See What my ideal high school looks like for something more personal and slightly more developed.
Schools frustrate me, because I firmly believe that there’s no speed limit to learning other than a self-imposed one. What irritates me the most is that most students aren’t taught core meta-learning skills. Almost everything that is learned is very quickly forgotten, and for many people it ends up just being an elaborate mechanism that lets them get a taste of many different fields/modes of thinking. Most students are just trying to get the best possible grades with the least amount of effort.
I think we can do way better.
An ideal school structure that prioritizes real learning should probably have these qualities:
- Core: The use of spaced repetition systems and other memory systems should be highly encouraged. This allows for everything else.
- Only pop assessments, and these assessments should actually test your learning instead of simple pattern-matching. Little to no multiple choice.
- Less homework, but homework that actually pushes you to apply and expand on what you’ve learned in class and guides you slightly beyond your reach. No busywork.
- What we should be doing in elementary school English classes
- Gym should actually push you to become stronger, more athletic, and healthier all around
- Somehow develop a general student culture that values intellectual curiosity, and being a “nerd” doesn’t require fighting social currents
- Greater autonomy in choosing what classes you want to take so that you only learn what you genuinely want to learn
- A different grading system somehow that reflects the rigor
- Note on the word “rigor”: most “rigorous” schools/programs just give more busywork than other ones instead of actually being (much) more intellectually rigorous. There’s no value in hard work for the sake of hard work.
Note: I don’t believe that most schools have ulterior motives or don’t care about their students. It’s just that there is an outdated status quo that has ossified. Also, Goodhart’s law has taken over basically everywhere.