Now that the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS, is no longer a graduation requirement, we have an opportunity to do an assessment of the ways in which we educate our students and to consider making changes to better serve all of them. One model to look at and learn from is Big Picture Learning and its flagship school, Metropolitan Regional Career And Technical Center, or the Met, in Providence, Rhode Island.
In 1994, veteran educators Dennis Littky and Elliot Washor were asked by the Rhode Island commissioner of education to design and run a school and were given carte blanche; they could design and run it however they wanted. Recent surveys of high school students had made clear that way too many of the students found school to be boring, anxiety-producing and irrelevant to their lives. Littky and Washor were determined that the school they created would be focused on the interests and passions of the students, would provide a safe and supportive space, and would be the opposite of boring. What they created was the Met, which opened in 1996.
Littky described their process. Elliot and I asked ourselves: “If we didn’t know schools existed, what would we create? How do we engage students so school isn’t boring? How do we create an environment where they can go deep into their learning?” Littky and Washor brought in students to share their thoughts about school and concluded that the nature of learning is about relationships, relevance and rigor, which further guided their design.
One student at a time
The Met program centers around the notion that each student is at the center of their own learning experience. The primary goal of the program is to support the students to develop the skills and confidence to be lifelong learners, prepared to succeed in whatever direction they choose. Students learn through projects, through extended exploration of topics that interest them, through course work aligned with their interests. They create and communicate their research findings through public presentations, exhibitions or reports that resemble the ways in which assessment happens in the “real world.”
Advisory
A key value of the Met is relationships, which are fostered and supported through advisories. Each student is part of an advisory for all four years, working with the same teacher and the same cohort of students. The advisory becomes very much a home base supporting each student as they move through the program. While students each have individual learning plans that they develop working with their advisor, they are all on pathways and moving through the process of education together, and there is support on academic, social and emotional, and practical levels through those relationships.
One of the key features of the individualized learning plan is that it is built around what the student wants to explore. As Littky says: “We start from the child and build the curriculum around their interests and passions. We put less emphasis on learning facts and more on learning how to think and how to do.”
Internships
Internships are central to the learning approach practiced at the Met. Washor refers to it as “leave to learn.” Students, with guidance, go through a process of acquiring an internship site and a mentor and spend two days a week working at that site, carrying out a learning program developed in consultation with their advisor and their on-site mentor. The coursework they do at school is integrated with their exploration of this real-world work. Some students may explore several different fields as they move through their educational sequence, exploring a different interest if the first one proved less interesting or satisfying than they’d hoped.
At the end of their learning sequence students make a public presentation of their learning, with their advisor, mentor, family members, classmates and the public in attendance, sharing their experience and learning, and this is a significant part of their assessment.
Families
One other aspect of the Met is the involvement of families. Families play a very active role in their students’ experience, from their initial application essays (a family member writes one as well), to the development of the learning plan, to being involved in school decision making, and attending performances, exhibitions and presentations. The goal is for families and the school to work together in support of the student’s educational growth and experience.
Does this work?
The Met is celebrating its 30th year this year. For many students and faculty, it is a gift that keeps on giving. Helping each student to discover and investigate their interests and helping them to learn how to learn and to discover who they are is exciting and rewarding. For many students it is the opposite of boring. Students at the Met overall outperform students in traditional schools in their cities, have higher rates of attendance, a higher acceptance rate at colleges and in employment post-graduation. The Met has proven so successful that, with investment from the Gates Foundation and other funders it is now the flagship school of Big Picture Learning, a network of more than 275 schools across the U.S. and in other countries. All of the schools share the same basic non-negotiable principles centered on teaching one student at a time within a school context, but they are each unique according to their particular situation, staff and student population.
To be clear, Big Picture Schools, including the Met are not for everyone, students or educators. There are students who need or want more or different structure, or who are less ready for, or comfortable with having so much decision-making responsibility. Other students may want more academic rigor, especially those who have their sights set on an academic career, and others who are less enchanted by internship options. Some students want opportunities that larger schools can provide, like access to sports teams or band or orchestra, and for still others the set up and demands of Big Picture Learning schools may not fit in with the rest of their lives.
And some educators find that the responsibility required of mentors for students can be overwhelming. Many of the students at Big Picture Schools come from challenging circumstances and there are many ups and downs over the course of four years. For advisors who become very close to their advisory students, this can mean essentially serving as a parent to all of their students, which can include phone calls in the middle of the night to deal with emergencies, heavy counseling loads and all that comes with having deep relationships with teens. Burnout is a real risk and some do reach that point.
In summary, the MET and Big Picture Schools offer an intriguing approach to education that may be just right for some students. They are an important option to learn from as we consider how to best serve all of our students. While there are critics of Big Picture schools that point out concerns about rigor, or about whether students who focus more narrowly and deeply are learning all that they should. It is also painfully and undeniably clear that what we are currently doing in our traditional schools is also falling short of serving all of our children.
Littky shared what he wants his students to take with them when they leave the Met. He wants them to be lifelong learners; passionate; ready to take risks; able to problem solve and think critically; able to work independently and with others; be creative; persevere; have integrity and self-respect; have moral courage; be able to use the world around them well; speak well, write well, read well and work well with numbers; and truly enjoy their life and their work.
He and Washor designed the Met with those goals in mind, recognizing that students, while sharing the Met experience, have their own path, their own journey towards those goals. Our responsibility to our students is to offer them an educational program and environment that best fits them and supports their learning journey, and the Met has designed their programs guided by that goal. Massachusetts has recently created a portrait of a graduate, and we would do well to follow the lead of the Met by better aligning our schools with our declared goals.
Doug Selwyn taught at K-12 public schools from 1985 until 2000 and then at university as a professor of education until he retired in 2017. He is the chair of the Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution education task force. You can reach him at dougselwyn12@gmail.com.