HOW WILL YOU ADVOCATE FOR EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION?
By Beth Walker
In February this year, Denver Public Schools convened for the annual review of 11 unique charter schools in the city. In Denver, teachers, students and principals awaited decisions from the board that would determine whether their charter would gain renewal, probationary status, or be closed. Often these decisions are based on the school's testing performance in the Colorado School Assessment Program (CSAP). With this standard in place, charter schools with an experiential-based curricula and project-based learning opportunities can rest assured that their charters will be renewed if their students are scoring high on standardized tests.
What if their students are not scoring high on standardized tests?
P.S.1 Charter School in Denver experienced this predicament in 2008 and, as a result, it was granted a two-year probationary status during which it must increase test scores if it is to remain open. P.S.1 is not your traditional charter school. The school enrolls an extremely diverse population of students in terms of race, socioeconomic background and life experience. The academic range of students is wide. In other words, the school hosts students who have performed well in traditional academic settings as well as those who have not. Some P.S.1 students are years ahead in terms of literacy rates, while others are years behind. This wide range accounts for the school’s low test-score average—but it doesn’t even begin to reflect P.S.1’s individual student successes.
The diverse population served at P.S.1 includes many students who lack life skills such as time management and goal setting. For this reason, skills classes and one-on-one student advisement are required for all who attend. Students explore their learning styles and personality traits using personality indicator tests and scales. Beyond this exploration, students at P.S.1 also are learning to advocate for their learning needs in more positive and assertive ways. Learning in the classroom is often complemented with off-site projects and travel (sometimes international) to ensure experiential gains. Students are generally thriving in this learning environment.
The CSAP doesn’t measure those less tangible successes. Colorado Governor Bill Ritter has recently introduced legislation—called the Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids (CAP4Kids) —that aims to address this issue. The proposal includes a full curriculum integration to align K-12 education with college entry standards. It would establish assessment tools to measure the students’ progress and create subject-based standardized testing. Finally, it would allow students to demonstrate their abilities and make the grade by going outside of the traditional classroom setting.
While it is certainly a step in the right direction, CAP4Kids remains just a vague outline of what may be coming to Colorado Public Schools. If this proposal in fact becomes law, it won’t be effective until 2011. There is concern that the new form of standardized tests would do no better than the ones already in place. However, the last part of the proposal, increasing opportunities to learn outside of the classroom, seems favorable in the eyes of this experiential educator. While this part of the proposed legislation is vague, it does suggest the potential for the inclusion of experiential education techniques. The question is, how will current public school educators take to a task such as holding physics class at a challenge course so that students can learn experientially? The logistics of facilitating such an activity, not to mention the legal implications, may be too much to ask of already overextended teachers.
It seems that experiential educators in the state of Colorado have a great opportunity. We have a chance to put a name to what Governor Bill Ritter’s proposal has described as “opportunities to learn outside of the classroom.” That name is experiential education (EE). We already use it both inside and outside of the classroom.
While the logistics of holding class outside the classroom will always be a challenge, we have an opportunity to provide education opportunities to our more traditional colleagues. There is no need for reform to determine what small steps we as experiential educators might take to inform those around us on the benefits of learning experientially.
In the meanwhile, how can schools like P.S.1, an experiential and project-based charter school, begin to advocate for the tremendous successes of their students when standardized test scores provide the golden ticket for charter renewal?
As experiential educators, we must act as advocates. Just like the students at P.S.1 who advocate for their learning styles in a classroom, educators must find positive ways to demonstrate the less tangible successes of students and quantify these breakthroughs. There are ways to bring this form of education into the spotlight and show that it can have tangible, quantifiable outcomes for students. Will you be an advocate for experiential education?
As educators, we have busy schedules in addition to our personal lives. Acting as an advocate for experiential education does not necessarily bind you to huge research projects (although we need folks out there to do this work as well). We as educators can advocate for our field in simple ways. First, we can act as allies. Our students need careful facilitation in order to successfully learn and they also need allies; someone to stand strong with them through success and failure. They need someone who questions why they failed, but also looks beyond the student to question, "Why might our system have failed you?"
Second, as advocates, we must keep current in our field and attuned to local and national events and politics that will influence our students, schools and programs. Membership in education organizations such as AEE can give educators the opportunity to be one step ahead in addressing events and politics that shape our worlds. It also provides access to materials such as books, insurance and other timely publications at a considerable discount. As members of these organizations, we commit ourselves to a community of like-minded thinkers. There is power in community. There is a potential for change as communities grow larger and stronger.
Finally, we can be advocates by properly identifying the field of experiential education. If anyone has ever been asked what "experimental education" is, you know what I'm talking about. In order to have our field more widely accepted and valued, we must dispel myths about our field and help people outside of our community to understand what we—as experiential educators—are doing and why it is so effective when facilitated properly. While telling people about our field can be helpful, we all know that there is nothing more powerful than involving someone in the actual experience. If you have the opportunity, invite curious people into the classroom or into the field to explore experiential education—experientially.
If students at P.S.1 Charter School in Denver can do it, so can we.
