Inside Two Schools Where Personalized Learning Comes Alive

Every time Education Reimagined sends an email letting you know of a Learning Lab site visit, my heart jumps.

I have had the chance to visit with them three very different places, with lots of things to unpack, but as I summarise it every time they ask us, What do you think? I say, A lot! All good.

But let me tell you more. This time the Lab took us to Denver, Colorado. We visited two learning communities, because they are so much more than schools!

Our first stop was the Jefferson County Open School. It’s a dynamic environment, to put it shortly—so dynamic it looks like thoughtful, organized chaos. Each learner’s schedule changes every day, but it’s not so much that the schedule is disrupted as that this is the norm. Each learner follows his or her interests, guided by an Advisor who is key in the process of going through Six Passages to graduate. Keep reading, I promise it makes sense and is worth it!

The five goals of the school are everywhere on the walls, but also in every staff member and learner you meet:

• Rediscover the joy of learning

• Seek meaning in life

• Adapt to the world as it is

• Prepare for the world that might be

• Create the world as it ought to be

One thing is to read them on the wall; another is to see them in the learners. You can feel the CARE and the TRUST, which makes me wonder: we adults sometimes think TRUST should be earned, but not CARE. Children deserve CARE, and they deserve TRUST. At Open School they are trusted—a whole lot of trust is given to them. That is the starting point. Can you see it? Can you picture yourself as a child being trusted first? And given choices? And trusted that you would choose well, own your mistakes, and try again?

How do you build a place like this? I’m not sure there is a recipe without a secret ingredient or ingredients. I feel I would need a year inside the school just to start to grasp the magic of this place. As I heard in the hallways, when you see youth not living to their full potential, it is just a matter of time; they will soon be thriving seniors who know what their passions are and what they are good at. Time is on our side, as a Montessori guide I know would have said.

Each learner meets with an Advisor who knows him or her very well. They meet and meet and meet and meet, and CARE about each other. Here, they find someone who CARES about them and the path they are exploring. This is the end of the thread, or the beginning of the matter, of a relationship that will continue for years. It is part of the key to personalizing learning, one by one, so that this care and trust turn into the learner’s development of a love of learning. A lifelong learner is born through it, and it cannot be undone. That is the beauty of it.

Walkabouts. Can you imagine the school you went to telling you to go ahead and leave school and find something that interests you? And then come back and tell your Advisor about it, and work together to pursue your interests, or decide they are not what you expected?

This fluid way of approaching learning—being able to unbox it like Russian dolls, where one might take you somewhere else, to something else, yet you want to continue. Or like a web, where weaving takes you from a starting point to building the whole picture. All along, looking at the world and going through six learner-designed passages:

Adventure Passage
Career Exploration Passage
Creativity Passage
Global Awareness Passage
Logical Inquiry Passage
Practical Skills Passage

What it all proves is that learning is not linear, and that if a learner does not own some or most of his or her learning journey, it will never be truly his or hers. Thus, it will never spark a love of learning—an essential skill in this ever-changing world.

The second place we visited had a beauty of its own: New Legacy Charter School. When they say they serve two generations of learners, they mean it. They are open to all high school students, with a special focus on meeting the needs of teen parents (male and female) and their children ages 0–5. But other learners choose them because they are exactly that—an open, caring school.

Community is wrapped around them. That is the feeling you get when you walk through both wings: the day care and the place where learners, again, meet one on one with their Advisors at least twice a day! This is about their journey, and the adults around them are here to serve—to serve them the best possible way—so they can be not one thing but many: caring parents, caring adults, caring professionals, caring changemakers.

Among the many different things, you will see learners aim to accomplish:

Text comprehension and analysis
Research, inquiry, and digital/media literacy
Writing for different purposes
Cooperative learning and discussion
Facilitating and presenting

These are all skills that are developed, not grades to go after.

Quantitative reasoning
Perseverance in problem solving
Abstract and quantitative thinking
Mathematical reasoning and argumentation

And on and on.

It is about them finding out what they are capable of, and how they can develop skills—not about a fixed journey that does not fit their needs, not about completing a grade card for the sake of “finishing” high school. It is about walking alongside them in their quest to find meaning in what they are learning.

So you see, it can be done. It is out there. It is brewing. A new personaliezd, caring, learner-centred education is happening. And it is making sure they become their best selves.