James Tooley on Private Schools for the Poor

"James Tooley, Professor of Education at Newcastle University, talks to EconTalk host Russ Roberts about low-cost for-profit private schools in the slums and rural areas of poor countries. Tooley shows how surprisingly widespread private schools are for the poor and how effective they are relative to public schools where teacher attendance and performance can be very disappointing. The conversation closes with whether public schooling should remain the ideal in poor countries."

http://buff.ly/1vCZAga

Education Reimagined

From Sal Khan's book, the One World Schoolhouse:

"Nearly everything about our current system rewards passivity and conformity and discourages differentness and fresh thinking. For most of the conventional school day, kids just sit while teachers talk. Cloistered away with students their own age, they are deprived of the varying and often mind-stretching perspectives of kids both more and less advanced. They move in lockstep through rigid, balkanized curricula aimed less at deep learning than at the fulfillment of government mandates and creditable performance on standardized tests."

Education Reimagined

From Sal Khan's book, the One World Schoolhouse:

"Nearly everything about our current system rewards passivity and conformity and discourages differentness and fresh thinking. For most of the conventional school day, kids just sit while teachers talk. Cloistered away with students their own age, they are deprived of the varying and often mind-stretching perspectives of kids both more and less advanced. They move in lockstep through rigid, balkanized curricula aimed less at deep learning than at the fulfillment of government mandates and creditable performance on standardized tests."

A Paradigm Shift in Education

Today's school system is less and less one focused on aiding the learner to reach full potential than one of industry and politics, of taxes and conformity. Today's learner is more capable than those of previous generations, and the one-size-fits-all Prussian model that was the template for what would become the system of today's education standards has become quite antiquated and inappropriate given the rise of learning technologies. Criticism of this rigid system abound, and for good reason, as innovators and entrepreneurs are showing us what the future holds for learners, bringing access to education to more students and at lower cost than ever before. This is an unfortunate flaw on the traditional state-education model, and will likely lead to a arabica shift. No longer will schooling be "free" and compulsory, it will be available and affordable, effective and competitive.

"Arguments about education are contentious enough without bringing partisan politics into them, but it is interesting to note in passing that in recent years our Prussian-based public school model has come under virulent attack from both the right and the left. Conservative complaints tend to center on the alleged usurpation by government of choices and prerogatives more properly left to parents; as it was put by author Sheldon Richman in his book Separating School and State: How to Liberate American Families, “the state’s apparently benevolent goal of universal education has actually been an insidious effort to capture all children in its net.”"

"Attacks from the left have tended to be surprisingly similar in tone, though the villain is not the government but the corporations that have the most to gain from a well-behaved and conformist population. Writing in the September 2003 issue of Harper’s, John Taylor Gatto urged that we “wake up to what our schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands…. School trains children to be employees and consumers.”"

From Sal Khan's book The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined.

The Future of Learning is in Embracing Disruptive Technology

We're still pushing an education model that is a century old, top-down design, and barely moving away from the one-size-fits-all method. Learning is an individual process. The mastery learning method has been proven effective, but has never been adopted. There are many reasons, but most of all it would usher in disruptive change to the education industry. Sadly, there are so many people, employees at companies like ours included, whose livelihoods are tied to profitable business models.

I'm an Austrian when it comes to issues of private versus public. Peoples' self interests motivate them to serve others well, for mutual benefit. The outmoded Prussian public school model is showing it's age, and innovation that comes from examples like the Khan Academy show us a potential future education model that does not rely on either centralized institutions or top-down regulation, not even taxpayer funding.

Today, many companies are competing with non-profits and having a hard time keeping up. Yeah, the landscape is changing, and it's happing faster than many can keep up. I think that we have enough creative and critical minds working with us that we are working to meet this inevitable future with effective solutions that learners actually want.

I think that given the political and economic situation in places like Portugal, Greece, and Ireland, the environment is ripe with opportunity to move away from antiquated models, but you're right, the political landscape is not kind to innovation and change. There are simply too many with vested interests in maintaining the status quo. I think that there is the potential to have overnight change, but it is more likely that people will gravitate toward whatever the popular solution may be, in this case government schools, where change comes very slowly. It is probably more likely that aspects of these innovations will be applied in the existing models, rather than innovative approaches themselves.

I am optimistic that innovation in education can come from startups that are taking completely new approaches to learning systems, and while even the most innovative approaches are likely to have to overcome some trial and error, I think that it is probably far more effective to embrace the potential of these new approaches than to simply cling to existing models that are merely adequate. I suppose this is why the homeschool community is embracing platforms like the Khan Academy, Coursera, Udacity, and other low- or no-cost online learning systems, while some European countries still effectively outlaw homeschool and anything resembling progress in the education field.

