Antiquated, Arbitrary Systems

I home school my children.  Why I do that is a subject of a different post.  The subject of this post is to understand the contrast between public, private, and home schools.  It is fairly obvious to me that public schools as we know it are a way of the past.  The need to learn more material at a faster rate needs better methods of teaching that are more reproducible.  The herd mentality isn't going to work as a system much longer.

Think of the average public school.  You have a collection of subjects taught in a micro landscape with no tie to the rest of the world.  Secondly, you have students at differing levels of interest being forced in with those students who have no interest.  Third, you have an arbitrary knowledge level system that forces every student, regardless of ability, into a group.  Tackling these issues has been something home schooling has never had to deal with.

And before I move on, class size doesn't matter.  I had a high school size of 140 and no class I took had more than 20 people.  And yet there were still people who passed high school barely capable of reading.

Now, I'm thinking the answer is going to be a combination of software and hardware.  Software provides the basis and the consistency of the system, while hardware produces the interaction.  Would an hour of class be as bad if the student spent their entire time standing, working on the board?

Secondly, you could have the program tailor itself to each individuals skills and abilities.  No more passing because the teacher just doesn't want to deal with you any more.  Computer programs have infinitely more patience than the average teacher.  The converse to that is now the gifted students will move at the pace that keeps them challenged as well.  If they learn a subject in five minutes and can prove competence in the next twenty, then there would be no need to keep going on for another fifty minutes.  Move on to the next subject so that gifted mind can keep up.

And when the mind hits a roadblock, the system slows down and doesn't let them move on until they have mastered the subject.

I think I envision the next generation being raised by computers in individual rooms or cubicles.  The teacher still exists in this environment, but their purpose is to help frustrated kids and give the hands on approach to the child that needs it.

I know the system we currently have does not work.  That's quite evident.  So the goal is to radically redesign the system to something that does work, and is reproducible.

I also seem to remember something years ago that stated Algebra was a college level course.  And now, it's a junior high course.  If you want the next level on movement, you have to get more people up to a higher level learning faster so those people can spend more time with the requisite knowledge to figure out the hard problems.