The New System

The New System
The education system, as it stands, is inefficient, and breeds a ruthless cruelty amongst teenagers which in many cases remains with them for years afterwards. The system teaches students not to learn for the sake of learning, not to learn in order to master a skill, not to learn to serve any kind of useful purpose. The system has grown so convoluted that we now have schools that teach you to pass tests so you can go to schools. It is inefficient to the point of idiocy, and the time for reform is long past. If we as Americans are to stand any chance of competing in the new millennium, we must stop embracing such inefficiency in the name of tradition. This system has continued to exist only because no one cares to reform it, and it has done a good deal of damage to nearly all who have been subjected to it. Ultimately, the system requires blind, unquestioning obedience to authority, and as a side effect it encourages a great deal of conformity. This limits the diversity of our citizenry, hampering our ability as a nation to adapt to changing circumstances.

The system's main fallacy is the way it assumes that bribes and threats are a necessary evil of education, that no one will learn unless coerced. How do infants learn to speak? They have no taskmasters threatening them with lives spent doing nothing more than manual labor if they fail. People often wonder what happens to the creativity of youth, that is crushed into dust by seventh grade. The answer is simply that sixth grade happens.

But it is not enough to simply find the problems in the old system, of course. If the old system is destroyed and replaced with a void, things will only become worse. Thus, before we make any attempts at destroying the old system, we need something to take its place once it is gone, and it must be able to take the old system's place even as it is destroyed. This is the purpose of the aptly named New System. It is intended to educate with efficiency, to teach students not what to think but how to think.

The difference between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation is key, here. Extrinsic motivation, bribes, threats, and other forms of coercion, is a band-aid solution at best. Humans require intrinsic motivation to accomplish anything significant in the long term. There is almost nothing an authority can do to help intrinsic motivation, and almost anything can stifle it. But intrinsic motivation is hiding somewhere in all of us. We must only bring it to the front.



Projects v. Tests
The purpose served by tests is supposedly to prove competency. Tests can prove a certain degree of competency in that they can prove an understanding of a subject, but they lack the ability to prove someone's capability to actually do anything. Tests have the advantage of being relatively quick and cheap, and they're capable of covering an incredibly broad range of subjects. Their flaw, however, is that they are worthless to the person actually completing them, not in the sense that the diploma's that come from completed tests have no affect on one's life (I'm well aware of the income difference between a high school dropout and an MD), but in the sense that the test itself is worthless to the world at large, no matter how quickly and competently it is completed. Thus, humans instinctively do not want to take tests.

Projects are, in almost every way, the inverse of tests. They are extremely effective at proving competency, as obviously if you can do something now, you can do it again later (I'm positive you could think of a million unusual circumstances in which this statement would not hold true; this is besides the point, the point being that projects are more accurate measures of competency). By actually doing something, the student is more likely to retain the information longer. Further, once someone has started a project, they are often invested in seeing it finished, increasingly so as they invest more and more time into it. This is the intrinsic motivation that we're seeking.

Projects do suffer from having the inverse of a tests benefits, however. They are expensive (though new technology makes most projects cheap in the planning stages, and expensive only in their execution. The planning stages should suffice for our purposes, fortunately. Students can design a blueprint without actually building a house.), and take much longer, and every new skill incorporated increases the size and complexity of the project exponentially. Still, these drawbacks are minor compared to the advantages, especially that holy grail of intrinsic motivation. Tests may, if absolutely necessary, be used to supplement a project, but the project itself will come to replace tests in the New System.

The Projects themselves would be similar to the real projects found in whatever line of work the persons studies lends itself to (so, for example, someone taking a computer class would have a project to write a program, just as they might be expected to working for a software company), with two key differences. First, obviously the project must be simpler. People must learn to walk before they can run. But just because their finished project is so simple that similar products are being given away for free in real markets doesn't mean the project shouldn't be treated like a real project.

