Learning That Lasts: From Tracks to Turf

You glance toward the sidelines – the principal is the coach, and the parents are the fans. All are hopeful and very invested in your leadership. You are the quarterback with a team of students. You are at the 1-foot line, in a huddle. You remind the team of the upcoming play while you and your students take a quick glance at the goalpost – so far away. This was August.

Now, it is May. And then – the surge across the goal line. Helmets raised. Coaches and fans jumping for joy while students are dancing on the turf. Gratitude. Twenty-eight plays of projects, challenges, revisions, days that felt like you were sacked for a 20-yard loss, but team resilience paid off. Nobody was left on the bench. What a day!

When the final whistle sounds, you don’t say, “I taught it.” You say, “We learned it. All of us.”

The reporters ask you how this happened – everyone across the goal line!! You reply that in the past your playbook had only a few plays – introduce chapter, have students read chapter, homework, and chapter tests. The students never knew they were a team, they never saw the goal post, and they therefore had no idea where they were on the field. It was like we all embarked on a train in August. We were lined up just like cars on a track – no options. Of course, we had the first-class coach – these students received numerous awards, but I didn’t know what to do with the rest of the train -- especially the caboose.

But now – you explain, with the new coach, you are the quarterback with a team of students. The playbook is now infinite. You explain that you did a little research and found out that there are between 5,000 and 20,000 different plays in football. You have no idea how many plays students can create to help their learning, probably more than football!

The reporter looks confused. “How can this be?” is the question and you explain.

1. First the students are shown the goal post. In schools these are the key concepts and skills to be learned for the year. Students see this in the first week of the school year.

2. I do not have to teach all the content and skills; I only must make sure all students learn the expected content. Students are so creative when they are given the choice regarding how they are going to learn! I am not evaluated on my teaching ability; I show my coach our team’s progress continually.

3. With all of this creativity the students and I need to regularly look at the whole football field. We need evidence we have moved the learning ball 25 yards by the end of the first quarter, 50 yards by half time, 75 yards by third quarter and then all of us crash the goal line together at the end of the school year.

4. We have team meetings when progress slows down to establish learning hypotheses and we have celebrations all through the year. In real football games they call these mini-celebrations first downs, but for the classroom it is All-Time Bests, which means we are further down the field that any time previously in the school year.

5. All students graph their journey, so they know continually how they are progressing.

They can tell their parents if they are on target to meet year’s expectations, are speeding, have already met the annual expectations or what is being tried to help them catch up. Further, the quarterback teacher has posted on the classroom wall the progress for the team. The principal coach has posted near the school office the record of all classroom teams together.

The reporter asks, “What about the students who excel? Are they held back for the team?” You explain that these students can prove at any time that they know the year’s key concepts and skills before the year is over. They are given the choice of starting on the next year’s key concepts and skills or spending their time becoming an expert on an aspect of the general knowledge. For example, one student read 50 books on the Civil War and met with a local university professor to share love of common stories.

After the celebration with the team, fans and the coach, you go to a restaurant with the coach to debrief. Basically, you are full of gratitude for the coach leading you off education’s railroad track to the football turf. Joy abounds.

(Much thanks to Amy Hardy, Principal of Mountainside Middle School, Scottsdale, Arizona for the Tracks to Turf tagline.)