Organic Versus Synthetic Learning: A Synopsis

Earlier, I wrote about my made-up concepts of organic versus synthetic learning.  I've been thinking about this dichotomy, and decided to make some clarifying points.  I think these concepts provide a useful language to re-frame any discussion on making school more effective.  

Organic Learning: Organic learning is learning that occurs in a natural state.  It is learning that develops from within a child (or adult).  The child develops curiosity about a topic, concept, problem, or idea, then seeks out methods to satisfy this curiosity.  The outside world does not interfere with this process.  The motivation to learn is intrinsic.  It radiates from within. 

Organic learning is exciting and invigorating.  To the outside observer, this usually appears to be "playing". The child will expend great effort to satisfy their natural curiosity.  This is the process children use to understand the world around them.  Since the methods the child uses to satisfy our curiosity develop from internal processes, a great deal of creativity is utilized.  Learning occurs quickly and efficiently with minimal resources.

The Free School Movement capitalizes on the idea of organic learning with great success.  The Sudbury Valley School could be used as an effective model.

Synthetic Learning: Synthetic learning is any attempt by outside forces to modify organic learning.  This could be anything from a parent subtly guiding their child toward understanding to the "rigor" and structure of a high school classroom.  Synthetic learning is usually an attempt to control what, how, or when a child will learn. Synthetic learning could be a textbook, lecture, group work, government-imposed curriculum, or the myriad of other methods or tools we use to attempt to teach children.

Synthetic learning, regardless of the rationale, methods, or justification, always results in a cost.  Since synthetic learning is an attempt to get children to learn using external forces, the curiosity-based motivation that characterizes organic learning is reduced.  The cost of reduced internal motivation greatly decreases the speed and efficiency of synthetic learning, which then requires greater resources. Generally, the more synthetic learning processes are applied to the learning process, the less effective it becomes (less is more).  

In essence, synthetic learning can be thought of as a barrier to learning.  The fewer the barriers, the more effective learning becomes. 

Education professionals perpetually seek the best synthetic methods (i.e.- best practices) in an attempt to make synthetic learning as effective as organic learning.  Synthetic learning is never as effective as organic learning, but some synthetic learning methods and tools will be more effective than others.

The very nature of formal schooling creates a host of synthetic learning barriers including standardization practices, rules, procedures, and routines, textbooks, curriculum, teachers and administrators, fellow classmates, the physical environment, and the prescribed class periods/ school day.  A master teacher's role should be assessing each individual student and removing as many of these barriers as possible to allow them to learn in the most effective way possible. 

How this model could be used:  This model would require schools (administrators, teachers, support staff, students, parents, and community) to systematically assess every single element of the school and determine what impact it had on student learning.  The goal would be to remove the barriers that result in the most synthetic learning and leave the barriers that bring students closest to organic learning.  

Using Pareto's principle (80% of the outcomes flow from 20% of the causes) in a systematic fashion would create a culture that constantly evolves to provide the best possible barrier-free environment for organic learning to occur.  At any given time, 20% of the elements of a school (schedule, curriculum, specific teachers, specific administrators, color of the carpet, etc.) are going to cause 80% of the problems.  Using a democratic system where everyone (administrators, teachers, support staff, students, parents, and community) has one voice and one vote, these problems can be identified and eliminated. The 20% of the elements of the school will result in 80% of the successes, or elements that bring students closer to organic learning.  Using the same process, these elements can be identified and replicated.  

Some elements will be non-negotiable and cannot be eliminated, like state-imposed curriculum or the physical building layout.  The school community would be able to collaborate to reduce the cost of these non-negotiables on the organic learning process. 

By constantly applying this system, schools will move progressively closer to the ideal of high levels of organic learning and low levels of synthetic learning, ergo more efficient and effective learning.

