Imagine...

Imagine a school where students loved to learn. Imagine a school with large bright windows and whiteboard covered walls. Imagine a school that was powered by the web. One where a student could learn anything they wanted. Imagine a school run by the community instead of the federal government.

The Federal Government spends 13,000 dollars a year per K-12 student in the United States. Imagine if every student was given a laptop and the Department of Education was closed and locked up. Imagine that every public school building in America disappread. What would happen?

Those with no passion, original thinking, or imagination think that the world would go to chaos. But here is what I think would happen.

Students would begin to learn the things they wanted to learn. State tests would be gone. There would be no standard to live up to so the level of expectation would be mastery in every topic studied. Imagine, just as community theaters are formed now, that community schools were built on the prospect that any student could attend to find a place of solitude and comfort, expanse of knowledge and individual or group mentoring sessions.

"Now wait a minute..." you say. "Thats not going to happen, ever."

Yes. Yes, youre right. It will never happen because the American people are too engrained with the belief that you HAVE to go to PS106 for 12+ years and you cannot leave until you have a diploma in hand. The public schools provide a source of babysitting for Americas parents as well as a twisted sense of security.

So lets do this.

Remodel the Public School for the 21st Century.

Instead of 50 minute, "one size fits all" lectures, have the student watch online videos and read articles about things they are interested in.  Strive for mastery in schools, instead of a 95% grade.

Place students in rooms with students not their same age but with similar interests and knowledge bases. Because frankly, when, after high school will you be locked in a room with 30 people all born in the same year as yourself? A more probable situation is in a corporation with vast ages but similar interests or beliefs.

The public education does exactly what its supposed to. Provide mass training to every person on U.S. soil between 4 and 18. Every day is the same thing. You know beyond a shadow of a doubt that at 12:05 the bell will ring and every student will push toward the cafeteria. You sit passivly for 6 or 7 hours a day listening to 6 different teachers tell you the same thing you learned last year. As soon as you're done, you bolt for the door. What awaits you? Sports, clubs, part-time jobs, entertainment, homework, and by the time you're done, its 11 PM and you fall asleep.

The parent simply becomes something that provides a dinner and a bed.

Since when did Americans become robots?

Ladies and Gentleman. We are failing as a society because all we know how to do is follow the leader, avoid cutting in line and how to check the list off. The future will not allow us into its doors if the next generation is educated this way. We will instead be killed off, invaded, be made slaves of, or simply... turn to dust found in history books as a failed political and societal experiment.

The future leaders of the world are not average American educated men and women. They are passionate learners of the liberal arts. They understand how to think and how to lead. They love to learn from the beginning. Because they aren't forced to. They are given space and time to find why they are here and they chase that why.

Lets start chasing our whys and stop conforming to public education. I don't need a college degree from any university in america to be successful. I need love, passion, and I need to know how to think and how the world works and how people think.

I need the liberal arts. I need to know that I will be okay regardless of the path that I choose. I need to know that God has given me a mission and I need to fulfill that mission.

Imagine if that is how we educated ourselves and our children. Imagine...