A group Americans showed up at my place of employment today. They had arrived in the Netherlands on Saturday for a one week trip in which they are promoting a concept called “Big Picture Learning”. Among those Americans was Elliot Washor, who was introduced to us as the founding father of the BPL concept. He had an hour to inform us on the ideas behind BPL, but instead I was met with a sermon-like speech on how the current educational system has it all wrong and why his way is better.
For one, teachers and schools nowadays don’t take the interests of our students seriously. We should let them do what they most want to do, because those are the times they’re learning something. This is why BPL talks about Learning Through Internships/Interests or LTIs (oh, how we love acronyms). Essentially, students at BPL schools spend time at an internship twice a week. This internship is chosen on the basis of the student’s interests.
Secondly, schools assume that learning is a linear process and hence don’t tolerate students who work faster or slower than normal. BPL should have another approach to this, but I haven’t figured out what that is yet. Except, of course, that the classes of students at a BPL school are small (approximately 10 students) and that they get most of their subjects from one teacher. Especially the last characteristic is something that already happens at the department of my school that I work at for the more at-risk pupils.
Standardized tests are not exactly their cup of tea over at the MET short for Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center. They are big fans of something called authentic assessment, which basically entails showing a group of experts what you’ve worked on in an exhibition or building a portfolio.
I got the chance to ask a student from the MET some questions. She is in her junior year, so next year she’ll be a senior. I asked her whether she would have to take the SATs. She told me she, indeed, needed to take them; these BPL schools aren’t exempted from standardized testing. So, the core subjects with their core curriculums have to be taught. This is what happens during the other three days in a school week.
Lastly, the principle of BPL relies heavily on the advisor of a group. This person needs to be one-hundred per cent dedicated to the job and to the students. There is no place for cutting corners and for only showing up because you get paid.
The ideology behind all this is nice, I guess. However, these schools are new schools with small classes and are not to be compared to most of the classes at my school – on the contrary. Group sizes are getting bigger and bigger due to governments cuts on education while the pressure is on individualizing education making a difference for “on kid at a time”. School management has already taken up this ideology and made some large adaptations to our system. So, on the one hand Mr. Washor was preaching to a choir, while I remained a non-believer.
Imagining the Big Picture
