Reinvigorating Education

In thinking about a structure to hang a new focus to the rebranded Arete Academy, efficiency engineer Harrington Emerson stated, "As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble." When considering moving the thinking of both teachers and students to a new level, holding to the principles of students advocating for themselves and their learning provides many methods for them to show it, which would make the learning the important thing, along with students taking an active role in how it will be assessed and quantified.

In a sense, common assessments hold students hostage on the teacher focused side of the continuum of who is driving new learning and keep some students and teachers from being fully engaged. It may take awhile, but student engagement will go up if they are given leeway to use their strengths to show their learning. There will have to be a huge amount of support given to students at first, including lists or menus of product types. Eventually they will get to the point where they can choose an appropriate product for the targeted skill they need to master.

There are many people who feel like changing jobs or even careers every five years or so is how they stay fresh and always in a perpetual mode of growth, but it is stressful going to a new workplace, working with new people on a new idea using our current skill set. Teachers often have the ability to avoid the reinvigorating feeling of thinking about their area of expertise in a new way. They have the lesson plans, and the history of having students find success in terms of GPA. Embracing the principle that students should be in charge of showing their learning may be daunting in terms of letting go of control, but could re-energize teachers in the sense that they are still the content experts, still working with the same people, in the same place, but now seeing it, in the opposite way of it being about what the students take away from the class rather than what the teacher teaches.

Ferriss, Timothy. Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2018.