So I did my homework.

Step 1: Back when we were all riding high on the good vibes of our first face-to-face encounter I was sure that the urgent needs of the learners in my charge boiled down to skills development: problem solving, resiliency, and making connections.

The inability of students to troubleshoot problems with their own computers stood large in my mind at the time. “How do I get a cell within Google Sheets to make a calculation based on other cells in the same sheet?” “How do I make my own original graphic to represent my ideas?” “How do I insert a Google Doc into my Google Site?” As I answered their questions I wondered why my own click-around-and-see-what-happens method had not yet occurred to my students. For the most part it is how I learned how to do what I know how to do with technology.

My observations also supported my contention that students don’t enjoy sticking with something difficult. Whether it is a stoichiometry problem to calculate, an opportunity to direct their own discovery days learning, or a new sport through which to gain fitness, heels are dragged and the voices of complaint echo most loudly. As we hit the doldrums of November there is a negative fever pitch as students get more steadfast in their desire to do only that which is easy. This as we become increasingly aware that growth does not spring forth from comfort.

Making connections has been on my mind as a deficit in our learners ever since I left the beauty of the Next Generation Science Standards behind. Their attempt to link seemingly separate subjects via crosscutting concepts has had me thinking about how I might support the same connections between separate curricula in Ontario. I have students who learn algebra but never once see how it relates the math we undertake in chemistry. We talk about pollutants in the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide, but they are considered as utterly separate from the periodic table of the elements. What does that stodgy old chart have to do with methane?

Step 2: My interview with three students took place in the week directly following our first face-to-face meeting. I interviewed one Grade 11 student and two Grade 12 students.

My first interviewee said his most urgent need was to keep his options open to ensure that he is a relevant choice for careers that do not yet exist. He said he was concerned about keeping his average up because he knows how competitive it can be to get into university. He also said that his schedule was particularly difficult, with challenging maths and sciences loaded up in the first semester. He was particularly worried that some leads he is following now might turn out to be future dead ends. He said he felt stressed out because his performance in Grades 11 and 12 could decide his whole life. He said he was nervous and constantly thinking about these ideas.

My second interviewee said he wished he had more freedom and time to do what he wanted to do instead of what he has to do. He said it would be great for him “…to know I don’t have to be somewhere.” He said that this lack of freedom, time to relax, and time to do what he enjoys is often in the back of his mind, but that he can refocus. It’s an “if only” feeling he gets. He said the boarding school pace doesn’t allow him to relax. He said he is very good at entertaining himself so he misses the free time that goes along with attending a day school. He noted that the lake here is often choppy and lamented about all the missed opportunities to windsurf.

My third interviewee said she wished she could get more homework done during class time. She also wished for more co-ed indoor spaces to permit “hanging out” in the winter when it is too cold to be outside. She said that she felt there isn’t much happening in class and she wished that teachers got to the point faster. She said she sometimes cannot work in class because she is told to “get off the computer.” Later she suggested that what is taught should be slowed down. She suggested the use of pretesting to see what everyone knows to use the data to focus on difficult topics.

Step 3: After writing the above in its entirety the sudden encouragement for brevity and the hashtag #lessismore is laughable. In some ways I’ve learned a lot and in others I’ve learned nothing from this exercise, a fact that probably requires more than a few words.

I do think that being a teenager is stressful and that those who respond to pressure and competition with concern and action are probably more pressed than ever to perform. If their level of stress is in the zone of “productive struggle” I think that’s okay. I cannot sugarcoat what will happen after K12 for students. It is competitive and it’s good that he cares now to take action to secure his future options. He appears to be resilient in the face of an uncertain future.

I agree that boarding school life can be over-programmed, especially for those who self-entertain well. About two years ago I learned about the concept of white space and how it can support creativity and innovation, two of the very things we are trying to inculcate in our learners. Wouldn’t we blink if the students organized positively around proposing an alternative to the systems put in place by the adults around them? That would be some grand problem solving indeed!

I wonder about the connections made between learning and teaching when a student tells me she wishes that teachers would both hurry up and slow down in the same five-minute interview. Perhaps the best connection we can support our learners in making is that of their role as a shaper of their own destiny, even when they are seemingly fixed within a system developed by others. To say that school is thing that is done to you as opposed to a thing that you actively construct and manipulate is the most terrifying disconnect of all.

So here we are. Where are we?