Custom-Made Education

 

The ad verecundiam fallacy comes up when we claim something is true solely on the grounds that someone who is not an authority says it is true.  This fallacy underlies much celebrity-based advertisement and it is why I am not inclined to accept uncritically the ideas of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, or even those who sit on boards and committees of education.  Yet a good friend sent me this video of Musk's thoughts on education, and after watching it I couldn't stop pondering what he had to say.

Hand-Crafted

Musk's approach to education is not to front load terminology and the foundational facts of a subject, but rather to set up situations in which students can explore and discover the things to be learned.  There is nothing new in this, and we have a term for it:  inductive learning.  Using an automotive example, he argues for introducing students to an engine and then, when they have to take it apart and are searching for the best way to do it, introducing them to the concept of the wrench.

There is much appeal to this approach, and we all use it at one time or another.  There was a time when I didn't know the difference between a Roman Ogee and a Roman O.G.

As I did more wood working in my garage, I eventually learned the name for the router bit that makes such an elegant curve along with all sorts of skills involving table saws, scroll saws, and more.  I learned what I needed when I needed it.  I moved at my own pace and gained much from trial and error, and this is precisely why Musk advocates for this style of learning.

There are, however, key requirements for this to be a successful method of education, including both the interest and the disposition to learn, but the two I want to focus on here are time and size.  "Had we but world enough and time," wrote Andrew Marvell in "To His Coy Mistress," there would be no rush in romantic affairs and, I would add, in educational ones as well.  As I have developed my woodworking skills over the years, I have labored under no time pressure, and this has given me the space to make mistakes and to learn from them.  As for setting an engine in front of a group of students and allowing them to discover the need for something like a wrench, a low student-to-teacher ratio is not merely important, it is essential.

Mass-Produced

In the fall of 2021, there were approximately 49.5 million preK-12 students enrolled in public schools, which of course says nothing about the number of students in private, hybrid, and homeschool models.  Although these tens of millions of students are not evenly distributed across the country, thus creating some schools with very large enrollments and some with very small, the need is simply too great for each and every one of these students to participate in an inductive, discovery-based model of learning in all areas.  Let us be clear.  This does not mean that such a method cannot work at all in larger schools.  It may be well suited to certain subjects or certain units within certain subjects, but the time and low student-to-teacher ratio necessary for the success of this model cannot be obtained in the schooling of nearly 50 million children across twelve or more years in reading, writing fiction, writing nonfiction, earth science, biology, anatomy, chemistry, physics, algebra, geometry, calculus, Latin, Spanish, French, German, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, choir, band, orchestra, 2-D art, 3-D art, coding, and the nearly endless list of curricular offerings.

When I say that time constraints and human ratios are of necessary importance for this model, I mean that unless they are gotten right, the model will not work.  Let's start with time.  We continue to find ways for time not to be an obstacle to learning, but in a large school setting, we simply cannot serve the time needs of each and every student.  Student A may need more time to grasp a concept, but Student A cannot remain in the classroom of Teacher X to do so if Student A is required to be present in another class and if Teacher X must likewise teach another group of students.  However much we are able to accommodate the time needs of Student A, and perhaps even Students B through G, we will come to a point where practicality sets in and we will not be able to meet the need for Student H.

This challenge is a function of the other necessary factor at work here, student-teacher-ratios.  Most schools are limited in the number of teachers they can employ.  To reach a workable student-teacher-ratio for the model Musk describes, a ratio that will differ depending on the subject and needs of the students, far more money would be required than even the most ardent supporter of school funding considers, for not only would more teachers need to be hired, but there would have to be significant increase in building space in which teaching and learning would be done.  To educate 50 million children across fifty states from more than twelve years, practical forces, unlikeable though some may be, shape what we can and cannot do, and those forces have brought about the form of education that most people think of when they consider education at all, a form that can seem more like an assembly line of mass-produced parts than a hand-crafted work of art.

Salad Bowls and Melting Pots

My wife, an educator with more than thirty years of experience in the classroom and in administration within a variety of public, private, and hybrid models, is fond of saying that things are "both-and" and not "either-or."  As I referenced earlier, there are traditional, public school models of education in our country alongside private, hybrid, and homeschool models.  Some are better for some students, others work better for others, and there is no reason they cannot all sit side by side.  The entrepreneurial spirit that has been so much a part of the United States since its inception must surely celebrate this.  At the same time, even when practical factors within a large school setting limit some of what can be done, they do not limit all, and it is not only possible but in fact takes place every day in classrooms led by the best teachers that students learn from blended experiences that make excellent use of deductive and inductive education.