You Gotta Make a Mess to Make Progress

Classroom

Time for a remodeling update!!  For those new readers, we are remodeling 15 classrooms, our Multi-Purpose Room (performance and gathering space), Art Department and several academic centers.  In a classic portrayal of "you gotta make a mess to make progress"... we've definitely been making a mess!

Main Hallway

Classrooms were taken down to studs and cement.  New electrical wiring, new HDMI and ethernet, new HVAC, new ceiling grid, tiles, flooring are installed or about to be installed.  Materials are staged in the hallway for installation.  Projectors, screens, TV's and desktops will be moved with furniture in later weeks.

We are reaching the precarious stage where it looks like we are behind schedule.  We aren't... but appearances belie realities.  It's a time of frustration with the mess, weariness with the random power outages/alarms and panic that the Fall Semester is rapidly approaching and the chairs haven't been delivered.
As with all disruption... the propensity for "what if..." could out pace the vision.  Here is where faith lives.

I've written before on the symbolic and material meanings of physical space. Classrooms hold symbolic value (right or wrong) in American culture as the entry point of equality.  Education is the vehicle to success and prosperity... the classroom is portrayed as the idyllic innocence of childhood and the path to success.  And yet, just like libraries, classrooms have material functions to provide... testing, discussion, writing, lecture, viewing, reading... all those activities that are a part of "education".  I have to wonder:

• Can learning happen without chairs? 
• Can success occur if the paint isn't dry?  
• Can discussion happen without a projector? 

 I would argue YES to all the above.  Physical space can influence, inspire and enhance... but ultimately relationship, human relationship, is what binds us and facilitates growth.

But this is a post about renovating classroom space!  So... living within individual symbolic and material context, our old excuses to validate stasis are becoming obsolete. Furniture doesn't have to stay in neat rows to symbolize orderly teaching.  Students can project and share from personal devices - sharing their findings from their personal location.  This shifts the material practice to student-centered activities and away from teacher-centered lecture.  Suddenly we find ourselves with limitless possibility... on the cutting edge (if not bleeding edge) of educational practice to support student learning.  Exciting and daunting at the same time because our symbolic and material expectations of school are intentionally unsteady.

It's a little messy around here.  This amount of physical disruption is going to cause some dissonance.  The work of redefining the symbolic and material understanding of the classroom is a time for relationship -  listening, dialogue and patience... and maybe some Windex and ibuprofen.  Classes begin here August 12th... Prayers are welcome.  Visitors are welcome in October or so when the paint is dry.

Learning as Pilgrimage

Confession - I was supposed to be doing housework and I decided to kill some time on Twitter instead. A fabulous colleague @bhobbs63 posted a link to @StrategicMonk's blogpost "Our Pilgrimage is Not a Race".

"Our pilgrimage is not about gaining speed over a distance toward a goal. The point of our pilgrimage is to be aware on the journey....Pilgrimage is about learning, being open to the lessons of each step."

After reading the post, I took some time to reflect while I cleaned...

I had the privilege to go on a pilgrimage once with the Franciscans (we're a dual order household) to Assisi, Italy.  Our guides told us right away to not consider this experience a vacation.  A pilgrimage is not a vacation.  It is a journey with oneself and God - moving closer to unity - experiencing place in the present.

Not Assisi (those pics are on another computer), but pretty...

What if we thought about education in this light?

About now my public school readers are panicking, but never fear... this applies to you as well.  Image education as a journey with oneself and knowledge.  No destination test scores, no end goal spreadsheets full of SLO's, no race to fill the walls of a data room.  What if we knew each student - their gifts and weaknesses - journeying together to experience "school" in the present moment... unified by shared interest in content and open to the ...whatever... that might happen?

Does this mean I am advocating throwing goal setting and curriculum guides out the window?  Not at all.  I am all about setting goals and having a plan (strong J on Meiers-Briggs).  However, sitting in #FETC sessions this week, listening about PARCC and Smarter Balance testing I could not help but think we've gone too far.  We let ourselves focus on outcomes to the detriment of the individual.  The journey has become about an imaginary, norm-referenced finish line.

Yes, I am dreaming.  And yes, I may have inhaled too much bathroom cleaner. But here's the thing - down at #FETC this week, every conversation I had landed on the importance of personal relationships: between teacher and student; administrator and teacher; school and home... Being present in the moment with each other, unified in the journey of learning, was the topic on many minds - not destination items such as test scores and SLO's.  And we build these relationships when we let go of school as business and open ourselves to school as pilgrimage.  A journey of many little steps, unified by content and shared experiences in the present moment.

Learning happens everywhere!