Education

Learning shouldn't be a chore, it should be fun and free for everyone. Classrooms should recognize that education is a two way street- and that both student and teacher have something to learn from each other.

In a resource-based-economy, education can be reimagined to be more effective and exciting, giving students exactly the individualized learning environment they need. See this magazine for more ways to redesign education. 

But first, let's look at why our education system needs reform in the first place.

For too many children, school can feel a lot like prison. It's wise to consider why, exactly school is run the way it is. With strict deadlines, uniforms, and age-based segregation- the truth is school was designed to be a factory for workers, not philosophers. Everything you find in school can be found in your average workplace. While the argument can be made that this prepares people for a job, evidence shows that self-directed learning is far better when it comes to producing motivated students. When you force a child to learn something at your pace, instead of the child's pace, learning will become a chore and the child will become bored.

Children love freedom, and it turns out teachers love it too! When teachers have the freedom to run the classroom the way they see fit, without supervisors or principals constantly peering over their shoulders, they have a greater ability to tailor their educational approach to their specific classroom. Many times, teacher-led schools opt for project-based learning, or smaller, more intimate class sizes. 

Everything we've discussed here doesn't even begin to touch on the millions of people with a college degree who can't find a decent-paying job.

If school isn't preparing students for life, what's the point?

Maybe it's time to get rid of the idea of "school" altogether, and make the entire world a place to learn.
Think of the most important things you learned- how to walk, how to ride a bike, maybe how to use the microwave: Almost none of them were things you learned at school. This doesn't mean that we must get rid of organized education- far from it. But the idea of "school" as a singular place where you come to sit down for eight hours should be relegated to the dustbin of history. For most of the last 100,000 years, people learned by doing- joining apprenticeships, experimentation, and even asking questions. It might be a good idea to bring those back.

So where should the schools of the future be built? Why not everywhere? There could be an app which would allow teachers to list their classes, and they might all be in the same building, or they might be spread out across the city. One teacher may decide to hold a class in a restaurant, or someone else may decide to open a "mall" where several dozen teachers come to set up shop. Students and teachers could then check into classes with their payband, which would note whether they were late and on time. No more need for attendance checks or sign-in-sheets!

What's most important is that there's competition. Each parent would choose a class regimen for their child, and every day could be something different. At the end of each quarter, the teacher grades and reviews the child- but not only that, the students review the teacher- and the students even review each other! Teachers can also recieve reccomendations from other respected professionals in their field. Of course, all of these reviews would be marked so an observer could tell which was which.

 Because everyone knows that they are being reviewed, there is an incentive to be on your best behavior. We already see this effect in other p2p services such as Uber: Drivers work very hard to maintain a good ranking. Some teachers would only accept the best students, and parents would only want the best teachers. The student review system isn't the same as giving a "grade" to the teacher: A series of very specific questions are asked in order to gauge the instructor's interest, and the student is never asked to give a general opinion of the class. The students would give the teacher a review before their final test, and nobody would see the results until final grades came out. This is to prevent either party from giving a negative "retaliation" review. Even then, it would be easy to spot one or two upset students who gave the teacher a bad score- but if all the students did it would be a sign of something worse. An example set of questions students could be asked at the end of each quarter can be found in the Measures of Effective Teaching kit here.  MET is the result of years of studies and academic research by The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

The ability to rate teachers wouldn't be available to all students:  Only those in grades 6 and up can be trusted to give reasonable answers.

There are plenty of benefits to having an open education system: Both students and teachers can have classes at any time they feel convienient, and they could be about anything. The subjects available wouldn't be limited to math or science, but anything people wanted to learn. Someone could be a student one minute, and a teacher the next. Students can cancel or leave classes at any time, and pick from a wide array of classes that fit their needs exactly. Independence is king. Compare this to the rigid, inflexible demands today's academic centres place on our children, and you'll see that an open system can be more fun and educational than anything offered today.