Clarence Fisher has an interesting idea. While admitting that a curriculum constrains much of what can be taught, he suggests that within those constraints there’s room to let student’s build their own “Everything is Miscellaneous”-style piles of leaves.
What if we started the entire school year off with outcomes listed on cards which the kids could move around and organize into structures of study that were more meaningful and helpful for them? Several days spent categorizing and forming personal or small group knowledge structures, setting a course for the next few weeks or months ahead would be much more meaningful to students than us imposing a taxonomy of information upon them. It would make the knowledge, the information, the learning that needed to happen become theirs.”