In just about any school there are a handful of students who naturally goes above and beyond anything that is required in the classroom. They are building at home and on their own because they have identified something they are passionate about. Often those students are considered outliers. It is easy to think there is something innate or genetic that has pushed those students to have natural creativity and that they have succeeded despite the school system, not because of it.
The current incentive structure of the education system nudges students to do just enough to get to the next stage. More students are playing the game of school instead of building their passion. Society needs more graduates who are passionate about building solutions to the problems we are facing. We can leverage lessons from technology in the classroom to make that happen in two steps.
Step 1 - Stacking “S” Curves
The first time that a colleague explained Moore’s Law to me through the lens of s-curves my head started spinning with possible implications in education. I was familiar with the linear trend of Moore’s Law, but I had never thought to zoom in to better understand each individual technological innovation.
I assumed that this was as granular we could understand the growth of compute over the last 60 years. When my colleague drew a series of overlapping “S” curves for each new innovation, which in turn generated a linear curve, my jaw dropped.
The insight that individual innovations lose their ability to spur growth, but when combined with other innovations can create continuous growth, seemed like a game changer. I too began seeing “S” curves in everything. Specifically, in how we could use “S” curves to model student learning. In a majority of schools students stay with one teacher for a year and follow one routine to try and learn a subject. Some students find success, while many others do just enough to pass to the next class. This is where the term cram-and-dump comes into play.
A different option is for students and teachers to consider where they are on the learning “S” curve. Perhaps the student is on the cusp of accelerating their learning once they reduce the cognitive load in that particular classroom. Maybe a student has hit a plateau for that particular learning method and needs to try something new. We can identify where students are in each particular learning “S” curve by capturing their rate of learning, instead of specific snapshots that only tell us where they are in a particular moment of their life (traditional grades).
Creating a system that works for teacher, students, and the school culture that refocuses learning on stacking “S” curves is the first step. Once students can see the value in getting outside their comfort zone and have built the metacognitive skills to understand their learning velocity, then we can get their building flywheel spinning.
Step 2 - The Building Flywheel
Extraordinary students stand out because they have the intrinsic curiosity and desire to deepen their understanding of their world through building. They would build something amazing even if they didn’t get a grade for it. It just so happens that they are able to fit their passion into the game of school. This usually happens in a student because they have stumbled upon their passion. We don’t have to leave this to chance and can guide more students to identify possible passions through a structured exploration of their Ikigai.
Students shouldn’t feel pressured to know their Ikigai or to keep the same Ikigai throughout their life. They should consider the intersection of what they love, what they are good at, what the world needs, and what they can be paid for as a possible area of study that can lead to a career. As students start to learn about their Ikigai and problems/needs humans have in that area, then they have a clear reason to learn new skills and concepts. The first time they build a solution to a problem related to their Ikigai is the first rotation of their building flywheel.
Jim Collins wrote about the Flywheel Effect in Good to Great. As I have pondered why students often don’t launch into successful careers after graduation, I realized it is because students fall into a Doom Loop as they try and navigate the transition out of the artificial world of academia and into society.
To avoid that Doom Loop we must get students to do the opposite. We need to get their building flywheel spinning around a possible Ikigai as much as possible. The only way we can get students to spin their building flywheel is to give them an opportunity to solve problems they are interested in. We can’t stop at theory. We have to guide students to build actual products, research, blogs, podcast, artwork, businesses, or whatever else connects to their Ikigai. They only way they can stack “S” curves is if they have the chance to interact with different types of mentors (professionals, teachers, community members, etc.) while building solutions to problems they are passionate about. It is too scary to jump from one “S” curve to another without intrinsic motivation and support. If we can get students to ask, “What can I build next?” after every completed project, then we have accomplished the most important job of education.
Teachers and schools can’t create the system to support building flywheels and students stacking “S” curves on their own. That is why we are building Project Leo. We want to support all schools who want to better prepare their students for the ever-changing world. Sign up today.