Because organic learning inherently requires less resources, the school budget will inevitably shrink.  Also, the process of organic learning will likely produce something that is valuable to society, thus has monetary value.  For example, Bill Strickland of the Manchester Craftsman's Guild produces and sells student-generated music to fund his school.  The ultimate goal would be to create a self-funded school that capitalizes on its by-products as a source of income.  Financial freedom removes a major barrier for schools- the reliance on funding from groups (government, corporate, etc.).

The Silliness of Work for Work's Sake

Back in the day, I used to work in a grocery store.  When I was a cashier, the boss would insist we keep busy.  To this end, she would assign us various duties such as dusting the candy, sweeping the floor, stocking the shelves at the front of the store, etc.  When we finished our assigned jobs, she would insist we restart them. We'd dust candy that was dusted three minutes ago.  It was my first taste of working for the sake of work.

Her logic was understandable... it made her look bad if the cashiers were just loitering around chatting.  If we were being paid, we'd better be working, damn it!  It didn't matter if the jobs were completely pointless or not. 

Unfortunately, the boss never considered the negative aspect of this "work for the sake of work" system- it killed many positive employee traits.  For example, we learned to work as slowly as possible.  After all, once we finished there was always another hole to dig then fill in. 

It also created a negative culture.  She never considered the fact that our few minutes of intermittent chatter greatly boosted morale.  She also didn't consider the ancillary benefit- we usually chatted about work.  Occasionally we'd talk about ways to improve the store.  We were developing better ways to do our jobs.  Instead, we plotted ways to make her life more difficult.  So goes human nature.

The store has since went out of business.  Appropriate.:-)

How often do we do this in the classroom?  There are some that insist kids "stay busy" for the entire duration of their class.   This idea of working for the sake of work just doesn't make sense.  It undermines a fundamental human trait- efficiency.

Many kids will work diligently to finish their work just to have a sliver of time to relax.  Those few idle minutes of chit-chat serve a useful social purpose- it allows kids to make meaningful connections by communicating.  It's a skill we sometime try to teach. 

Ironically, the best way to teach social communication may be to back off.  Simply giving kids the time to engage each other can be a wonderful social tool. 

Additionally, this idle chit-chat builds culture.  Smart businesses have capitalized on this idea.  Steelcase, a company based in Michigan, installed coffee bars throughout their corporate headquarters.  Why?  They realized giving employees a place to congregate and socialize dramatically improved morale, led to greater productivity when working on-task, and led to more creativity and innovation.  Wouldn't these characteristics be valued in the classroom? 

Senselessly filling your day with work is likely doing more harm that good.  Is that five minutes at the end of class really resulting in higher levels of learning, or could that time be better utilized to build culture?  Humans are social animals.  When that social hunger is fed, we bloom.  When we are socially-starved, we wither.  Which culture would you rather cultivate?

Our Greatest Strengths Are Also Our Greatest Weaknesses

I was introduced to this idea by Alan Webber in 'Rules of Thumb".  He framed it as a business idea- that which created your success will ultimately cause your downfall.  It's the idea that for every strength, there is a corresponding opposite attribute which is a weakness.

Here's my example.  I'm an "idea" person.  I am pretty good at envisioning new ideas.  I can usually see things most people cannot.  You may have gotten this from my previous posts. :-)

There is an opposite to this, however.  I suck at execution.  I have very poor planning skills, no organizational skills, and I have a hard time seeing things most people can (i.e.- the logistics of carrying out my ideas).  

All of us have this dichotomy.  Whatever you consider a strength also has a corresponding weakness.  In interviews, we're taught to take advantage of this.  How many people have responded to the question "What is your greatest weakness" with "I care TOO much."

Here's a little exercise to test this idea.  Get a few index cards.  On one side, write the characteristics you consider your strengths on one side.  After you finish, flip each card over and write the corresponsing weakness.

It may take some time to figure out what the weakness is, but it's there.  If you are a great people person, maybe you stink at data.  If you like math, maybe you're a horrible dancer.  Whatever.

It is important to recognize both our strengths and weaknesses.  Ideally, we should use our advantages whenever possible.  Hugh MacLeod, one of my inspirations and author of "Ignore Everybody", used the example of Bob Dylan.  He couldn't sing or play the guitar, so he played up his strength- writing damn good lyrics.  