In the end, educators worth their salt understand that every student is essentially self-educated, from a very early age. One cannot be forced to learn, only shown a path. Einstein said that “I do not teach anyone I only provide the environment in which they can learn.” Asimov said that “self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.” Teachers and educators are simply here to help the learner. Education systems that place the responsibility for learning on solely on the learner tend to be the most effective and produce the most learned individuals, as learning is an individual act.

We can get there from here, but we first have to let go of antiquated ideas, be not afraid of the potential future. Einstein also said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. The current system has not changed significantly in generations, and with the diverse technologies bringing learning to everyone, even those with the least means to afford it, the future of education is undoubtedly so different that many are simply afraid to acknowledge it, let alone support the effort to embrace it.

Education Reimagined

"The old classroom model simply doesn't fit our changing needs. It's a fundamentally passive way of learning, while the world requires more and more active processing of information. The old model is based on pushing students together in age-group batches with one-pace-fits-all curricula and hoping they pick up something along the way. It isn't clear that this was the best model one hundred years ago; it certainly isn't anymore. Meanwhile, new technologies offer hope for more effective ways of teaching and learning, but also engender confusion and even fear; too often the shiny new technology is used as little more than window dressing."

- Salman Khan, from his book The One World Schoolhouse

Philosophy and Human Transcendence

"So who am I? Since I am constantly changing, am I just a pattern? What if someone copies that pattern? Am I the original and/or the copy? Perhaps I am this stuff here—that is, the both ordered and chaotic collection of molecules that make up my body and brain."

Ray Kurzweil asks this question in The Singularity is Near. A classic metaphor, the Ship of Theseus, makes one wonder of we are who we were yesterday, or even last week.

"But there's a problem with this position. The specific set of particles that my body and brain comprise are in fact completely different from the atoms and molecules that I comprised only a short while ago. We know that most of our cells are turned over in a matter of weeks, and even our neurons, which persist as distinct cells for a relatively long time, nonetheless change all of their constituent molecules within a month.14 The half-life of a microtubule (a protein filament that provides the structure of a neuron) is about ten minutes. The actin filaments in dendrites are replaced about every forty seconds. The proteins that power the synapses are replaced about every hour. NMDA receptors in synapses stick around for a relatively long five days."

So will it be that unexpected when we merge with our technology to become God's? Arthur C. Clarke said that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."  Rest assured that what we may do someday would look like magic to us today.

The Future of Education is Homeschool

The future of education is homeschool, but it's not what you might think. In his book The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, inventor and futurist Ray looks at past trends in science, technology and even education, drawing natural conclusions about the course of progress in various fields and markets. He takes a very rational and systematic approach, careful not to delve into fantasy, but staying quite grounded in his analysis of what our futures hold.

For education, like many other facets of society, Kurzweil believes that we will see a decentralization as the technology improves. The persistence of a centralized model for a variety of industries, education included, was built upon a past that saw knowledge concentrated, resources inefficiently applied to challenges, and politics impeding progress.

As with all of our other institutions we will ultimately move toward a decentralized educational system in which every person will have ready access to the highest-quality knowledge and instruction. We are now in the early stages of this transformation, but already the advent of the availability of vast knowledge on the Web, useful search engines, high-quality open Web courseware, and increasingly effective computer-assisted instruction are providing widespread and inexpensive access to education. 

The future of education is likely to become not only destabilized, in a way that promotes the most innovative educators, but could see the institutions themselves shift toward a location-independent model where the students spend the majority of their learning time wherever they choose to call the classroom.

Most major universities now provide extensive courses online, many of which are free. MIT's OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative has been a leader in this effort. MIT offers nine hundred of its courses—half of all its course offerings—for free on the Web.56 These have already had a major impact on education around the world. For example, Brigitte Bouissou writes, "As a math teacher in France, I want to thank MIT ... for [these] very lucid lectures, which are a great help for preparing my own classes." Sajid Latif, an educator in Pakistan, has integrated the MIT OCW courses into his own curriculum. His Pakistani students regularly attend virtually-MIT classes as a substantial part of their education.57 MIT intends to have everyone of its courses online and open source (that is, free of charge for noncommercial use) by 2007.

Since Kurzweil wrote The Singularity in 2005, not only have we seen online education come into its own, but institutions such as MIT realize the social value in bringing high-quality learning resources to the public for little to no cost. And they're not alone. There has been much hype surrounding the MOOC phenomena, but the long-term course seems to be more stable for these online education systems. Entrepreneurs are investing billions of dollars into underdeveloped regions.

