#stuvoice
The Zed Omegas: six teens who dropped out of high school to explore other, better ways to learn… Ed Zed Omega: this innovative, interactive, immersive public media project explained by the actors behind the Zed Omegas. Check it out on YouTube…
The Ed Zed Omega story begins with six teens self-identified as “unlikely” or “very unlikely” to finish high school. Their reasons all had to do with school itself, not with external factors. Ed Zed Omega is the name they invented for a semester-long “independent study” project examining why kids like themselves are deeply unsatisfied with school. At the end of fall semester 2012, they decided whether or not to go back to school.
May: “I really don’t see the point… I feel like every second I spend in class, being bored, not caring, is a wasted moment. I want to be an actor. I want to get my real life started… high school is holding me back.”
November: “But here’s the thing: I am not giving up! I’ve learned so much about education, and about myself… I think I will be going back with new knowledge, and that makes all the difference.”
August: “I’ve never liked school since I was a little kid, basically – I’ve felt the school system was messed up and wasn’t for me. I would say my last straw was when I was told for me to graduate I would have to repeat my senior year…”
December: “This project has showed me all the different ways of education – how we can educate ourselves. People told me, ‘yo, you have online classes, you have tutors…’ You have to find the way you are comfortable with. That’s what the schools should be focusing on, the way kids learn the best. I hope I can be the person that lets the schools know we need a change. If they want to figure out how to fix the system, they have to start from the base, and the base is – the kids.”
July: “There’s always a way around school work. Everyone I know at RHS has straight A’s, and it’s not because we study together. We cheat together. If we get good grades then our parents are happy and our teachers are happy. I’m not happy though. What is a high school diploma worth if I didn’t learn anything except how to cheat?”
December: “The freedom that I’ve had in the past few months has been the greatest thing I’ve ever experienced. I haven’t had this much freedom EVER. Because I was put into this system when I was six years old. I haven’t been able to do anything except go to school. That’s what my life’s been.
“I don’t want a diploma, I don’t need a diploma to make me feel better about myself. I feel great about myself right now. I feel fantastic. I feel like, if I go back to school, I’m losing.”
August: “I feel like if I could just stop going to high school I could spend so much more of my time more productively on my music, instead of learning useless information… I’m partially afraid for my mental and PHYSICAL well being. I get called a fat freak almost daily. I can’t do a duet with a girl without being called a lesbian. I can’t help but go home crying… The teachers don’t do anything. If you can honestly say you’ve never wanted to cry in school then it probably was okay for you.”
December: “What have I learned, how am I different? I think I learned a lot about being more strong and more open to new thoughts… I really need to be open to other people’s ideas, not just my own – ‘flexible,’ my mother calls it.”
August: “Doesn’t the idea of a 17 year old author who drops out of high school to travel the country sound like a good story? Shouldn’t I at least try to be extraordinary? It’s a shame how defeatist our culture is, where 16 year olds decide to be paralegals for the job security and resign themselves to a life of mediocrity before they even get a chance to taste what an exceptional life might be like. When did our sense of adventure become metamorphosed into a paralyzing fear of risk?”
December: “If it weren’t for Ed Zed Omega, I probably would have just p*ssed and moaned about school, and not done anything. Leaving my hometown, leaving school, leaving basically everything, it’s scary, but I like it. – Everything you do costs something. Sometimes nerve. Don’t be frugal with your life.”
June: “When I left high school the first time, I felt – suffocated… I wasn’t a bad student, but I couldn’t get passionate or excited about anything school was teaching me. And when was the last time a teacher ever was concerned with who you are as a person, instead of why you failed a test on 18th century English economics. Why would that test shape any part of who I am supposed to be, or change who I’m supposed to become?”
December: “It’s nice to know I’m not alone. The others in this project have opened my eyes to so many problems in the education system that aren’t being addressed, and I’m grateful we went through this together and made a statement together. More than anything, I know I’m not a bad person for wanting a change, for wanting something different for myself and for the future.”
