Twenty years ago, when my oldest son turned five and I had to take a look at the educational system available for my kids, I found it sadly lacking. I ended up homeschooling my five sons for that reason. But now I am really in the thick of it. I’ve got my teaching credential and I’m being confronted by this system in another way. I no longer just have five kids I’m responsible for… I have 40+. And I’m seeing the results of the traditional educational system and I want to do what I can to change it because I know there is another way that is so much better.
Our current system is based on the Prussian model of education that was designed to groom good soldiers. It was adopted in the United States in order to groom good factory workers. But our factory jobs are currently being shipped overseas. My students today will probably have jobs that haven’t even been thought of yet. How do I help them prepare for that?
When I started homeschooling, I basically did “school-at-home”. I had my kids work through curriculum and take tests and kept going because what else was I supposed to do? That was the way to do it, right? But soon I figured out how stupid it was for me to move my kids forward when they didn’t understand a concept. I had the freedom to take the time to individualize my kids’ education, so I did. If they needed more time, I gave it to them. If a certain curriculum wasn’t working, I changed it. If they wanted to show me what they learned in a different way, I let them. I didn’t know there was a name for what I was doing until recently. I just thought it was homeschooling.
“Learning for mastery” or competency-based education has been around a lot longer than the Prussian model. In history this goes back at least to the knights in shining armor. Even if you only look at more recent history it has been around for about 100 years. John Dewey had his Laboratory School where he experimented with “child-centered” education. Later Benjamin Bloom with his research on giftedness, found that all children could master subjects if we gave them the time and the way.
So, why didn’t these ideas and systems catch on in mainstream education? Well, it wasn’t technologically possible. It was just too hard. But it isn’t anymore…
Have you heard of Khan Academy? Sal Khan started an online tutoring service meant at first just for his cousins. It ended up totally taking off. It has grown to be a competency-based education system that anyone in the world with internet can use for free. My youngest uses it for math and grammar and loves it. I love it because he doesn’t move on until he masters the lesson.
But how can we use this to transform education today? And how will this make students ready for their uncertain future? Teachers today in traditional classrooms are using Khan Academy to help them individualize their students’ education. Other schools are breaking down the standards and figuring out ways for their students to meet them in their own ways. We have the technology and the systems that will work. We just have to do it. Our students need to be encouraged to think outside of the box. It is more important for us to teach them HOW to learn, rather than what to learn. Competency-based education does that. And when they know how to learn something, they can do anything.
If you’d like more information about Sal Khan and his academy, check out his book “The One World Schoolhouse”. If you’d like more information about schools that are using competency-based education, check out THIS video. Or THIS one. If you’d like more information about homeschooling, let me know. It is one of my favorite topics and I have a bunch or resources I can send you.