How Do We Break Free?

If our goal is to create a new kind of school, how do we break free from the traditional ways of thinking about school? I think we have to start with a process of negation: to examine what schools currently are and then imagine the opposite of that, the negated version of reality. It’s kind of like playing a game of “What if...?” Here’s an example of what I mean:

• In the most general sense, schools are places where students go to learn. How might we turn that on it’s head? What if schools were places where students went to teach? What if it was a place for parents, students, trained educators, and other community members to teach and learn from each other? What if it wasn’t one set place, but rather many places? Then how would school be defined? Maybe, if school wasn’t a place, it could be an attitude or a set of goals.
• In school, there exists a hierarchy with students on the bottom, then teachers, then school administrators, and then district administrators on the top. Let’s negate that, not by putting students on top, but by eliminating the hierarchy all together. What if students, parents, teachers, and administrators worked together to build the school’s philosophy? What if proposals had to be voted on by a fair number of all stakeholders? What if, as part of doing away with the hierarchy, everyone who worked at the school started out making the same fair and competitive salary and shared similar responsibilities, including instruction (if that still existed as we know it now) so titles such as "teacher" or "principal" or "support staff" would be irrelevant? How would that change the power structure? What if all stakeholders were responsible for maintaining the school, both physically, emotionally, and intellectually? What would that look like?
• Currently, student and school success (and sometimes teacher success) is measured through standardized tests. What if tests—in the traditional sense of tests: right or wrong answers, multiple choices, essay exams, etc.—were completely abolished in school? How would we know what students are learning? (What the heck should they be learning anyway? That’s a different, although related, question.) What if students decided what they would be tested on instead of leaving it to the teacher/state/federal government? What if their tests were related to a self-chosen goal? How would the goals be monitored? Should they be monitored? Would goal-setting become a measurable assessment for every student? What if students weren’t compared to each other (as test results measured in percentile are) but rather measured progress by comparing their own past results to current results based on a specific goal? What if teachers, administrators, parents, and other involved school members also made goals for themselves and shared those goals with the rest of the school community, creating an open system of assessment of all people involved in the school? How would that change the definition of progress and success?

So, you get the picture. This list could go on and on, and it should. We need to rethink every last detail of education as we formulate a design for the first Dream School.

Now it’s your turn. What aspect of school would you like to change, and what might the new model look like?