Alan November - Who Owns the Learning?: Preparing Students for Success in the Digital Age

My own experience with students making a contribution to community began in the winter of 1976 when I was a high school science teacher in the Boston Public School system. I leased an abandoned barbershop for a dollar; the shop was on Dudley Street, in a row of storefronts tucked below an overhead subway station. The city was going to relocate the station, and all of the buildings below it were scheduled for eventual demolition. In the meantime, the city of Boston auctioned them off for temporary use. My one-dollar bid for the barbershop was a winner!

I had been inspired to bid on the barbershop by an odd twist of fate, a medical emergency that brought together my roommate (a medical student) and one of my own students, a sixteen-year-old boy. My student had been taken by ambulance to the hospital where my roommate was a resident. The boy had no medical records and had not seen a doctor in years. My roommate was frustrated that the boy's family had failed to take advantage of the free medical care available in clinics across the city. He urged me, Please teach your students how to access Boston's free clinics. This kid could have avoided his crisis completely if he had walked into a clinic weeks earlier and been treated before his ailment became serious.

When I read about the Dudley Street subway auction in the paper, I imagined the barbershop as the perfect headquarters for a community health information center. Location, location, location! Along with thousands of other Boston commuters, I passed that space every day as I got off the Orange Line subway and walked the few blocks to Roxbury High School. It was where many of my students hung out in the morning and after school. I knew the intimate scale of the barbershop with the original leather chairs and marble sinks would make a wonderful space for a health information center. But would my students get as excited as I was about converting it to a community resource? Excited enough to volunteer their work? I soon found out.

Immediately, students signed up to paint the outside of the barbershop. We chose a hideous lime green so it would stand out. The students scoured the local neighborhoods, gathering brochures about medical services. They cleaned the place up and organized brochures along the counter next to the barber chairs. Students who never did their homework and often skipped school showed up for their volunteer work. Unlike my classroom experiences, many of my students worked harder than I did in our health information center. The time they spent there was fun and productive. No grades, no assessment; just honest work to make a difference in the community.

The barbershop was a magical place where I learned as much as my students. Perhaps my most valuable lesson came from seeing the transforming power of authentic work for students who were traditionally unsuccessful in school. I realized that many students work harder to achieve a meaningful purpose than to earn a grade. I also realized that by giving students an opportunity to make a contribution, you can see them in wonderful new wayshow helpful they are, and how kind, considerate, and attentive they can be.

Not too many generations ago, young people were expected to engage in work with purposecaring for farm animals, repairing equipment, selling food at local markets, and helping to care for younger children in the family. These responsibilities taught children the value of hard work and a strong sense of accomplishment.

Over time, mechanization eliminated much of the need for child labor. Gaining an education became the primary responsibility of most young people; they were not expected to be productive members of society until they entered the workforce as educated adults. Today, we rarely expect young people to be contributors. Few young people have opportunities to pursue work that has a purpose. I think that is a terrible loss for our society as a whole, but I also think it doesn't have to be that way.

Just as mechanization reduced our dependence on child labor, advancing technologies have brought us full circle in the potential for purposeful work among school-age children. Social media, mobile devices, and other information and communication tools enable students to make contributions to their classrooms and their communities and to extend the benefits of those contributions across the globe. As educators, parents, and leaders, it is our responsibility to give students the opportunities to put these capabilities to work.