Cities as Places of Learning
The best way to educate children is to slowly pass the torch of local stewardship.
It’s easy for a kid to feel the sole purpose of their childhood education is performative fundraising for the adults around them.
While schools across the nation are filled with tens of thousands of caring, talented, passionate teachers to be sure, systems at large are often primarily concerned with funding-related outcomes. And at a certain age, the transactional offer becomes clear to kids: give the district what they want (good grades detached from true deep learning), and you’ll be rewarded by moving onto the next level (high school, college, etc.).
But what if education could transition from an ineffective, system-propagating charade into a community-building, problem-solving, meaning-delivering ecosystem?
This is the power of cities as schools.
Every city has its problems: hunger, flooding, waste management, budget shortfalls, housing shortages, you name it. The list goes on. And it also has needs and opportunities: murals to be painted, trees to be planted, sidewalks to be built, etc.
What if we began leveraging these challenges and needs as learning opportunities? What if curriculums were built around local citizenship? I don’t mean School House Rock-style memorization of the lawmaking process; I mean equipping future generations to be the next stewards, leaders, and problem-solvers of the places they call home.
There’s no shortage of students entering young adulthood with a decent GPA and a few extracurriculars. But there’s a profound lack of ways for students to cultivate and leverage their unique talents and interests and then present ideas and projects as a credential set for employers, investors, and higher education institutions.
Here’s some examples of what that can look like:
What if a group of eighth-graders learned environmental science through creating new bioswales throughout the city?
What if preteens, or even younger children, were invited to share their experiences getting to school each day as part of improving local transportation?
What if high school seniors were tasked with a sort of “capstone” project that took up one of the city’s greatest challenges and created a solution presented to key local decisionmakers?
Perhaps the reason so many western young adults need a “second adolescence” is because we so royally mess up their first one. Rather than giving kids the skills to become adults, we’ve taught them how to be stuck in neutral and have hindered any opportunity for them to stand out in a sea of sameness.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Cities can become places of learning. They can provide kids with the skills, projects, and connections they need to launch into adulthood ready for entrepreneurial or civic leadership.
In a fast-decentralizing economy, the cities that will take over “Best Place to Raise a Family” lists will be those where children can get a head start in life, and where opportunities to do so are actively provided and facilitated for the masses, not just the wealthy and well-connected.
When we invite children into the messes and opportunities in our communities, we help them become dreamers. We defy the Age of Self by planting seeds of selflessness and service. We equip them to be the best versions of themselves, because the best parts of us are the parts we can give away to others. And when instilling this kind of culture is a community-wide project, we build something just a little closer to utopia.
One Thing to Get Excited About:
While some places continue to double down on freeway expansion, over $1.5 billion in funds was recently released to begin 26 highway, rail, and multimodal projects across the U.S.
One major beneficiary is the city of Detroit, as the state of Michigan has received $105 million to convert I-375 into a boulevard. The project is hardly a silver bullet, but will be a major step towards helping the Motor City build around people, not cars.
One Action to Get You Started :
What is one small way you can begin activating your city as a school?
If you work in education, can you find a project-based field trip for your students?
If you’re a public official, can you create a program to get students out in the community?
If you’re an everyday resident, maybe it just looks like signing up for a class at the local library.
Regardless, start turning your city into a place of learning.
One Resource to Check Out:
This week’s Hope in Cities was inspired by an exciting project founded by my friend Serj Hunt - City as a School. The company is activating centers of learning across the globe and helping students of all ages create their own learning pathways and project portfolios.
If you’re a learner, teacher, or civic leader (which is basically all of you), I highly recommend checking it out.