Introduction

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I am good at school. This is a fundamentally different statement from, I did well in school and therefore I will do a great job working for you. ...Being good at school is fine if you intend to do school forever. (Godin, p. 47) I was always pretty good at doing school. I prided myself in navigating my way through a system that I wasnt born into. I pushed myself to do the homework, to study for the tests, to write the essays, and my teachers lauded my efforts. Their positive reinforcement fueled me, and I went on to achieve the goal I had long set out for myself: I was the first in my family to attend college. I learned much more at U.C. Berkeley, but my biggest lesson came upon graduation. School was over. Now, what could I be good at? I felt a little bit like Esther Greenwood1 as I first wallowed through a summer internship, but then just... didnt... know... what to be GOOD at anymore. I knew better than to go back to school. I needed to learn how to get a little better at life. It was hard. I didnt know where to start, and I wondered whyafter so much schoolingI didnt feel as connected to the world as I should have been. I prided myself in being resilient and coated with the grit to get me through anything. But, when autumn came and I no longer needed to sign up for classes, I felt a little lost. I knew it would be hard to bid adieu to school. But, Id ruled out doing more of it. I kne w this would be a cop-out. I needed to learn to grow up and step outside the comfortable bubble of school life. My transition wasnt as automatic as I had naively envisioned. Life was very real and very hard. I learned quickly that the field I initially chose to work in wasnt for me and had to redirect myself. I floundered for a while, working as a waitress and (per a friends recommendation) a substitute teacher. Although I was reluctant to get back into the game of school, I did know how to play... but, not on the opposing team. Months later, I found myself in a long-term position at an alternative middle school. These kids werent down for the game. They wanted the real deal and wouldnt accept anything less. When I asked them what they thought about school, an eighth-grader cried out in frustration, I just want to LEARN something! Im here all day, but I dont know anything!
1

Esther Greenwood is the protagonist of Sylvia Plaths The Bell Jar who felt displaced after graduating college. I related to this aspect of her life more so than her creators fascination with ovens.

He did, of course. He knew what he liked, what he didnt. He thought Little Rascals was great, but Napoleon Dynamite was stupid. He had seen his family and friends make poor decisions. He knew what he didnt like about school, and he pushed me to rethink the way school could be. What should we be learning in a classroom? I wasnt sure just yet, but I knew that I did have job to do... These kids did want to learn, but didnt know how. I decided that I would lead them off this knowledge-deprived island and on an adventurous voyage into The Curriculum. I was a fabulous tour guide I took that curriculum map and pepped it up, explained it out, and maneuvered deftly through it. Most days, the kids were willing to play because they welcomed the novelty. For the most part, I felt like I did everything I could to own that curriculum and that classroom. After my time there, I enrolled in a teaching credential program and accepted a position teaching 10th and 12th grade English. The difference between the two creatures was stark. Tenth-graders still got excited about things; twelfth-graders evaluate things. They have a broader perspective of the school system. They felt like they owned the school, but not themselves. I could not be their tour guide; they were natives of this island and knew it better than I. They knew the shortcuts, the side streets, and how to arrive at their destination without wasting time. I wanted more for them. I wanted them to feel like their time herein the presentwas valuable. I desperately wanted to save them from floundering as I did. I started to wonder how to engage students in a way that was more than just a distracting cloak over disconnected content. What did they want to learn? When did they stop crying out, I just wanna learn something!? Id gotten a bit lost in my fervency to lead students to success and started to think further about the role I asked students to play in their own learning. Could I remain someone real who was truly connected to her students? Someone who would make sure kids were learning the things they ached to know? Seniors are tough. They can be a frustrating lot, and deceptively so. As Nancy Sizer has noted, they often start the year with a superhero-like mindset. The last few years are behind them, and this year, theyll be different (Sizer, 2002). They will play the game HARD. Until they dont. And they question why it exists at all. This is especially true of students at High Tech High International. When I began my time in my current position, everything I did was scrutinized. This time, however, it wasnt that they werent willing to play the game. They just wanted a really good one. I was their project designer, and once I revealed my fantastical plan to them, it was up for evaluation. If it was good, they charged through it (for the most part); if it was deemed bad, I dragged them through it, feeling miserable all the while. I am in my third year teaching seniors at High Tech High International, and Id like more from my students than to evaluate the work they are asked to do. I want them to create the work they wish to do. Not only do I wish this for them, but I believe it is a necessity. As writer and entrepreneur Seth Godin noted in Linchpin, his brilliant call for indispensability, there are simply no more jobs for the cogs. I must teach students not just to evaluate the validity of a project, but empower them to create a project that we can both agree is a powerful piece of arta gift not just for the

learner who realized his own capabilities through the process of creating it, but for the intended recipient of the gift. PBL (project-based learning) offers this experience so long as I am not using the project to push kids through a pre-designed system of manufacture. Otherwise, its the same old factory. Id love to bring this idea into my students brains and help them to see school as not a factory, but as their laboratory. They should feel at home as scientists who take risks to determine what might work. In order to create the space for students to learn to do this, I must allow them to feel safe, acknowledge what they contribute, and applaud their efforts to ship the beautiful, as well as the less-beautiful artifacts, of learning forward. Otherwise, I have DONE school to them. When they cross the stage, they will wonder why that carrot of a diploma doesnt make them feel any different. Its the actthe artof what they can explore in our schools that will enable them to become the linchpins they can be. In my research, I have been inspired by those like Godin and Alfie Kohn, who insist that school can be the first opportunity for a student to experience the democratic world we live in, and the indispensable role that he or she plays in it. Its an opportunity to come together to determine how we might change the world around us, and, in turn change ourselves. This takes time, however. Students must learn not only to do projects, but how to design them. In the next year, I intend to explore what happens when these seniors not only do PBL, but when they create it. Will it change the way they view school? Will it change the way they understand their own potential? What will they choose to do? How will we stumble through it together? What happens when 12th-graders co-design a project? I was both terrified and exhilarated to find out.