Changing Schools
It's no secret that our education system is terrible. In fact, it only makes sense. The education system was designed over a hundred years ago [1] when the most common jobs were farmers, secretaries and truck drivers [2]. Problems are littered throughout our school system. It doesn't reflect the 21st century, it doesn't help students who are behind and it's not engaging. Everyone agrees on what skills you need to succeed, yet school teaches us none of it. Everyone agrees that every student is different, yet we are all forced to continue learning at the same exact rate as anyone else. So, it begs the question, "Why hasn't anything changed?" I'd like to offer a few solutions to the problems in our schools here.
1. Change the Curriculum
There's a song that was made by a rapper by the name of Boyinaband, which is called "Don't Stay in School" [3]. It doesn't argue that students should drop out, but it argues that the pointless concepts we learn about should not stay in school. For example, a part of the lyrics says, "I was never taught what laws there are. I was never taught what laws there are! Let me repeat, I was not taught the laws for the country I live in, but I know how Henry VIII killed his women. Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived. Glad that's in my head instead of financial advice." The rapper, whose real name is David Brown, is British, but the message is still relevant here in the US.
Everyone agrees on the 21st century skills: communication, critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity [4]. However, school teach none of these. They look for one skill: memorization (for at least long enough for the test). And that's it. Science? You're not actually doing science. You're just memorizing the science that was done by others before you. Math? Okay, so it does require problem solving. But it doesn't teach you much of it. Most math concepts aren't useful even for physicists until centuries after they are discovered. Social Studies? Definitely memorization. ELA? There's a lot of parts to this, but for the most part it's memorizing vocab, memorizing how to read (which is important), and answering questions based on what you read (which is useless from a learning standpoint). Reading class is essentially learning the same set of concepts, 12 times over. Which is memorization to the extreme.
I think the solution here to switch the classes. What if, instead of ELA, Math, Science and Social Studies, the classes were Communication, Problem Solving, Creativity and Life Skills. These subjects can be put into more depth, and I will do that below, but the idea is that all the important skills we need will fall under these four categories. This way, the subjects we learn will be useful in the lives of most students, and they will be better prepared for their future.
2. Change How We Help Students Succeed
Teacher and YouTuber, CGP Grey, has created a video years ago called "Digital Aristotle: Thoughts for the Future of Education" [5]. He argues that in a perfect utopia, we would follow a system which he calls "Aristotle for Everyone", where each student has their own teacher who knows the material, the student and how to teach it. The teacher would adapt to the students’ needs and help them when they are behind. However, in a pre-digital world this isn't possible. There aren't enough teachers to go around, and teachers cannot meet the requirements of every student in a classroom containing 25. He says that the internet solves this problem because it can teach the students online, adapt to each student using a not too complex formula and short paragraph of code.
I think he has the right idea. Khan Academy [6] has an SAT training program which organizes everything on the test into different a whole bunch of subjects. At the beginning, it gives you a diagnostic test to figure out what you're already good at, then tells you what you need to work on. There are even online videos showing examples of questions and how to solve them. Once you've worked on enough subjects, it asks you to take another diagnostic test, and sees how you've improved. Then it tells you what to work on and repeats the process.
Based on all of this, I have an idea as to how this could be implemented into schools: In addition to the four subjects I've proposed earlier, there would be a period for each student to a diagnostic test, and it will use a formula (based on the answers of other students) to determine whether you need help in each subject, and would ask you to visit a teacher for each subject you need help in. An email would be sent to each of the teachers, explaining what needs to be worked on, the answers they've given to the types of questions they are working on, and how they might need help. This way nobody must be behind. In fact, this, along with the slower pace of learning which was be caused by eliminating useless materials from the curriculum, could leave nobody behind and allow for equal opportunity for all students. Bonus: You don't need standardized tests or homework anymore, we know how students are doing through the diagnostics. So, we could take obsolete methods of learning, and replace them with helping each student succeed at their own pace.
3. Change How Students are Engaged (By Trying to Engage Them)
I’m just going to say what everyone thinks. School is prison. There’s no way around it. Name one other place where you need a written permission slip just to use the bathroom. Your location must be carefully recorded for every second of the day, because they already know they’re boring, and they’re worried you’ll skip their class because of it. Most people would rather update their Facebook wall than go to school. Because Facebook needs you to update your timeline-their entire business revolves around it. And schools should care just as much about engaging students. After all, these years are going to be what determines the rest of their lives, and it will also determine how they develop the world and progress humanity. So, if the education system doesn’t care about students being engaged, what makes students think they should care? I know somebody will be thinking that students should enjoy learning just because they should. This is a deepity [7]. Not everyone enjoys learning for the sake of learning and that’s okay. But we should try to at least make students care to learn the skills which are necessary for their future, because if we don’t, then they will have problems once they are on their own.
