Art/Library Redux

The cover article in the February 15th Chronicle of Higher Education is about a pilot curriculum at James Madison University that reads and reminds me very much of our 10-week Art/Library classes in years past when middle school students determined and scheduled a group project (ex. - contact and survey all the Aftons in the US, created designs to supplement a school building project, etc.), researched information through interviews, articles, and surveys, and ultimately presented their findings/prototypes in a public forum. Basically, content was "the excuse" to dicover and apply a host of skills. It was like allowing and guiding a start-up corporation; learning and practicing skills as they became necessary, coming together to report-out and assess progress and dead-ends, and practicing "how to get things done" in the real world.

At JMU:

In practical terms, JMU students are expected to read widely and interview extensively — as many as 50 people over the course of the semester, including those from the groups they’re helping and from related organizations, fields, and industries. That exploration will, ideally, equip them to clearly define the problem they want to tackle, come up with possible solutions, then create prototypes and test them out. Throughout the semester they will also take detailed notes on their readings and their ideas so that the information can be turned over to their community partners at the end of the semester.

Becoming a facilitator, ceding classroom direction but maintaining expectations, recognizing incremental creativity and initiative, and keeping it real are the challenges at JMU as they were at ACS. It takes practice to foment an atmosphere where failure and misdirection begin to be recognized as pathways to understanding and growth.

Nice to know it is happening somewhere ... and with the same bottom line:

"It wasn’t so much about the grade you’re getting, but it’s about being able to think in a whole new way," says McLucas, who plans to continue her work after graduation with the nonprofit in Virginia Beach where she was a volunteer. "There was no right answer. Some of them were bad and some of them were good. The main thing was there wasn’t an answer the professor was trying to lead me to."