Hacking Education: How Can We Get the Most Out of Our Learning?

As Bud Hunt explains in his blog post, the word “hack” is often given a bad rap in today’s society. However, as Hunt explains, this is because we have “lost sense of the word.” Rather than the negative sense of the word, hacking should be viewed as a positive ability. He argues, “learning happens when we hack things, too, because we must understand what our situation is, and how we can fiddle with it, in order to improve it.” Bud Hunt talks about the importance of three lenses that should be in every learners toolbag: Making, Hacking, and Playing. While Hunt gives a pretty brief description of hacking, Logan LaPlante provides a better explanation of the concept in his TED Talk “Hackschooling Makes Me Happy.”

Hackschooling is a concept I had never heard of, however, I believe this is an excellent approach to education! Why are we requiring students to learn about things they have no interest in, when they could enjoy the learning process by connecting their schooling to topics that interest them? As Logan explains in his TED Talk, he didn’t understand why he had to write a paper about butterflies, when his interest was in skiing! This is such a valuable way to look at how to get the most out of education.

Personally, I feel that I have developed a greater love for education now that I am in college, and have more of a freedom to choose to learn about topics that interest me. Why are we robbing the youth in our school systems of this freedom?

While I really enjoyed both this video and blog post, I feel like the idea of hackschooling could be better explained. I would love to learn more about hackschooling and how it could be incorporated in the larger scale such as in classrooms that are not

Photo-CC By US Department of Education

homeschooling classrooms. How can public school classroom teachers implement this concept into their classroom. I agree that this is a valuable way to approach education, but I feel that I would need more information on how a teacher that has a large variety of students who all learn in different ways could go about making this change to their curriculum.

 

There were several wonderful statements made in Bud Hunt’s blog post. I found myself struggling to highlight my printed version, as almost every phrase and sentence he included contained such valid and important information.

Photo-CC by Marcos Nunes

One of my favorite quotes from this post is “the metaphorical lenses or frames that we apply to our experiences can help us to better understand them, or to give us new ways of seeing what’s happening to or around us.” This is such a wonderful way to look at education, and I look forward to learning more about this concept and how it can improve children’s learning! I would love to learn how to “hack” my education so that I am able to get the most out of it.