At Tawa School, a suburban school 20 kilometers from Wellington, New Zealand, we are passionate about being constructivists. Over the past year, we developed a class for Years 7 and 8 students (age 11, 12, and 13) in the middle of Wellington's central business district. A corporate sponsor provided the space for the City Site classroom that is home to a richly personalized program that builds strong relationships between students and business and arts organizations in the city.
Each of the 70 Years 7 and 8 students at Tawa School can opt for a city experience. The City Site classroom has three terms a year, and students can choose to attend the program for a term or for the whole year. Although some students decide not to participate in the City Site class at all, 20 students attend each term.
A Classroom of Opportunities
We developed the City Site program to teach our students how to work in context. By nature, Years 7 and 8 students push boundaries; they make statements about who they are and about the impact that they want to have on their world. They want to be heard and to be in control.
At Tawa School, these students have grown up in a culture where they have experienced freedom, trust, and choice. The City Site classroom operates a program that reflects these ideals. In many respects, these students challenge the view that learning must take place inside the four walls of a classroom, with little direct contact with the world outside. By treating the city as their classroom, the students demand that the city community share the responsibility for educating youth.
When planning the City Site classroom, we decided that our students should have the skills and freedom to enable them to gain access to the rich resources in a large city. We were excited to have such institutions as the National Library as our classroom's library and Te Papa, the national museum, as our sciences and arts resource room. We also recognized the importance of moving students away from education programs that teach them a predetermined set of learning objectives in a formal classroom setting. All too often, such programs confine learning to abstractions. Students in the City Site classroom work with business and arts organizations on projects that are concrete and mutually beneficial. Executing these projects gives the students tangible, meaningful learning contexts and fulfills the mission of the organizations that participate.
For example, the boardroom of Copeland Wilson and Associates showed signs of wear. The company asked the City Site students to design and create artwork for display. Eight students gathered project specifications, company information, and budgetary guidelines from company representatives. The students then visited and interviewed design companies, collated portfolios of ideas, sketched features of the local environment for inspiration, and presented their proposals to the company's board of directors.
In a subsequent meeting, the company accepted several of the students' ideas. The students found the materials that they needed, utilized local expertise, and constructed the display panels. Copeland Wilson and Associates hung five large panels of artwork in its stairwell and boardroom. The students learned that artwork communicates the essence of a business.
Freedom
The first principle that forms our constructivist model is freedom. Students attend an orientation to learn how to be safe in the city. Among other things, they learn how to cross a road, which side of the footpath to walk on, and how to safely use elevators and escalators. At the end of the orientation, the students are tested on their understanding and ability to implement the safety procedures.
Students who pass the orientation receive trust licenses that permit them to leave the classroom and to move about Wellington in small groups, independent of teachers or other adults. Each group fills out a trip planner, describing the group's members, destination, proposed route, times of arrival and departure, and contact telephone numbers. Students also take a cell phone and call the classroom when they arrive at or depart from a destination. The students are free to book visits out of the classroom to further their project work and to visit libraries, museums, the university, sports facilities, art galleries, street performances, theaters, parliament, and cafes.
Some students do not gain their trust licenses because they either do not implement the procedures or lack confidence. These students must travel with an adult, usually one of the many parent helpers who work with the class.
We also empower our students to plan their own learning. Students use weekly planners and know when they are expected to meet with their teachers. At the beginning of each week, students fill in their mathematics and language times and the times of any other required workshops. The students use the remainder of their time to meet in project groups, to further project work, or to organize visits.
This freedom enables students to use learning tools and the city's resources at a time and a pace that suit their task or process. Paradoxically, we have found that less overt teacher control has not reduced the students' work focus but has strengthened it. Students feel empowered and trusted.
Ownership
The second broad principle that underpins practice in the class is ownership. Learning in the class is owned by the students. In New Zealand, national curriculum statements propose generic learning contexts that allow us to mesh the aims of local business and arts organizations with the learning needs and passions of our students. Learning is created rather than dictated. Students can pursue an avenue of interest without penalty.
The class motto, "Here to Live, Here to Learn," communicates the essence of the program. Learning is linked to the process of living. As a result, we approach the national curriculum statements in an interdisciplinary manner that maintains the integrity of individual subjects as well as their contextual relevance. Our students pursue, experience, and celebrate learning through the richness of diversity that makes up everyday life.
We believe that national curriculum statements are important, but how we manage the relationship between standards and the practice of learning marks us as constructivists. The role of the teacher in such a class is crucial. For too long, constructivist classrooms have been accused of lacking rigor. In constructivist classrooms, the teacher fulfills the national curriculum requirements by suggesting possibilities for investigation that also meet achievement statements; imparting expertise, knowledge, and skill; and in some cases, reviewing the curriculum statements to ascertain what students have learned and what more they need to cover.
We emphasize developing big ideas that not only allow students to take ownership of their own learning, but also fulfill the teacher's professional requirements.
By helping students take ownership, educators teach students that they are important and that learning is significant and relevant. This has an incremental effect on the students' hunger to learn. Student ownership has led to students paying us a high compliment: They enjoy coming to school and realize that learning is fun.
Responsibility
The third principle is responsibility, a corollary of quality constructivist classrooms. Our teachers are responsible for the synthesis between the national curriculum and the curriculum generated by the enthusiasms, needs, and mores of their students. If students are empowered to take ownership, we must expect them to be responsible. Students who are given the freedom to move about the city independent of adult supervision must behave responsibly. Similarly, students who plan their week—choosing what they should do, how long a piece of work should take, when work should be done—need to be responsible for the outcomes that they have set.
Just as teachers are accountable, so are the students. We schedule accountability conferences throughout the week for all students. These conferences provide planned opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning and for teachers to monitor whether their students are fulfilling their responsibilities. To support struggling students, teachers may gently discuss with them ways to improve, pair them with more capable students, or move them to a teacher-directed program.
Openness
Openness is the final principle that underpins our practice. We share achievement objectives with our students. We allow them, when planning an inquiry, to scan, to identify, and to use achievement objectives that are relevant and stimulating. As constructivists, we accept that students are at the core of our practice and must be prepared to share our professional knowledge. Why should we keep from students what we are asked to teach them? Our students have the right to ask, "Why is it important?" We do not assume that students should accept the decisions that have been made for them when they have little or no understanding of the underlying rationale. Revealing the reasoning behind curriculum decisions helps students make sense of what they are doing.
Tawa School is a committed advocate of innovation. We are fortunate to have a supportive and visionary board of trustees. We also have a parental population keen to see educational creativity in response to the burgeoning learning needs of their students. We believe that teachers are professional leaders in the community, and when we developed the City Site classroom, we worked hard to explain the program and its significance to the community. Since the initial consultation meetings, the City Site classroom has gained momentum because students prove that having freedom, taking ownership, being responsible, and embracing openness work.
Constructivism blurs the boundaries between home and school and requires new paradigms for the way educators, students, and parents organize learning. Teaching in a constructivist class requires dedication and energy. But most of all, we at Tawa School are excited about working with a group of young people who are thinkers and creators, who can talk about who they are and what they stand for, and who are enthusiastic about living and learning.