Well, that’s well and good and all, but how do we solve this? The most obvious solution, to me, is to turn school into a game. The Extra Credits YouTube channel has an entire playlist arguing for the use of games in schools [8]. But that’s difficult. Building a game like this would be expensive, time-consuming, and a lot of work. The idea certainly shouldn’t be scrapped entirely. In fact, I think it’s something we should work towards. However, in the meantime, there are easier solutions which could be implemented more quickly.
It’s been suggested by many people that lecturing should be reduced. It’s not a very productive way of teaching and isn’t engaging either. Which (finally) brings me to High Tech High. I’ve wanted to talk about this school from the very beginning and now I finally have an opportunity to do so. High Tech High is a school development program in San Diego which was made to help Qualcomm hire new employees [1]. So, an innovative new system was born:
High Tech High follows a principle they call, “teacher as designer”. Teachers don’t teach any particular concept, but anything they want. This ensures that the teacher is enthusiastic about what they teach. So, one day they might teach chemistry, another they can teach physics or math or even world events. This also helps the students to be engaged, because of how the teacher is enthusiastic about it. Teachers don’t assign homework or give tests, but each student works on a team to create a project by the end of the year. This is meant to resemble how projects are done in the real world. At the end of the year, the projects are shown off to the public in an open house event. You may be thinking that this couldn’t possibly work as a teaching method, but 99% of the students at this school are accepted into college.
What if teachers had this level of freedom in their schools? Teachers could be given a broad set of skills that they need to teach, and teach it however they want? Like I’ve previously mentioned, I’ll provide an example of this below.
4. Changing Schools
The world is very different now than it was in the 1890’s. Our schools should reflect that. Imagine teaching somebody how to drive a car, but only one from the late 1800’s. There are much better cars now, but that person will only know how to drive the one that nobody will sell to him. I don’t think that this is an unfair analogy. Jobs today are much safer and pay more than a job as a factory worker will give you. In fact, most companies have automated their production process. So good luck finding a job as one of those.
You may be thinking that our schools don’t reflect working as a factory worker, but I disagree. Students are assembled into rows, listening to instructions from a guy in the front who’s in charge-just like an assembly line. Students are given a grade, based on a letter, just like meat (i.e. Grade A Meat).
So as a collection of everything I’ve talked about (and a bit more), here is the system which I propose for the future of education:
Students are in a room, with a teacher, who helps them practice 21st century skills. The students aren’t receiving a lecture, but rather having a conversation with everybody else in the room. For example, the teacher may propose a problem, and the students will work together to solve it. For the last hour-and-a-half of the day, students will start by taking a 15-minute diagnostic quiz, based on what they’re learning. After they’re done, they will go to any teacher they need to work with for 15 minutes and get help with whatever they are struggling with. If too many students (more than 5%) are struggling with a particular subject, the teacher will instead get an email saying that they should work on this. Students can take other subjects (i.e. Biology, Calculus, World History) if they wish. Here’s the curriculum which I propose:
Communication – Reading, Writing, Vocabulary, Collaboration, Grammar, Spelling, Punctuation, Foreign Languages
Problem Solving – Math, The Scientific Method, Logical Reasoning (including fallacies and biases), Resourcefulness, Engineering, Maybe Statistics
Creativity – Arts and Music, Basic History, I think there should be an “Idea Time” where students thinking of ideas and write them down
Life Skills – Home Skills, Personal Finance, Mortgage Buying, Career Finding, US Political System, Current Events, Technology
5. Footnotes
1) I learned this information from a movie called, “Most Likely to Succeed”. I recommend it to anyone interested in reforming education. I talked a bit about it here, but the movie goes more in depth so if you made it this far, then go watch it.
2) The map that I mentioned which shows this can be found at this link: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-the-most-common-job-in-every-state
3) The “Don’t Stay in School” Music Video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xe6nLVXEC0
4) It’s a bit more complex than this, and I suggest considering it more. There’s a Wikipedia article here for 21st century skills: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_century_skills
5) CGP Grey usually makes good videos, and this is no exception. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vsCAM17O-M
6) Khan Academy is a nice website for anyone looking to learn about almost any school subject, computer programming, personal finance, or study for a college exam. Just go to https://www.khanacademy.org/
7) deepity (n) - A proposition that seems to be profound because it is logically ill-formed.
