1. What matters for high school students to know and be able to do?

According to Hargreaves (2003) the basic "grammar" of teaching and learning persists in high schools. “Most teachers teach as they have for generations – from the front of the classroom; through lecturing, seat work, and question-and-answer methods: and in separate classes of children of the same age, evaluated by standard paper-and-pencil methods” (p. 12).

When students were asked to describe their typical experience of school they provided the following accounts: "It’s just like dates straight out of the textbook. You would just cram it into your brain and as soon as the test was over it would be like gone. We would just read out of a textbook … textbook … textbook."

2. Confronting unexamined assumptions about teaching and learning

"She’s got her science book so she finds the key word and flips through it; finds the word that fits and fills it in. She’s not reading anything. And I go, "what are you doing?" and she says, 'I just have to fill in this worksheet' and she’s an 80% student! ~ high school teacher"

3. Using io (Inquiry Online) to design engaging inquiry studies

"I find io is easier. I can do it much faster now because I don’t need to read everything and can just focus on one section. I’ve done one before so I can even take a shell and change it and adapt it."

4. Getting excited about Canadian history

"I have to teach students about Canadian sovereignty which is always a challenge so that they don’t fall asleep. In January I saw The Canada Show - Canadian history in an hour without all the boring bits. And I decided to do it with my kids…" (excerpt from The Canada Show produced by Monster Theatre)

5. Technology enables students to work with experts across the country

"We did three telephone conferences (with Ryan from Monster Theatre) and then they actually rehearsed on live video and it was fabulous."

6. The walls of the classroom disappear: Directing from Toronto

"They were acting and they got tips from Ryan Gladstone and his colleague Bruce. It’s amazing once you get used to the technology it’s like they’re in the same room. And of course the kids respond to it."

7. Canadian history moves beyond the textbook

(Bruce directing) "The DEW line is the early defense system right? So if we’re looking at spy vs. spy you have the white spy representing the west and you’ve got the black spy representing the east which is great. Bring in the iron curtain and pull in Canada to bring it back to Canadian sovereignty. Will that work?"

8. Hallmarks of a knowledge society: Creativity, ingenuity and deep cognitive learning

"When teachers talk about inquiry they talk about catching the ones that are about to drop out. The beauty of inquiry is that there is something – an entry point for everybody. And the biggest surprise for me were the girls: The really bright, gifted girls who sit there and put up with all the nonsense in schools. They put up with the boredom; they put up with not being challenged; and here they just take off. They loved it! They just go with it and the understanding that they come up with is amazing. Inquiry has something for everybody."

9. Being able to apply knowledge to unfamiliar circumstances and situations requires ingenuity

(Student pitching her idea for how to represent the Quebec Referendum) "So I had this idea of two people fighting over the TV remote control to represent English and French Canada during the referendum."

10. A knowledge society requires creative and innovative thinkers

"Look at the problems that the world faces today. We don’t need people who can memorize facts and score 100% on a multiple choice test. We need people who are critical thinkers; who know when they have a problem they have the tools to get out of it and investigate it and come up with some answers. Change is absolutely necessary!"

Hargreaves (2003) would agree with this assessment and further asserts that if we want to cultivate this type of thinking in our students we must invest in the kind of "professional support in which highly skilled teachers are able to generate creativity and ingenuity among their students by experiencing creativity and flexibility themselves in how they are treated and mentored as knowledge-society professionals" (p.2).

11. Fostering creativity and ingenuity rather than "soulless standardization"

As a society we must decide on the kind of learning that will serve students best in a knowledge era. Hargreaves (2002) asserts industrial schooling practices that emphasize standardization are "soulless" and stifle the creativity and intellectual growth of young people. In contrast, learning environments that require students to explore multiple solutions to problems cultivate ingenuity and help to advance our collective intelligence.

(Devon outlines his idea for representing the Cold War using a Spy vs. Spy analogy. This example of knowledge building took place during an audio conference with Ryan Gladstone from Monster Theatre.)

12. Deep learning rather than superficial coverage

"The proof really came when I gave them a position paper and those papers came in. The discussion was at a much deeper level than what grade ten students had done previously. The topics were actually more challenging too." ~ high school Social Studies teacher

13. Cultivating the “social capital” of networks and relationships to provide additional perspectives and enriched learning experiences

(Scene from The Canada Show - Students receive advice during an audio conference about researching their topics)

"First of all what you want to do is sit down and take a look at all the ideas that you have and don’t censor anything and see what it is that has inspired you so far. Because if something has inspired you, you end up with a bunch of ideas and I can hear you on this end of the phone across the country when something inspires you because you all jump into the conversation and there’s this whispering. So take a look at everything you have written and all the ideas that you have come up with and as a group decide what it is about Canadian Sovereignty that you want to say. Because only when you know what the ending is will you know what the story is. So, how should we start this?" Ryan Gladstone from Monster Theatre