Pff.

When you understand what is wrong in Plato's Republic, you will understand what is wrong in your proposal.

What is your understanding of what is wrong in Plato’s republic?

Well the idea of raising better people will always be the best idea, if we cant get people to be better people already.
Maybe caring and smart enough people could build a government thats actually progressive.
But until that day, topics like
self worth, community worth, and overall values are needed to be Debated and discussed with all kids and people anyhow.
Also topics like survival from Camping to Living in a human society like managing your money, cars, relationships etc.
Along with the great mixture of science, religion and logical problem solving thinking called Philosophy.
With atleast that you can build humans morally and intellectually capable of a never before seen better future
In my opinion atleast.

might be missing a thing or to

I am not in the field of education but the one idea which I believe sounds a bit along the lines you are thinking of are on the model created by Rudolf Steiner. I don't know of any texts but you could google on his model of education.

Well the idea of raising better people will always be the best idea, — Frankin

Of course; it's tautologous.

What is contentious is what being better consists in.

...Rudolf Steiner... — Jack Cummins

...'cause schools need more bullshit; and of course we havn't learned anytign about how folk learn over the last century.

Actually Steiner’s model is very popular in private education and homeschool communities. It is often combined with the Montessori method to emphasize creativity, nature and spirituality.

Reading Steiner is what got me into thinking about education in a more philosophical and spiritual way instead of seeing it from a more functionalist perspective.

I am currently grappling with the philosophy of “radical unschooling” and trying to pull the best parts from each model and sort out some of the dogma.

If you have money and want to improve education, go and talk to the local public school Principal. You will find that the path is already clear, but the resources are lacking.

Banno
I was a public school teacher and I found that public schools tend to be reactionary and not progressive. As new research emerges that shows the current methods aren’t working they just try to shoehorn contradictory new methods in existing models.
Throwing money at this broken system will just result in broken schools with shiny new stuff and maybe small improvements like smaller class sizes.

At this point, I think it would be great if more parents opted to start their own charter schools or create homeschool collectives to experiment with new educational methods. The methods that work would hopefully be praised and continued by the students who were happy with their education.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Gray_(psychologist)

I’m seeing this psychologist as being quite influential right now on the fringes of education

Alfie Kohn is also shaking things up in education more in regards to discipline.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfie_Kohn

public schools tend to be reactionary and not progressive. — Megolomania

...not my experience at all. Teachers know what needs doing - explicit instruction differentiated for individual children - but are prevented from accomplishing this by lack of resources, irreconcilable demands and impossible expectations.

more parents opted to start their own charter schools — Megolomania

...so you would fix what is broken by breaking it further.

...new educational methods... — Megolomania

Again, teachers know what works, but in places where they fail they are unable to implement it. The result of your experiment would be increased inequity as middle class parents fund their schools better.

Schools are funded by property taxes, so the funding is determined neighborhood property values already. I agree that many good teachers if given money directly with no regulation from administrators would create a better learning environment.
So much money is wasted on high administrative salaries and fighting frivolous lawsuits.
I think if schools were run on a school by school basis they would have more freedom and the money would be used more efficiently rather than paying district administration that is completely disconnected from the classroom environment at each individual school.
A smaller school could take parents concerns more seriously on a case by case basis this preventing the feelings of alienation that leads to lawsuits.

Schools are funded by property taxes, — Megolomania

Ah, the absurdity of 'mercan society. What a stupid idea.

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I want to start a small school to create a small community of kids in an affluent area where they just may have the resources necessary to band together and make some substantial world changes. — Megolomania

Sounds like a hybrid of Montessori and Hitler youth.

Are you a sneaky 4Channer trying to make me associate my ideals with NatSo?
I’ve read about it and I see how their false utopia can be appealing to those who don’t really think it through, just like Communist utopia sounds promising until it’s put into practice.

“non manipulative and resistant to manipulation, resistant to false hierarchy, brave enough to take action, but practical enough to not start a losing battle“
Doesn’t sound like Hitler youth to me...

I think we need to look to the past to gain insight and synthesize multiple views into something more cohesive, not just recycle old ideas that may have grains of truth but are not wholistic enough to be practical.

At this point, I think it would be great if more parents opted to start their own charter schools or create homeschool collectives to experiment with new educational methods. The methods that work would hopefully be praised and continued by the students who were happy with their education. — Megolomania

I’m of the opinion that as parents we should select an educational system and school that delivers what we’re unable to deliver ourselves - what we don’t know that we don’t know. No system is perfect, and we’ll need to pick up the slack in their overall education wherever we send them. Parents who are also teachers have a tendency to support and argue for homeschool collectives and experimental methodologies because they can see where standard education systems are failing kids. But the ideal educational structure is not necessarily one I would agree with entirely, because being able to offer a critical perspective will encourage my child to think for themselves. Experienced teachers who aren’t trying to justify their entire methodology or establish points of difference are also more likely to facilitate the education my child needs instead of the one they’re passionate about or ‘just seeing if it works’.

