I

I
ACKNOWLEDGING THE
IN EDUCATION
SCHOOL REDESIGN FROM THE GROUND UP
50 I N D E PEN DEN T 5 C H 0 0 L
f you took education classes in college, you may
have contemplated the following question: "If
we were designing our education system from
scratch today, what would it look like?" Back
then, this question might have been a fun intel-
lectual exercise. Today, it may just be the most
important question we can ponder.
If you've ever renovated part of a home
- your kitchen, say - you've likely had that
moment where you asked yourself, "Can I get
to my dream kitchen without tearing out that
old pantry?" or "Can I just tile over this existing
floor?" Usually, there doesn't seem to be a clear
correct answer, because there are pros and cons
with each option. If you make use of what you
have, you might save money and time and be
just as happy in the end. However, if you have
to compromise on many of the details along the
way, in the end you'll wonder why you wasted
the time and effort.
By RYAN S. WOOLEY
If you have the capability to do the
work, and if you want the best possible
kitchen, you will opt to take everything
down to the studs and start over every
time. It is the only way to have double
Trivection ovens, adequate prepara-
tion space, and enough light to see the
asparagus spears you are cutting. In
other words, if the kitchen was built in
1939 and its current purpose is about
actually preparing food and entertain-
ing 2oII-style, there is only one way to
get the job done. Otherwise you end up
living with design limitations that are
no longer relevant. When my house
was built, microwaves and refrigerator
ice makers hadn't even been invented
yet, and about as much power was allo-
cated to an entire kitchen that is now
allocated to one appliance.
Things have changed. We know
more about kitchens. They are differ-
ent than they were in 1939 at the design
level.
Relatively speaking, the potential
impact of upgrading the core design
of education is much more striking.
Cooking may have gotten incremen-
tally better over the past century, but
given the convergence of educational
research with newly available tools,
education is poised to improve expo-
nentially. For the first time, our best
education-design ideas are actually in
sync with the tools that are currently
available for their implementation.
Why would we stay tethered to out-
dated designs?
THE INCONGRUITY BETWEEN
KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE
The beginnings of the education sys-
tem in the United States coincided
roughly with the Industrial Revolu-
tion. The ethos of the time was to be
efficient - to pool resources for the
betterment of groups of people, to
establish standards. Schools, as we
know them, were designed in this era.
The school day was broken into stan-
dardized segments of time, just like
factory workdays. In the same way that
assembly-line work was distributed
in a logical order and across work-
ers with specific skills, schools were
broken into age groups and students
52 I N D E PEN DEN T 5 C H 0 0 L
placed in small rooms where teachers
(with specific age or content expertise)
would cover what came next. You
can imagine a factory worker saying,
"This is the place on the line where we
install the doors" just as easily as you
can imagine a teacher saying, "This is
where I teach fourth graders."
This original design was immensely
effective because it was a powerful tool
to democratize education in an effi-
cient and cost-effective way. It was also
responsible for ushering in a long era
of national progress and prosperity.
During this period, the United States
fashioned itself as a world superpower
and came to be a beacon of innova-
tion. There was notable and productive
congruity between education and the
economic drivers of the time.
In 20II - when our economic
drivers have shifted, when new tools
have broken down the constraints
of older models, when our collective
intelligence about teaching and learn-
ing has matured - the design of
schools should look considerably dif-
ferent. Yet, the vast majority of schools
still look remarkably like they did a
century ago. Does the original design
still fit? Or are we paying a price for
retrofitting our renovations onto an
antiquated system?
I'm as tired as anyone of the pros-
elytizing. As an educator and educa-
tional technologist for IS-plus years
now, I have seen my share of writings
and presentations about how "every-
thing is changing" in education. More
often than not, these proclamations
come with a tacit Why-don't-all-ofyou-
idiots-see-what-I-see? subtext - even
when these arguments are overblown
and rest on ill-articulated assumptions
about what is best. On the other hand,
if there is merit to the suggestion
of needed radical change in educa-
tion - and many of us think there is
merit - it has not manifested in a very
evident way. If we combine these two
observations, we're frequently telling
ourselves how badly we need to change
while simultaneously not changing
much at all.
To understand this incongruity, we
need to focus on a few fundamental
design elements and get beyond the
surface rhetoric and smug assump-
Lesson plans should be burned in a
giant, glorious bonfire. They were designed
to teach lengths of ti me, not students.
tions. We need to identify some of the
most basic and universal expectations
and hopes we have for schooling and
check them against our actual design.
