Remember Adventure School?

Finland To Become The First Country In The World To Get Rid Of All School Subjects

This article talks about how Finland is moving away from the isolated, six subjects a day model and embracing the idea of Phenomenon-Based Learning. Basically, a student chooses something to discover, research, learn about and their schooling is built around these topics. Teachers become facilitators and guides, working individually with students to meet their needs and challenge them.

Obviously, this is pretty far away from where we are today, but it isn't that far. It reminds me of my Adventure School days at EHS 10 years ago. Once upon a time, we combined English, Social Studies, and Science into thematic, project based  quarter long classes with topics like Environment, Commerce and Trade, and the Cascades. All 9th and 10th graders would take three field trips a quarter based on their theme while doing various project connected to the theme. The big capstone each quarter were projects that students would propose and then complete  that included original research, secondary research, a six to 10 minute presentation and a short research paper. That isn't even getting into what juniors and seniors did.

My point is, we COULD do this, or at least a form of it. Working in Adventure School was the best and most rewarding experience of my teaching career. It was amazing. How can we get back there? How can we find the initiative and gumption to reopen that can of worms because despite the challenges, because it did work.



This was taken at an Enumclaw Adventure Reunion a few years after it ended. Our alumni were passionate about their experience. 

Comments

  1. Jennifer LongmireNovember 6, 2018 at 8:15 AM

    You are so right! The idea of project based learning isn't new. How do we get back to it? The path is never easy or clear. I wish my own children had been part of Enumclaw Adventure 10 years ago. Perhaps if they had they'd be more willing to become engaged in their learning---even if they didn't want to--the setup of the program would ensure it! Thanks for your honest thoughts in every post you write!

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  2. JeffNovember 6, 2018 at 10:57 PM

    Yeah...they still have subjects it's just the way the day is structured and the way teachers work and collaborate together. The researcher I mentioned during the day touched on this. That in Finland there is a culture of collaboration. In America there is a culture of competition. We compare my test scores to the teacher across the hall. This school compared to that school. One of their findings were systems that believed in collaboration did better than systems that believe in competition. From the highest levels of our government, school is placed in a competition mode.

    In Finland teachers across disciplines cooperate, meet, plan and teach together. In American schools the Math department can go a whole year without talking with or meeting with other departments..and then we compare Math scores to English scores to Science scores within our schools further driving us all into our rooms to be more competitive. It will work, it can work and has shown to work in schools like the Science Leadership Academy https://sla.philasd.org/ do some research on this school and it's approach and the accomplishments it's had. It's possible but it means having to rethink school.

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  3. Gunner ArgoNovember 16, 2018 at 10:30 AM

    One of the challenges to this is the big "requirement monster" which we are faced with on a daily basis. Required classes, required testing, and so on. I think that part of that model's success is its lack of "required" things to teach or pass in order to be successful. Imagine if they gave us one period a day where we could do what we want, students could pursue what they wanted, and they were not required to be there. Yes, many students would just leave, but they are usually checkout out long before that. But might they show up if we were facilitating something they wanted to do?

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