I was doing project based learning in place before PBL even had a name.
I grew up in northern New York, in a small city on Lake Ontario. We lived in a two-story older home that was painted a light sunny yellow. But what I remember most from our home were the two humungous century-old maple trees that grew in the front yard, whose leaves turned from green to fiery red every autumn. That sight alone would be enough to be memorable, but what they represented was much more profound. They represented learning.
At breakfast one day, our Dad told us that those very trees were the maple syrup source. My brother and I, at ages 7 & 8, didn’t believe him. Rather than just brush it off, he came up with a very clever idea – “Let’s make our own maple syrup!”, he said excitedly.
He showed us how to pound a metal kazoo into one of those majestic trees, at a slight downward angle, and then hung a silver pail over the metal part on top. “Now you watch, as it gets warmer, how the tree sap runs into the pail. Then he let us do the same of the second tree. “When those pails get full, we will boil it down to make our own syrup,” said Dad, excitedly. Every day, first thing in the morning, we checked the pail, and sure enough, the pail began to fill with clear sticky sap. At school, I charged to the library to teach myself about trees and sap. At last, my Mom reduced the gallons of sap for about 30 hours at a simmer until it turned golden brownish amber. Our sap made only a pint of syrup, but the excitement on Sunday morning was palpable. Pancakes, sausage, and our miraculous syrup. From a tree. Who knew?
Educators have that same opportunity every day – to ignite curiosity and create student agency through the gift of Deeper Learning.
How can educators continue the gift of project based learning in place to students? In many ways, but here are a few that will help get them started down the path:
- Get to know what they’re excited about! Ask your students some simple questions that will reveal a passion: What makes you unique; What are you doing when you feel best about yourself, and why? Everyone has talents. What are your best ones?
- Once they identify their passions, ask them to write five things they wish they knew more about them.
- Have an advisory session with the student. Together, create a project that would bring incremental learning about their passion. How do they gather that learning? Many different ways:
- Find mentors that are experienced in that passion. Write to them, and ask to interview them.
- Do online research. Look historically to see where the passion began. Look sociologically to see how that passion has impacted society. Learn what the future of the passion looks like and how it will get there.
- Ask other students who share that passion to join the project. Learn leadership, collaboration, and creative ideation.
If a Kazoo can be the impetus of a new way of learning, so can the myriad of other things that surround us. All that’s needed to get started is the educator’s gift and guidance of Deeper Learning. That is a gift that teachers can give to students that lasts a lifetime.
