# What kind of school would you make?



## Randroth (Nov 25, 2010)

If you were to oversee the creation of a new school (high school, elementary school, university, whatever) that would fit your vision for education, what would your school look like? What kind of classes would be required? Would your school be devoted to helping lower-class kids get a step up, or focused on helping high achievers maximize their potential, or some other option? Would it be a magnet school for the arts or the sciences, or be a general-education institution? What kind of educational philosophy would your school have and what would you like the students to learn by graduation time?

You don't really have to answer the questions; I would just like to hear people's *vision for their ideal school*. I have a few ideas of my own, but I'd like to hear other people's ideas first. I'll edit mine in later


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## Cory Ryan Banta (Feb 7, 2012)

Something that follows this philosophy:

In the midst of any superficial victory, whether it is perceived as such or not, there is a flowing spring of unseen violence hidden beneath a reveled and celebrated chaos. Contrariwise, it is only in our deep, non-superficial acceptances of suffering and loss to any above system of hierarchical governance or bureaucracy, that which withholds our freedom, and thus diminishes wisdom and philosophical idealism in a universal manner, that we unleash a long withheld fountain of deep and universal understanding, a knowledge to which an existential connection to the rest of our experiences may be drawn. It is here, I believe, that creativity is born; it is here where our society, and more specifically our idealism and philosophy of the moral education, should be centered. Therefore, the perfect education on the societal level is achieved when all external factors of society become intertwined with all internal factors, that is, any and all factors of education that occur outside of the institution of education become indistinguishable from the factors of our education that which occur internally to the institution. What this means is that the true and moral education cannot occur within any stated, structured, or societal mandated form of education. Education must become localized on the level of the individual; it must be eternal, internal, intrinsic, and, most of all, compelled by motivation from within. Any philosophy of education outside of this does not fulfill the role of the moral education, simply because it has motives of a system that must, by default, carry within itself goals ulterior to pure education, be it economic, cultural (in the superficial sense), religious, or meta-idealistic, and, therefore, contribute to some sort of pseudo-victory against a culturally determined problematic aspect of the governance, which is in its entirety, the very problem to begin with.

There is an insurmountable and infinitely elusive zest to chaos, that which constitutes the reality of our individual existence, and also that which mandates our acquisition to any attempt to grasp meaning, or any interpretation of it. Our moral education is one that freely nourishes this zest for the naturally occurring chaos of our existence. In doing so, incidentally, such an education mandates a lack of bureaucracy, or of any governance, because the need for law, logocentric order, or, rather, any manifestation of extrinsic reason to behave morally is extinguished, simply because intrinsic motivation is all that remains in its wake of absence.

One may be inclined to say that such a state is anarchy, or, perhaps, the State of Nature that Hobbes described. However, we are not looking at a flat plane here. There is, in fact, a parabola of societal history in development. There is the initial off set, whereas, indeed, we find ourselves in an anarchistic state of nature. From here, we develop extrinsic motivational factors; a superficial adherence to religion, a sense of duty to higher order, the instilment of the superficial drives of the superego into our long-term subconscious, financial incentive, power incentive, sexual (superficial id drives) incentive, et cetera. We approach, eventually, some sort of apex, perhaps the onset of transhumanism or human singularity. This is where humanity makes a very large-scale decision. We may defy the parabola and go on up the path past singularity into post-scarcity society, whereas extrinsic, along with intrinsic motivation is completely nullified due to existential transcendence. If we, on the other hand, choose to descend and accept the societal parabola, we approach a long-term regurgitation and subsequent annihilation of our hitherto systematic governance and order. Imagine, hypothetically, taking away any manifested security functions of society, that is, police, prisons, courts, et cetera, because there are no criminals or incentive to behave criminally to begin with. In the same sense, there is no need for any institution of education, because everyone is motivated to educate himself, intrinsically, and any and all intellectual resources are available en masse. Finally, though quite plausibly simultaneously, any reason to establish official law or ethical tradition becomes obsolete, because society behaves morally and ethically due to the factor of intrinsic motivation that has supplied the former reasons for the societal decline into this quasi-parallel State of Nature.