August: “How do people know what they want to spend their lives doing? Some of the Ed Zed kids know what they want to do — Nicole likes music, Clare likes theatre, Jeremy likes writing. I like so many different things that I can’t decide. I have to think about college RIGHT NOW so I know what I’m doing next year. I don’t even want to start thinking about college.”
November:
JEREMY: How do you feel about the statement: ‘Work experience, relevant experience is valued much more than a degree in that field [fashion design]’?NORA: I think that’s probably true… It’s just so hard to know how to get the work experience without the degree. It’s just so hard to start. I think in a lot of fields people just go to school and get a degree because they think it’s the easy way to get started. Even though it’s not necessary. Or necessarily helps them to be successful.
JEREMY: … Why don’t your socks match?
December: Nora sums up what the Zed Omegas have decided, and finds herself caught in the conundrum of traditional vs. alternative education.
ZED OMEGA REPORT – Final, Part One
ZED OMEGA REPORT – Final, Part Three
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Ed Zed Omega is a collaborative thought experiment about education. What if six teens drop out of high school, very open about their reasons? Can people help this turn out well? The Zed Omega characters seemed real because the young actors playing them were channeling aspects of their real-life experience – and were unscripted: they reacted authentically to the advice they got and the school stories they heard. 
What’s in a diploma? Are there other ways to learn? If you go your own way, what happens? Instead of being in school, the Zed Omega teens spent their fall semester looking at school from the outside.
“Agree with them or not, the Zed Omegas asked the questions that got people talking about how and what young people should learn. Their presence brought vital questions about purposes and methods of school out of the abstract into the immediate and real.”
A true transmedia project, Ed Zed Omega happened organically on social media, on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter and in live events. The Zed Omegas gathered hundreds of likes, touched thousands of people and registered hundreds of thousands of impressions. If education is to keep pace with changes to our economy, society and culture, it needs new, more inclusive ways to frame its discussions about what it must become. Is it preparing students for successful jobs and lives in the hyperconnected 21st century?
Ed Zed Omega gathered 800 “signals” about education on the edzedomega.org site. You can take one of the Zed Omega “Top Ten” tours, or browse the archiveorsearch by tag, but now that you know the story, why not just free-explore the grand array?
Ed Zed Omega is a template for a new framework of interaction.
Students: you can go “zed omega” with your own inquiry into what education is for and how people like you learn best. All the Zed Omegas will tell you the experience opened their eyes wide as to what traditional education does and does not do. They felt inspired by the powerful stories they heard about alternate ways of learning, and empowered to take charge of their futures by shaping their educations to fit. Knowledge is power!
Teachers, schools, and others concerned about education: use the Ed Zed Omega idea to create a dialog about school and how best to improve it. The Zed Omegas illustrate how to frame the discussion in a way that engages the student voice. Using the existing stories, you can create a narrative space in which all stakeholders can have their say.
We will be continuing to develop the Ed Zed Omega idea. Watch for our web video series to come online this summer. To inquire about having the Zed Omegas teleconference with your fellow students or with your school this fall, contact us.
ZED OMEGA REPORT – Final, Part One
ZED OMEGA REPORT – Final, Part Two
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did they JUST realize this
jesus
do people really trust research more than actual teenagers reaching for help
now that theres RESEARCH to back it up they decide to put it on a magazine cover
Yep. Here’s the article itself.
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good:
Best of 2012: The Five Most Extraordinary Things to Happen in Education
- Nikhil Goyal wrote in EducationIt’s been quite an incredible year in the education space. While we’ve witnessed a surge in the number of politicians with no education experience make decisions on how schools should run and a wider adoption of nonsensical ideas like the “flipped classroom” and value-added teacher evaluations, there have been some memorable, equation-changing events and initiatives that have emerged.
So, let’s highlight five of the most extraordinary things that happened in education in 2012:
- The Students Speak Out
- Alternatives to Higher Education
- Caine’s Arcade
- Chicago Teachers Strike
- Massively Open Online Courses—MOOCs
Illustration by Corinna Loo
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