Blogg-Ed Indetermination

Ask the average elementary school teacher what she teaches and she will tell you the grade level or ages of her students.

Ask the average middle school or upper school teacher what she teachers and she will likely respond with the name of her course or her department.

In the best of circumstances, an elementary teacher connects knowledge across the range of subjects taught in her classroom. Vocabulary and spelling words relate to what’s happening in science and social studies, which in turn relate to what’s happening in reading, which relates to the problems students are solving in math, and so on. “Departments” don’t exist. The boundaries between subject areas are fluid and permeable. Knowledge exists and is created without regard to departmental “ownership.”

In secondary schools, the academic model is one of specialization, fragmentation, and territoriality. The boundaries between knowledge are fixed, with little attempt to coordinate learning within or between disciplines. Knowledge is owned by individuals and departments, and don’t you dare teach something in your class that belongs in mine.

I will acknowledge that the above is a generalization. But it is also more true than false. And I think it says a lot about schools, school organization, and the challenges in creating 21st century learning environments.

A few common threads run through all of the thinking regarding 21st century teaching and learning: the need for creating knowledge through connecting information in new ways, seeing the “big picture,” and collaborating across disciplines.

Where, I ask you, do these things happen in the typical secondary school? Where are students asked to think outside the boxes and silos represented by academic departments? At best there’s articulation within an department regarding a scope and sequence relevant to a given subject area. At worst, we all do our own thing and let the chips fall where they may. Ironic, isn’t it, that so many teachers crave colleagues, friendship, and connection yet rarely take time to visit one another’s classrooms.

Interdisciplinary courses hold hope for addressing some of the needs of 21st century learners, but only if the teachers themselves are willing to exhibit the same type of creative, connection-making, big picture thinking we expect of students. In other words, offering an interdisciplinary course wherein faculty take turns teaching their discipline-oriented “take” on a problem or theme without regard to the whole will not work.

In Daniel Pink’s wonderful book, A Whole New Mind (Amazon citation), he talks about six senses necessary for students to succeed in the future: design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning. Of these six, it’s symphony that is threatened by the structure of academic departments. Pink describes symphony as big picture thinking, synthesizing and integrating disparate bits of information and creating something new.

As Albert Einstein famously said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Why, then, do we think we can lead students to 21st century thinking skills using the same academic structures of the past two hundred years?

We all know how difficult it is to change schools. If I was certain that teachers and administrators would or could rethink how departments could facilitate rather than inhibit the changes necessary for 21st century teaching and learning to flourish, I would continue to support them. But we don’t have time for evolutionary change to take place. The time is right for us abolish academic departments and think more broadly about learning, teaching, and the challenges that face our children and their future.