Developing Self-Directed Learners
HIGH SCHOOL
Mr. David Miles - High School Principal
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Even if he had continued in school until he turned 18 and completed Grade 12, there is no way his schooling could have prepared him with everything he needed for success throughout the years of his life. And now consider how fast the world is changing today, and imagine the potential pace of change over the next 70 years, and what that means for our HS students.
This awareness has serious implications for the role of schools in preparing young people for life. We must develop self-directed learners for whom learning is as natural and integrated as breathing. Our goal must be to make learning something that everyone appreciates, an ongoing activity as important as ensuring we have a home, food, and other essentials. Long-term success will depend not on what we know at a given moment, but on our capacity to learn and adapt as the world changes.
Many people know that “pedagogy” focuses on how children learn. There are two other recognised “-agogies” – andragogy and heutagogy (‘The Difference Between Pedagogy, Andragogy, And Heutagogy’, n.d.). In a heutagogical approach to learning, the focus is on self-directed learning and the teacher’s role is to develop the learner’s capability, helping them learn how to learn, work well with others, and be competent in both familiar and unfamiliar situations. Self-directed learners don’t necessarily follow a specific learning path, but are aware of the learning potential in situations they encounter. Learning is not something they turn on and off; it is ongoing, an outcome of any new situation. As self-directed learners reflect on their learning, they see new opportunities and pathways for further exploration and learning, they self-assess and evaluate the quality of their learning themselves, they set their own goals and work toward these.
In High School we are guided, and restricted, by the requirements and syllabi of the IGCSE courses and the IB Diploma, and so there are limitations to how far down a self-directed learning journey we can go. Perhaps not in every lesson, but certainly within each course, we can head off down interesting tangents which arise from a student’s curiosity, but we do have to return to the syllabus fairly quickly. There are time pressures we cannot avoid, and success is measured against pre-determined outcomes. Some courses are freer in their structure, particularly in the IB Diploma, but there are always a set of criteria, or a markscheme, which we must return to.
The years students spend in school represent only the beginning of their learning. We aim to ensure that all students achieve success, but according to current life expectancy our students can anticipate living for perhaps 70 years (or more!) beyond their school days.
The last known US Civil War veteran died in 1956 (‘Albert Woolson’, 2019). The war ended in 1865, when Woolson was 15 years old (nowadays he would be in Grade 9 at this age). Imagine the changes that took place during his lifetime! The first powered flight took place in 1903 when he was about 53 years old, and Sputnik 1 circled the earth in 1957, a mere year after he died.