Deconstructing Dragsters: What we NEED to want for Students

I remember driving past the Los Angeles Fairplex in Pomona, California when I was a kid and hearing the roar of dragsters racing at the speedway. It was hard to imagine that something could go that fast, or be that loud. I would sit in the backseat of our Volkswagen Vanagon – driving at a considerably slower speed – imagining what it must be like to be strapped to a rocket powered car, just inches off the concrete. I figured that’s what a dragster was. I was eight.

Now, when I think about driving past that same speedway, I can’t help but see the parallel between drag racing and the way we teach kids – the way we operate our schools. So far as I can tell, dragsters do just one thing: They go from point A to point B as fast as possible. They always travel in a straight line, and the races never last more than a few seconds. Isn’t that exactly the way schools approach learning most of time with students? Point them in the same direction, drill them with the same standards, and push for them to flawlessly regurgitate the information in the spring on a standardized test – end of the race. Like the dragster, we go all-out for a few moments, moving as fast as possible in one direction. Then we move back to the starting line and do it again. We never get anywhere but where we started.

Now, to be fair, dragsters are remarkably good at what they do. But, try to get a dragster to change directions while it is blazing down the track, or to overcome even the slightest obstacle, and it isn’t pretty. We’ve built students to be just like those dragsters. They are high performance machines. They can memorize, organize, classify and regurgitate with speed and ease. The only problem is, we’ve prepared them for success on a quarter mile, straight track. They only move in one direction: the “is this going to be on the test” direction. Ask them to change directions and they crash.

If your organization or school is like most other schools in the country, you probably have something in your mission statement about “lifelong learners” or “preparing students for college and career.” These aren’t bad aspirations, we just aren’t building the right “cars” for the job. So what do we do? If we carry our analogy just a bit further, I think the answer is to strip down the dragster, salvage the parts, and start to build a rally car instead. Think about it: A rally car won’t beat the dragster on a quarter mile track, but it moves quick enough. On the other hand, what it lacks in all-out speed it more than makes up for in versatility. Rally cars can handle difficult conditions, challenging obstacles, and infinite changes in direction – they are built to handle anything that the course might throw at them. Isn’t what what we want for students? Isn’t that what the rapidly changing world will demand of them in order to be successful? If you are being honest with yourself, the answer is “yes.”

And there’s the rub . . .

You can’t build an effective rally car on a quarter mile track. If we want to truly prepare students for the future, we need to take a broader look at what it means to be “successful.” We need to move beyond a conversation about the test, and look at authentic proofs of student learning (digital portfolios anyone?). Now, I know what you are thinking: Easy for this guy to say, but it’ll be a different story when his school’s test scores drop and he has to answer for it. Well . . . This year my school’s test scores did drop. And yet, I believe we are closer to authentic learning than we have ever been. Sure, put our little rally cars on the quarter mile track and they probably will finish in last place. But that’s just it – we are preparing students for something different. We are preparing them to be innovative problem identifiers AND problem solvers. We are teaching them to work collaboratively, to think creatively, and to innovate. We are teaching them to attack problems critically, rather than regurgitate facts that they have memorized. We are preparing them for the versatility they will need for life.

So, if we want to get serious about student “success” we need to take a look at our classrooms and ask ourselves if they reflect the realities of the world our students will be moving into. Are they interdisciplinary? Do they tackle real problems? Do they give students the opportunity (and challenge) of working with other people? Do they embrace the internet and social networking? Are they based on questions that can’t easily be answered with a Google search? To look at it another way, ask yourself this: Do you know of any job that pays people to do math worksheets, or write 5-paragraph essays about the novel that they are reading? Probably not. Are these same activities happening daily in your school? Probably.

Now, I’m not saying that the skill of writing, or doing basic math, isn’t important – these are critically important skills. But content without a relevant context is pointless. Without the “why” we are still just sitting on the quarter mile track, pretending to have a different car.

So here’s my challenge to all those leaders out there . . .

This year, when you make your “Smart Goals” or “WIGS” (Wildly Important Goals) or whatever else it is that you use to chart the course for the year, don’t start by looking within the walls of your school. Don’t look for the ways you can improve your test scores in math, or the proficiency levels of your subgroups. Don’t get me wrong, those are valid concerns that administrators and leaders need to address. But don’t start there. Start instead by looking outside your campus. Look at the world your students (and you) are living in, and look at the trends that suggest where industries are moving. In other words, take a look at the terrain your students will be racing.

Then get to work building that rally car.