Such a utopian State of Nature is easily criticized in today’s contexts because the very idea of such an existence seems to go against everything our history has taught us. Humans are evil; we need extrinsic motivation to compel us to act morally just, and even then, it’s just a façade. This is one of the essential themes in Golding’s _Lord of the Flies_. Without the conch shell, or symbolically, traditional governance—a culturally established superego (assuming that in the original state of nature there is no superego, or at least a very malnourished one)—the boys quickly digress into their natural and frenzied states of existence, controlled almost entirely by their id. Indeed, in our superficial political culture of today, our arguments are not of the ideal, as we would like to believe they are, but simply projections of our un-philosophical and insipid ego and superego. In true nature, every superficial political argument at the dinner table is in actuality an internal argument between our patriarchal and maternal superego, that is, an argument between the embracement of total fascists utilitarianism, or liberal air-headed anarchism.
Society has effectively separated our study into the origin and distribution of power hierarchies from idealism and philosophy. The bureaucracy we have worked so hard to create in order to provide us with order and peace has destroyed our collective wisdom, or, more accurately, prevented us from ever achieving it, and therefore what would be the truly peaceful and orderly society. Counterintuitively, it is the zest for chaos that we must embrace in order to bring about order. And because this zest for chaos is either flourished or extinguished by societal educational culture, it is our responsibility as citizens and educationalists to provide this culture of education which acts as the nutrient provider for this natural zest for chaos. Alas, we have done the exact opposite, and created a societal, hierarchical educational system, rather than a free flowing, open culture or environment, that in turn is crusading against this natural inclination.

However, this is ultimately what the ethical education aims to do, or rather what the moral education should aim to do. It takes this double-edged sword of chaos-hunger, that which leads us into war, savagery, violence, and unmitigated hatred, and instead uses it as a force for the hunger of learning, of engendering intrinsic motivation. It aims to replace this extrinsic, superficial motivation founded upon traditionalism and the superego with an intrinsic motivation held deeply within the ego and id. It eliminates our cultural superego and turns the once unfavorable forces of our id and ego into a force of selfish yet simultaneously beneficial agents in this new State of Nature. What I mean here is that we pursue our intellectual and philosophical goals in a selfish manner (in these contexts, every act and motivation is selfish; some simply originate within deeper recesses of the ego than others do) that also happens to benefit such a society. Ironically, perhaps, this positive feedback loop of the cyclic tragedy in our society is due to our societal superego, which does the greatest harm to society simply because it acts as the support for the perceived order to dominate the perceived chaos, the zest of life for which we truly require yet continually deny, our fountain of creativity and philosophical enlightenment, by which we obtain the means to become intrinsically motivated and therefore transcend extrinsic motivation altogether. The societal superego acts as the guardian of the status quo of this perceived order. It allows for such hideous tragedies and violence to occur to begin with, and then in the aftermath, it is the inherently beneficial and natural chaotic quality of our existence that is subjected as the scapegoat for the tragedy, when in actuality it is the governance of perceived order that points the finger who in reality is responsible for the tragedy to begin with.

In summary, our cultural superego becomes an annihilator of our chaotic yet truly beneficial intuition to make the world a better place, by substituting in its place a withholder of responsibility, a drain of burden, from which we are relieved of such chaotic intuition.

My argument, ultimately, is that it is our current state of bureaucratic, economical-incentive driven, extrinsically motivated education system that acts as the manifestation of the drain of which I speak of because, in line with our history and culture thus far, it has solidified a system of the advancement of the mediocre. We are living in an age of mediocrity, and it is our cultural paradigm, currently being congealed by our education system, that is to blame.


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## timeless (Mar 20, 2010)

I'd make a law school that was 100% practical.

Most people don't know this but most law schools teach entirely theoretical classes. Most have no connection to the actual reality of practicing law.


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## Adrift (Apr 5, 2011)

The purpose of my school would be to prepare the student for the real world as well as to produce useful and productive citizens. The school (either a junior high or high school) would include a:

1) basic life skills class that would teach plumbing repairs (fixing a leaky faucet), automotive repairs (changing oil, changing tires), how to invest money (buying stocks, bonds, gold, etc.), and maybe job hunting (start focusing them early on).

2) a critical thinking class where students would study and analyze propaganda and newspapers. Kids would watch and analyze political speeches and pick out the flaws in logic, the dodging and obfuscation, and all the neat tricks of the trade that politicians use to mislead.

