It seems to me that the crucial commodity that young people need in order to find and deepen their interests and identity, and to learn how to live with others is time. Time to think, to wonder, to question, to create, to make and learn with friends, to find out who they are – and a space to do it in.
Yet this is the one thing that prior to Covid most state funded secondary, and increasingly, primary schools, deprived them of. Lunch hours and playtimes were shortened or cut. The encroachment into their free time was not just during the school day but also at home, in the evenings and at week-ends, with often relentless homework and test/examination revision.
Even during Covid and school closure/lock-down many schools aimed to teach and task-set on-line on a full school day basis. The tasks set were often basically conventional school-work with conventional teacher-talk, from the screen instead of from the whiteboard, followed by a conventional test.
Some parents were expecting and requiring this, but a growing number were not. Young people missed their friends during the pandemic lockdown – but some did not miss lessons where they had no choice, no control or no consent in their learning. Many parents struggled to present this curriculum to their children at home. Research into Canadian parents’ attitudes to school curriculum since the Covid lockdowns showed that 73% thought that much more attention should be given to the interests of the students when the schools finally reopen. Danish parents found that “Since the exams and mandatory learning goals are abandoned for now, teachers report feeling more playful with students. They are working with co-creation and involving students in making decisions more than before. There is more quality time spent between teachers and students, resulting in better relationships and increased student well-being.”
Here the emphasis is switching from teaching to learning, from prescribed content to inquiry, and, freed from the pressure of examination preparation, a change in the quality of student-teacher relations to include more student participation and creativity. What an opportunity this provides to do things differently now schools are re-open for all students!
Supported by self-determination theory, there appears to be an association between mental health and well-being and the student agency and autonomy provided by participation in decisions about their own learning. Time and space for self-directed and self-exploring learning around the interests, concerns, questions, enthusiasms, passions and purposes of the young people themselves. Jerome Bruner spoke of the 3 ‘c’s of childhood – that children are naturally curious, collaborative, and like to feel competent – adding with the late Ken Robinson that they are naturally creative.
It is perfectly possible to have a school system with high attainment that does not create the pressure, anxiety loss of well-being and threat to mental health that we are witnessing in England. Finland, for example, under the banner of “Less Is More” has a shorter school day than most with minimal homework - a legal maximum of 30 minutes per night in total and none at week-ends which are held to belong to the students – and no high-stakes national tests until the final year of high school. Despite this apparently more relaxed approach to schooling, academic performance is higher on average in Finland than in most European and North American school systems.
A number of English secondary schools have activities weeks at the end of the summer term when examinations are finished. A wide variety of ‘off-curriculum’ activities occur sometimes involving students and parents in the planning and sometimes offered to mixed age-groups. The variety and enthusiasm generated can be impressive. The process of programme negotiation and creation can in itself be educational, with staff, students, parents, and other stakeholders such as local sports groups learning to listen to, and learn from and about each other. Relationships can be transformed. Some students, previously disengaged from school, entirely change their attitudes both to school and to themselves as learners. Entirely new organisations can emerge. In one rural East Midlands school a community newspaper co-edited by adults and students emerged which has just published its 200th edition and a community orchestra began with some 80 players aged 8 to 80.
There are rural schools where many students cannot take part in extra-curricular activities because of long bus journeys home. Here, programmes of electives have moved ‘extra-curricular’ into the regular school timetable for one afternoon per week. These can be negotiated between students and all adult staff around the interests, questions, concerns, purposes, passions and enthusiasms of both. In one school, close to an internationally famous motor racing circuit and with the assistance of some parents, a mixed age group actually built a working racing car. Because conventional teaching time was reduced it was possible for the electives programme to have a budget and if nobody else could be found an ‘expert’ could be hired. One parent told an inspector that their children would ‘get off their death beds to get to school on electives day’ thereby enhancing attendance! This school has very few exclusions and better than expected exam results.
The International Baccalaureate Middle Years (11-16) programme personal project; the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) at A level; the personal project 20% component of Rosina Dorelli’s innovative Biophilic Curriculum also offer these self-directed opportunities for those students who are fortunate enough to attend schools where they are available. No-one questions their power of engagement or that the time allocated to them undermines standards in the rest of the curriculum.
In Germany there are now more than 300 state secondary schools in the Schule im Aufbruch programme led by Margret Rasfeld where Fridays/Fritags are indeed Freitags (free days) giving students the opportunity to devise studies of their choice around the UN SDGs (sustainable development goals) for one day per week (20% of curriculum time).
The 20% proposal
So – my modest proposal is that all English state-funded schools, both primary and secondary, should allocate 20% of curriculum time for negotiation around the interests, concerns, enthusiasms, purposes, passions and questions of the students. Time for individual or collaborative self-directed learning.
In schools where the learning has been very largely adult directed self-directed 20% time would need to be introduced with appropriate care and preparation. Students could be organised into small tutorial groups for support and monitoring as practised at the self-managed learning college in Brighton, or crew as practised at the XP schools in Doncaster. Teachers with research experience could be joined by academics from local universities to provide guidance in possible methodologies. Support structures should prevent ‘floundering paralysis’ in those who might suffer anxiety and uncertainty at the new responsibility and opportunity, while not removing student ownership of the project. Flourishing, thriving and agency would be the key drivers. The introduction of 20% time would fit nicely into schools that were developing digital learner profiles along with some cross-curricular teacher led project-based learning. Of course some students might choose to use their 20% time to extend and deepen their learning in particular mainstream subjects. The staff could also use this time to pursue their own research questions and interests as exemplars of lifelong learning.
