I have to admit it right off the bat: I love listening to Shawn Cornally. I think he’s funny, I think he’s honest, I think some of his comments are both extraneous and unbelievably appropriate at the same time, and most importantly, I agree with pretty much everything I heard him say in his TEDx talk, The Tyranny of the Curriculum.
Cornally runs the Iowa BIG school, an unconventional, initiatives-based school created by the community in Cedar Rapids, where students work on projects rather than following a standardized curriculum. Cornally covers a lot in his talk, but I wanted to highlight several interesting ideas that stood out to me, ideas which I think are important to the reimagining of the 21st century school and its curriculum.
Instead of following a standardized curriculum, Cornally’s students come up with a problem that they want to solve, and then they develop a project around it. According to Cornally, they keep track of curriculum as they learn it. Rather than having the same classes each day, each week, and even each month, it sounds like students learn about different subjects based on what they need to know to work on their project.
I really like this idea of students learning concepts as needed. I currently teach at a high school that utilizes a project-based learning model, and the students definitely gain specialized knowledge through working on their own specific projects. The students are encouraged to explore their own interests, whether that means a student is making a mint-green mobile speaker cabinet to blast music through the halls during break or spending their afternoons ankle deep in mud at a lagoon, measuring the growth rate of invasive species. I honestly think the school where I am teaching now is one of the greatest schools I’ve ever seen.
But I’m a dreamer. Even when there’s a caring, dedicated, innovative, wonderful school right in front of me, I still want to do more. I wonder what it would be like if kids came to school on their own schedule, instead of being put in classes. I wonder what it would be like if the curriculum was completely student specific, with no generic lessons taught to 30 students at a time. I wonder how decentralized a school can get while still being effective for helping students learn. I wonder about a lot of things in education; seeing schools like Cornally’s moves me one step closer to finding the answers.
Cornally, S. (2014, March 14). The tyranny of the curriculum: Shawn Cornally at TEDxEastsidePrep. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aldMBgT6u-4&index=25&list=PLbRLdW37G3oMquOaC-HeUIt6CWk-FzaGp
Cornally runs the Iowa BIG school, an unconventional, initiatives-based school created by the community in Cedar Rapids, where students work on projects rather than following a standardized curriculum. Cornally covers a lot in his talk, but I wanted to highlight several interesting ideas that stood out to me, ideas which I think are important to the reimagining of the 21st century school and its curriculum.
Instead of following a standardized curriculum, Cornally’s students come up with a problem that they want to solve, and then they develop a project around it. According to Cornally, they keep track of curriculum as they learn it. Rather than having the same classes each day, each week, and even each month, it sounds like students learn about different subjects based on what they need to know to work on their project.
I really like this idea of students learning concepts as needed. I currently teach at a high school that utilizes a project-based learning model, and the students definitely gain specialized knowledge through working on their own specific projects. The students are encouraged to explore their own interests, whether that means a student is making a mint-green mobile speaker cabinet to blast music through the halls during break or spending their afternoons ankle deep in mud at a lagoon, measuring the growth rate of invasive species. I honestly think the school where I am teaching now is one of the greatest schools I’ve ever seen.
But I’m a dreamer. Even when there’s a caring, dedicated, innovative, wonderful school right in front of me, I still want to do more. I wonder what it would be like if kids came to school on their own schedule, instead of being put in classes. I wonder what it would be like if the curriculum was completely student specific, with no generic lessons taught to 30 students at a time. I wonder how decentralized a school can get while still being effective for helping students learn. I wonder about a lot of things in education; seeing schools like Cornally’s moves me one step closer to finding the answers.
Cornally, S. (2014, March 14). The tyranny of the curriculum: Shawn Cornally at TEDxEastsidePrep. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aldMBgT6u-4&index=25&list=PLbRLdW37G3oMquOaC-HeUIt6CWk-FzaGp