Second, the project must have static requirements (except, perhaps, the final project, which is intended to test skills, not teach them). In the real world, project requirements change with the situation, but in order to learn, people must be able to take things one at a time, and they can't do that if that one thing is changing all the time.

By no means do I believe that these projects should be easier than current tests, however. On the contrary, I think it is time that American students began using all of their skills and unlocking the full extent of their potential. I see a system that has students doing significantly more work than they are now, however with intrinsic motivation instead of extrinsic coercion, it will likely feel like less.

Fluid Scheduling
The way school is currently scheduled, students spend forty-five minutes on a subject, and then are sent off to the next immediately afterwards. To learn something, a person must have time to allow the information to sink in, to make connections with the rest of the brain. That is one of the most important aspects of human memory, that things are remembered based on their connections. For example, the concept of “horse” might be connected to race horses, cowboys, and any number of other concepts. Anchoring a concept by connecting it to other concepts is vital to memory.

A day doesn't need to be divided into seven arbitrary periods, or into three, to allow for longer classes. The day has already been divided into twenty-four hours. Why is another set of divisions, only tangentially related to this one, necessary? Instead of a third period class, let it be the 12:00-2:00 class. A real workplace is most likely going to use this kind of scheduling, not the kind currently used by schools (current school scheduling most closely resembles factory scheduling, which is ironically primarily the domain of the undereducated in our society).

On a related note, and in keeping with students working harder, it would make sense if, by the end of their high school careers, people are working as long as they would in a normal workplace, meaning until 5:00 at the lowest, and possibly an hour or two longer. This leaves little time for extracurricular activities, you may notice, however education would be more effective if extracurricular activities were incorporated into the curriculum. This opens up more options, certainly. Dan can go play football for the team from four to six, while Rob takes a chemistry class in the same slot. In the current system, Dan would be on the football team while Rob would be doing nothing at all (actually, Rob would probably be on the debate team, or in the chess club, or something similar, but the point is he would not be taking a chemistry class).

Specialization

Specialization is a good thing, to a point. Certainly you don't want someone who's only good at one thing and just one thing. What happens when they can't find any jobs doing that one thing? But at the same time, trying to teach students everything, while once a laudable and plausible goal, is now ludicrous. There's simply too much information. Thus, people must be allowed to specialize early on, but not in just one subject or skill. A certain degree of versatility must be taught. Of course, a thirteen year old just starting high school isn't nearly ready to choose a major for the rest of his life, so specializations must also not be set in stone until much, much later in one's school career, probably not until college, and the system must be set up in such a way as to allow one to switch from one specialization to another without too much difficulty. This has the handy side-effect of making the choice of a major in college a less daunting and nerve-wracking task.

The specialties offered must not be limited to the current curriculum of history, math, science, etc. The range of knowledge to be had is much, much broader than when the system was first set up, and it is no doubt going to become broader still as time goes on. Thus, while grouping the specializations together into clusters centered around these themes would be useful, attempting to teach a science specialization would not. Physics alone could be split up into a half-dozen or more specializations after the first, basic classes, and a basic class on science itself would likely be pre-requisite to that (not to mention a certain degree of mathematical knowledge).

A certain degree of generalization is necessary, of course. Regardless of your specializations, knowing the scientific method and how to calculate a variable by isolating it from static values will likely be vital knowledge to you, so a certain degree of general knowledge classes will also be necessary, however there is no reason for general knowledge curriculum to dominate ones school career the way it does now.

Conclusion

The New System as presented here is, of course, a very, very rough draft. Input from experts is necessary to fill in the gaps, and a good deal of effort will be required to design the details of the specializations, to make the system adaptable to the new knowledge that it will doubtless be called upon to instill upon its students at some point, and to insure that the system does not require too much form our high school teachers. Ultimately, however, the system will be better for everyone. The students, no longer coerced, will be happier knowing they're working for themselves, not the system. The teachers, no longer struggling to coerce the students, will have more time to do what they signed up for, that is, teach. The community will benefit from a more diverse and happier citizenry, and fewer unruly teenagers. The companies will benefit from more highly trained and versatile employees right out of school. Ultimately, the world as a whole benefits, as hopefully the system will prove to be as effective in practice as in theory, and spread to every corner of the globe.

