Productive Learning - Information for Educators

	Mrs Brand: "I've been working for five years as an educator in Productive Learning. I can certainly confirm that it's a completely different concept of learning; it's demanding but also extremely fulfilling."

As a Productive Learning educator I assume a completely new role; I'm no longer a specialist teacher but a learning advisor. Working with a young person, I develop an individual learning programme for him or her. This learning programme is centred around their experiences in their practice placement, which they choose for themselves, and where they are supported by a practice placement mentor.

The learning tasks which the students have to complete during the school year are developed from their experiences in the practice placements. In performing these tasks, they make use of several disciplines and cultural traditions from across the range of school subjects to answer questions and work on topics 'which life throws at them'. So, the kinds of 'normal' lesson material like doing fractions, learning foreign vocabulary or studying the grammar of their own language, become relevant in real-life applications. In this way, most students manage to earn a secondary school diploma.

I'm always fascinated to see how most of the young people flourish in the Productive Learnig environment. Many of them have had a very difficult time in school before that and have lost all confidence in themselves. When they then manage to rekindle their lost motivation for learning we see it as a great success.

At the end of the 9th or 10th grade in Productive Learning most young people manage to make the transition into woring life. They have gained self-confidence and have learned how to make decisions independently and how to articulate their training needs. They can set goals for themselves and motivate themselves to attain these goals. They know what they want and they know what they can do.

Mr Thieme, Master gardener, practice placement mentor: "We offer practice placements in our horticultural buisiness to young people who come from Productive Learnuing schools."

The young people from Productive Learning schools get involved in a broad variety of activities here. At first I was surprised how intensely they applied themselves to their practical experience, even in school. They´re always looking for new tasks and topics that they can work on independently. This way of learning certainly lays a good foundation for success in their professional lives; these young people have particulary good chances of getting into vocational training in the future.

It has proven advantageous for the young people to spend an average of three months on their practice placement. That gives them time to become thoroughly familiar with the business, get to know their colleagues and take responsibility for what they can do.

The young people are not working towards specialist qualifications at this stage but rather are expanding their general knowledge, e.g. about the environment and nature, in biology, economics or history.

I see my involvement as a placement mentor as a useful contribution within a social system in which one generation supports another. I'm getting involved in the education of young people to help them to understand the concrete relationship between learnig and work.