Deschooling Our Schools
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 11:38AM 
Two adorable second grade girls approached me today to ask if they could bring their kindles to school tomorrow. The answer was of course "yes." The question, and more significantly, the questioners represent a groundswell transformation that is just beginning in the world of education. The arrival of digital natives - children for whom I-Pads, I-Pods, I-Phones and Kindles have been part of their lives since birth - together with the technological capacity to do things that were unimaginable a few years ago is creating transformations in the way we think about school that is equivalent to the advent of the Gutenberg printing press in the 1400’s.
Many years ago, I read a book with a utopian vision of schooling called Deschooling Society (1973) by Ivan Illich. He envisioned a world where there would be community centers of learning rather than the traditional neighborhood public schools. His work was a scathing critique of institutionalized education in the developed world. He wrote:
The student is schooled to confuse teaching with learning and grade advancement with education, a diploma with competency and frequency with the ability to say something new (p.9)
He believed that the institutions created for educating children were squashing real learning and creativity. The world of schooling that he imagined had three purposes: a) to provide resources for all who want to learn, b) to connect those who want to share learning to those who want to learn, and c) to become a forum for the dissemination of new ideas. He envisioned community centers of learning where children and adults would learn what they needed to know when they needed to know it. His work predated the technology explosion that we know today. Much of what Illich imagined has become possible and will be transforming the delivery of education over the next few years.
As I sat through two workshops with Sal Kahn from the Kahn Academy and another workshop about on-line schools at a recent CAIS (California Association of Independent Schools) conference, I felt as though Illich’s visionary ideas (for which he was reviled by both the "right" and the "left") were coming to fruition. Not only that, but the technology that wasn’t well developed in Illich’s time, has made his ideas even more compelling. His idea of centers that propel new ideas exists in the world of TED talks (and the newly emerging Jewish version - ELI talks).
The concept of connecting teachers to learners wherever they are is in the incipient stages with a growing number of on-line learning applications like Kahn Academy and various on-line schools. The day is here (as soon as we improve our technological capacity at the school - which is being addressed currently) when we could offer all sorts of classes (Chinese, Spanish, Calculus, Economics, etc.) by joining our students with others sitting anywhere in the world through an on-line school connection. We can move beyond the very costly model for particular niche classes that we now operate (i.e. geometry or Spanish) with one teacher for 5 students in each of several schools to an on-line class of 20 students with one on-line teacher from one of our schools.
Many educational professionals fear the growth of on-line learning. They worry that students will miss that important teacher connection. We are learning that it is not an either/or proposition. High quality on-line classes involve very important relationships between and among the students and teacher. I learned of a small group of girls who came from several different schools throughout the United States and were in an on-line upper level calculus class. Three of the five ended up being freshman at MIT this fall - their friendship cemented the year before on-line.
Furthermore, typically introverted students are finding their voices in on-line exchanges in such classes. They are required to respond regularly to classroom chats and they receive quick feedback that propels them to continue contributing to classwork.
The role of the traditional classroom teacher changes somewhat with increased on-line learning in that s/he becomes the facilitator - or as the Wornick staff describes this - the guide on the side rather than the sage on the stage. In great schools we already have this model, but with on-line learning the teacher may be guiding the child to delve further into a subject area that may not be that familiar to the classroom teacher. The teacher may become a learner with the students. The high-touch that our school and similar independent schools offer is still needed for teaching social skills, community building and so many other pieces of education. More significantly, the teacher, as resource and connector, is giving the students the wings they need to soar beyond a particular teacher’s knowledge base. That was always our goal and should be understood as a gift rather than a threat.
Finally, all independent schools spend a lot of time discussing how we differentiate for our students. This means that we provide learning opportunities that meet the differential abilities and interests of our students. Our teachers know how to offer a classroom of students different math problems, spelling lists, research questions depending upon ability. On-line learning means that our differentiation can become even more granular because we can connect our students to a larger universe of students and teachers.
Ivan Illich’s vision is emerging in schools across the country. It is an exciting proposition and Wornick will be embracing the best practices in this area over the next few years.
Time to Unplug -
Shabbat Shalom,
Dr. G.
