stimulant

A friend of mine sent me this email recently:

“I’ve been thinking about why people don’t seem to care at all about changing education — regardless of whether they personally do anything about it. (I’ve talked to a few people since talking to you.) First of all, people don’t agree and this is a hard thing to convince them of, which is reasonable; it took me some time to be convinced. I spent a hour or so last night trying to convince [a mutual friend] that 5.12 was not a good class (not that any class is particularly good…) in that the goal of the class was to memorize specific facts and not in any way learn how to learn or learn how to approach solving problems. In the end, most people, except maybe organic chemists (who only comprise a small fraction of the class), forget most of the material and wasted a semester on pointless psets and cramming for tests. Second of all, it seems that people have this notion that if they’ve come out ahead in the game in the current system that other people should have to suffer through it too and that other smart people will come out ahead too. Or rather, that since they’re done with school they just don’t care enough to even think about such issues. I find this attitude particularly strange and was surprised that people thought this way. However, upon thinking about this further I am rather convinced this attitude is prevalent at MIT (and maybe elsewhere as well). I am consistently nearly last when filling out course evaluations and seem to be one of only a few to write any comments on the back whatsoever. (No wonder courses at MIT continue to suck.) I have no idea how people (like you) working on such reform can convince people that education does matter and that there should be a debate about how it’s done.”

First of all, let me note that I’d consider this friend of mine a “model” student. They’ve had, nominally, the best education available. And gleaned every benefit from mastering the system. And still, their dissatisfaction is clear.

Anyway, this dovetails into an idea that’s been increasingly on my mind lately: learning how to change things. As trite as that sounds, the fact that our graduation speeches go out and tell us to change the world after being stuck in classes for four, eight, ten years is a pretty obnoxious irony. Reform and social change are hard, ill-posed problems with no clear-cut solutions. Having good intentions is an infinitesimal part of effecting change. So why don’t we learn how to stage a protest, how to bring a bill before our legislature, how to start a non-profit, how to write great rhetoric, how to work with the press, how to …

I’m not suggesting we need a class, “World Changing 101.” I am suggesting that if schools really want to educate students that are going to go on to change things for the better, the path to accomplishing that is clearly not through an immense scaffolding of academics. Students don’t do anything within school for twelve years. We go to class after class and get grades. The real content of a student is what they do outside of school, despite the overwhelming role school plays in their lives.

Note that colleges have discovered this. Among high-achieving students, their coursework and grades are components of diminishing importance when it comes to college applications. Instead, their extracurriculars, their research, their jobs and passions outside of school are what dominate an application and essays. Why is school in the way?

For me, this has been increasingly manifest recently in my attempts to become more of an activist. Whether that’s through writing articles or starting a company or developing software or staging protests, as I consider more concrete paths to change education, I find myself at a bit of a loss. I’ve plenty of ideas and enthusiasm, but I’m completely inexperienced. I don’t even have good models in mind to follow.

So to return to that email, how do I “convince people that education does matter and that there should be a debate about how it’s done?” I copped out in my reply:

“I don’t think that it’s possible to achieve significant reform or debate just by engaging people on the theoretical plane. This isn’t to say we shouldn’t keep it at the forefront of discussions; I just think that’s one component. I think that concrete actions and successes are the only way people will pay attention. Otherwise, you end up “talking” about education, when in reality, people’s value systems and ideals are clashing, and that’s the discussion you really want to be having. For instance, I think that school should be working to create happy people. That’s a pretty radical claim for most people, who accept school as an inevitably tiresome, wearing entity. And there are tons of assumptions and hidden ideas like that behind any discussion about education. I think any discussion that doesn’t address them is bound — not to fail, but to flounder. Productive ideas and action can still come out of it, but only on an interaction-by-interaction basis. The most effective reforms I’ve seen have all been proposed in the context of work done (c.f. Papert’s “Mindstorms” or the Montessori method).”

And so for now, I can only work to develop the tools and implement the reforms I want on my own, while aggressively marketing them. But that solution is so much more muddled than one would hope upon hearing that question…