Dazibao's 7-9: The First Amendment is Illegal, The New Drapetomania, and Making Abridged Revolution

This is a series of dazibao written for the explicit purpose of being mass produced and shoved in locker slots in High Schools. It isn't hard to print out a dozen and slip them into random lockers, and as far as I know it's not against the rules, either (this will vary from school to school, obviously). If anyone is following this and goes to a public High School, please print out a few of these and spread the word.




The First Amendment is Illegal

But don’t worry; it’s only on school grounds. Once you get off the school grounds are on a public street, you can wave angry sign posts in the air and hand out pamphlets and immolate yourself in protest and no one will lift a finger to stop you unless you step on a crotchety old guy’s lawn. You can campaign for a cause as ludicrous as impeaching Barack Obama on the grounds that he’s being mind-controlled by aliens who are trying to take over the world. But set foot on school grounds, and you can be suspended or expelled for saying something that the administration doesn’t like (or, if you’re not actually a student, you can just be arrested for trespassing). I’m sure the ruthless repression of free speech is the best way to prepare the next generation for life in a representative republic.

Of course, that brings up what you’re supposed to do about it. You’ve probably got better things to do than wave a sign around and yell angrily at a big government building hoping that the official inside it will somehow hear you through a three foot stone wall and half a dozen closed doors, but fortunately that’s not what I want. If you agree with the general concept that teenagers deserve the same first amendment rights as adults, on or off school grounds, then look up the Education Liberation Front on facebook.

-Ashen, educationliberationfront.blogspot.com




The New Drapetomania

Back before emancipation, there was once a southern psychiatrist named Samuel Cartwright who “discovered” (read as: made up) a mental disorder called Drapetomania. Drapetomania is the manic desire in African slaves to escape. In other words, the slaves aren’t trying to escape because the conditions are miserable and they have no hope of freedom, they’re just crazy!

Now in retrospect it’s easy enough to see that Drapetomania is idiocy, but I’m sure at the time it seemed valid. But what other things might be similarly valid reactions to horrible conditions, but which are today considered mental disorders? How about ADD and manic depression? Sure, maybe some teenagers actually have a chemical imbalance, but when you’re forced to do schoolwork that has little to no bearing on reality with the entirety of your future held in front of you like a carrot leading along a donkey, things start to seem a little hopeless. Suicide is obviously a bit of an illogical solution, but that doesn’t change the fact that if the system were changed, there’s decent odds we’d see the rate of diagnosis for these “mental disorders” drop like a rock.

If you’re interested in a new system like this, look up the Education Liberation Front on facebook. If you agree with what we have to say, do us a favor and join. The more members we have, the more impressive we are to politicians, and the more likely we are to change things.

-Ashen, educationliberationfront.blogspot.com



Making Abridged Revolution

What are you doing reading this paper when you should be getting to class? Haven’t you got better things to do than read a political rant by someone you’ve never heard of? Shouldn’t you be busy learning? Actually, that’s a good question. You should be busy learning, and that’s why I’m not terribly fond of school. You see, memorizing, for example, the formula for the calculation of projectile motion on, say, Mars, is not terribly useful if you don’t intend to go into astrophysics or design physics engines. Actually, every Math class after Algebra I is loaded with useless baggage that at least half the student body would be just as well without. There are, in fact, other kinds of Math besides Calculus. Why aren’t things like number theory an option? Why do we all need to take advanced Math classes anyway? And, this is tangential, but why on Earth do we have to run on such a strict bell system? I can’t think of a single workplace in America that runs its workforce on such a tight schedule.