There is so much we want from our
schools, so it is understandable that
we can't have it all. But shouldn't the
basic, essential hopes be addressed at
the design level?
Or, to put it another way, shouldn't
we ask, "What do we want from
schools in 20II that is not facilitated by
their fundamental design?"
I'm going to cut to the chase. I think it
is safe to say that differentiated instruc-
tion (DI) is a fairly universal expecta-
tion today. Like many other terms
in education, DI has been packaged,
marketed, "thesified," and perhaps
overused. The concept was formally
articulated in the December 1953 issue
of Educational Leadership, a volume
entitled "The Challenge of Individual
Difference." Yet, if we strip away any
baggage that the DI-Iabel accumulated
over the years, attending to the indi-
vidual specific needs of students is a
universal hope for schools. Certainly
it would be difficult to argue the oppo-
site. Even if we consider learning to be
a social act, we are always concerned
about individual development. We may
hope our students learn to work well
in teams, but we understand that what
makes teams work is the individual
development of its members. There
is no well-functioning team without
well-functioning individuals. A group
doesn't think or design solutions; indi-
viduals do this as part of a group.
School design has never been very
supportive of differentiated learning. In
conventional models of instruction, the
teacher may try to teach to some imag-
ined "middle" of the group - some
sweet spot where advanced students
wouldn't be bored, struggling students
wouldn't be overwhelmed, and some
group in the middle would be comfort-
able and appropriately challenged. The
goal seemed to be to find the "least bad"
among these options. The ugly truth is
that, even in the best of circumstances,
it is unlikely that ~ n y student in this
type of class was ever attended to indi-
vidually - at least nowhere near all the
time. A very skilled instructor may have
found ways of moving the wand ofindi-
vidual attention around a room, touch-
ing every student. But in a 50-minute
class with 20 students, how often is
the wand in the right spot for a given
student? If you are lucky and the wand
was equally distributed and constantly
moving, it would catch you about half
of the time.
In more progressive models of
instruction, perhaps the teacher
becomes less "sage on the stage" and
more "guide on the side." Maybe stu-
dents are arranged in small groups.
Lessons in this setting are thought
to be more student-centric, as small
groups move more nimbly across ill-
defined tasks or problems (those with
multiple right answers). Certainly
from a design standpoint, this instruc-
tional method seems much more likely
to yield differentiation. But a closer
look reveals that group work might
actually introduce its own set of obsta-
cles. Perhaps a student finds herself
in a group where her members take
over and leave little room for her to
grow. Perhaps she ends up doing all of
the work because her group members
don't care about the project or are sim-
ply not as capable. Suppose the group
can do this project well in three days,
but there are three weeks allotted for
it. Unfortunately, even teachers who
focus on differentiation cannot truly
overcome the obstacles to it.
In short, the prevailing design is
simply not equipped to deal with dif-
ferentiation adequately or efficiently.
For years, teachers have been doing
the best they can to work around these
design limitations. The problem is the
recipe, not the cook. Schools are not
designed to attend to individual need.
Even the most progressive schools are
organized around arbitrary units of
time. Do I spend a year taking chem-
istry because that is how long it takes
me to learn it? Does it happen to take
me and all 18 of my classmates exactly
three weeks to learn and explain the
causes of the Civil War?
The standard structure of educa-
tional time and space was born from
our organizational needs, not from the
needs of students. We needed order.
We needed predictable schedules,
and foreseeable entry and exit points.
What would the structure look like
if designed from the perspective of
student need? Here is a possibility: stu-
dents would progress through a topic
as they were ready, not when some
arbitrary time period was used up.
Instead of being organized by age, they
would be organized by developmental
need. Students would be the primary
architects of their own learning paths,
because they are in the best positions
to judge their needs. Students would
be coached to understand themselves
as learners and would become skilled
at making design decisions about their
development.
Ironically, moving away from
the industrial model actually makes
learning more efficient. Here is an
example: Sally B. Student was ready to
move on to the next topic in her Span-
ish class two weeks ago. Since that is
not the way the class was scheduled,
she's been in a holding pattern until
the class catches up to her. Those two
weeks could have been spent learning
new material. If we added up those
holding patterns over the course of
student's academic career, how much
time would have been wasted? One
year? Two years? Five years? Wouldn't
it be better to spend the exact amount
of time on a topic that was needed for
mastery? Wouldn't it be better iflearn-
ing activities could be custom-tailored
to individual need?
