“The word “sfumato” comes from the Italian language and is derived from “fumo” (smoke, fume). “Sfumato” translated into English means soft, vague or blurred.”

Sfumato “…is a painting technique for softening the transition between colours, mimicking an area beyond what the human eye is focusing on, or the out-of-focus plane.  Leonardo da Vinci … used it in many works, including the Virgin of the Rocks and in his famous painting of the Mona Lisa. He described sfumato as “without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or beyond the focus plane“. (Wikipedia)

I think we need to soften some of our edges in education:

• School isn’t its own entity. We need to soften the edges between living and learning; Parents as teachers, sharing expertise, and; learning happening in our community... as part of a student’s school day.

• Assessment isn’t formative or summarize, it’s both, it’s continuous, it’s self-reflective, and it can be conceptually/curricular based as well as competency based.

• Subject lines need to be blurred. How can we learn about the biology of crisper without talking about philosophy and geopolitics? (Should scientists be altering the human gene code? If we don’t think so, who in the world should decide? And do we have the ability to stop research in other countries? Will we create a different class of humans?)

Here are some others to think about:

• Bell schedules

• Universtiy entrance exams

• promotion by age

• Does every kid need to learn to code? Or to do Calculus? Or… (insert skill here)

• Write the same test

• Do the same art project

• Be assessed on the same scale

I think there are many ‘hard lines’ in education that should be blurred, softer, and less definitive.

Where would you add a little sfumato in education?