3) a trade school curriculum for those students who don't want to attend college.

The brilliant and gifted kids would attend classes with other gifted students. No bullying or class disruptions would be tolerated.

1) Science courses would be taught using primary journal sources. That way, students can see the steps involved in learning a scientific topic.

2) there should be at least one applied Mathematics course where students learn how to use math in solving unusual problems.

3) A computer programming class that teaches the fundamentals of several programming languages.


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## Up and Away (Mar 5, 2011)

Oh this is easy.

Castle on a lake, boarding school, private, teach martial arts, philosophy, sciences and logic, arts, etc...


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## Le Beau Coeur (Jan 30, 2011)

A combination international middle school/high school to train ballet dancers where they can study both ballet and academics at the same time. There would be auditions for placement etc.


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## Randroth (Nov 25, 2010)

Thanks for the input everyone. @timeless I didn't realize that. Are you a law student/lawyer?


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## Enkidu (Apr 19, 2010)

Vision of my _ideal_? :wink:

I would establish the imaginary School of Magic on Roke Island. With 9 specialized (yet interwoven) classes in:

1) weather control (Windkey)
2) illusion (Hand)
3) healing (Herbal)
4) arts of transformation (Changer)
5) calling or summoning (Summoner)
6) rudiments of True Speech (Namer)
7) music and chanted spells (Chanter)
8) meaning and intent (Patterner)
9) guardian of gates (Doorkeeper) 

The integrative curriculum would focus on schooling aspiring mages in seeking & maintaining a harmony between the organic and dream worlds. Current Archmage Ursula K. le Guin, heads the now co-ed program. The School Roke is located on the picturesque island of power, adjacent to the Immanent Grove and Roke Knoll. 





The Roke School of Magic maintains an open admissions policy for all persons who wish to obtain a balanced education in wizardry. Unless the applicant is a dragon, chartered ships need to be aware of the unpredictable weather around Roke Island.​


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## timeless (Mar 20, 2010)

Randroth said:


> Thanks for the input everyone. @_timeless_ I didn't realize that. Are you a law student/lawyer?


I just graduated law school and I'm taking my licensing exam in a couple weeks.

The way law school works is really counter-intuitive. All accredited schools are ranked into four tiers. Generally speaking, the older & more prestigious schools are in Tier 1 + 2 and the newer schools are near the bottom at Tier 3 and 4.

Traditionally, law school was aimed at producing lots of prestigious legal theorists so that the school looks good. This is why the Tier 1 schools are Tier 1 schools, because they produced alumni who became judges, scholars or professors and shaped the way law is done. So many of the "old school" crowd keep up this tradition, but it's pretty inadequate for real practice. In keeping with that tradition, it's hard to get in but not hard to stick around.

On the other hand, the newer schools tend to cater toward people who want a crack at law school despite a low GPA or LSAT score. The attrition rate is high, but pretty much everyone gets a shot and they teach primarily practical knowledge. The "academic" side isn't as strong there.

For example, I went to a Tier 1 school and my classes were very abstract. Even classes that you'd THINK would be practical, like Federal Income Tax or Secured Transactions, weren't very practical. I figured I'd learn how to calculate taxes in Fed Income Tax, but about 75% of it was tax-related litigation issues and 25% was tax liability reduction. 

I'd like to find a balance between the two paradigms and have a law school that has a focus on practicality but also ties in the theoretical aspect. Practicality would drive it, but it would encourage complete understanding of a concept. Theory has to follow practice, or otherwise it's useless.


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## Cory Ryan Banta (Feb 7, 2012)

timeless said:


> I just graduated law school and I'm taking my licensing exam in a couple weeks.
> 
> The way law school works is really counter-intuitive. All accredited schools are ranked into four tiers. Generally speaking, the older & more prestigious schools are in Tier 1 + 2 and the newer schools are near the bottom at Tier 3 and 4.
> 
> ...


This is very interesting to me. The way you described Law School is sort of like a reduced version of education on the mass scale. The elites get to have a more Dewey-based, qualitative, abstract, philosophically-aware education, because they know that this enables one to achieve critical pedagogical consciousness and realize the paradigms one is being taught under (Freire), while the middle and lower classes get a more practical, vocational, economically-incentive driven education that is quantitative and selective of students based on standardized test scores that prevent any abstract thinkers from getting too far (because they could care less about learning all the useless rote memorization standardized tests require and rather be reading Sartre and Plato).