Experiments with educational methods should be carried out on children in small doses - parenting is experimental enough as it is.

I think that the major factor in education is not what is in the books or in the words of the teachers but in the social structure and the behaviour modelled by the teachers. A school that preaches freedom but practices rigid control, for example, will teach the rigid control and freedom will not even be understood.

A curriculum so prescriptive that every lesson is mandated by government and neither teacher nor learner is given any autonomy cannot result in self-motivated or creative graduates.
So if you want students not to be gullible, you should not treat them as empty vessels to be filled with your unquestioned knowledge, but as critical partners in the development of society.

Well said, as a former teacher in public, private and Montessori schools I sometimes find myself feeling more lost the more methodologies I encounter.

I think there must be a way to synthesize all the good things and throw out all the bad things.
That line of thought has led me into thinking more philosophically about education.

How do I know the things I witnessed and judged as ‘good’ or effective methods in one classroom are actually good for the long term development of those kids? As a teacher you really have no idea what happens to your students in the real world and even if they become famous and successful you have no idea if they are happy or living a meaningful life.

Sometimes I forget that normal parents probably aren’t grappling with these issues in the same way I am.

This is exactly what I have come to believe.

I am now exploring the idea of: “what is the minimum amount of control necessary to facilitate a good self directed education?” And “What resources are needed to facilitate the maximum opportunity for self directed learning?” Ex should all financial resources be spent on technology for the students like woodworking tools, 3D printers, pottery kilns etc.. rather than staff to teach and administrators to police. What is the minimum staff necessary?

Have you read about Unschooling?

I guess I’m imagining something that is like a synthesis between a university, a makerspace and a skillshare collective.

I want to start a small school to create a small community of kids in an affluent area where they just may have the resources necessary to band together and make some substantial world changes. — Megolomania

Isn't that what various incarnations of the private school are doing? I get it -- you would like to run your own school. It's a very exciting prospect. I've day dreamed about that for 5 decades, at least (and was never going to happen in my case). Good luck in your efforts. But there's no great accomplishment in educating children who already have a good amount of social capital and increasing it. Nothing wrong with that, of course. That's one of the ways the well off get better off.

But it is a greater challenge to educate students who start with much less social capital and increase their social capitalization (like the skills needed to acquire and use knowledge to their best advantage along with social connections). Of course, minority children get screwed out of good educations pretty often, but the "surprising" fact is that white children do too. And anyone who is poorer than average is likely to get a poorer than average education.

But it is a greater challenge to educate students who start with much less social capital and increase their social capitalization (like the skills needed to acquire and use knowledge to their best advantage along with social connections). Of course, minority children get screwed out of good educations pretty often, but the "surprising" fact is that white children do too. And anyone who is poorer than average is likely to get a poorer than average education. — Bitter Crank

What makes some poorer families value education and others not? Rich families seem to take it as a matter of course and can pay for all sorts of things like tutors and afford more time to check school work, etc. But what makes some poorer families see the education as more valuable despite the lack of time and less money for tutors, etc.? What accounts for differences at the micro level? Does anyone study that, or are these questions always at the macro/structural level?

I've been thinking about education since I started teacher training back in the '60s. It's both an appealing and appalling field. I was self-deluded into think I could teach high school. I found my niche in adult education and community health education (did well for an English Major).

There are around 74,000,000 Americans below 18 years of age. Education is of necessity a 'mass program'. A good thing about our lumbering, clunky education system is that it often does a good job. Another good thing is that it is loose enough for at least some odd balls to make it through without being ground up. In general though, the larger and more highly varied population that presents its children for education, the less effectiveness mass education is becoming.

Part of the problem, observed for at least the last 60 years by various observers, is that we collectively aren't even sure what education is supposed to be doing. Sorting the good boats out for lifting by the next high tide, and sinking the low quality ones? Regulating the labor pool? Conducting an enlightenment factory? Training people for dead end jobs? Educating people for a society that ceased to exist a long time ago? Giving people basic skills (to do what?)

Have you read about Unschooling? — Megolomania

Guilty as charged! I was involved in the FreeSchool Movement back in the day, and HomeSchooling with Education Otherwise.


Bibliography.

A.S.Neil. Summerhill.
Ivan Illich. Deschooling Society.
Jiddu Krishnamurti. Education and the Significance of Life.
And so on. As well as Steiner and Montessori.

But it is a greater challenge to educate students who start with much less social capital and increase their social capitalization (like the skills needed to acquire and use knowledge to their best advantage along with social connections). — Bitter Crank

Yes indeed, and that must be the socialist project. It requires a whole community approach rather than just children. It requires much humility from the teacher, to learn how to live in a community and serve it.

we collectively aren't even sure what education is supposed to be doing. — Bitter Crank

But we can learn if we are willing.