Sometimes the students themselves might be facilitators for other students. A teacher recently wrote in my union magazine about how much more her students knew about climate change issues than she did!
The negotiation process itself would be educational. The motivation and morale of all will rise. The new engagement which will result will more than compensate for any feared loss of learning from reduction in formal subject teaching time. In fact, standards will rise. Results will improve. Students will learn how to take responsibility for at least part of their learning and learn how to manage at least part of their own time – both crucial if they are to deal with the changes, opportunities and uncertainties that the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), artificial intelligence (AI), and Climate Change are already presenting us with.
Students will learn to discover their own genius and create their own identities rather than being defined by test scores. If paid employment declines in the future with AI and 4IR and Universal Basic Income (UBI) becomes the norm this will enable young people to be unique, creative, socially responsible individuals who do not rely on full time paid work for their identity. They will have learned the entrepreneurial skills necessary to launch their own economic or social enterprises. 20% time could be a launchpad incubator for student initiated small businesses supported by mentors from the local community – this would help to staff the small 20% time tutor groups.
Schools could create a ‘20% Committee’ of staff and students to plan how the 20% programme would be organised. This would introduce the idea of students participating in serious school decision making. A 20% or ‘passion’ department could be created led by a teacher of assistant principal status and staffed by teachers from all subjects who chose to work in this way. This would create a team of experienced self-directed learning facilitators. It could have its own part of the school buildings - the 20% wing where presentations of student projects and initiatives could be held. An entirely new approach to assessment would be required based on processes as well as finished projects – failure would be something to be learned from and not to be feared. The Edge Foundation and Rethinking Assessment would have much to offer here. The 20% department could develop digital pupil profiling which could gradually be adopted across all departments. 20% of students of possibly mixed ages could be in the 20% wing at any one time. Already there are teachers quietly introducing 20% time in their own classes, sometimes under another name, such as the ‘pondering time’ in the RE department of a large South of England school
Universities could develop 20% laboratory schools in programmes such as the EU Erasmus Plus funded LabSchoolsEurope programme.
Every school should be free to organise the use of this 20% time in its own way – it could be half a day per week plus 20% of some lessons, or two half-days, or one day per week, or 20% of all lessons. And, of course, if it was found that as students became more motivated the compulsory directed curriculum could be managed in a reducing amount of time then the 20% could grow.
The 20% proposal is already happening in the US in the “20Time” movement, described in detail by Kevin Brookhouser in his book “The 20Time Project: How Educators Can Launch Google’s Formula for Future Ready Innovation.”
Recently the Economist Intelligence Unit produced a report called “Staff 2030: The Future of Teacher Training.” It actually recommends 20% of curriculum time for student directed learning . It judges that the competences developed are precisely those needed for the future workplaces of the 4th Industrial revolution and that our current school systems are not producing the autonomous learners and creators required. The 20% idea has recently surfaced in the newsletter of the Local Government Association (LGA). It is ironic that the evolved nature of human childhood as described by Jerome Bruner and Peter Gray of playful, creative, autonomous yet collaborative young people now aligns with the needs of enlightened employers – yet few schools or school systems seem to be making the connection.
We need ‘innovation’ or ‘moon-shot’ time where students are free to come up with their own ideas of what they want to do and study, and how they want to do it. “Your students will be future ready if you give them the time!” says Esther Wojcicki. “Time is perhaps the greatest gift we can give young people.” Wojcicki’s students use 20% of their class time for totally self-directed projects where their natural learning instinct take flight either individually or more usually in collaboration with others. As in Finland we must stop filling every moment at school and at home with prescribed curriculum.
It’s already happening in the most innovative companies
Companies such as the conglomerate SEMCO in Brazil or the Scott Bader Commonwealth paint company in the UK have for many years used company training programmes to encourage employees to widen and deepen their learning following their own personal passions and interests. More to the point, for more than 70 years, 3M’s 15% Culture has encouraged employees to set aside a portion of their work time to proactively cultivate and pursue innovative ideas that excite them.
Drawing on the 3M philosophy Google has introduced its ‘20% Project’ where employees are encouraged to follow their own ideas beyond their actual job descriptions for 20% of their paid work time. This has led to some of the most profitable of Google’s innovations such as gmail and Adsense, actually developed by one of Esther Wojcicki’s daughters, Susan, until recently CEO at YouTube. The US company Target Project has opened up a similar scheme to all its employees with its “Orange Friday” programme.
All around the world we are seeing campaigns for change coming from young people themselves. In the UK one group called ‘Teach the Future’ argues for a more relevant climate change curriculum. It is being listened to by policy makers. There would be students in many schools who would almost certainly use their 20% time for this purpose.
Young people are natural learners. Can we release their creativity in time?
Could it be that at last the natural learning potential of young people will come into alignment with the emerging need for collaborative and creative innovators. Could schools become places that nurture the social and economic entrepreneurs that the world’s future need? People who are capable of facing up to the challenges confronting us, not least the implications of climate change. 20% time could be the first step!
Derry Hannam, (retired deputy head teacher of a Derbyshire community comprehensive school and school inspector, currently an international consultant in Education for Democracy and Human Rights. Seaford, UK. September 2024
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