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## timeless (Mar 20, 2010)

Cory Ryan Banta said:


> This is very interesting to me. The way you described Law School is sort of like a reduced version of education on the mass scale. The elites get to have a more Dewey-based, qualitative, abstract, philosophically-aware education, because they know that this enables one to achieve critical pedagogical consciousness and realize the paradigms one is being taught under (Freire), while the middle and lower classes get a more practical, vocational, economically-incentive driven education that is quantitative and selective of students based on standardized test scores that prevent any abstract thinkers from getting too far (because they could care less about learning all the useless rote memorization standardized tests require and rather be reading Sartre and Plato).


That's a good way of putting it, although there are a lot of people in the elite class going to lower tier law schools. There are some lower tier law schools that are basically a holding tank for over-privileged rich kids who want to get a law degree because their father/mother has one and they don't have a high LSAT score.

I personally think that practicality and theory need to be unified to produce a really comprehensive education. I did have some very practical legal research & writing classes, but I probably got more practical knowledge from working with attorneys, being a legal researcher and moot court/mock trial competitions.


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## Randroth (Nov 25, 2010)

Here are some of the big ideas behind the school I would make (I have a high school in mind):

- I would put a lot of emphasis on the ideals of classical education. A good summary of classical education can be found here. Also, while I don't know enough about educational theory to really make a solid case for it, constructivism makes a lot of sense to me and definitely describes how I learn. Ultimately I would like the school to produce students who are well-versed in truth, reason, character, and citizenship.

- Not all students are created equal. Different students have different strengths, and while it might not be politically correct to say so, different levels of ability and intelligence. I don't think creativity, intelligence, and thinking skills are relegated to certain career paths and I believe all students should be well-rounded and experienced in many facets of life, so it wouldn't really be a college-prep school in the typical sense; *however*, I would only open my school to students who are serious about sharpening their minds and souls.

- Project-based learning would play a large role in the school. This is in keeping with the constructivist theory brought up earlier. I've found that projects provide the best combination of theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge in a subject.

- Students should achieve a high level of competency in the basics (communication, critical thinking, creativity, basic math, etc.) before moving on to more advanced topics or branching out to peripheral topics. This might not be the most popular belief in the world because it could be perceived as holding students back, but consider the following: 

If a student isn't going into a math-based field, for example, then moving into calculus and beyond really isn't going to help them, and giving them a solid base of arithmetic, algebra, and geometry will help teach practical problem-solving skills _and_ give them a base to work from if they change their mind and decide to go further into math. Moving them into advanced classes really makes no sense from any angle. If they _are_ going into a math-based field, then moving them into advanced classes before they've achieved real mastery of the basics will give them a false sense of confidence and hamstring their problem-solving ability. I believe the same line of reasoning works in many other subjects.

- I would encourage teachers to “flip” their classes—i.e. record lectures for the students to watch as their “homework” and have problem-solving and discussion of the material be the in-class focus. Some might charge that having students initially learn the material away from a live instructor will distance students from instructors, but I believe that allowing students to learn new material at their own pace and then have class time focused on questions and problems ultimately makes students much more engaged in the learning process.

- At the beginning of their time at the school, students would go through two classes: first, "Theory of Learning", and second, "Metacognition". Theory of Learning would cover the history of teaching and learning, learning goals, personality types, learning styles, and whatnot. Metacognition would encourage students to think about thinking and cover logic, critical thinking, design thinking, and other related subjects.

- In lieu of a freshman literature class, it would have a Fundamentals of Communication class. In keeping with the basic competency principle above, students would learn how to read well, write well, speak well, and listen well in a variety of circumstances and on a variety of subjects. Students would read and discuss literature, but do so within the context of communication as a whole.

- Seniors would have a large, mostly self-directed project to complete over the course of the year. Students would have to show mastery of the subject they chose to cover, while connecting it to other big ideas from other subjects. Ideally it would integrate theoretical knowledge with practical, real-world application. Much of my inspiration for this idea comes from the Big History project--Google it if you're unfamiliar with it.

