The Crux of Education

The purpose of education has no consensus.

Individuals, families, educators, and governments will always have their own beliefs. Whether it's the tug-of-war between vocational training and a liberal arts education, or the balancing act between accelerating gifted students and maintaining equal opportunities for all, the debate will always rage. Is the primary role individual empowerment or societal preparation? Can you have both? Encouraging personal growth, creativity, and critical thinking conflicts with molding students to fit predefined societal roles and contribute effectively to the workforce. Standardization and personalization represent another dichotomy. We also find ourselves in a constant struggle between traditional teaching methods and the innovative approaches championed by tech enthusiasts who question the value of the old in the digital age.

Families define success differently.

Alive, fed, and watered is a win for some. For others, it’s Harvard or perpetual shame. Going to college, having a stable job, raking in money, getting married, owning a home, continuing the family line, contributing back to society, and being happy are all mixed in some form to create a parent’s unique definition of success. Then add the child’s own perspective. Then add the fact that these definitions of success change over time. The goal posts are moving in each household even if overarching pushes towards higher education affect the masses. Kim is learning to code to deploy a video game on her own. George is serially homeless. Tom is the best golfer for his age the region has ever seen. Sarah loves to draw. Cameron has temper issues. A college prep school is ideal for one kid and a disaster for another.

It's crucial to recognize that this diversity in defining success is not just acceptable, but advantageous. The more we standardize success—say, making college the pinnacle—the more we erode its distinctive value. When everyone holds a college degree, its significance in the job market diminishes. We’re seeing that dilution today. Success, shouldn't be a uniform metric; it should be as varied and dynamic as the individuals striving for it. This makes it very hard to assess or scale.

Family expectations of school are different.

If success is different to each family, one standardized system cannot meet expectations. It can attempt to succeed in all ways but then it will at best be the bare minimum of success for all. With each added body in the school, the complexity of achieving all definitions of success increases. Some parents expect the school to teach health and hygiene. Another family thinks it’s a waste of time since they already teach it at home. Why should Tom have to spend an hour a day in P.E. if he’s in an after-school golf program? Why are Sarah and Cameron in the same class learning about self-regulation when Sarah already has solid behavior? A school is like coconut oil. One person's miracle product for the skin might be another person's culinary nightmare, leading to both 5-star and 1-star reviews for the same product.

Parents have varying capabilities.

Linked to the prior points, parental involvement varies. Some parents read to their children every night and others have three jobs and their kid watches TV alone. Some meticulously oversee homework, while others encourage their kids to explore nature with minimal supervision. Johnny has learned to look adults in the eye and firmly shake their hand. Helen barely interacts with adults but has helped her single mom cook and clean for her siblings since she was ten. It’s all over the board what parents instill in their children, regardless of how well-equipped they are. Schools shove in as much content as possible to try to meet all needs.

Same-aged kids are at dimensionally different milestones.

Let’s compound on the varying parental capabilities point. Kimmy, Fred, and David are entering Kindergarten. Fred doesn’t know the alphabet. Kimmy just finished reading Black Beauty. David speaks well but is still learning to write his name. Now … create the literacy lesson for the day. Sure, with only three kids the teacher can pull off personalization but if it’d been 1-to-1 then each child would be individually further ahead than if taught as a whole. Now amp up the classroom size to 25 and things start to blow up. Now consider that 30% of the class doesn’t natively speak English. Now test them all. Now consider that the evaluation of the teacher and the school hinges on these test results. Everyone loses and the tails lose the most.

Sure, literacy for all is an obvious success metric that schools should fulfill. However, in the current setup, Kimmy will spend her time waiting for the rest of the class to catch up, and the school will falsely consider her scores a reflection of its efficacy. Her family wants her to be challenged. Meanwhile, Fred's mom wants the school to provide more support. David's parents are satisfied. The class is taught to the average, with the lower end striving to speed up and the upper bound pressed to not read ahead. Adaptive AI tutoring helps but it doesn’t solve personalization to the point where success is met for all in the existing setting.

Future societal needs are exponentially evolving.

Beyond the variability of the family, a standardized school system has too much inertia to adapt to an accelerating curve of technological advancement and the needs of a future workforce. In trying to be everything for everyone, it falls short for many. We need winners. We need innovators. Less people losing doesn’t mean more people are winning. The current school system is struggling to produce even a simple output of literate graduates. We are widening the interstate but by the time the project is complete everyone is still in traffic with road rage. Future job roles are more ambiguous than ever and goals in the workplace are morphing. Rigid schools cannot prepare for the array of possible futures.

Where does this leave us?

To me, education's true essence isn't to produce a uniform outcome but to kindle a flame that caters to each individual’s personal fuel. Inherently unscalable, it's a challenge that requires adaptability in the face of constant change and endless possibilities for advancement.

Amidst this individuality, it's also crucial that that we have common understanding of what it means to be an active, informed citizen, and uphold the basic tenets that bind us together as a society. Regardless of how families or the workforce define success, certain skills remain universally vital – with literacy and resourcefulness being paramount.

I envision a new network of schools that are malleable, with each school operating as its own unique node. It connects to other nodes to form a powerful, resource-rich community while maintaining individual agility. Tight feedback loops accelerate these capabilities. The network champions both individual brilliance and a streamlined set of essential core skills that are untainted by political and institutional interests. The layers on top of these fundamentals then become tailored to each student. Specialization is supported. Entrepreneurship is lauded.

At this time, I have no idea how to specifically pull this off … but I’m going to dive deeper and figure it out. I suppose the north star is achieving fulfillment at scale.

Key Questions

• Can a highly individualized education system be scaled whilst maintaining quality?
• How do we balance individualized learning and communal understanding in society?
• What elements don't need to be individualized?
• How do we assess? If success is dimensional and evolving, is it possible? Isn’t assessment essential?