What makes some poorer families value education and others not? Does anyone study that — schopenhauer1

Success often depends on "belief in the efficacy of ... [whatever is being tested]. So, people who believe vaccination will protect their children get them vaccinated. People who believe that they can prevent themselves from getting HIV follow the standard advice. People who believe that education will give their children an advantage make sure their children believe that too.

Disbelief in efficacy results in much different results: unvaccinated children, people getting infected with HIV, and children with little interest in learning.

Early childhood experiences play a large part in later education success. The amount and kind of language that children are exposed to has good and bad consequences. Children in families that are positively and abundantly verbal perform up to standards in school. Children in families that are more negatively and sparsely verbal start with verbal deficits that are quite difficult to overcome. Poor primary school performance is the first result, which follows those children into middle school and up.

Some families are more widely culturally sophisticated (apart from wealth). Children in those families have more 'resources' to draw on in school.

Yes, people study this. But compensating for well understood deficits turns out to be a tough problem to solve. Handicapped families (whatever reason) tend to stay that way. Social expectations can contribute to a given child's failure. Changing social expectations is very hard.

Education is a mass program (and decentralized to boot) dealing with very large numbers, and good fixes are just plain hard to come by, whatever the problem is.

Part of the problem, observed for at least the last 60 years by various observers, is that we collectively aren't even sure what education is supposed to be doing. Sorting the good boats out for lifting by the next high tide, and sinking the low quality ones? Regulating the labor pool? Conducting an enlightenment factory? Training people for dead end jobs? Educating people for a society that ceased to exist a long time ago? Giving people basic skills (to do what?) — Bitter Crank

You left out babysitting.

Oh, and showing off. Parents what to be able to say that their child is brighter than other people's children. Hence, standardised testing and private schools that achieve insignificantly different results to public schools at much greater expense.

But it is a greater challenge to educate students who start with much less social capital and increase their social capitalization (like the skills needed to acquire and use knowledge to their best advantage along with social connections).
— Bitter Crank

I worked as a tutor in a disadvantaged high school that was about 80% Mexican immigrant families (kids raised in the US with good conversational English)

One of the most inspiring classes I saw was taught by a black woman I think it was just called leadership class. She taught the kids upper middle class social rules like proper dining etiquette, they made videos of mock dress up job interviews. I imagine this was one of the most helpful classes for them to feel more comfortable entering college and careers in the middle class.

However the smartest kids in that poor school had very good career prospects because they were fluent in Spanish. We had recruiters constantly from different industry and the military. I’d say immigrant kids in extreme poverty with lots of social support via school programs and strong local cultures or big families had better life prospects than the average white working class kids in the suburbs I grew up in.

As someone who was a poor black sheep in a rich family, I can say the cultural gap between rich and poor is like traveling to another country. Many people choose to stay in the same class for the same reasons people stay in the same country or state they are born in. The familiar culture is easier to get along in, even if the grass looks greener on the other side.

You left out babysitting — Banno

No, that's covered by "regulating the labor pool". Back in the 60s, never mind which year, Edgar Z. Friedenburg described one of the functions of education as delaying entry into the labor pool for as many people as possible, and prolonging their role of passive consumers. He noted that the function had spread into graduate schools, maybe lasting as long as post doctorate programs. It all depended on the willingness of students to keep paying tuition--which they generally were; tuition was cheaper back then than now. College gave a lot of men a plausible claim to stay out of Vietnam, too. Plus there were chicks, and all that.

Friedenberg himself decamped to Canada to protest the behavior of the U S government (he wasn't evading the draft--he was in his late 40s when he left). He found that Canada had some significant defects in its government too. Surprise!

"He has been included among the "radical romantics" sociologists of education in the 1960s counterculture."

Amen.

Most teachers find themselves picking up the slack in the area of parenting more than parents pick up the slack in the area of education. The best education will always come from an amorphous web of relationships rather than the delineated roles of rigid institutional structures. The moment someone says ‘that’s not my job’ they create gaps in a child’s education - it really does take a village.

The whole idea of what an education system provides should be adjustable in relation to what everyone else is already providing for these kids. I remember a private school located in a community of market-gardeners and small-business owners, whose teachers were frustrated with a low care factor among their students. Their parents were doing well enough to give these kids a ‘better education’ than what little they had themselves, and the kids were all raised with an excellent work ethic - but they saw their parents’ success as proof that a university education wasn’t necessary to build a good life. The parents were blaming the teachers for not ‘earning the good money they paid’, believing that ‘quality education’ = go to university.

I tend to see education as developing potential in the community. Some of the best education structures I’ve witnessed sought to ‘up-skill’ not just the students but also the parents as well as the teachers. I was involved with a regional playgroup and community health initiative when my children were young that took ideas from the Reggio-Emilia formula. They also arranged for a number of informative workshops for new parents about brain development and the importance of the first five years that had a real impact on me as a parent.