- I would highly encourage learning-by-teaching. Students would be encouraged to teach each other things that they've discovered or mastered and to seek out others to teach them those things as well. Learning by Teaching.

- Physical education would be required for all four years. Maybe it's just my Se showing, but if PE is useful for two years (the requirement at my high school), then why the hell wouldn't it be useful for all four years? The arguments brought forward for making PE a requirement for two years don't just go away as soon as they become juniors. If PE makes students healthier and sharper for two years, it'll do it for four. I would include the ability to opt out a semester at a time if a student is playing sports.

That's all I have to post for now, but there's plenty more percolating in my head. Once again, many thanks to everyone for your posts.


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## Cory Ryan Banta (Feb 7, 2012)

There are a lot of things you mentioned that I liked.



> At the beginning of their time at the school, students would go through two classes: first, "Theory of Learning", and second, "Metacognition". Theory of Learning would cover the history of teaching and learning, learning goals, personality types, learning styles, and whatnot. Metacognition would encourage students to think about thinking and cover logic, critical thinking, design thinking, and other related subjects.


I highly agree with this. I would add that it should come from a psychoanalytic perspective or something with a Frankfort-school twist on it, as in, teaching the philosophy that teaching and learning should be a mutually responsible relationship (student-teachers and teacher-students; elimination of the teacher-student dichotomy) as well as teaching the idea that education should serve the purpose of liberating humanity rather than shackling it to the status-quo.

However, there are some things in your philosophy that I disagree with.



> Students should achieve a high level of competency in the basics (communication, critical thinking, creativity, basic math, etc.) before moving on to more advanced topics or branching out to peripheral topics. This might not be the most popular belief in the world because it could be perceived as holding students back, but consider the following:
> 
> If a student isn't going into a math-based field, for example, then moving into calculus and beyond really isn't going to help them, and giving them a solid base of arithmetic, algebra, and geometry will help teach practical problem-solving skills _and give them a base to work from if they change their mind and decide to go further into math. Moving them into advanced classes really makes no sense from any angle. If they aregoing into a math-based field, then moving them into advanced classes before they've achieved real mastery of the basics will give them a false sense of confidence and hamstring their problem-solving ability. I believe the same line of reasoning works in many other subjects._


I do not believe in any required classes. I do believe that all classes offered, however, should be interdisciplinary, and should have a sort of philosophical, meta-aware energy underlying every lesson. This is to promote students learning on intrinsic reason rather than extrinsic reason. When you have required classes like mathematics, especially if all the mathematics classes are taught in the same style for the same type of learner, this may discourage students who are not those types of learners but who may be brilliant in other fields, and it may also encourage students to be motivated extrinsically because the class is a "required" class and should therefore be taken seriously as a study per culture or authority, rather than out of inherent student interest.

Why should brilliant artists be forced to take mathematics when brilliant mathematicians are not forced to take art? Rather, I think, all classes should incorporate a little of everything into the big idea of the primary subject being taught, and perhaps even have students divide into groups so that their talents get to be utilized to the fullest in group cooperation (for instance, say you're in a science class, you should develop a project that ultimately aims for a scientific purpose but incorporates the needs of multiple talents, and then assign a four person group with a student whom you know to be talented in science, one in math, onc in humanities, and one in psychology).

The only underlying principle in every educational environment should be meta-education and philosophy, that is, promoting critical thought and consciousness of the paradigm should be the only thing "forced" on the student, and even then, it's really just put on a plate for them to accept. The only alternative being ignorance or blinded rote memorization without understanding, which, theoretically, once being philosophically aware, no student would want.



> Physical education would be required for all four years. Maybe it's just my Se showing, but if PE is useful for two years (the requirement at my high school), then why the hell wouldn't it be useful for all four years? The arguments brought forward for making PE a requirement for two years don't just go away as soon as they become juniors. If PE makes students healthier and sharper for two years, it'll do it for four. I would include the ability to opt out a semester at a time if a student is playing sports.


I also have to disagree with this. In theory, I think, the philosophically aware student will realize the importance of the balance of body and mind, of daily meditation practices, of yoga, of running, lifting weights, eating healthy, living a good lifestyle etc. You should not force it upon them and make it a requirement, for the same threat making mathematics a required class may do.


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