Why school sucks, and what we are doing about it.
Why school sucks, and what we are doing about it.
Our origin story often has us talking about how we started Comini because we couldn't find a school that ticked all our boxes. We talk about the many problems with the system of schooling — the standardization, the passive inertness of classrooms, the outdated factory model of education. While all of that is true, it can seem too abstract. Here's a lovely video that discusses all of these problems.
So, there you have it. Schools suck. The schooling system sucks. But what do we replace it with? That's the problem that we find ourselves solving. At the heart of the change we seek to bring is the philosophy and approach to learning itself. We cannot merely shout out playful learning and snap our fingers to make it happen. While kids, with their immense capacity to soak in anything anywhere, do make it easy, we still need to translate this philosophy into practice.
Here are a few things we try to live by, and why. We are including a few links to books we love, in case you are interested in exploring more.
Playful learning means that we allow for kids' bodies and minds to wander, get distracted, ask questions if seemingly irrelevant, explore why this way, and why not that way.
We understand that learning is not just cognitive, but it is always emotional and often social. To learn something, we must find value in it. We do not focus only on intellectual content. We also prioritize creating positive emotional experiences and fostering social connections in learning. And emotion is not just the overt kind, but also the long-term feelings and attitudes one develops for any pursuit.
They fail because they are afraid, bored, and confused. They are afraid, above all else, of failing, of disappointing or displeasing the many anxious adults around them, whose limitless hopes and expectations for them hang over their heads like a cloud.
— How Children Fail by John Holt
We pick themes and tie activities to these themes because they allow the kids to see how things they are learning are meaningfully connected. We do not teach subjects in isolation without connecting them to a larger context or theme.
We also try not to introduce labels or terms or jargon first. We instead give them examples they understand, and then allow them to learn the labels later, connecting them to what they now know.
A certain amount of learning about, just like a certain amount of elements first, is fine. The problem is overdoing it. The problem is endless learning about something without ever getting better at doing it. So, to parallel elementitis, I like to call endless learning about aboutitis. Yes, it lets learners acquire some information about the French Revolution and the American Revolution, mitosis and meiosis, the positions of the planets, continental drift, and the tensions of race and status in Othello. But this only provides a kind of informational backdrop rather than an empowering and enlightening body of understanding.
I thought over my undergraduate and graduate experience at MIT and realized something that surprised me at the time and has stayed with me ever since: In my technical courses, I had rarely done anything but solve problems. I almost always succeeded, but the problems came from the text or the instructors. I had never undertaken anything like a project or an open-ended investigation. The consequence was inevitable: I had a fierce battery of problem-solving skills and hardly any problem-finding skills.
— Making Learning Whole by David Perkins
We tie the learning to their (our) world. This again means showing examples. We constantly remind ourselves that there is a big difference between showing examples (doing or demonstrating) and giving examples (explaining or discussing).
We understand that it is entirely okay if they don't get it now. There is plenty of time. Learning is nonlinear. What seems hard now can become easy 6 months or 1 year later because their brains and brain regions are growing - at their own unique pace.
So our job as parents is not to make a particular kind of child. Instead, our job is to provide a protected space of love, safety, and stability in which children of many unpredictable kinds can flourish. Our job is not to shape our children's minds; it's to let those minds explore all the possibilities that the world allows. Our job is not to tell children how to play; it's to give them the toys and pick the toys up again after the kids are done. We can't make children learn, but we can let them learn.
— The Gardener and the Carpenter by Alison Gopnik
We always try to do and demonstrate, not talk and teach. When doing activities, we try to remember we often don't need to talk or explain it first. We do it as we are setting up and doing. Doing is far more engaging for children than listening to us talk.
Most schools in most countries place a higher priority on teaching students to follow instructions and rules (becoming A students) than on helping students develop their own ideas, goals, and strategies
— Lifelong Kindergarten by Mitchell Resnick
We remind ourselves that real understanding takes two things: conceptual insight and procedural fluency. Both are important. But we should not teach them procedures alone. We cannot say things like "Because this is important later in life". It's on us to show how it is important, and useful, and fun.
Procedural fluency can only happen with practice. But we cannot force practice. Instead, we offer opportunities. Forcing it is counterproductive, as it can result in negative long-term attitudes like aversion and dislike (like the most common one, which you've probably witnessed, an intense dislike for maths).
We have forgotten that children are designed by nature to learn through self-directed play and exploration, and so, more and more, we deprive them of freedom to learn, subjecting them instead to the tedious and painfully slow learning methods devised by those who run the schools.
These are are some of the principles we try to live by. Here are a few books that have helped us understand why these principles matter and how we might translate them into effective practice.
Creative Schools by Ken Robinson
Free at Last: The Sudbury Valley School by Daniel Greenberg (Many parents worry about what kids might learn or not learn if left to their own devices. If you do, please read this one.)
Grit by Angela Duckworth
Home Learning Year by Year by Rebecca Rupp
Mindset by Carol Dweck
The School of Life by Alain de Botton
The Unschooling Unmanual (This is a short collection of essays. The best one, which we recommend very highly, is Schooling: The Hidden Agenda. It is the transcript of a talk given by the writer Daniel Quinn and is available online.)
What books would you recommend? Please tell us in the comments!
Many alternative schools have similar origin stories, of parents rediscovering the flaws of our schooling system. Precious few, however, are able to scale because applying these principles is hard. Where we think we are different is we believe the right use of technology can help make this learning possible while empowering all the humans in the loop.