Price of Freedom

Freedom is good. The freedom to create schools with very different goals, and very different curricula is one of the necessary foundations for an adaptable education system. But freedom has its price.

One general problem with freedom is that it clearly puts the weight of responsibility on the free person. In this case, freedom to choose means that we - the individual parents - have the responsibility for our children’s education. We can’t sooth ourselves by saying that the powers that be know what’s right. We can’t blame the government for bad choices. This is the type of price we already pay in higher education, where we choose much of what we do. In many countries there is also such freedom of choice with medicine, associated with the same side-effect of shouldering the responsibility. Barry Schwartz wrote a whole book about the problem - The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less and gave a great TED talk about the matter.

What can we do about it? First of all, control expectations: Even with 100 choices for a school, the best one will not be perfect for the discerning parent. It will “only” be much better than the no-choice school assigned to a kid because of the address where they live. Secondly, learn to forgive ourselves for errors: We cannot correctly compute all the differences between those 100 schools (or 10,000 if we are willing to relocate), especially when we don’t know what the world will look like in 10-15 years, after the kids graduate. We could also give up on the project, and settle for the 18^th-19^th century mode of education. This is a real option and not a mockery, since it’s the familiar way of doing things, and that has its comforting effect. The effect is so strong, that I expect that creating the 21^st-22^nd century mode of education will be an uphill struggle. Anyway, keeping things as they are is not the scope of this blog, so let’s move along.

But there is also a technical problem that needs to be addressed. What happens if a kids enters a technology oriented school, and after 5 years decides that an art oriented school is a better choice? Or - just to emphasize that there are more than just these two choices – if the kid wants to move from a social-responsibility oriented school to a science-oriented school? The social-responsibility curriculum possibly emphasizes sociology, psychology, politics, etc., but probably very little science-related material. How would the kid pick up 5 years of calculus and theoretical physics? This problem must be addressed effectively to allow freedom of choice without lifelong commitment at the age of 6 (or even 3).

One answer is to allow for catch-up time. On the extreme end, we can allow 5 full years to catch up. This will enable the kid to catch up completely, but a “penalty” of 5 years is more than what most pupils will consider. On the other extreme, the kid can just move from 6th grade of school A to 6th grade of school B, but the student will just be lost in a world of unfamiliar concepts and missing skills. Even if the school tries to help the new student by attaching tutors, the gap will be too large to work well. A possible middle-ground is one year of intensive catching-up with the main issues taught in the new school. We have some good experience with children moving from a relaxed democratic school to a stricter school, and picking up missing material and skills during the summer vacation. We also have good experience with preparatory courses to university, enabling students who took a relaxed approach to school, to achieve university-entry capabilities. Some choice may be offered here, too, regarding the length and intensity of the preparatory phase - maybe allocating Two years instead of one year will enable deeper catching-up. More choice may be given to parents in employing special catching-up teachers - paid either by the parents or by the state.

This catching-up time is a straightforward solution, but it may encounter some opposition. One source of such opposition is the state: The state likes people to start being economically active (read: paying taxes) sooner than later. This opposition should be dealt with on the political level. Many states also like to conscript young people at 18 or so, but most of them also allow delays in the military service for extended studies, so the framework is already there. Another possible source of opposition is parents who are unhappy about delaying their child’s entry into real life. But this concern will have to be weighed in the light of the importance of the change in the child’s interests: Another year at school, vs. continuing in the wrong direction for years. Something like “throwing good time after bad”. Also, if we do a good job, being at school will be considered as a pretty good way to use time.