Just for the record, if you’re an advocate for “personalizing” learning, then you need to do more than just offer some options for how students might work their way through the curriculum.
That’s just a starting point.
If you really are serious about honoring a student’s interests and dispositions and individuality, then you’re going to have to also honor a “personalized” version of “success” and “achievement.” You’re going to need to honor what fulfills the individual, not what fulfills the institution.
I mean, remind me again the point of “personalizing” a path to “standardized” outcomes?
Of course, this requires that we seriously give up control over where a “personalized” path may lead. But in the service of developing kids as deep, curious, persistent learners, that’s a small sacrifice. Especially when being a deep, curious, persistent learner is now the coin of the realm.
Right now, we can only imagine what the experience of school might be if we put learning fully in the hands of learners.
My guess is it would be more joyful, more hopeful, more relevant than what most kids experience today.
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