probably seemed to the seventh-grade students as if the building shook. She continued, “I said: Who do you think you are? This is my classroom, and you do what I say. Now stand up. Do you understand me? Now, sit down on the floor for the next ten minutes since you seem to like your book on the floor. Understand, I wasn’t just talking to him. The whole class was watching, and I knew that none of them wanted to be the next target. That’s the way you do it.”
I decided I didn’t want to use her method of classroom control, as effective as it appeared. Rather, I aimed for student self-control instead of “other” control. True, I wanted a well-behaved class, but one that grew from productive activity.
Eventually, I got my sea legs with an orderly classroom. Instead of the issued textbooks, I used experiential activities such as weekly meetings with Robert’s Rules of Order (officers, committee reports, real treasury), daily news, classroom trials, trips, letters, writing a book about themselves, studying controversial community topics and student-chosen issues like youth delinquency when one of their classmates was arrested for a serious crime.
One day near the end of the school year, I gave a final exam (as required by the school district). I handed out a sheet that looked like a flyer. It invited people to come to a meeting to address the problem of air pollution. I had a student read the flyer aloud so that everyone had the same information. It said Terry Alan would be the convenor. I took a chance picking Terry. He hadn’t done much that year—no trouble, just passive. I said that I would be taking notes and would not be participating unless they got hopelessly stuck.
Terry moved to a center position in the circle of desks (my usual arrangement) and said in a clear voice. “Welcome everyone. You all know what we are here for. We’re going to start an organization to work on polluted air. I’m only a convenor and we need to elect officers.” He then proceeded to lead the group in choosing a president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer.
The newly elected president said, “I know some of you are interested in this problem, so we should form some committees. I suggest a constitution committee to establish our purpose. What other committee do we need? Sara, will you write them on the chalkboard?” The “organization” created other committees: fundraising, publicity, reaching more people, and pollution’s effects.
— quote from student to next year’s class
Students then volunteered for committees and the president balanced committee memberships for the number of students. The president then said, “Our committees will meet for the next hour. Then we will reconvene and hear reports from the committees.”
You, the reader, may wonder how ninth-graders could cope conceptually and operationally and then determine how to implement the challenges.
The secret is that we had done most of these actions in one way or another during the weekly meeting and other activities throughout the year. This session was an experiential test to check for the integration of learning.
As with the weekly class meetings, I observed and noted with hash marks on a class list each act of participation by a student. In the past, I often shared these, showing the great differences in participation of students. Some had many hash marks, some few or none. Discussion would follow about the importance of everyone’s ideas and opinions and how to involve shy nonparticipants.
We also discussed the real-life problem of people dominating discussion. I taught when new learnings were needed. For example, I taught how motions were processed, and at other times commented on their actions.
Before the end of the year exam, I invited my principal to observe. He said he was very busy but would drop by for a few minutes. I took a chance that the event would not bomb as he watched. He was tickled and stayed the entire two-hour block.
I didn’t think everything had to be learned by graduation or from textbooks or teacher lectures. I wanted lessons that would be remembered for the rest of their lives. I wanted the outcome to be students as active lifelong learners during their school years and as adults. That’s even more attainable in today’s informationoriented world.
Mrs. Kennedy was right. I did learn!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Wayne B. Jennings, PhD a retired teacher, principal and recipient of the John Dewey Society award, is the author of School Transformation. e-mail: wayne@designlearn.net