8) If you’re interested in turning school into a game, or think it’s a bad idea, then you can watch this playlist to see why games in schools might be helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuDLw1zIc94&list=PL-IPRivjg2PJ6EEVuBUmlWWCHtLjW4aT2
1. Change the Curriculum
There's a song that was made by a rapper by the name of Boyinaband, which is called "Don't Stay in School" [3]. It doesn't argue that students should drop out, but it argues that the pointless concepts we learn about should not stay in school. For example, a part of the lyrics says, "I was never taught what laws there are. I was never taught what laws there are! Let me repeat, I was not taught the laws for the country I live in, but I know how Henry VIII killed his women. Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived. Glad that's in my head instead of financial advice." The rapper, whose real name is David Brown, is British, but the message is still relevant here in the US.
Everyone agrees on the 21st century skills: communication, critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity [4]. However, school teach none of these. They look for one skill: memorization (for at least long enough for the test). And that's it. Science? You're not actually doing science. You're just memorizing the science that was done by others before you. Math? Okay, so it does require problem solving. But it doesn't teach you much of it. Most math concepts aren't useful even for physicists until centuries after they are discovered. Social Studies? Definitely memorization. ELA? There's a lot of parts to this, but for the most part it's memorizing vocab, memorizing how to read (which is important), and answering questions based on what you read (which is useless from a learning standpoint). Reading class is essentially learning the same set of concepts, 12 times over. Which is memorization to the extreme.
I think the solution here to switch the classes. What if, instead of ELA, Math, Science and Social Studies, the classes were Communication, Problem Solving, Creativity and Life Skills. These subjects can be put into more depth, and I will do that below, but the idea is that all the important skills we need will fall under these four categories. This way, the subjects we learn will be useful in the lives of most students, and they will be better prepared for their future.
2. Change How We Help Students Succeed
Teacher and YouTuber, CGP Grey, has created a video years ago called "Digital Aristotle: Thoughts for the Future of Education" [5]. He argues that in a perfect utopia, we would follow a system which he calls "Aristotle for Everyone", where each student has their own teacher who knows the material, the student and how to teach it. The teacher would adapt to the students’ needs and help them when they are behind. However, in a pre-digital world this isn't possible. There aren't enough teachers to go around, and teachers cannot meet the requirements of every student in a classroom containing 25. He says that the internet solves this problem because it can teach the students online, adapt to each student using a not too complex formula and short paragraph of code.
I think he has the right idea. Khan Academy [6] has an SAT training program which organizes everything on the test into different a whole bunch of subjects. At the beginning, it gives you a diagnostic test to figure out what you're already good at, then tells you what you need to work on. There are even online videos showing examples of questions and how to solve them. Once you've worked on enough subjects, it asks you to take another diagnostic test, and sees how you've improved. Then it tells you what to work on and repeats the process.
Based on all of this, I have an idea as to how this could be implemented into schools: In addition to the four subjects I've proposed earlier, there would be a period for each student to a diagnostic test, and it will use a formula (based on the answers of other students) to determine whether you need help in each subject, and would ask you to visit a teacher for each subject you need help in. An email would be sent to each of the teachers, explaining what needs to be worked on, the answers they've given to the types of questions they are working on, and how they might need help. This way nobody must be behind. In fact, this, along with the slower pace of learning which was be caused by eliminating useless materials from the curriculum, could leave nobody behind and allow for equal opportunity for all students. Bonus: You don't need standardized tests or homework anymore, we know how students are doing through the diagnostics. So, we could take obsolete methods of learning, and replace them with helping each student succeed at their own pace.
3. Change How Students are Engaged (By Trying to Engage Them)
I’m just going to say what everyone thinks. School is prison. There’s no way around it. Name one other place where you need a written permission slip just to use the bathroom. Your location must be carefully recorded for every second of the day, because they already know they’re boring, and they’re worried you’ll skip their class because of it. Most people would rather update their Facebook wall than go to school. Because Facebook needs you to update your timeline-their entire business revolves around it. And schools should care just as much about engaging students. After all, these years are going to be what determines the rest of their lives, and it will also determine how they develop the world and progress humanity. So, if the education system doesn’t care about students being engaged, what makes students think they should care? I know somebody will be thinking that students should enjoy learning just because they should. This is a deepity [7]. Not everyone enjoys learning for the sake of learning and that’s okay. But we should try to at least make students care to learn the skills which are necessary for their future, because if we don’t, then they will have problems once they are on their own.
