A one-size-fits-all method; that's the problem in K12.
It is impossible to teach a student any better, who has already learned the lesson; or is unready for the lesson.
The one possible solution?
Change to a method that becomes more and more perfect for each.
School districts become orders of magnitude more organizationally intelligent
Instead of a small group centrally planning the learning using a follow-the-schedule method — the I‑o method leads out the individual ability of thousands of students to wisely use more and more autonomy to better plan their own learning, just right for each.
The school system becomes newly fertile to innovation.
Instead of staying static since 1913, when the current method was adopted, not only are educators allowed and even more, encouraged to work on the system, they have learned how to work at the level of the organization.
Whatever flaws there are in the I‑o method that we propose, can be remedied by many knowledgeable practitioners.
Surprising and hopeful
It becomes clear that to remedy K12 schooling we must solve a different problem.
The school system is a follow-the-schedule method that brilliantly solves the problem of the-one and the-many in production.
Fixing the school system means changing the method from the follow-the-schedule method invented by Frederick Winslow Taylor, to a method which solves the problem of the-one and the-many in education.
The follow-the-schedule method public schools use is in conflict with teachers, principals and superintendents.
Every day teachers and principals are effective.
But the follow-the-schedule method is more effective, in a bad way.
Superintendents — people that we admire — are doing amazing things. Take for example Oakland Unified School District where Kyla Johnson-Trammell along with district and school staff have handed out millions of meals to students who are no longer going to school due to the pandemic. Or consider Chris Funk, superintendent of East Side High School District, who has brought in mindfulness and other healthy practices.
And yet, the follow-the-schedule method still wins, in a bad way.
What is the right problem?
IF
attempting to get unique students to fit into a one-size-fits-all method is the wrong problem and an impossible problem
THEN
we must determine: What is the problem of the-one and the-many? such that if we solved that, it would remedy K12 public schooling.