If only we had a teacher who could:
be in 18 places at once;
constantly collect information about
each student's progress and use that
information to adapt the learning
path on the fly;
repeat a lesson as often as necessary
for each student;
start and stop multiple times in the
middle of each lesson, per each indi-
vidual student's need;
skip information that was already
known by each student; and
F ALL 2 0 1 1 53
Developmental
need, based on
social or
academic? Who
decides?
morph into three other humans dur-
ing a lesson, each with a different
way of explaining the concept being
studied.
While all of this seems crazy, every
single bullet is possible. The teacher
just has to be a computer... in the
hands of each and every student.
Before you chuck this magazine into
the garbage, hear me out. I'm not sug-
gesting that we don't need teachers.
My wife and I are teachers and we have
a thousand friends who are teachers.
All of us rely on our jobs to put food
on the table for our families. I have a
deep respect for the profession. I'm
suggesting that we don't need teachers
to teach content. Lesson plans should
be burned in a giant, glorious bonfire.
They were designed to teach lengths of
time, not students.
We need to give teachers a new
job description. We need them to help
students articulate learning paths.
We need them to advise and mentor,
connect, and encourage. Many teach-
ers perform these duties every day,
but these are secondary duties to the
primary duty of teaching content in
predefined blocks of time in class-
rooms built to accommodate small
groups of students. The role of teacher
is 180 degrees from where it should
be. Teachers should look more like
travel agents - the really good ones
who get more excited about your Alas-
kan cruise than you do. They should
be giddy to help students plan their
travels.
Imagine the following scenario:
Sarah, a I5-year-old high school
student arrives to school at 8:00
am. She begins her day by attend-
ing School Meeting. Afterward, she
meets with Mr. Smith, her science
teacher, to review progress on her
online modules. Sarah is right on
schedule with the two-week plan that
she worked out with Mr. Smith. Her
progress shows that she is ready for
the accompanying lab, so Mr. Smith
recommends that she schedule the
lab with Ms. Geller, the permanent
54 I N D E PEN DEN T 5 C H 0 0 L
erhaps, like me, you see the
between schools and the rest of the world
when it comes to the shape and pace of
progress.
lab technician. Mr. Smith also recom-
mends that Sarah attend an online
broadcast of a renowned speaker
in the field, which is scheduled for
2:00 pm two days later. Thousands
of students across the country will be
attending the event online. During
her meeting with Mr. Smith, Sarah
asks a few questions for clarification
and gets one-on-one assistance with
one of the problems she struggled
with.
Sarah's day might look like the
following:
am
School Meeting in the Auditorium
am
Meet with the science teacher, Mr. Smith,
for bi-weekly progress review - in Mr.
Smith's office.
Writing workshop with writing group - in
one of the five small meeting rooms for
students.
Lunch in the dining hall.
Skype conversation with Chinese-
language exchange partner - in individual/
partner soundproof room (one of eight in
the school).
Open learning time for group projects/
individual exploration - in large, open
cafe.
Live human model drawing - in drawing
studio.
The 2:00-P5 pm slot could just
as easily have been filled with, say,
"Live demonstration of the physics of
sound" in the science lab. But if this
demonstration happens, it will be
recorded and later edited. One of the
best features of this new school is that
the lecture gets to finally shed its bad
rap. Once demonstrations lose their
former limitations, they also lose their
stigma. Stand-and-deliver demonstra-
tions don't have to be live anymore.
They can be recorded and shared asyn-
chronously via the web. Here are some
of the many benefits of doing so:
Demonstration can be started and
stopped several times to give the stu-
dent the ability to catch up, take notes,
look up unfamiliar terms.
Demonstration can be reviewed mul-
tiple times for mastery of concepts.
The best demonstrations can be rep-
licated and shared repeatedly, giving us
more efficiency (we don't need to pay a
teacher to do the same demonstration
multiple times) and quality (we can
take the best demonstrations we gen-
erate and re-mix them with other "best
of" performances).
Perhaps the most significant
improvement to realize in education
redesign is the maximization of pre-
cious time. But time reconfiguration is
only one branch of a suite of intercon-
nected design elements. Here is a short
list of some of the most obvious inter-
connected improvements in a school
designed for effectiveness with today's
tools (for details, see sidebar on page 55):
Shift focus of "in class" time to
emphasize process over content.
