Transient Schools

Maybe school - a place children go to in order to study - is an obsolete construct.  Maybe Ivan Illich  was right, and society could benefit from being deschooled.  By the way, this would mean that School has been obsolete for 40 years now.  I am a bit slow.

Maybe we can take a smaller step:  remain with the institution of school, but allow new schools to be created easily, and allow them to go out of service, and get closed.  This is relevant to a recurring theme in my thinking:  Freedom of choice in education means it should be easy for educators to start a school; it should be easy for parents to choose a school - and then choose another school.  This means that a school may find itself with an insufficient number of students.  A school may fail.  And it has to be allowed to fail and close.

I admit I find this idea somewhat distressing, but maybe it’s because my mind is caught in a no longer existing reality of stability.  In the modern - or post-modern - world, trends start and end very quickly. One goes into myspace, facebook, second life, etc. and pretty soon it may become irrelevant. Products become a craze, then they cease to interest anyone. Companies are established, and many of them flourish and disappear quickly.

There is no expectation of indefinite stability. When I go into a bank to open an account, I don’t expect to always bank there. The same with an insurance company, and HMO, etc. Not even in Japan, where people used to expect lifelong employment. People even get married, and many of them don’t expect “until death do us part” to mean much.

This may feel like bad news, but it doesn’t need to be. In many places it is a pretty agreeable arrangement: When one seeks employment at a company, one usually doesn’t expect to be there until retirement. In a happy employment, one may expect to spend a good few years developing oneself and contributing to the company, and then go on to the next happy employment, hopefully developing further. The school system, and individual schools are part of a very stable model. Maybe the very stability of the model is becoming less valid. Maybe it is a good idea for a school to be established, run for a few years, and close. Much like a trendy restaurant. The chef may establish a new restaurant for a few years, and similarly the leader of the school may establish a new school with somewhat different characteristics, suitable for the changed society.

 

Thinking about education, and especially about changes in education, is a fear-intensive endeavor.  People who focus on the well-being of society are afraid of changes that may result in graduates who are less prepared for adult life.  People who focus on the well-being of individual children are afraid of changes that may result in added stress to children either during schooling or after graduation.  These fears are almost always somewhat founded.  They are also almost always overindulged:  It becomes clear there is a problem ==> A change is proposed ==> Fear arises ==> The change is avoided ==> The problem doesn't go anywhere ==> Another problem arises ==> and the cycle is repeated.  The cycle can be broken between the fear and the avoidance of action (change).  Maybe:  Fear arises ==> Concerns are articulated ==> Valid concerns are identified ==> The proposed change is tweaked ==> Tweaked change is implemented ==> Results are tracked ==> Lessons are learned.

This is all possible.  To a large extent, this process of addressing fears rather than capitulating to them happens in fields that are more successful than mass education:  Business, agriculture, medicine, etc.

Wouldn't it be nice to make mass education successful?