“So, imagine we taught baseball the same way that we teach science currently. What we would do is we would have children read books about baseball rules. When they got to high school, we would let them reproduce famous baseball plays of the past, and it wouldn't be till graduate school that they would actually ever get to play the game. And that's pretty much the way that we teach science. It's not till graduate school that you actually ever get a chance to do science, as opposed to reading about science or reconstructing science. "

...there's no reason for that to be true. Children could be actually doing inquiry and doing experiments and doing science early on. And I think the same thing's true for things like writing, for example. Children learn about writing, but the way to write is to write with a good editor, to watch someone who's competent writing. I think our whole educational system could be oriented towards both exploration but also this kind of apprenticeship system much more effectively.”

“the way to write is to write with a good editor”, just like the way to learn to play sports, instruments, work with tools and technology, and learn just about anything requires playing as the act of learning with a good coach.

Allison Gopnik is a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of The Gardener and the Carpenter, a book that argues that children learn like lanterns cast light: broad, curious, and uninhibited allowing them to absorb vast amounts of information and see possibilities. Cultivating this innate wonder is the gardener's role in the learning experience.

So, imagine then a group of students who learn to write, with a good editor, bringing to the page what exists as a serial story delivered in the span of one hundred 6-minute podcasts. Imagine students listening to write, reading to write, writing to publish a four-volume graphic novel in collaboration with the authors of the podcast. Imagine the students as editors, invested in the making of a book for an audience. Imagine, if you will, young people writing just as humankind has always written. Student as author, artist, and editor. That is a garden ripe with possibility.

Graeme McTavish is a teacher at The Queen Elizabeth School in Perth, Ontario. He has a habit of diving in to really cool projects with students, balancing the need to engage with the essentials with the desire to make something with his students that amplifies the curriculum in ways that transform the learning into tangible products – like songs, books, knitted garments, and 3D printed solutions. Along the way his students build confidence and capacity in reading, writing and math, with a connection to how those skills show-up in the world beyond school.

As we continue to feature teachers and students in conversation all across the UCDSB, we turn our attention to what learning looks like. In the stories we share, listeners will encounter something familiar, something extraordinary, and inspiration to delve into project-based, experiential learning that centres students in the world, as contributors, creators, and catalysts for change.

In the case of Graeme’s grade 5 and 6 students at Queen Elizabeth, you can find their work in libraries and classrooms across North America.

CREDIT: Allison Gopnik quote from Hidden Brain podcast https://www.hiddenbrain.org/podcast/kinder-gardening/