Wild Ideas - Distributed Establishment

A large organization has its power structure that makes sure decisions can be made, communicated and followed with action. It has its rules that allow it to respond to a variety of expected situations, without going to the top of the power structure (the supreme leader?) for a decision about every mundane and insignificant issue.

Let's consider an example: A problem comes up and is noticed at the field level, maybe there is a disruptive student that a class teacher (Alice) doesn't manage to deal with. Maybe the problem is relatively small, and the class teacher knows a certain special education teacher (Bob), and from Alice's acquaintance with Bob's work, she believes he should be able to bring the disruptive student back into the fold. But Alice doesn't have the authority, so the problem is referred to the principal (Cathy). Cathy the principal has more authority, but the budget is all gone for the year. Let's even say that Alice was very thorough, and refer the problem together with the suggested solution - getting Bob to help. Cathy asks a regional ministry-of-education official (David) for some extra budget in order to hire a special education teacher to help with a "problem child." Let's say David has some resources and allocates a special ed teacher (Earnest) for the task. Earnest will have some time in two months. By the time he can talk with the child, a total of 4 months has passed, the problem deteriorated and maybe expanded to other kids, and anyway Ed doesn't have the specific skills to deal with the specific problem. Alice originally asked for Bob, since she thinks Bob can do the job. She didn't ask for any special ed teacher, but that information was lost on the way.

Note that this is a relatively happy story. The system functioned well. Everybody did their job splendidly, using the useful organizational tools of authority, communication, budgets, resource allocation. It didn't take years, only months. A positive decision was made after consulting only 3 levels of management. And yet it is easy to see that in a different system, where Alice has more authority, Bob would have been called immediately, and the problem would have had a chance of being resolved with positive results, not just good effort. There are real reasons to creates a pyramid of authority and responsibility, but part of the result is that such a system can't respond well to anything outside the normal flow of events - as defined by the rules.

"The rules" - they gain a life of their own. That's natural and self evident. It is also self evident that as soon as the rules gain a life of their own, the system ceases to serve its original purpose, and now it serves the rules. The larger the organization, the more rigid the rules it needs to keep it from collapsing. Just as an elephant's body is more rigid than an mouse's. What would happen if an elephant tries to make a 90⁰ change in direction while running? It will fall. The mouse will have no problem making such changes, and it just might save its life. But a 6-ton mouse won't be able to stand - it's skeleton and joints are not built to support such a large body. Or so I have heard...

So, a large organization needs a rigid structure - to some degree: Rules, bureaucracy, levels of management, authority and responsibility. A rigid structure inhibits adaptation: Even a well designed structure prevents quick adaptation to unexpected circumstances, and inhibits almost completely adaptation to sweeping changes, such as universal education, the industrial revolution, the information revolution, globalization, etc. In the 21^st century, an education system must deal with rapid and deep changes: Changes in what the public, parents and students expect. Changes in what society needs - or thinks it needs - from the graduates. Changes in the scientific knowledge - more knowledge, refuted truths. Changes in how knowledge can be acquired - the Internet has started a fundamental change, and we don't know yet where it leads. Innovation in Education – ongoing innovation - is an imperative, but at the same time very difficult. Innovation is disruptive. How can a large organization tolerate these disruptions?

Lapsing into philosophy: The structure of a large organization can be said to embody the organization's understanding of the world in which the organization operates. There are assumptions that dictate the structure. It is very difficult to build a strong structure that embodies relaxed assumptions that allow for much uncertainty. The education organization deals with a world with a very high level of uncertainty: Uncertainty regarding the types of skills the graduates will need in the unknown future - in today's world, 10 years is a rather distant future. Uncertainty regarding the types of resources the graduates will have. If we don't know where to aim, how would we know what structure will support a large organization that will get us there. How do we design the hull of a vehicle without knowing where we are going to go? To the sea? To space? To earth?

It is difficult for a large organization cannot incorporate into itself the ability to teach students how to cope with changes and uncertainty, because it cannot tolerate changes and uncertainty in itself. The utopian society described in Walden Two, allowed itself to use social engineering tricks to teach children the required habits. But, at least in the book, Skinner didn't go as far as building uncertainty into such life lessons. Even if they did, what would happen when Frazier (the founder and leader) retires? Will they continue having the courage to do these mad experiments, or is it just the unique ability of one hero? A large system cannot rely on the special heroism of an individual. The capabilities deemed as important must permeate the organization, and be part of its structure / culture.

A large organization, centrally controlled, needs to be cohesive, and have a finite set of rules. There can't be a rule for every single possibility in a complex environment. A cohesive organization cannot then formally adapt to any nook and cranny of the environment. A cohesive education system can't have rules to deal with every pupil that differs in any way from the straight and narrow definitions. And most children differ. The heavier and more cohesive an organization is, the more natural it is for it to start shaping the environment instead of adapting to it. And very quickly, children at school feel like square pegs being hammered into a round hole. One of the changes in the western society, is that we now expect a square hole to be provided for our square peg. The large and rigid education establishments have a hard time adapting to that. Most of them haven't even identified this as a need yet.

It should be easy to see that an education system cannot afford the weaknesses of a large organization. But this fact is not easy to look at. It's a frightening idea to give up central control of anything. To alleviate the fear by looking how we are already surviving in an uncontrolled environment, let's consider - as a mental exercise - total lack of control: Homeschooling is the rule. Nobody tells parents what to teach and how to teach. Maybe there are some guidelines proposed by the state, nothing compulsory. Sounds horrifying. But what about nutrition? It's already totally up to the parents. What about watching TV - amount and content? What about dress, health (E.g., inoculation), manners? The state already gives parents immense personal control over the children's life. Whether it's good or bad - it means that the idea of uncontrolled schooling is not that wild.

So much for the extreme. Is there a middle-way that seems to work? Yes. Consider the food available in the free markets in the western world. I keep being pleasantly shocked at the abundance of different types of food in any supermarket. Food from every corner of the world, suitable for anybody's taste. Nobody tells me what to eat; It seems like nobody tells the vendors what to manufacture and sell, but the food works, in the sense that it doesn't often poison us. This is because market forces are supplemented by central regulation. We get the best of all the worlds: Practically limitless food variety, quickly adapting to the changes in the market, together with relative safety brought by central regulation. We have it in medicine, transportation, insurance, etc. It works. There is the occasional meltdown due to under- or over-regulation, but most of us think that we need to tweaking the regulation, and not change the system altogether. Just as a reminder of a counter-example, consider the food market in the centrally controlled Soviet Union. For most people, the food they ate was determined by what the system was willing and able to provide, and not by what they wanted. The centrally controlled, cohesive system didn't work well.

Peter Drucker says that in the last few decades, in the US, formal education deteriorated, while informal education exploded. Informal education deals mostly with adults. This may be exactly due to the fact that formal education is cohesive and centrally governed by rigid rules, while the informal education is free to respond to the needs and wants of the public.

After too many words of introduction, here is the wild idea: Distributed Education. Minimal regulation, just like with food: "You can't poison people." Just like with finance: "You can't cheat people." A few special requirements: "You must share information." Maybe "You must participate in experiments." Maximum support from the center outwards: Finance, research, consultation and good cheer.