Six – Dhairya

For me the most radical reading was that of de-schooling, I don’t think I necessarily agree with the ways described in the paper – that of a skill bank etc, but it was definitely a good what-if situation brainstorm. However I feel I agree with the essence of the paper – that of deinstitutionalizing education – where education is open, free for all. On the other hand, however broken our schools are, there are still important social  and life skills that are developed in a schooling environment, in essence school is not only about knowledge and learning subject matter. I wonder how we handle these other aspects, which leads me to wonder what would be a nice balance between the two where we still have schools i.e. a physical place that facilitates co-learning, team building and social interactions while still provides education tailored to every student.

Assignment 6 – Sophia

I very much enjoyed the reading on deschooling.  In my own experiences with school, I resented being told what I needed to learn and how fast to learn it.  I often wished I could move faster and have access to teachers that could teach me different subjects not available at my school.  I found myself ill-prepared for college (because I lacked certain knowledge that I needed) and even more ill-prepared for a role where I finally had to make choices independently (having had it drilled into me that my own intuition is inferior to the wishes of my teachers). I strongly believe that a system where students can request what they learn would be much better fostering genuine curiosity and autonomy. In the real world, someone will not be planning everything out for you, and being able to manage your own objectives is an invaluable skill.  On top of that, I think the world would just be more interesting with more diverse, interesting, and passionately curious people.

However, I am not sure how this system would prevent the “charlatans, demagogues, proselytizers, corrupt masters…” the author speaks out against.  Present in structured education, I believe they would still be present in a less structured way of learning.  Choosing teachers, students, or peers would be fraught with the same dangers as craigslist or online dating.  How do you know someone is not dangerous? How do you know if someone actually has the knowledge they claim to have? How do yo know if someone will be a valuable, responsible teacher and mentor? I don’t think the solution to this will be as simple as doing reviews, giving scores, or using some kind of point system.  While the internet makes information very easy to find, it is hard to know if it is reliable, and I think the same could happen with this more informal approach to teaching.

 
This leads me to think that maybe a hybrid approach might work best, a system that has a standardized core (that doesn’t take up all of the student’s time like it does now) but that allows much of a student’s education to be tailored to their own interests and goals using this less structured method.