Educational theory has been something that has interested me from my earlier college years. So much so that I seriously considered doing my Thesis on a comparison of European (particularly British and German) systems and the American system.
I think that my interest stemmed from some personal problems I had with the American educational system. I’m personally a fairly quick learner and found that I caught on to things very quickly in K-12th grades. To quickly I think. This had three negative consequences that I’ve thought about.
First: I could usually immediately grasp what was going on but others didn’t. And the class had to move at the pace of the lowest common denominator. As a teacher would labor over the same point again and again, a point I’d already gotten, I’d easily become bored and distracted. And then I’d suddenly realize that we’d finished with the topic and moved on to something new and now I didn’t know what was going on because I hadn’t been paying attention and I’d have to scramble to catch back up (and probably while the teacher would have to go over it again for ME some other smart students sat back bored, their minds wandering)
Second: I didn’t learn NEARLY what I potentially could have if things had been geared specifically to me and to my learning abilities. Of course what public school could possibly have the budget and the resources to teach every pupil to their own maximum potential
Third: I found myself woefully unprepared for college. I entered college and found an environment were the student had to learn on their own and bring the knowledge to the schoolroom with them. The information was no longer spoon feed at a sluggish pace for me to pick up at my leisure. True, once I adapted I found that I loved college education but it took me a year of almost failing to make that adaptation (well, there was also the adaptation to the social life and new environment that definitely had an adverse reaction to my freshman grades - but a large part of it was the lack of study skills and knowledge on how to personally motivate myself to study).
So for years I’ve had fun in my free time idly outlining how the American educational system might be reformed: For example, what if students more frequently underwent standardized testing and then were placed in classes not just based on age but by a combination of age, tested potential ability, and tested current knowledge. Actually, some of what I visualized has actually come to pass but I’d visualized much more. When I went to grade school you had your class, and everyone your own age was in the class (except the rare cases where someone was moved forward a whole year or held back a whole year). Now I’m seeing schools with Homerooms based on age for core studies and other classes with a combination of age and ability for math, reading, science and the like. I wish I’d had more of that when I was a child and I wish even more of it went on now. But of course budgets are small and the number of teachers limited
I also thought about incorporating into the American system some of the elements of apprenticeship programs of the older European systems. This particularly struck a cord with me when reading Raymond E Feist’s Riftwar books in which children go through several micro apprenticeships during their childhood so that they (and their potential future apprenticeship masters) could see what they truly had a taste and aptitude for. Plus, as happened in the book, when a disaster struck the adults had at least some knowledge of several other fields to fall back on from their micro apprenticeships of their youth.
I’ve noticed a trend in books (or at least Scifi books that deal with possible futures of humanity) to take the education of children out of the classroom and to put it into the computer. Sharon Lee’s Local Custom shows children with personal tablet computers that allow them to play games but which also contain their educational programming. The computer’s artificial intelligences pace the child’s learning and make sure that it is balanced with fun and physical play.
Another book that has had a strong influence on my thoughts in this regard was Alan Dean Foster’s The Mocking Program. Now The Mocking Program is technically a scifi book, but it is only set a generation or two in the future and is actually more of a police drama/adventure story. But what caught my eye was just a bit of background story about how the intranet had forced the educational systems to evolve.
In my earlier thoughts about educational reform I had all but dismissed Home Schooling. Few parents truly have the ability to effectively be a teacher and so the benefits of a more individualized curriculum are lost to the lack of a good educator to direct the study. Plus removing a child from group schooling denied them access to one of their few means of learning social behavior. But since then the intranet has burst into our lives and browsing the intranet now I see that there are a variety of professionally prepared curriculum for home schooling, including many programs where the student’s progress is monitored and directed, via the web, by a qualified educator. Because of these changes I’m beginning to revise my earlier strong dislike of home schooling, although I still have misgivings regarding the limits it places on social development (even with programs that have home school play groups and the like).
The Mocking Program take this evolution of internet home schooling to the next level but also addresses my concern about the social development as well. In fact, in the book, social development becomes the primary responsibility of the school . Public school was still mandatory, but it is no longer about “book learning” which was taught much more effectively by individualized computer programs monitored by parents and online instructors who could better meet the needs a specific child or could group the child with an international classroom of students who are much, much closer to their level of learning in a particular subject than any community’s public school possibility can.
Instead the public schools had become places to teach children the social skills that they need to survive in the modern world. In the past this has usually been an informal function of the family and the playground. But occasionally it is badly done allowing children to pick up ill behaviors and incorporate them into their personalities until much later when it is to late. The modern family is becoming less and less able to perform these traditional tasks with both parents working or single parent households and households having less siblings for children to interact with. Teachers, faced with larger and larger class sizes, are also going to have a harder time teaching correct behavior and removing incorrect behaviors from a developing child.
In the book it had become the mandate of the public educational system to make people.... better people, socially instead of intellectually. More aware of others around them, more comfortable interacting with them, better able at avoiding social gaffs, and more productive in their relationships.
For example:
1st grade curriculum might include things like “how and when to call for help” to teach children who it is appropriate to talk to about what types of problems and how to reach them or “which adults you can trust” to teach children who they can trust in what situations.
4th grade curriculum might include things like “social networking and interacting with strangers online – how to have fun and keep safe” and “how to shop in a store – the etiquette of working with sales people and your fellow customers”
8th grade curriculum might include “how to appropriately express to someone that you like them” or “dating – how what and what not to do” and “personal hygiene for new adults”
12th grade curriculum might include “international travel – how to make travel arrangements, proper behavior in security checkpoints, and how to interact with your fellow travels” and “entering the workforce – how to get, keep, and enjoy a job”
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