-Ashen, educationliberationfront.blogspot.com

Mini-Dazibao

The school system isn't working. It's not just because of a lack of funds or because it's a public system or what-have-you, it's because of the entire methodology of our teaching. Our schools teach you how to do the exact same routine, monotonous job day in and day out, which is great if you want to do someone's taxes, but the problem here is that people in India will do people's taxes for astonishingly low prices, so if you're going to compete you'll have to live out of your car and eat cold beans straight from the can. Now if only your country had an education system that cultivated a different set of talents, to make our students into crafty innovators who spend their life working to fulfill their dreams instead of just going to work, paying the bills, and slowly slipping into senile madness.

That's what the Education Liberation Front is for. We're going to bring about immense reforms to the education system, designing it to be significantly more flexible and efficient. Instead of spending their time calculating projectile motion on Pluto, information useful only to Astrophysicists, students will be cultivating their own interests, developing their own talents, and honing the skills they will actually be using in the market place when they get older. Of course, with just over a hundred members, we're hardly an organization that commands fear and respect in Washington, so if you want to see these reforms sometime in your lifetime, look us up on facebook and join our group.

-Ashen

Dazibao 6: The ELF is Flat

So, I've recently started reading Thomas L. Friedman's book The World is Flat, the basic premise of which is that America is broken, but don't worry, we can fix it. The way in which America is broken is that we're still thinking vertically, in the concept of hierarchies within a single system getting the job done, instead collaboration between multiple different systems. We want to believe that America will always be on top, but the concept of "top" is rapidly shrinking as the world gets flattened, mostly thanks to outsourcing (there's actually ten "flatteners" mentioned in his book, but outsourcing is one of the more obvious ones). We can't compete with people in India because they'll work for so much less than us, so we have to do the jobs they can't. That means mindless number-crunching is out, and things like innovation and design are very much in.

During the chapter on education, he brought up the same issue everyone else and their dog has, that American High School Seniors regularly score lower on standardized tests than Japanese students still in the womb, but his approach to actually solving the problem seemed, to me, haphazard in a lot of ways. He suggested, first off, that we start making school teach things faster, as in Japan, Germany, Romania, and basically every other country on the planet, and in the sense that American students are mostly slackers he's on to something, but he's failed to identify a good method of stopping it. In a flat world, ordering students to do as they're told via an arbitrary hierarchy is dissonant with reality. Other than that, he's mostly just looked at what other educators have already done to improve the quality of education (as opposed to just its quantity) and said "More of this." And in a lot of ways, that's what we need.

Take, for example, the methods employed in recent years at Georgia Tech. There are multiple different "threads" which all follow the same basic formula of "Computing and X," where X is people, marketing, communications, whatever. By mixing and matching two of these threads, the system becomes highly adaptable, and that's with one half of each thread dictated to you by the nature of the school you're in. In the ELF system, you don't need to be "Computing and X," you'd be "X and Y." There is a mind-numbingly massive amount of combinations in a system like that, and if you require students to take two or three of them, they'll have the multiple specialties necesarry to compete in the world, in case work for one of their specialties ever dries up. They can still avoid specialized information in things they despise altogether, though, which is important as such things are more or less a waste of time.

There are other things which are in line with both the ELF philosophy and The World is Flat, but I haven't got the space to point them all out here. The point is that in a flat world, a world where we're competing not just with the people down the street or in the next town over, but rather the people in New Delhi, we need an education system that teaches people to flexible, adaptable, and multi-specialized, not rigid, routine-obsessed generalists who are hopelessly under-specialized or, for that matter, over-specialized to the point of uselessness.