Well, that’s well and good and all, but how do we solve this? The most obvious solution, to me, is to turn school into a game. The Extra Credits YouTube channel has an entire playlist arguing for the use of games in schools [8]. But that’s difficult. Building a game like this would be expensive, time-consuming, and a lot of work. The idea certainly shouldn’t be scrapped entirely. In fact, I think it’s something we should work towards. However, in the meantime, there are easier solutions which could be implemented more quickly.
It’s been suggested by many people that lecturing should be reduced. It’s not a very productive way of teaching and isn’t engaging either. Which (finally) brings me to High Tech High. I’ve wanted to talk about this school from the very beginning and now I finally have an opportunity to do so. High Tech High is a school development program in San Diego which was made to help Qualcomm hire new employees [1]. So, an innovative new system was born:
High Tech High follows a principle they call, “teacher as designer”. Teachers don’t teach any particular concept, but anything they want. This ensures that the teacher is enthusiastic about what they teach. So, one day they might teach chemistry, another they can teach physics or math or even world events. This also helps the students to be engaged, because of how the teacher is enthusiastic about it. Teachers don’t assign homework or give tests, but each student works on a team to create a project by the end of the year. This is meant to resemble how projects are done in the real world. At the end of the year, the projects are shown off to the public in an open house event. You may be thinking that this couldn’t possibly work as a teaching method, but 99% of the students at this school are accepted into college.
What if teachers had this level of freedom in their schools? Teachers could be given a broad set of skills that they need to teach, and teach it however they want? Like I’ve previously mentioned, I’ll provide an example of this below.
4. Changing Schools
The world is very different now than it was in the 1890’s. Our schools should reflect that. Imagine teaching somebody how to drive a car, but only one from the late 1800’s. There are much better cars now, but that person will only know how to drive the one that nobody will sell to him. I don’t think that this is an unfair analogy. Jobs today are much safer and pay more than a job as a factory worker will give you. In fact, most companies have automated their production process. So good luck finding a job as one of those.
You may be thinking that our schools don’t reflect working as a factory worker, but I disagree. Students are assembled into rows, listening to instructions from a guy in the front who’s in charge-just like an assembly line. Students are given a grade, based on a letter, just like meat (i.e. Grade A Meat).
So as a collection of everything I’ve talked about (and a bit more), here is the system which I propose for the future of education:
Students are in a room, with a teacher, who helps them practice 21st century skills. The students aren’t receiving a lecture, but rather having a conversation with everybody else in the room. For example, the teacher may propose a problem, and the students will work together to solve it. For the last hour-and-a-half of the day, students will start by taking a 15-minute diagnostic quiz, based on what they’re learning. After they’re done, they will go to any teacher they need to work with for 15 minutes and get help with whatever they are struggling with. If too many students (more than 5%) are struggling with a particular subject, the teacher will instead get an email saying that they should work on this. Students can take other subjects (i.e. Biology, Calculus, World History) if they wish. Here’s the curriculum which I propose:
Communication – Reading, Writing, Vocabulary, Collaboration, Grammar, Spelling, Punctuation, Foreign Languages
Problem Solving – Math, The Scientific Method, Logical Reasoning (including fallacies and biases), Resourcefulness, Engineering, Maybe Statistics
Creativity – Arts and Music, Basic History, I think there should be an “Idea Time” where students thinking of ideas and write them down
Life Skills – Home Skills, Personal Finance, Mortgage Buying, Career Finding, US Political System, Current Events, Technology
5. Footnotes
1) I learned this information from a movie called, “Most Likely to Succeed”. I recommend it to anyone interested in reforming education. I talked a bit about it here, but the movie goes more in depth so if you made it this far, then go watch it.
2) The map that I mentioned which shows this can be found at this link: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-the-most-common-job-in-every-state
3) The “Don’t Stay in School” Music Video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xe6nLVXEC0
4) It’s a bit more complex than this, and I suggest considering it more. There’s a Wikipedia article here for 21st century skills: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_century_skills
5) CGP Grey usually makes good videos, and this is no exception. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vsCAM17O-M
6) Khan Academy is a nice website for anyone looking to learn about almost any school subject, computer programming, personal finance, or study for a college exam. Just go to https://www.khanacademy.org/
7) deepity (n) - A proposition that seems to be profound because it is logically ill-formed.
8) If you’re interested in turning school into a game, or think it’s a bad idea, then you can watch this playlist to see why games in schools might be helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuDLw1zIc94&list=PL-IPRivjg2PJ6EEVuBUmlWWCHtLjW4aT2
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