It is important to also recognize this in our students.  Too often, we get caught up in making the "well-rounded", which is really just another world for all-around mediocre.  Identify your students' strengths and teach them to capitalize on them.  They are, after all, their strengths.

As far as weaknesses, it's helpful to be aware of them.  Manage them accordingly, but don't get caught up in sending all your time correcting the weaknesses.  It's okay to just manage them.  If Bob Dylan spent all his time trying to become a good singer or guitar player, I bet he wouldn't have amounted to much.  Neither will you.  Neither will I.  Neither will our students. 

Ideas that Work

In an earlier post, I mentioned Larry Rosenstock and High Tech High.  Here's another education model that has been making a real, significant change using a collaborative model: The Manchester Craftsman Guild.  Bill Strickland, the founder, successfully ties the arts with community mentorship to create a real opportunity for his students.  His school operates on a $1,500 per student budget and 85% of the graduating seniors attend college.  Oh, and the record label Bill created as part of the Manchester Craftsman's Guild has won four Grammy Awards.  

Thinking outside the box.  It worked pretty well for Bill. 

Solving Problems in Education with Simple, Unorthodox Solutions

Thinking outside the box. 

It's a phrase we repeat often.  How often do we really do it, though?  We tend to make decisions based on past experiences.  Those experiences may come from observation, reading, watching television, or actually experiencing something first-hand.  Sometimes we synthesize our past experiences to create new paradigms.  Still, we're limited to that which we know. 

When it comes to problem-solving and we don't have the proper prior knowledge or experience, we seek out new information.  The problem- we seek out information using the same familiar channels.  The result is predictable.  Our solutions never deviate far from our center of comfort. 

To make the problem worse, we have a tendency only consider solutions that work by addition.  We don't consider that complexity and the resulting confusion may be the root of the problem.  We can't focus on the signal because there's too much noise.  

For example, if students are struggling, the automatic solution is to add more.  More tutoring.  More homework.  More rigor.  More noise.

How do we combat this seemingly automatic response?  We need to force ourselves to look for simple solutions by using a different perspective than that which caused the problem in the first place. 

In regards to the simple solutions, I like the urban legend of the U.S. Space Program and space pens.  

As the legend goes, the first U.S. astronauts found their ink pens did not work in zero gravity.  NASA commissioned its top engineers to tackle the problem.  Designs were drawn up.  Prototypes were built.  Endless experiments were conducted.  Data was collected and analyzed.  Several years and tens of millions of dollars later, NASA engineers developed a state-of-the-art miracle of technology- the pressurized pen.  The pressurized chamber allowed astronauts to write in the absence of gravity (remember the commercials from our youth... the same pens were eventually sold to the American public as the pens that could write upside down).  NASA championed the pen as a crowning feat of American ingenuity and work ethic.  At a cost of only 20 million dollars and a few years, the best minds at NASA conquered the mystery of writing in space.

The Soviets solved the same problem by using pencils.

Complex is rarely better.  Unfortunately it is our default mode of operation.  The best way to counter this habit- think "subtraction" before "addition".  What can we take away from a problem to solve it?  Try it.  You'll be surprised... it's a much more efficient way to solve problems. 

On the issue of thinking outside the box, the best solution is to re-frame the problem.  As educators, we like to solve our problems by consulting education experts, education research, our own experiences or training in our education programs, or collaboration with... other educators.  

The problem is obvious- this model assumes other educational resources have solutions.  It doesn't consider the idea that the education system itself may be part of the problem, or even the cause of the problem. 

As I mentioned before, I've found a lot of great answers to my own problems both inside and outside the classroom by looking through a completely different lens.  A handful of resources, completely unrelated to education, have provided a wealth of potential solutions to problems I've struggled with for years.  

