Host Drew Carey began episodes of the improv comedy show “Whose Line Is It, Anyway?” with the tag phrase, “the show where everything’s made up and the points don’t matter.”
If there ever was a phrase for the utter reinvention of education in 2020, that’s it.
And if we recognize that “the points don’t matter” but the education still does, doesn’t that free us up to improvise more? To try new strategies and techniques? To intentionally reinvent how we teach, rather than try to keep doing some version of the status quo?
Not everything will work (that is true in improv comedy, too) but the things that do work can support further experiments and growth, and eventually better teaching and learning.
2020: Everything’s made up and the points don’t matter. So what are you going to improvise?