At the heart of any classroom culture lies a set of beliefs that shape how it functions.  These may be implicit beliefs, rarely discussed or even thought about, but they are real and shape student behavior profoundly.  For us to reshape the culture, then, we must reshape those beliefs.

The paradigm shift discussed in the last chapter cannot be imposed on students;  it cannot happen unless they freely buy into it. We have to find a way to come to consensus with them on a series of fundamental beliefs that often contradict much of what they have experienced in school.  Creating that consensus requires real effort — we are challenging some deeply held beliefs, after all — and an investment in time, particularly at the start of the year, is essential.

Students must do the internal work of challenging their current understanding of school and creating a new internal vision of what it could be instead.  There is no shortcut; you cannot do this work for them. These beliefs cannot be taught like more content. They are too personal, too internal. Students must think and write about them, converse and even argue about topics they have probably never explored in school before. When a critical mass of students come to consensus on these beliefs, this new way of thinking gets woven into the very fabric of the classroom culture, not superimposed on top of it.

The topics of conversation

Here are some of the discussions students will need to have to begin to believe in and participate in the new paradigm. 

• An authentic vision of school.  The Curriculum Transfer Model is probably all your students have ever known.  Shifting from that approach to the Student Growth Model requires them to challenge their understanding of the fundamental purpose of school.  It’s best to start with the big picture. “Why are schools for? Why am I doing this work? What does any of this have to do with my life?” In most classrooms, these questions are rarely, if ever, discussed.  

All too many students believe that the purpose of school is to “cover” the curriculum.  What they experience is a stream of disjointed concepts (think Boyle’s Law or the Hawley-Smoot Tariff) that have little or nothing to do with their lives.  Students chafe at being told what to do all day long, and they resent having to do busywork. Furthermore, the act of learning is often an impersonal activity.  It is as though the only part of them that matters in school is their ability to successfully master the curriculum. In other words, for too many students, school feels inauthentic.

The good news is that, even though students may initially have a wide range of reactions to our new approach — from fearful confusion to outright cynicism — it has the strong advantage of being more authentic in their eyes than much of what they have experienced in school thus far.  Once it becomes clear that there is an honest, legitimate reason to do the work of learning, the educational process becomes much more interesting and meaningful to them.

• The primacy of genuine learning.  For many students, particularly successful ones, the biggest challenge will be replacing their well-established habits of doing school — going through the motions of learning and gaming the system to get good grades — with a healthier and more responsible attitude towards learning.  The paradigm shift we are seeking requires them to recognize that doing school is a meaningless waste of time. They must believe that there are essential skills and knowledge they need to live the kinds of life they want, and that the only way to master those goals is to genuinely learn them.

• The importance of who they are.  When students come to believe that they themselves —who they are becoming in school, how it is preparing them for life — is as important a goal as the content they are learning, they will often embrace the new paradigm. The focus on their personal growth is a powerful draw.  Being adolescents, it is common and completely age appropriate for them to be preoccupied with acquiring their adult identities. The usefulness of the character traits discussed in the last chapter is self-evident to many students. Making the acquisition of those traits one of the highest priorities, making your class more of a voyage of self-discovery, can therefore be very appealing to them.

• Relying on the intrinsic drive. In my experience, students are well aware of the power grades have to distort their motivation in school.  To become intrinsically motivated, they must believe there is an alternative to the usual game they play in school.  Like many people, they will be initially skeptical of the idea that they have an intrinsic drive to learn and excel for the sheer pleasure it.  But they know they have such motivation for other non-academic activities — so why not in this class as well?

• Becoming a community of self-directed learners.  For the Student Agency Model to work, it is necessary for every person to take responsibility for his own learning, but that is not sufficient. Every person must also contribute to the success of everyone else in the class.  Unlike most of their experience in school, in which they are in competition with other students, they must now become aware of and work for the good of the group. As discussed in the last chapter, the sense of belonging to a community has a powerful effect on student motivation and well-being.

The mechanics of these early conversations with your students, as well as other aspects of establishing the classroom culture, are discussed in depth in a separate reading, “Starting the Year”.

Guidelines for the conversations

No matter what the topic being discussed, the initial conversations should begin with students exploring and expressing their own point of view about school.  What has their experience of school been? What has helped them learn and grow? What has been counterproductive or meaningless? Giving them permission to speak candidly in your presence can be a liberating experience for them, and it establishes the first steps in building a working relationship that is based on mutual trust.  

It is essential to give students a voice in these discussions, but it is also necessary to give that voice some structure and some limits.  Exploring these topics can be uncomfortable for some students. Others, particularly those who resent school or feel oppressed by it, will want to push the envelope by testing your willingness to allow an honest conversation.  Others will want to take this opportunity to express their grievances about how they have been treated in school. Your patience and your resolve to have honesty in your classroom must be combined with clear boundaries about what productive and respectful conversation looks like.  The role modeling of such discussions can be critically important.

Exploring these topics is often best accomplished in small discussion groups, so that even reticent students will be more comfortable opening up and participating.  Some students in each group will also likely be comfortable relating their group’s ideas to the whole class, and in that way, everyone can be involved in trying to get to consensus.  

Once the realities of school — from their perspective — have been explored, students need an opportunity to think about how to improve it.  If they could make school perfect, what would it look like? You may have to remind them that there are essential skills and knowledge that they must learn to live a good life.  In other words, they should start from the premise that in an ideal world there will still be school and they will still need to learn, but that it doesn’t have to be the way it is now.

How would they address the shortcomings that they experience in school?  How would they make it more meaningful? The real impact of these conversations occurs when they begin to see that there are real, practical ideas that can be implemented to make school a much, much better experience.

SOME WORKING ASSUMPTIONS