Caves and Portals

Yesterday, one of my students asked about the Allegory of the Cave.  They had been discussing this in English class, and he still didn't understand it.  However, since "it was Plato" and I "knew ancient things," he figured I might have an idea.  So, off we went on a discussion of Plato.  My other students were curious.  This was new to them!  Suddenly, J made a connection.  I was amazed by what he said.  "Think of it as coming from Chem to Latin.  Chem's the cave, Latin's the light."  I stared at him.  "Well," he said, "Here we get rewards for thinking.  In Chem we get rewards for regurgitating canned information."

Man, was I surprised.  I mean, I feel like I hear this a lot at conferences with people who think like I do.  But it isn't common to hear that from a student!  

If we want our students to succeed in today's world, the cave needs to cave in.  It needs to be more like...Portal.  If you've never played Portal, it's a puzzle game.  It's about getting where you need to go by placing a portal that you can jump into in the correct place.  To do this, you need tools--A portal gun and companion cubes.  These are often provided for you.  But sometimes you need to find them.  You start off with things being provided, then they're kind of hidden, then you need to actually FIND them and solve the puzzles to find the pieces you need.  

It's a scaffolded game.  Players learn how to solve the puzzles as they play.  It is a bit of the idea behind Operation LAPIS--a sandbox on rails.  Students learn the ideas with help at the beginning, but as they learn how to play, the help begins to go away, and students have, hopefully, become self-sufficient.  

How do we teach students to take responsibility for their own learning?  How do we teach them to pick up and use the tools they have available to them?  This is not something they have to do often at school, but it is in life.  How do we help them learn it?