The open source lesson planning is one such example.  Normally, educators get wrapped up in the idea that we're the education experts.  As such, we think we're the solution to all problems related to education.  We ignore the role of the our community, families, and others outside the school... unless they claim to be experts in education.  T

his arrogance on our part is silly, it marginalizes a wealth of potential solutions that do not share our biases.  The open source lesson planning borrows a philosophy that has been immensely successful in other industries and blends it with elements of an education model that is immensely successful- homeschooling.

Being an expert in anything only means you've committed to one particular line of thinking.  The more "expert" we are, the less likely we are to see solutions that reside outside our area of expertise.  In the realm of education, our "expertise" blinds us to many potential solutions that would be painfully obvious to anyone that does not share our biases.  

If we consult experts, education experts should be the LAST people we contact.  Let's contact gardening experts.  Or expert salespeople.  Or expert welders.  Counter-intuitive?  Yes.  Unorthodox?  Yes.  Will they force us to think outside the box?  Yes.

Some of my favorite quotes on the matter:

"The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. " -Einstein

"The bigger the real-life problems, the greater the tendency for the discipline to retreat into a reassuring fantasy-land of abstract theory and technical manipulation." -Tom Naylor

Open Source Education: A Solution to Making Education Effective in the Accountability Era

In the education world, we have a renewed focus on standardized testing.  The major driving force is the need to meet Annual Yearly Progress (AYP), which is the cornerstone of No Child Left Behind.  It has forced schools to focus exclusively on preparing for the test that measures their progress. 

This singular focus has created a culture of academic elitism.  Teachers are encouraged to use methods that focus on the test, not actual student needs.  High-achieving students are given preferential treatment.  Low-achieving students are marginalized.  It creates a toxic environment where actual learning is replaced with a mechanical approach to test preparation.  Why is standardized testing popular?  Why is data is driving our schools today?

• The legislators like it because it gives them an immediate snapshot of progress.  
• The community loves it because it gives their schools an immediate ranking among other schools.  Nothing boosts property values like a school district that does a great job of teaching students to take robot (standardized) tests.  
• Administrators love it because they are managers and it gives them hard data. That which is measured can be managed.

Who doesn't love it?  Students.  By design, a focus on robot testing is a mechanical process.  You can't apply a mechanical process to an organic problem.  Kids fall through the cracks.  Teachers' objectives become less about mastery and more about test performance.  Individuality is lost.  Freedom dies.

So what is the solution?  How can schools create an environment where our students' individual needs are recognized and met; where high levels of organic learning take place; where family, community, and schools come together to create innovative solutions to complex problems? 

We can tackle the legislation to eliminate NCLB, but that takes time.  We can ignore the act, but poor performance on the robot tests results in punitive actions against the district.  This leaves only one option- do what we can to work around the limitations imposed by the robot testing.  The question- how?

Let's look at rogue businesses for answers.  I have spent considerable time reading business books lately.  The idea of applying business practices to education has always made me uneasy.  Treating kids like a product ignores my fundamental principles (which explains my disdain for NCLB).  The business books I've read were written by a new breed of entrepreneurs.  They don't follow the "suited warrior" ideals taught in business schools; they invent real solutions using innovative methods.  They think outside the box.  This is EXACTLY what education needs.  We need to forget what we learned in our teacher prep programs.  We need to forget research.  We need to recognize our own limited perspective.

Our problem with education- how do we score well on standardized tests to meet standards and still meet the diverse needs of our individual students?  Ideally the solution should involve parents and extended family, community, local businesses, teachers, administrators, school boards, and any other parties that could provide knowledge.

First, we need to figure out the first issue- how to improve standardized test scores without overtly teaching to the test.  The answer: look at homeschoolers.

