Solutionaries

This morning, I watched an interview with Sterling Higa, Sterling is the Executive Director of Housing Hawai`i's Future, a movement started by young people who are and will continue to be impacted by the lack of housing options here in our state. We are seeing an exodus of young people from Hawai`i, people like our oldest son who moved with his family to Las Vegas 13 years ago because a home was affordable there.

“Young people have been at the forefront of the movement for social justice. They’ve been at the forefront of the environmental movement. And now, it’s their time to be in the lead of the movement for affordable housing and workforce housing.”  

Sterling Higa

I like the idea that young people who are most impacted are the ones who are leading this effort. Earlier in the week, I listened to a  What School Could Be podcast with Julia Fliss where I heard the word "solutionary" for the first time. I then watched a YouTube video with Zoe Weil, and I strongly believe that this is what schools should be doing - creating solutionaries. So what is a solutionary? According to the Institute for Humane Education, a solutionary is a person who identifies inhumane, unsustainable, and unjust systems and then develops solutions that are healthy and equitable for people, animals, and the environment. 

In many classrooms today, a student's day may include language arts, math, science, social studies, and other subjects all taught in isolation. Teachers have grade level or course standards which define what students are expected to learn, know, and be able to do. Students are given assignments, receive grades, and take high-stakes tests, and schools are judged by students' performance on that test.  It is a flawed system that doesn't include the potential for students to show that what they learned has importance in their lives. School is often about compliance, about following rules, listening to the teacher, doing the assignments, and getting good grades. That is not what drives many of our students, and they never reach their full potential in our "Industrial Age factory model" schools. 

Imagine a school system where students learn by working with others, by being introduced to big ideas, problems, and questions that impact them now and in the future, where they come up with solutions to the problems, and where students are learning about things that matter to them. This happens every day in some schools across our state, our nation, and our world, where students are excited to come to school because they are doing meaningful work. 

Project-Based Learning as a Model

When our elementary students participated in project-based learning, they were visibly invested in their learning. (Back in 2018, I wrote this blog post about our PBL journey.). Through PBL, students generated questions about a topic or a driving question. Their questions and what they learned led to more questions and deeper learning. For example, when first graders were learning about ocean animals and how they adapt to their environment, they learned that trash in the oceans impacted these animals. This was not part of their grade level standards but they were so concerned about the negative impact of trash on ocean animals. These first graders were serious about finding a solution; they decided to create machines to clean the ocean of all the trash. They worked in groups, drew pictures of their ideas, revised their drawings after discussions, then created prototypes using recycled materials of what an ocean trash-cleaning machine would include and how it would work. During our PBL Showcase, these first graders seriously explained how every part of their machines worked. In the process, students became stewards of our planet; They were solutionaries, thinking about how they could help to rid the ocean of trash which impacts not just sea animals but ultimately, all of us. 

A first grader at our PBL Showcase where he shared confidently with viisitors about his group's trash-cleaning machine. 

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This kind of learning was taking place in all the grade levels as students explored issues that impacted them, discovered new information, then created and shared products or projects with an authentic audience. The students and their questions were what was driving the curriculum. It was amazing to listen to these young people and to see their new-found passion when they shared their projects and ideas. And our parents? They loved it! So many of them wrote in their evaluation that all schools should be teaching this way. Our kids will remember this kind of learning. They won't solve our major problems at their age, but they will be building on this experience each year. They will learn to seek out experts who can guide them in their knowledge about the problem, and they will gain confidence to speak up and make a difference. 

The pandemic changed our world and it should have changed education. This was our opportunity to realize that the old way of doing school was flawed. We need to engage our students in meaningful work, and it may mean students from different grade levels working together on a problem they have identified, Our students should realize that they truly can make a difference in our world. We need them to have the skills to be change-agents whether it's a problem or challenge at home, at school, in their community or their state or the country or the world. When our young people start to look at issues through the lens as a change-maker or a problem-solver or a solutionary, they start to see the world around them differently. 

The problems in our communities and in our world did not happen overnight. They didn't pop up during the pandemic. They've been around for awhile, and we adults have had our chance to resolve these problems. Let's teach our students to be solutionaries from the time they are in elementary school. As Zoe Weil shares in her TED Talk, "We need a bigger vision for the purpose of schooling. And I believe it should be this: that we provide every student with the knowledge, the tools, and the motivation to be conscientious choice-makers and engaged change-makers for a restored and healthy and humane world for all." 

So let's get back to the housing crisis in Hawai`i. Maybe those at Housing Hawai`i's Future can work with students in our schools to bring awareness of the problem, to teach students to research questions they may have, to connect them to people in the industry, legislators, planners, and others, and  then see what ideas they come up with. The housing problem is real for young adults in Hawai`i today, but if we can resolve it now by involving students in our schools, then perhaps we can keep more of our young people from moving to other states where housing is more affordable.

I have always believed that as a society, we have a responsibility to leave this world a better place for future generations. If we want Hawai`i to be a place where our children and their children can continue to live, we need to do a better job than we have done in the past and the present. Let's teach them to be solutionaries,