The Invention of the MENU as a structure in a Self-Sustained Environment
PART 2: QUALITY MEAL PLANS
by: Michael Krill
The idea of menu was born after a visit to a restaurant with my family. I noticed that the child's menu gave many choices for main course, sides, extras, drinks, appetizers, drinks and desserts. Each child could chose what they want and would each receive a customized meal. Each meal was healthy, filling, fun, and different. Yet each child left the dinner "full!" I had ordered from menus my whole life, but watching the kids order their own meal tapped into my teacher mindset and I could not stop thinking about how this could work in the classroom. I did research and found very little in regard to this concept. Therefore I just started to build and began working on sharing my ideas. Watching my wife learn code using www.code.org I realized this is exactly what menus do for students. They give them the pathways needed to make sense of the “mazes” found in all subject areas. Thus instead of laying out the subjects in a one dimensional teacher led journey, we offer students the tools and direction they need to start at a point and enter a multi-dimensional labyrinth of choices, decisions, topics, and subject matter.
I shared the idea with Emily Goranson and we began to work on this new way of approaching everything we do. We discussed the process, problems, dreams, and pacing menus can offer. Now one year later this idea has become a reality. We gave the students an opportunity to prototype some ideas concerning menus and the power of choice. Students teamed up and began to build intentional models which could impact the current structures set in our schedule. After some collaborative discussions we streamlined the focus of the menus and created a usable model for our Language Arts block.
The Menus we have been developing allow us to tap into the precious time that we have each day and we are able to harness every single second of that time in the classroom. However menus take it further because they allow choice and give students a personalized approach to everything they do. Menus offer many choices and they hold the teachers and students accountable since students are able to select what they are doing and when. Teachers and students know where we are and what we are doing at any given moment. We are all able to be efficient and effective with time everyday. Because of the time constraints on a menu it limits the amount of time we can spend in certain areas and yet it allows us to really make impactful decisions and take a rigorous approach with the time that we have. No longer do we worry about time or management because it is all spelled out for us. Having a strict time management systems surprisingly allows us to maximize the amount of thing we accomplish each day. We speak more effectively, students work more rigorously, and we transistion fluidly. Our job is to use the time and management offered in the menus and make the best of that time and follow through with the procedures that are already laid out in the pathways which have been established before we even begin.
This is an optimal approach to managing time and procedure when you think about it because of the efficiency and management the menus offer. Teachers are able to see what students are working on. Students are able to hold teachers accountable and therefore we all work together in a very trustworthy way. No longer are we racing the clock, in fact time is now on our side and it also allows us to pay close attention to what is important and what is not. This leads to a self-sustaining classroom where everyone is able to work alongside one another in a very cohesive and collaborative way. Just like in a restaurant, we all grab a menu and select a healthy meal plan, so to do we have the same choices everyday in our classroom.
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