In public education, homeschooling has a consistent, pervasive negative stereotype.  After all, homeschoolers threaten all of our jobs (which is really the first priority of school employees).  We see homeschooled kids as socially-stunted pale-skinned kids that win spelling bees and can rattle off every vice-president's dog throughout American history.  In reality, homeschooled kids smart, socially-savvy individuals that have learned to interact with people of all ages in natural social environments.  More importantly, they flat out beat the Hell out of public school students on standardized tests.  Check out these statistics (from here):

In 1997, a study of 5,402 homeschool students from 1,657 families was released. It was entitled, "Strengths of Their Own: Home Schoolers Across America." The study demonstrated that homeschoolers, on the average, out-performed their counterparts in the public schools by 30 to 37 percentile points in all subjects. A significant finding when analyzing the data for 8th graders was the evidence that homeschoolers who are homeschooled two or more years score substantially higher than students who have been homeschooled one year or less. The new homeschoolers were scoring on the average in the 59th percentile compared to students homeschooled the last two or more years who scored between 86th and 92nd percentile. ⁱ

This was confirmed in another study by Dr. Lawrence Rudner of 20,760 homeschooled students which found the homeschoolers who have homeschooled all their school aged years had the highest academic achievement. This was especially apparent in the higher grades. ⁱⁱ This is a good encouragement to families catch the long-range vision and homeschool through high school.

Another important finding of Strengths of Their Own was that the race of the student does not make any difference. There was no significant difference between minority and white homeschooled students. For example, in grades K-12, both white and minority students scored, on the average, in the 87th percentile. In math, whites scored in the 82nd percentile while minorities scored in the 77th percentile. In the public schools, however, there is a sharp contrast. White public school eighth grade students, nationally scored the 58th percentile in math and the 57th percentile in reading. Black eighth grade students, on the other hand, scored on the average at the 24th percentile in math and the 28th percentile in reading. Hispanics scored at the 29th percentile in math and the 28th percentile in reading.

Maybe it's time we stop worrying about the homeschoolers threatening our jobs and started looking at their methods.  As it turns out, the homeschoolers don't do anything special.  In fact, the absence of formal teaching methods itself seems to be a major element of their success.  It goes along with my theory that less is more.  They do more organic learning and a lot less synthetic learning.

So how do we accomplish this goal of creating an organic learning experience for our students when the entire edu-industrial complex is designed for synthetic learning?  How do we produce people when we work in a factory that is designed to produce robots?

Here's my second out-of-the-box solution: Use the open source model.  In his book Rules of Thumb, Alan Webber discusses three rules of success from Megan Smith of Google.  Her third rule- Open systems beat closed systems.  Webber goes on to discuss this idea:

If you want to be on the right side of history, you'll embrace open systems.  They save money, increase speed, invite participation, require flexibility, and thrive on democracy.  They break down the barriers, promote pragmatism, spotlight talent, and reward real performance.  Open systems beat closed systems.

The idea has worked in the computer world.  It has worked with Wikipedia (note- to those of you that still think Wikipedia shouldn't be used as a resource- it's the single largest collection of experts in every field in the world working to build collective knowledge... it should be THE starting point for research).  Collaboration is a good thing.

How can this idea be implemented to take advantage of the homeschool model in a public school   The answer is simple: make lesson planning an open system.  

The concept is easy to implement and would work like this.  A teacher would post a rough outline for a lesson online based on our perception of best educational practices using a collaborative platform (maybe something like Google Docs or something else here).  The applicable standards would also be posted as this is the basic building block for the material that will eventually covered on the robot test.  At that point, the public (students, parents, administrators, school board members, community members, business owners, etc) would have the opportunity to add, remove, suggest, and ultimately shape the actual lesson.

I'm guessing this idea causes one of two reactions: excitement or fear.  

If you feel excitement, you're heading in the right direction.  The world is moving toward global collaboration and a decentralizing of authority and knowledge, and you get that.  More importantly, you want your students to get that.  Good for you.

If you feel fear or you immediately began thinking of reasons this idea will not work, your head is in the sand.  You're oblivious to the world around you and have likely spent too much time building walls between your educational institution and the rest of the world.  Your students will suffer as a result.  Shame on you.

