I am indebted to the Knight Foundation and Eric Newton
for their presentation in November, 2013, to a group of Dutch journalists in
Amsterdam. The content regarding
K-12 schools is mine and I take responsibility for any mistakes,
misunderstanding or errors in laying out a design for these kinds of
schools*
Gary R. Gruber, Ph.D. © 2015
The teaching
hospital is deeply rooted in community and so are schools. In these hospitals, medical students,
under the direct supervision of physicians and nurses learn how to read vital
signs, draw blood, insert catheters, set broken bones, deliver babies, do
surgery, read x-rays and MRI’s, interpret test results and conduct a range of
other procedures. Why?
What a student
learns from reading and listening and passing tests is not sufficient to teach
you how to be a physician. This is
also true for engineers, mechanics, architects, software designers, pilots scientists, race car drivers and many
other professions. Nothing has
surpassed the apprentice model for learning by doing. We know that and yet have still not
adopted it across a broad spectrum of education, especially for younger
students in K-12 schools.
In the United
States, there are about 400 teaching hospitals. They develop new cures and
treatments because they are action
research oriented. They set
high standards for patient care. They treat the most difficult cases while
serving the poor. At the same time, they train more than 100,000 new doctors
and other health professionals every year. Over 200,000 teachers are trained each year.
At this point
in time, few if any, schools reflect a complete model of a teaching hospital
. Some have various components
like student teachers and interns, or teacher directed research or laboratory
and studio settings, or high touch, high tech approaches. even gardens. Some even have teaching and learning centers attached to the
school. Most either do not or
cannot go far enough to be all-inclusive nor can a school be all things for all
people. Choices have to be made.
One of the
more familiar models that some might think is similar to a teaching hospital is
the classic Lab School, often in conjunction with a university such as the
University of Chicago where the Lab School was started by John Dewey. There are numerous others in various
states connected to universities, often with a College of Education. Stanford and UCLA in California
are good examples as are Bank Street and Columbia in New York. Here’s a description of the Horace Mann
Lab School at Northwest Missouri University: “Horace Mann is one of only
a small number of laboratory schools in the United States that provides a
hands-on, project based learning, individualized approach that is only possible
with small class sizes and multiple teachers…Master teachers provide a unique
learning environment for all students that include technology, innovative best
practices, and exemplary educational experiences.”
Only about
one-half of the states in the U.S. have these specific kinds of Lab Schools and
the total number appears to be fewer than 100 in number. And, over time, many
of these schools, for different reasons, struggled to maintain their
progressive status and leadership positions within their own communities.
The point here
is not to try and replicate these very good Lab Schools but to see how a new
model could take advantage of the best of both models – a teaching hospital and
a university-based Lab School.
The challenge
is in combining the education expertise with the technological expertise, and
combining the entrepreneurial spirit and the community service. The goal should be to provide greater
community engagement and service. Clinical trials should test new techniques
and technologies, with results made widely known. The entire context of care
has changed: Many of the current procedures, operations, and treatments were
not performed a decade ago.
Being in a
teaching hospital also means working with other parts of the university to
import subject matter knowledge, including marketing, business, technological and
entrepreneurial expertise. New revenue streams for business and nonprofit
models can be tested. This kind of compelling case can be made for additional
funding from a variety of sources including corporate and foundations sources. We should ask tech companies and
their foundations to consider it, too.
Research is the
coin of the realm at universities. Spreading applied research throughout the
teaching hospital would be a key to its acceptance in the rest of the
university. There are numerous
schools experimenting with new models for delivering education today. They do special community engagement
projects. The hope is that those places and people who have almost all the
elements will look around and see what they don’t have and add it if possible
and appropriate. Constant iteration can lead to transformation.
It is time to
move from reforming schools to transforming them.
To duplicate a
teaching hospital, a community school would need to combine at least six
different elements in one cohesive combination
1.
Students doing the work, i.e. learning as apprentices to great teachers. Students may also be adults including
graduate students.
2.
Exceptional teachers at every level guiding students in order to improve the
quality and impact of the educational experience.
3.
Professors and other recognized education experts bringing in topic knowledge
and raising issues to elevate the levels of teaching and learning.
4.
Innovators pioneering new tools and techniques.
5.
Academics and practitioners doing major research projects.
6.
Everyone working together with an emphasis of not just informing a community
but engaging with it. This sixth element is not a type of person, it’s a way of
doing things: working collaboratively with each other and a community.
You don’t have
to build a new school as long as whatever you do has its own sense of
wholeness. Experiments of any size that contain the six teaching hospital
elements will move education forward. They will encourage real-world
experience; the latest tools and techniques; best-practices; continuous
experimentation; applied research and an open, collaborative relationship
with each other and a community The result is knowledge both to a single
community and the larger world. As results multiply, many students, teachers
and communities can be the beneficiaries.
(For those
interested, a more detailed description of the teaching hospital model as
applied to schools is available from the author.)
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