Some many days ago, a good countryman you know by the name of Maximus asked a group assembled before him, “what would a Federalist school look like?” His question suffered a long period of silence as those in attendance considered what they knew of Federalism….
Founded on fundamental rights…
A new future imagined through the mechanics of science….
A perspective holistic in nature that looks at a question from all sides in all dimensions….
Sovereignty remains with the people who will make a new and better whole from the sum of its constituent parts….
The good Maximus’s puzzle had no easy solution for the scholars to bandy about that day. Then I remembered wise counsel of a scholar long past. His own words were not my good fortune to know myself but had been translated by Walter Isaacson in his book, Einstein: His Life and Universe.
Two particular thoughts spoke to me when considering Maximus’s question…
“The explanation Einstein himself most often gave for his mental accomplishments was his curiosity. As he put it near the end of his life, ‘I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious.’…Curiosity, in Einstein’s case, came not just from a desire to question the mysterious. More important, it came from a childlike sense of marvel that propelled him to question the familiar, those concepts that, as he once said, ‘the ordinary adult never bothers his head about.’”
This curiosity fulfills two of our Federalist requirements. A new reality is imagined through this curiosity and comes into better focus as he tested it with his understanding of scientific understandings. Such an exercise includes looking at the problem from all sides as he questions the familiar.
Do our schools fuel this kind of curiosity? What do teachers do when students question these well-known facts as Einstein suggests? Einstein had ideas about the principles that should guide such an enterprise…
“There was a simple set of formulas that defined Einstein’s outlook. Creativity required being willing not to conform. That required nurturing free minds and free spirits, which in turn required ‘a spirit of tolerance.’ And the underpinning of tolerance was humility–the belief that no one had the right to impose ideas and beliefs on others.’
These formulas provide a set of fundamental rights and express a commitment to the free minds and free spirits of the people. Einstein’s philosophy fulfills the Federalist requirements. We have made progress in our discussion but we haven’t yet discussed what this might look like for our young scholars in today’s schools.
The first Federalist classroom moment that comes to mind involved Thinking Maps, a series of graphic organizers presented to students to build a shared visual vocabulary. While I grumbled about the totalitarian implementation of this system, I could not have imagined what happened once we shared these particular fundamentals as a common language. Students did not see themselves bound to the seven styles originally presented to them. They created their own. They followed the information they wanted to organize to combine elements of the seven original maps or added features of their own invention. The Thinking Maps took on a life of their own. Students were thinking about their thinking, the relationships between the ideas, and how the whole text or concept worked together.
From this example, I would suggest a Federalist education would begin with a primary education focused on building these shared understandings of words, concepts, and guiding principles. At some point, however, the system would have to back away to give the student the opportunity to follow his or her own curiosity and to imagine new combinations of ideas and understandings.
And here we come to my final thought for this evening on the question of what a Federalist school might look like. A Federalist school would provide repeated opportunities for the student to drive.
Curiosity.
What are we doing to squash this? Is it the drive to include every last bit, byte, pixel, and chunk of curriculum..? Is it laziness or ignorance?
I think that ruts develop. We often teach as we were taught, rather than innovate. We get comfortable with repeated lesson plans.
I’ve been guilty, though my classroom challenges me by design. I teach five grades, and sometimes keep kids for five whole years! If I taught the same things in the same way, I’d bore the kids until I hadn’t any paying customers.
Yes, I’m in a private school, designing my own curriculum. One day soon, I’ll be running the show. Input into a federalist model is very helpful in that the guiding principles seem an excellent framework for the school’s theme.
As an administrator, I’ve got to nurture that curiosity. Fortunately, that’s the melody of Montessori, so we’ve got the chance for harmony!
Thanks for the great thoughts!
My 21-year-old son, studying to be a math teacher, and I talk a lot about teaching, learning, and education philosophy, so this blog is right up his alley. I’ve also been explaining the boxes to him, and he’s really intrigued with the model.
A Federalist school still has to operate within the “rules,” whether curricular or conduct-oriented. Standards in my state are expected to be taught in every subject at every grade, or we teachers are derelict in our duties.
HOWEVER, a Federalist school treats those standards as minima, not as maxima. Standards provide the starting point for students to explore the vast stores of knowledge available to us, to develop their own understandings and perspectives on that knowledge, and ultimately to add to the existing body of knowledge. (That doesn’t have to wait for doctoral study!)
I like the approach of the classical education movement: build a common knowledge base, question the assumptions behind it, and explore the truths behind those assumptions to take knowledge to a higher plane.
There are those for whom the gross over-simplification amounts to “fightin’ words,” I freely admit! Michael, your input here, please!
When discussing the best models for education, I think we should spend less time concerned about over-simplifying or even over-complicating topics. I saw a blog headline today insisting we trust the American people with important details. I think we should do the same for American children.
Our focus should instead be on teaching to the core, as Will suggested in his last presentation, or to the truths behind assumptions as you suggest from the classical education model.
As long as we’re care taking the effort by talking about what is too much and what is too little, I’m afraid we continue to miss the point.
IS there such a thing as too much education? I think NOT! Amen, Shellee!
On the other hand, I spend so much of my classroom time remediating–makes it hard to focus my students on the big picture, with its underlying assumptions. However, it’s easier to do so in history than in math (imagine 8th graders who don’t know their multiplication tables!), probably because I enjoy it more. It still saps my energy, though.
Welcome to my tightrope.
(By the way, I’m adding Isaacson’s Einstein bio to my fall reading list–it’s on the shelf at the library, I remember entering it into inventory.)