What is Innovative Instruction?

Watch this youtube video. Pay close attention to the "color" of the characters. 

Innovative instruction is a way to teach students the content while keeping their curiosity--their color-- alive. In the book, Empower, by John Spencer and A.J. Juliani, a conflict is posed between compliance vs. empowerment.

“If you grew up in an education setting like we did, then you spent much of your time being actively compliant--trying to navigate a system that was designed to produce people who followed the rules and waited to be told what to do. Then you graduated. And you waited for someone to tell you what to do.”

This is exactly what we see in the short film. The boy becomes compliant--follows the rules, completes the assignment based on the rigid expectations, even robotically puts his arms up for his backpack to be placed on his back. But what happens to his color, his essence, that spark that encourages him to play, to daydream, to take risks? It is snuffed out in order for him to be compliant.

Even the father, an adult, as been sucked into this world of compliance, overwhelmed by deadlines, paperwork, unfinished tasks, to the point where he loses his color completely. Don’t we feel this way at times? (When test scores are released? When we are trying to fit in all of our content to match the curriculum map? When our timers are blaring that it is time to wrap up move on?) Sometimes my classroom becomes so rigidly “business as usual” that I forget that our clients are children. That’s when the magic is lost.

Innovative instruction is examining our practices and expectations of compliance and moving toward empowerment, allowing voice and choice, but also leaving room for identity, personality, exploration, and play. Empowerment is the key to this -- allowing our students to be individuals, outside-the-box thinkers.

My goal this year is to find a way to reinvent my instruction in order to highlight those learning processes and procedures which allow students to uniquely tackle a real world learning. I want to put into practice my creativity and “color” within my instruction. In doing so, I hope that my students do more than listen to me, but be inspired by me. I hope to inspire my students to rethink the possibilities of a classroom. More than anything, I want to make sure that everyone in my classroom leaves this year with their “color” shining. Can you imagine how bright our world could be with all of these unique colors working to make the world a better place?

Today I begin this journey toward empowerment. It is going to be messy, scary, and some days will be complete failures. But I am going to try anyway. In the words of my favorite literary character, Sirius Black, “What’s life without a little risk?”

“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” ― Rob Siltanen