Will it work?  Why not?  There's just too much potential upside to prevent it from working.  Consider this:

• Teachers and administrators fear parents.  A parent that complains loud enough can jeopardize a career (remember... job protection is the first priority).  What is the best way to eliminate that fear?  Give parents the ability to be part of the problem-solving process.  It's human behavior 101 (thanks psychology department at Northern Michigan University!)  The current system is based on a degree of secrecy... it is easier to keep parents in the dark than risk having them complain.  This needs to change.
• Teachers do not have all the answers.  We see the world from one perspective- our own.  Our own experiences and collective knowledge and wisdom is limited.  As such, our ability to create and execute lessons is inherently limited.  Allowing others to participate in the creation process will, by definition, produce a product that is better suited for every student.
• Students have a voice.  We spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to teach them, but we never ask for their input.  Each student knows themselves 1,000,000 times better than anyone else.  If we want to consult an expert to learn how to teach each individual, let's ask the expert- the student themselves.  Also, allowing student input teaches a valuable lesson in the democratic process... we can and do have a voice.  We need to teach our students to use that voice.  Nothing teaches like authentic experiences.
• The community is an invaluable resource.  In an era where school funding is drying up and resources are scarce, it makes sense to tap the local community for ideas.  A few years ago, I had a problem getting my classes into the limited computer labs in my school.  My solution- ask local businesses for their old computer hardware and build my own lab in my classroom.  The response was overwhelming.  I received over 200 computers along with printers, monitors, networking hardware, software, and anything else imaginable.  It turns out businesses have to pay to get rid of their old computer hardware (usually about two years old) when they replace it with new stuff.  By donating it to schools, they get a nice tax write-off.  The best part- I got a TON of offers from IT guys in my community to come into the school to set everything up.  I even got unsolicited offers for them to teach my students how to set up and maintain my network, repair broken computers, and generally administer our own lab outside normal school hours.  It would have been an organic learning opportunity for my students and established connections between the community and my classroom while learning real-world skills in technology.  The best part- it was absolutely free.  Unfortunately my school allowed "policy" to stand in the way of innovation and the project died.  The irony- my school passed a bond to spend a tremendous amount of money on technology.  The goal- get a computer in front of every kid.  The people that made the policy that prevented my free solution to the problem years ago are the same people making plans to solve the same problem with wads of cash.  So goes the edu-industrial complex.  In an open system, organic learning would trump policy.  In an open system, the community of experts would provide resources schools cannot.

Of course, there are many other great reasons to move to this model.  The marriage of family, community, and schools is at the heart of what education should be... a collaborative effort to make schools a better experience for our kids.  It has the potential to reduce costs and improve results while maintaining the very elements of learning that kids lack under the current system.

The world is changing.  It is evident everywhere.  The way we do things now is not working.  Simply tweaking the system has not and will not work.  It hasn't worked for the last 160 years; it will not work 160 years in the future.  I think Einstein had something to say about doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results...

Some schools have done well with radical change.  Personally, I like what Larry Rosenstock has done with High Tech High.  While it is tempting to simply replicate everything they do, it is important to understand that their solution is a solution to their problems.  We need to develop our own solutions for our problems.  Open source education can provide those solutions.

Open source education... these are the ideas I dream about when we sit through cutting-edge professional development sessions where we learn to fold papers.  As it turns out, origami didn't fix our problems.  Let's try something that might.

Is it a different way of doing things?  Yes.  Are there potential problems?  Yes.  Can we afford to let our fears stop us from trying the idea?  Absolutely not.  Let's give this whole "democracy" thing a try.  

Organic Learning Versus Synthetic Learning: Is Our Approach to School Reform Wrong?

Most would agree- today's public schools could be better.  Many people have ideas.  Some suggest we promote more local freedom and do away with national testing.  Some argue we need more testing to increase accountability.  Groups promote the idea of paying teachers more money to attract the best of the best.  Others believe the solution is to drastically cut teacher salaries and spend the money on programs.  There are supporters of increasing the core areas, specifically math and science.  There are also supporters that claim we need to increase the arts.  I've herd calls that teachers need to change the way they teach.  I've also heard calls that families need to change the way they raise their kids.  Most people seem to agree that "more" is the solution... more money, more teachers, more technology, more programs, more hours in the day, more graduation requirements, more testing, more policies, more school days, etc. 

