How Can Choice Be Given?

If it is accepted as reasonable that we give students choice we might then consider two ends of a spectrum of how to do that. Both approaches require an investment. One in planning, one in waiting. One is initially directed by the teacher, the other is only initiated by the learner. They may result in the same end: enhanced learning. The root or genesis of it differs and so too may the long term effect upon the student’s role in learning in the future.

One means of including choice within curriculum is to engineer the program so no mistakes or waste is possible. Both content and process skills might be delivered in parallel courses which each have a unique thematic base. For instance, specific and basic state requirements in chemistry, biology and physics might be taught through the study of food. They might just as easily be address through environmental studies or an expanded study of astronomy and space exploration. In this case the curriculum designers require students to take courses from set pools of courses with common outcomes. Whether the student takes food science, environmental studies or astronomy they come out understanding the process of science and the basic content knowledge of the foundational disciplines.

Anarchists and free schoolers insist upon initiative from the learner. The learner must exhibit an interest in something. When they do, the adult fans the spark by providing resources (materials, tools, experts) which leverage the interest into productive study. For example, a typical juvenile interest in blowing things up leads to soda bottle rockets to making things from found objects to making musical instruments to a visit to a luthier’s workshop and mastery of banjo playing and composing original music on Garage Band. This leads to college freshman studies in the anthropology of tools and a semester’s worth of philosophical focus on Aeolian wind harps.

The extent to which choice is given in this discussion is dependent upon the desired outcome. Are there set standards to which we must work, say state curriculum requirements? If so, perhaps the engineered choice is preferable. If on the other hand, we can ignore outside demands or choose to set them aside in faith that a full experience will flower from our dynamic and vigilant attention to learner interests, we may prefer the second approach. The second approach most scaffolds a student in developing initiative based upon something that comes to mind. In the first case we may yet need to engineer another experience that takes the learner to the next level , that of independent inquiry.