FACILITATING CHANGE
The Obvious Change The Facilitator
Shift fcx:usof "in class" Web";based instruction.
ti meJemphasize process
over content.
Wireless broadband, com-
Reconfigure use of
schooL
Recast role of teacher,
Reconfigure educational
spai:es.
and maturation
of thougl1t in the field.
Organize students by
develoPmental need
of by
Put computers in the hands of every
student starting in at least grade six.
Reconfigure time in school.
Recast role of teacher.
Reconfigure educational spaces.
Organize students by developmental
need instead of by age.
THE MIGRATION
I know it is hard to imagine, but could
we let go of gradelevel groupings and
arbitrary (from a learning perspec
tive) standard schedules? Classrooms
as we know them? Teachers as we
know them? Could we start over and
make sure that our most basic and
fundamental hopes and expectations
are met by our design before we layer
additional, and sometimes conflicting,
demands on the system?
Well, we know we can't just start
over - at least not overnight. We can't
put all of our children in a cocoon until
we rebuild this thing. Those of us who
rely on our existing customers to help
us pay the bills can't risk losing the
families who know and trust the con
ventional model. But if there really is
a fundamental design flaw, isn't it a bit
irresponsible to pretend it isn't there?
Shouldn't we at least start moving in
the right direction? Human beings
have engineered some fairly sophisti
cated migrations throughout our his
tory on this planet; we could do this if
we develop the will. The real conversa
tion now should be about how to pace
the changes we should make - how
to approach the task of moving our
schools forward.
Whether or not you agree with
the prescription I offer here, let me
assume that you agree that education,
in all of its forms, is not living up to
its potential. Perhaps, like me, you see
the incongruity between schools and
the rest of the world when it comes to
the shape and pace of progress. There
are several potential reasons for this
incongruity. Here are a few:
Even though independent schools
are marketbased, they still have sig.
nificant referential ties to the public
system, which is not marketbased.
Schools have played a central role
in the stories most of us carry around
with us about our personal coming
of age. We are naturally nostalgic and
protective of its shape.
Many of the adult participants in
current schools (the people in the best
positions to steer change) were drawn
to careers in education because of our
fondness for it. If anyone would be apt
to be blind to its flaws, it would be us.
F ALL 2 0 1 1 55
'i
'r
!
I
Those of us who are in market-based
schools serve constituents who often
have long legacies with personal
connections and investments in our
current systems. It is easy to imagine
our alumni thinking, "My alma mater
served me well just the way it was. If it
isn't broken, why do we need to fix it?"
Independent schools should be
on the most aggressive change paths
possible. Our survival might depend
manhattan
on it. The most significant change that
innovation brings with it is a leveling.
As public schools plunge deeper into
crisis, they will increasingly wake up to
the new levers available to them. When
budget shortfalls lead to drastic cuts,
all types of renovation will be on the
table, including the "raze and rebuild"
options. That is when public education
will take it down to the studs. With
powerful tools in hand, it will rebuild
Manhattan Placements
501 East 79th Street, #6A
New York, New York 10075
(212) 288-3507
Fax: (212) 861-3061
Email: CKunstenaa@ftoLcom
www.Manhattanplacements.com
Claude Kunstenaar, Director
Sylvie Falzon-Kunstenaar, Assistant
Director
A personal and highly effective
placement company for teachers and
all administrators serving
New York and New Jersey
independent schools
56 I N D E PEN DEN T 5 C H 0 0 L
itself without the fundamental flaws. If
this happens, and independent educa-
tion is stuck in an outdated design, it
will cease to attract customers. Just ask
the brick-and-Il1ortar universities who
rejected online learning how they are
doing these days.
Pacing and style of educational
redesign depends a great deal on the
individual characteristics of an institu-
tion, but let me suggest the following
rule of thumb: Figure out your insti-
tution's natural speed limit and go at
least five miles per hour over. A little
discomfort is healthy and productive.
Education has been good to me and
to many of us who are now in posi-
tions to influence its direction. Educa-
tion has been good to the world. Why
should we revolutionize it? Because
we can. Because we're not in the dark
about what works. Because we know
how much better it can be. Because,
especially in a field defined by progress
and development, it is almost indefen-
sible to be incongruent with the shape
and pace of progress in the rest of the
world.
We should be motivated to over-
haul education, not because it is bad,
but because we can see how to make it
crazy good.
Ryan S. Wooley is the director of technology, library,
and media smices at Hawken School (Ohio).