The point- for every group recommending a solution, there is another group offering the polar opposite solution.  Every solution seems to be adding "more" to the equation.  We've been on this kick for some time.  As Dr. Phil would say, "How's that working for ya?"

Maybe it's time to consider an alternative.  Let's throw less at the problem. 

Admittedly, this is not my idea.  Tim Ferriss planted the idea in"The Four Hour Work Week", and Jason Fried and David Hannson cemented the idea in "Rework".  One of the reoccurring themes of both books is the idea that we need to rethink the way we do everything.  Neither discusses education; the books are loosely based on business principles.  Normally applying business advice to schools is just plain stupid (hear that politicians).  The difference- these books took a much different approach to the idea of business.  It was truly "outside the box" thinking.  That is the perspective education reform should adopt.

Anyway, let's try to solve the problems of schools through subtraction.  It is the exact opposite of our seemingly natural reaction to problems, which is a GOOD thing.  Before I tackle the specifics, here's a little background:

My own theory is based heavily on my twelve years of experience as a public school teacher, my background in psychology, and the theories of some people like John Gatto.  The theories are based on a few simple principles, including:

• Everybody loves to learn, it is a universal human condition.  As a species, it is our evolutionary advantage. 
• A prerequisite to learning is curiosity.  Curiosity leads to highly motivated inquiry, which often takes the form of problem-solving.
• Inquiry leads to learning that is easily and readily internalized (i.e. memorized)
• Learning is an individual endeavor.  Learning in groups can only be effective IF all members of the group share a mutual curiosity.
• Learning does not require any special tools, unless the tools themselves are the focus of the learning.  
• Adding resources is inversely related to the amount of creativity used to solve problems.
• A teacher's role is not to add information as if they were a painter adding paint to a canvas, but rather the teacher's role is to remove barriers to the student's self-learning, much like a sculptor carving a statue from a block of rock.  In many cases, the teacher isn't even needed.

When added together, these principles will result in exceedingly high levels of significant learning.  Why?  It's how we learn when learning isn't the goal.  It's the human condition.  I will refer to this as "organic learning".

Compare this to "synthetic learning", which most of us will find in school today.  Students "learn" by following a highly regimented schedule divided into tidy blocks, a teacher will determine the scope and sequence of a narrowly-defined topic to be learned with minimal actual application, all the while following procedures and rules that are designed to suppress and inhibit.  This may include the use of textbooks, PowerPoint (I really hate PowerPoint), or a host of other canned tools or techniques that ignore most of the basic principles I listed above.

The result- some kids do great.  Others struggle in perpetual boredom; the only thing making their day tolerable is the countdown until the end of class, end of the day, end of the week, the next vacation, or the end of the year.  Some do not make it at all.  They consistently and repeatedly fail despite the best efforts of teachers and administrators.  Some just simply fall through the cracks as the machinery of the edu-industrial complex rolls on.

If given the option between "organic learning" and "synthetic learning" I have little doubt every student would choose the former.  I would.

The question becomes- how do we do more organic learning and less synthetic learning?  We can look at two groups to see these ideas in action: the free school movement and home schooling.  Both situations apply the "less is more" approach with great results.  In both formats, kids have freedom.  That freedom allows the principle I outlined to work.  Once removed from the traditional school setting, curiosity and the resulting inquiry flourish. Parents and teachers become facilitators; their responsibility is the removal of barriers and guiding toward resources. 

In future posts, I will explore the ideas of using the free school and home school principles in today's public schools.  I will explore the ideas of removing obstacles (and related costs) as a means of developing more effective educational experiences.  This exploration will require a suspension of belief... from this point forward it is assumed everything I've learned about teaching best practices is wrong.  It should be an interesting ride...