This is not necessarily an accurate reflection of my beliefs, but an interesting thought experiment. I asked myself the question, “What does my ideal school look like?”
The postulate here is that the real value that the individual gets from an institution of higher learning is inspiration and empowerment, which is best attained through community collaboration and discussion.
In order for students to be empowered and inspired, they need to be freed from their studenthood. They need to become collaborators. In my institution, a mix of people of all ages gather around a table to discuss. There are no teachers. Sometimes someone brings a topic to the table. Maybe it’s necessary for mer to deliver a lecture in order to fully introduce a topic, but the lecture should always be followed with discussion. These discussions must be held with small groups, so that the air is casual and everyone is comfortable speaking. Also, small discussion groups force people to be engaged because it’s impossible to fade into the background.
Building a community is extremely important for creating meaningful discourse (no small talk, no formalities). Thus, my institution has mandatory on-campus lodging. There are regular social events that encourage everyone to get to know each-other on different levels and to have discussion outside the classroom. This is another opportunity for collaboration and inspiration. The construction of this community must be supplemented with visiting lecturers and collaborators. Variety of opinion is very important and must be actively sought out.
Spaces are very carefully established with purpose and these purposes are respected. There are spaces for discussion and collaborative work. There are spaces for socialization and recreation. There are spaces for quiet, solitary study and work. The atmosphere in discussion spaces needs to be casual to some extent. Relevant jokes and pop culture references can and should be made. However, the goal of endowing spaces with purpose is to avoid the potential for a group of friends to allow discussion to become unfocused. Usually it is the teacher that demands this focus. With no teacher, the group must self-enforce, and establishing purposeful space is helpful to this end. Discussion spaces will sometimes have an established topic before discussion starts. Other topics may come up, but they should be captured in writing and revisited later.
In keeping with Free Culture ideals, course materials are recycled whenever possible. Special attention is paid to avoid reinventing the wheel (though recontextualization can be useful, ie writing about an unoriginal idea but with the intent of reaching a new audience). Lectures, slideshows, and essays from sources like TED talks and MIT’s OpenCourseWare
(or anyone else’s OpenCourseWare) are commonly used to frame discussions and introduce ideas. Similarly, when someone prepares a lecture for the rest of the community, it is recorded, openly licensed, and published online for other institutions to use. Also, a special emphasis is placed on the study of the great books because of their brilliance and because of their importance to an understanding of popular culture and society.
An emphasis is placed on work (defined as the tangible product of working, like the way artists use it), rather than examination. In fact, there are no examinations or grades. However, in order to encourage people to take their work seriously, deadlines are set. They are set by individuals or groups who decide to take on projects. They are set just soon enough to be uncomfortable. Goals are right on the line between unattainable and possible. Peers are encouraged to dive in to a project headfirst, not quite knowing where it will go. Failure is seen as common and important for learning. Sometimes failure can be just as motivating as success. Projects are shared with the community, which is very useful for inspiring others to take on new outlooks and to start projects of their own. The community helps its peers to critique their work and debrief on the successes and failures in the process. Of course, all work is published online with an open license that allows redistribution and remixing so that others can benefit from it and time is not wasted reinventing the wheel.
In some ways, this proposal is just for a glorified book club. But I hope that these ideals (and others that result from reflection on this piece of writing) can be integrated into existing communities of learning, and that, with some work, new communities (or subcommunities within an existing institution) can be created with the intention of at least partial implementation of this system.
Certainly, as we move closer to a Free Culture, this system becomes more feasible.
