Unprepared for What We Learned: Six Action Research Exercises that Challenge the Ends We Imagine for Education explores how twentieth century models of education are not delivering on their promises, or helping to deliver the promise of the next generation. We hear that our students are not prepared, and that our teachers must not be prepared to teach those students. Managing preparation has become an obsession for policy-makers who claim that national competitiveness is at stake. After more than one hundred years everything is well managed, yet no one is prepared.

This preparatory mindset presumes that learners must be prepared before they can participate in society, and that this preparation must be managed intentionally using models, an implementation plan, and a system for assessing and evaluating the impact of those models. It’s biggest failing is that those with the greatest stake, our young and adult learners, no longer recognize it as an effective model. Empowered by digital technologies, learners today are no longer willing to wait to be prepared. We seek experiences for which we are unprepared for what we’ll learn.

Unprepared for What We Learned: Six Action Research Exercises that Challenge the Ends We Imagine for Education shares six exercises drawn from students, teachers, and school communities wrestling with problems of practice for which they were unprepared. Readers will question standards, outcomes, and global competencies; negotiate personalized learning; and ultimately co-create innovative school communities that disrupt the preparatory mindset. Together, these young and adult learners participating in the authentic work of their school communities will challenge the ends we imagine for education.