The U.S. Army already conducts all of its nonphysical training using Web-based instruction. The accessible, inexpensive, and increasingly high-quality courseware available on the Web is also fueling a trend toward homeschooling.

As with much of Kurzweil's research, he often notes that as technology improves, costs fall, and society is better for it. He often notes The Law of Accelerating Returns in his research, that "we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century — it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate)." Each incremental improvement in cost or quality will come in less time and for less money than previous improvements. Costs for access to educational resources are continually falling, with technology spanning even physical divides, with learners in the most underdeveloped regions soon gaining access to the same quality education that can be found in developed regions.

The cost of the infrastructure for high-quality audiovisual Internet-based communication is continuing to fall rapidly, at a rate of about 50 percent per year, as we discussed in chapter 2. By the end of the decade it will be feasible for underdeveloped regions of the world to provide very inexpensive access to high-quality instruction for all grade levels from preschool to doctoral studies. Access to education will no longer be restricted by the lack of availability of trained teachers in each town and village.

Access will be guaranteed through low-cost technology and the entrepreneurship of innovators that understand that the way we have been providing services like education is based on outmoded models that have little place in the modern world.

As computer-assisted instruction (CAl) becomes more intelligent the ability to individualize the learning experience for each student will greatly improve. New generations of educational software are capable of modeling the strengths and weaknesses of each student and developing strategies to focus on the problem area of each learner. A company that I founded, Kurzweil Educational Systems, provides software that is used in tens of thousands of schools by students with reading disabilities to access ordinary printed materials and improve their reading skills.

The world is changing faster than ever before, and the future will make your head spin.

Sherlock Holmes on Discrimination

From Doyle's story A Case of Identity, reminding us that to discriminate is simply the act of making reasoned, informed decisions:

"I have seen those symptoms before," said Holmes, throwing his cigarette into the fire. "Oscillation upon the pavement always means an affaire de coeur. She would like advice, but is not sure that the matter is not too delicate for communication. And yet even here we may discriminate. When a woman has been seriously wronged by a man she no longer oscillates, and the usual symptom is a broken bell wire. Here we may take it that there is a love matter, but that the maiden is not so much angry as perplexed, or grieved. But here she comes in person to resolve our doubts."

Another great book focusing more on the act of making reasoned decisions is professor Walter Block's the Case for Discrimination, available from Mises.org. 

Checkers

After Thing 1 learned to play chess, and actually has been enjoying the game, Thing 2 has become interested in checkers and starting to think strategically.

Why we are betting on Washington State charters

It is nice to see alternatives to the public school system coming from within, changing the nature of the schools through the charter concept, which has turned out to be more than just a good idea:

"Washington’s charter law, while not perfect, is surely one of the best any state has had coming out of the gate with new schools. According to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’ survey of state charter laws, Washington’s comes in six out of forty-three states. This despite the law’s capping of schools at forty. Washington’s charters will operate in a policy environment where they have operational freedoms but are held accountable for student performance."

More:
http://edexcellence.net/articles/why-we-are-betting-on-washington-state-charters

Five Trends to Watch in Higher Education

Leaders of U.S. universities and colleges are navigating a challenging economic environment. Revenues from enrollment, government, and other sources have fallen, leading many institutions to raise tuition to unsustainable levels and putting a number of the weakest schools at risk of failing.

This is an unfortunate effect of subsidizing public education, making it more expensive in the long-term.

Meanwhile, the return on investment of a degree is increasingly subject to debate. After years of low graduation levels and high unemployment rates for those students who do complete college, the spotlight has shifted firmly toward improving outcomes.

One thing to note, that the article could have done, would have been to look at long-term trends in the student success rates and spending levels to see if a tenfold increase in spending led to any significant increase in student success.  

Additionally, college as we know it—what it looks like, how it gets delivered, and who it serves—is being altered.

And this is a good thing. The world has change, so should the way we learn and teach.

These and other forces are transforming the U.S. higher-education system. The fundamental model of universities and colleges has been called into question. Experiments large and small across the nation point to a multitude of paths forward.

More: Five Trends to Watch in Higher Education

Results from the SRI Study of Khan Academy

I'm a fan of the Khan Academy, both for myself and for my daughter. I use the site to learn new skills and refresh old ones, from economics to math, astronomy and more. I use it to help my daughter with her studies, mostly math, but I try to encourage her to explore and try new things. We both end up learning something when I help her, and despite the lack of cost, I feel there is a tangible value in the service. 

