Ask and you shall Recieve

Planning curriculum is by far the most inspiring aspect of teaching. It is the autonomy and mastery in curriculum planning that gives us teachers an identity and is the central piece of the elaborate mosaic.   After all, my years in education have taught me that when learning is purposeful, all the other aspects of teaching (that we sometimes invest too much time and energy on like classroom management) do fall into place. However, we should make no mistake; units that are purposeful and relevant don't come easy. Like chemists we find ourselves mixing together the ingredients: the student autonomy and choice,  teacher- directed instruction and delivery, the identification of a real problem,  and the creating of a real authentic product. All these elements have to blend together and their dosage differs from one unit to another and is subject to various trials and errors.

For instance, for these last two years I've been seeking the magic formula for a unit about water scarcity for my Grade 9 Humanities class. Lima is the second largest city in a desert after Cairo and its water resources are quickly dwindling. In fact, in the last thirty years the Peruvian mountain glaciers alone have experienced a 21% shrinkage. On top of this, 40% of the freshwater supplies that reach Lima are wasted either due to leaking pipes or water mismanagement. Moreover, fresh water in the Rimac has been contaminated with mining residue. All these issue added up to the rapid population growth resulting from a high influx of migrants from the poorer regions in Peru, make this complex.

When I planned this unit, last year, I felt that is was way too contrived since the lessons were mostly teacher-driven and discussed a wide range of topics related to water scarcity. With all my good intentions, I realized that I needed to give up control.

So this year, in an attempt to revamp this unit, I reached out to my colleagues and Sonja Bleeker who works for a local NGO, Aguafondo. Together we devised a skeleton for a unit that would require students to address Lima's water scarcity by:

          *Identifying one specific contributor factor to water scarcity in Lima
          *Identifying and evaluating a solution that can address the problem

Solutions brainstormed by students

For their summative assessment, students would write an online article that raises awareness about the difference causes of water scarcity in Lima and sheds light on the viability of their chosen solution. The best articles would be published on Peru This Week.

Obviously, one of the biggest challenges was finding data. Unfortunately, the community in Lima seems to be quite unaware of the magnitude of this problem and there is not so much information out there. So students would be required to use their inference skills by looking at different data from other countries and applying that knowledge to Lima. However, it was clear that in order to get a good grasp of the real costs and the benefits of complex solutions we would need the help from experts.

So we reached out for help and sure enough the experts came to our rescue. Sonja and her colleague, Oscar Nunez from Aquafondo came to school and provided essential data to help us articulate the problems that students had identified.

Moreover, students evaluating complex solutions had the possibility to Skype with Julien Noel, one of the creators of the water billboard and meet with Eduardo Gold, the award winning inventor of glacier painting. We also had parents lend a helping hand: Ernesto Cordova who works in a private desalination plant helped students make estimates on the cost of the implementation and the maintenance of such on a local scale.

Most of these interactions took place last week and I was glad to witness a high level of engagement from the student's side. After all, they are trying to tackle complex issues, the same issues that the experts who visited them are trying to address. Hence, it's relevant.

Yesterday, after the meeting with Jaime Del Solar, Fernando, one of my students, said something that resonated with me. "Both costs and benefits are very valid. This is stressful because I don't which side to take. This is really complicated." Indeed, Fernando, came to the realization that when dealing with complexity there are a lot of gray areas. The answers cannot be found on a textbook and the best thing one can do is to use his/her ingenuity to best address the problem at hand with all its implications.

It is this type of experiential learning that breaks down the barriers between the classroom and the real world...and real world problems require real world experts.