We've been thinking...

About the "Work" of School.

How can we Disrupt What We've Always Done?

Anyone who has attended school in the last 100 years has this sense of what school looks like. For most of us, our experience involves moving through grades in “batches” by doing the necessary grade level “work”. Going to school is the “work” of children. It’s a word we throw around a lot. We use it all the time. Teachers use it when talking to their students. “Keep your eyes on your work”. “Get back to “work”. You’ll have to stay in to get your “work” done”. Parents talk about “work” as well. Do you have any homework? “Ask your teacher to send home the “work” that you missed.

We are very used to quantifying learning by accumulating “work” as proof of learning.  We’ve come to believe that learning only “counts” if there’s a paper trail. A product. Some tangible evidence. Without it, how can anyone be sure learning even took place?

Education systems across the globe are built around a shared goal: learning. At their best, they aim to prepare students with the skills and knowledge they’ll need to thrive beyond the classroom. Curriculum is designed to guide this process — to outline standards, establish expectations, and help teachers understand what students are “supposed to learn.”

But too often, the conversation around learning gets reduced to the “work” — the tasks, the assignments, the deliverables. We lose sight of the deeper purpose. In an inquiry classroom, the real work of school isn’t about blasting through worksheets — it’s about the process of learning: going from “not knowing” to “figuring something out.” It’s about critical thinking, making connections, wrestling with ideas, and building understanding. That’s the kind of work that matters. And it should be at the heart of every learning experience.

Even as we talk about education reform or revolution, we still cling to old models of what school should look like. We can’t seem to shake the idea of school looking different. We can’t seem to accept that the “work” of school could look different. And that it should look different. We can’t seem to shift our pedagogy to support the idea that the important part of school is not the traditional “work” but the experience of thinking, collaborating, integrating learning, connecting and failing. 

So what if we flipped the script and reimagined the “work” of school?

What if we stopped asking, “What work did you get done today?” and started asking, 

“What problems did you solve today? ” 

“What questions did you ask?” 

“What challenged you today? “ 

“What was something that made you curious today”?

What if the work of school was:

• Collaborating on big ideas

• Thinking deeply about real-world problems

• Making connections across disciplines

• Failing safely and reflecting openly

• Engaging meaningfully in projects that matter

This “work” isn’t about doing less — it’s about shifting the focus and imagining a classroom that places value on skills as much as content. It’s about disrupting the norm by designing experiences instead of “lessons”. When students are brought in on the experience and asked to pay attention to these skills, they see that it is possible to make them as visible and meaningful as any worksheet.