Overall, the study identified many positive findings relevant to educators, developers, and education leaders, and shows that the schools serving diverse student populations can make use of Khan Academy as a component in their mathematics instruction. Teachers in the pilot schools reported that they found value in using Khan Academy to support their instruction, that it helped their students, and that they planned to continue to experiment with different models for integrating Khan Academy into their math curricula. Students also indicated in focus groups and on surveys that they liked using Khan Academy. In addition, early evidence from one site suggests that a math instruction approach using Khan Academy in combination with close teacher monitoring and extended periods for math instruction can improve student learning. For now, these preliminary findings should be interpreted cautiously and should not be over-generalized. No single implementation model was used across all the sites, and Khan Academy was not used as the sole, or even primary source of math instruction at most sites, making it difficult to isolate its effects. 

Teachers and schools leaders are attracted to using Khan Academy because it is available for free, offers a modular set of resources, engages students, provides immediate feedback, and offers opportunities for students to direct their own learning. At the same time, fundamental challenges remain that constrain how schools use Khan Academy. These challenges include accountability pressures, restrictions on instructional time, and limited access to one-to-one computing.

More:

Research on the Use of Khan Academy in Schools | SRI International

What I appreciate most about these types of resources is that it recognizes that all students are different. Everyone learns at a unique pace. Some of us fly through some subjects while others need a bit of extra time to absorb the material and concepts. Sal Khan's videos are great in this regard; he doesn't assume that the viewer is a certain age, only at a certain skill level. Grouping students by age may be efficient in volume, akin to mass production, but is hardly the most effective way to teach. 

Favorable Findings: Khan Academy was generally well-liked by both students and teachers. Student engagement seemed high and teachers liked the modular nature of the materials, which made it easy to use as a supplement for the regular curriculum. At two research sites, increased time spent on Khan Academy was associated with better-than-expected test scores, decreased math anxiety, and increased confidence in math ability.Again, don't jump to conclusions — this represents just some of the students and the methods weren't rigorous. Increased time on something leading to improvement isn't all that surprising, and we should want to see further study.

More:
MathEd.net: Results from the SRI Study of Khan Academy

Resources like these put the power and pace to learn in the student's hands where it belongs. Integrating solutions like these into educational institutions helps us move away from a homogenized, one-size-fits-all school system toward individualized learning processes. These studies are encouraging, and I am sure that more refinement is necessary to take these resources into the classroom as integrated components of the schooling system, but I am optimistic that these technologies will help us get there from here.

“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.”
― Isaac Asimov

Give up and Live

You have to give up. You have to accept that someday you will die, and until you do, you are useless. What you do in life might not matter, and you might not leave evidence of your existence when you go. Or maybe you might. Either way, make your mark on the world and on time. Say something worth saying, do something worth following. Champion logic and morality at once. Seek truth. Be an inspiration to our children.

Classical vs Modern Liberal Arts Education

Recently, the question of the practicality of a liberal arts education as a guarantee for employment opportunity was raised. Are liberal arts majors doomed to unemployment throughout their careers? In an era of economic uncertainty, it could mean that liberal arts majors need to simply find practical applications for their education. It could also mean that those who specialize in a specific field with demand for workers will find success in their careers a bit earlier than those that do not specialize.

The classical method of liberal arts is intended to first teach students how to learn (the trivium), to enable them to later take on the subjects themselves (the quadrivium, or hard sciences). By building a strong base of experience using the tools of learning (grammar, logic, rhetoric), a student with a successful mastery of the seven liberal arts should see open doors to any desired field later in life.

Unfortunately, today's liberal arts programs are more focused on the humanities and social sciences, rather than the classical method of learning itself, which needs to start at a much younger age than college, a result of gradualism of language and lost focus. These nearly lost tools of learning are seeing renewed interest as a way to promote lifelong learning. Today's liberal arts do not go far enough to enable the student to teach themselves. The classical liberal arts method enables the student to learn anything, in time. There is no quick fix.

The Language of Asimov

Literature gives us an ability to travel through time to years gone by, when words held different views and meaning than our own. Here is an example I was surprised to find in Isaac Asimov's fine collection of robot short stories, as I am working my way toward Foundation. Is the author though of any less for his colorful language common for the time?

"It wasn't much of a hobby, but sometimes someone would bring out a radio or an alarm clock and the money he would get paid for juggling its insides was the only money he ever got that didn't pass in driblets through his spouse's niggardly hands."

Short Story Podcasts

For fiction fans, here is a short list of good audio fiction, from science fiction to fantasy and even some occasional horror, in podcast format.

• StarShipSofa
• Lightspeed Magazine Podcast
• Escape Pod
• Strange Horizons
• PodCastle
• Clarkesworld Magazine
• Beneath Ceaseless Skies