PSA has been discussing the advent of DIY education as one likely outcome of ubiquitous access to learning resources, and the mobile-created semi- irrelevance of school buildings. DIY education would include a collaborative learning environment of some sort. But what would the structure, the framework, the “thing we used to call school” look like?
It might be based on a family group, or some neighborhood group, or some aggregation of online learners that don’t physically live close together. Or combinations of the above with current school structure. Or something as yet unimagined?
It might look something like the concept of “Micro Schools” which are getting started around the country. Interestingly enough, the concept seems to be one promoted by Clayton Christensen, the disruptive innovation guy, guru, and gadfly.
“With small buildings, few faculty and staff members, and a curriculum built largely around free, online programs, micro schools strip education down to the bare essentials,” the article states.
In many larger cities, micro schools provide a more-affordable alternative to traditional private schools.
Michael Horn, a co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute, a think tank specializing in disruptive innovation, told Education Week he predicts micro schools may eventually eat up the same share of the private school market as charter schools have of the public school sector.
An article in the LCSN talks about a local effort based on Acton Academy is getting underway. Their website here.
A few things stand out: there are few regulations on what Acton Academy can do, and can’t do. It’s costly at about 6K/ year tuition. Plus the very idea of micro schools being so easy to start-up, and to go their own way, implies variation. There will be a very broad range of models and types and educational philosophies invoked and supported, as varied as the founders of these tiny startup schools may happen to be.
IOW, something for everyone, which is one of the true strengths of DIY education. There will of course be weaknesses too. Such as can this model work for parents without the funds to support a school, even at the “micro level”?
Possibly… as online learning resources can be quite low cost, and new buildings may not be needed. So then it’s cost of teachers/ facilitators…and whether parents can find the time in the work day to be involved…or can pool possibly meager resources to fund the instructors.
Eventually, the core question of what is the state’s responsibility for the education of the children, will have to be addressed. The homogenizing element of public education is often cited as helping make a democracy work, and public funding for public education has been the means of making education affordable, at least K-12, for all.
Our present model of top down institutional education has many drawbacks… such as bureaucracy determined education models, and uneven resource distribution, that closely follows community income levels. Poor communities for the most part have poor schools. That’s not democratizing, and it’s not just, and it’s not smart to waste our countries human resource potentials.
The status quo has amazingly persisted essentially unchanged for at least 50 years, and whatever the new models, it’s time for change and innovation, and experimentation. For better, and inevitably sometimes for worse… but change we must.
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