Elementary, Dear Donnie

Donnie has been kind enough to rebuttal my last dazibao. This response isn't a dazibao, because then I'd have to cram a summary of his initial rebuttal, my last dazibao, and his rebuttal to my rebuttal of his rebuttal all in one piece that could, theoretically, be physically distributed. It's much easier to keep it on the internet where I can just say read this link: http://redcityblues.blogspot.com/2008/12/elf-education-liquidation-front.html I suggest you keep both this blog and his open in seperate windows so you can go back and forth, since I address his blog directly without quoting it in my own pretty often.

First things first: I'm actually a guy.

My rebuttal to the first paragraph solid of his post, about progress and how the free market inhibits it, is "prove it." Global warming? Between 1920 and 1940, arctic temperature anomalies spiked upwards with absolutely no corresponding spike in CO2. So what causes global warming? We don't actually have the evidence to find out. Maybe CO2 (and, thus, capitalism) does have something to do with it, but maybe not. Obesity can be attributed to capitalism? Proof, please, I think prosperity is the cause of obesity, whether that prosperity is brought on by the free market or not (unless, of course, you're advocating that everyone should be miserably poor, which would explain why you seem to like the Soviet Union). The oil crisis can be attributed to capitalism? So if we weren't capitalists, we'd magically have more oil? Or are you once again contending that people should be poor? Credit card debt can be attributed to capitalism? No, credit card debt can be attributed to a lack of foresight. If they thought about what they were doing in advance, if they thought like capitalists, people would realize that credit cards are a bad deal and the whole industry would go under. The fact that our schools are grotesquely underfunded has nothing to do with capitalism: school funding is a government function. That problem can be attributed to socialism.

On to the second paragraph: I think I said already that my philosophy is heartlessly realistic. You've failed to give me any evidence that my purely capitalistic outlook on the world is incorrect, and given the massive amounts of progress that came out of the US and Europe immediately after World War II (just about every modern appliance in existence) compared to that of the USSR (they invented the Klashinakov assault rifle, a killing machine. Hooray for them), I think there's some precedent for capitalism and progress going hand in hand. Besides, I never said that High School students had to succeed or die, merely that they had to adapt or die, that they can't just keep trying the same thing over and over again and expect it to magically start working someday. That's also my take on communism, by the way.

Now in the third paragraph you point out a common misconception that a quick look at history will rapidly prove horribly incorrect, that teenagers have no discipline. Well, they certainly had discipline in Han Dynasty China, where the age of adulthood was fifteen, and in certain Native American tribes, where it was thirteen. They had discipline as young as fourteen or fifteen in medieval Europe. People have a marked tendency to live down to low expectations, however. Because they're asked to be nothing more than drones in school and expected to be idiots after it, most teenagers do exactly that. When expected to be competent adults, as in the Han Dynasty, teenagers did so. They adapted. So yes, I believe teenagers are fully capable of handling the challenge. You give them far too little credit. I don't think being thrown into the real world at the age of fourteen would be significantly more traumatic than being thrown into it at eighteen, besides which I'm not suggesting we make them live or die by success, only by their capability to adapt. I'm simply suggesting we teach them the rules of the real world instead of forcing them to learn as they go once they become adults.

Next paragraph: You're being pretty vague here, but you're kind of implying that Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and Iraq, all three countries that are famous for their mass graves, aren't really that bad. Are you serious?

You've contradicted yourself in the next paragraph. Your incentive for respecting the math teacher is that he has power over you, as you said, which means there could be nasty consequences for failing to respect him. I never said the free market was a bureaucratic dictatorship. Housing, actually, is an area wherein the bureaucracy is rapidly crumbling thanks to the power of the internet. You can compare housing prices yourself, now. The secrets held by the real estate bureaucracies are out, and everyone wins except the bureaucrats.

The school system is made to educate? What's the purpose of education? You aren't seriously advocating that we shove random trivia down students throats for no reason whatsoever? If we're going to do that, why not make it trivia they're interested in, at least? Teach them HALO and Paris Hilton, because if the only purpose of school is to fill their heads up with information unrelated to reality, there's no point in not making it a fun experience.