Myth Busters, Vol. 3: Pick vs Selection vs Choice (and Options)

Me again. Here to complain about language. Yeh, again.

Listening? Or rather, “reading”? Hope so. This will be a quick busting of a myth… er myth-busting… or rather clarification of a misconception. Yes, we’ll go with that title… though “Misconception Clarifiers!” doesn’t have the same ring as “Myth Busters!” Maybe the title is just in need of solid marketing. Regardless, we’ll be through with it too quickly to warrant bringing in a focus group to test new ones. 

Y’all, we have got to stop using the term “student choice” when we mean, “students were given an extremely limited selection of bizarrely similar options and I guess they got to pick one of those”. I’m here to clarify the language of “choice”, “selection”, “pick”, and “options”. Disclaimer: these all have their places and appropriate uses. Don’t get me wrong - there’s a right time to allow for your students to “pick”... but we’ve got to give up the act that we’re embracing student choice.

“Pick”

     A “pick” is the lowest rung on the ladder of academic freedoms. Sure, it’s off the ground - but not by much. We sometimes use the word “choose” when we’ve already pre-chosen a small pool. This is misuse and while it may not be malicious, it can still be misguided. Our choices - rather than those of our students - have curated the pool here and we’re taking a large part of the deciding away from our learners. 

     Let’s use the example of a class novel throughout the rest of this post. A situation with no choice would be: “We are all reading The Giver as our class novel in our study of dystopian literature”.  A “pick” would be, “You can pick between The Giver and The Hunger Games for our study of dystopian literature.”  Ignoring the fact that these two novels are either not rigorous or too advanced for a majority of the students in any district, they’re also so similar that there isn’t much freedom at all.  This is a classic lousy “pick”.

     The word “pick” might also creep into your classroom in phrases like these: “pick one of the project ideas in each column of the menu to complete”, “pick a character from our class novel and write a diary entry from their point-of-view”, or “pick a biome of the earth and create a diorama”.

     Some more beneficial, engaging uses might be: “pick one weakness (from our discussion of conventions) in your writing that you’d like to focus on during this next unit”, or “pick one concept from our last semester that you’d like to research in more depth”, or… well, you get the point.

     Student choice should maximize engagement and agency… and when we actually provide for a “pick” rather than choice, we’re severely limiting this learner agency. But this isn’t all doom and gloom. Providing chances for students to pick is the first big step towards freedom of choice. Sure, you’re allowing for less in the way of choice… but, if done correctly, this has it’s place. The major caveat is that we need to make sure we’re calling a spade a spade and not passing off a “pick” for true student choice.

“Selection”

     You must be saying, “Now wait a second… that’s not even a verb!” Right you are. I never claimed there’d be linguistic symmetry in today’s lesson. Do try to keep up.

     A “selection” is what you offer students somewhere in the middle of the process of freedom of choice. The “middle rung” so to speak. It’s included as a transition step between “pick” and total student choice. Simply put, some examples of choice in our classrooms aren’t the aforementioned “pick” but also aren’t quite totally choice, either.

     Let’s continue with our dystopian literature example to illustrate the distinction.  Where we might have once required a single novel and eventually allowed for a pick between two titles, we offer something quite different for a “selection”.  If we’re providing a “selection”, we might offer 6-8 titles around the same theme or genre as options for study in the “literature circles” format.  This would allow for students to preview each novel and make an informed selection. 

     Gone is the “either/or” of a “pick” but still to come is total student choice.  A selection is climbing towards total learner choice and agency but we’ve still not reached the top of the ladder.  Work is still left to be done.

“Choice”

     Many of us are not here yet. And that’s ok.  True student choice is a massive shift from our previous examples.  Think of it as having to jump for that last rung.

     Choice is not about what the teacher is delivering or what they’re providing.  If real choice exists, the teacher is not at the center of providing the learning.  Rather, they sit alongside students as partners in learning, ready to embrace and tap into students’ individual interests, talents, goals, and questions. 

     Using our example of studying dystopian writing, true choice would be as open-ended as you’re predicting.  Students would be asked to choose writing [of any medium] that they wanted to explore… and then asked to show what they know; what they’ve learned and can do.  The input, process, and output would all be student choices. The teacher would act as a facilitator and - in many cases - as a co-learner.

Wait… did you forget to mention “options”?  

Nope.  I didn’t forget.  Just waited.  “Options” doesn’t really fit the ladder analogy.  Still, I think it’s a concept worth thinking about.  

     Consider this: you’re buying a car.  You can choose the base model of ANY car in the world. WOW. That’s choice!  But wait… you only get one car.  You’ll have to make your choice and stick with it.  This is where options come in.  Just as a car dealer would never say, “I am so glad you chose the Lamborghini Aventador!  You have the choice of air conditioning or keyless ignition”, we shouldn’t settle on a single choice in education. NO WAY! Much like we can pile on options to customize so many parts of our lives, we should exercise this flexibility in education.  By introducing myriad options to our students, we allow for truly personalized experiences and products of learning.

Putting It All Together

So what’s the takeaway?  Hopefully we’re all reflecting on our “choices” that we give to students.  Hopefully we’re considering the options that we’re going to present to our students.  Hopefully we’re taking away a better understanding of student choice.  Hopefully we’re already thinking about the ways in which we can provide for increased choice in our classrooms.