All or Something?

Most supporters of progress tend to fall into one of two main camps. In one camp, you'll find the group that believes that progress needs to be dramatic and wholesale, revolutionary. In the other camp, you'll find the group that believes in incrementalism, the idea that change should happen in small steps over a necessarily lengthy period of time, evolutionary.

The same is true in the world of customized learning. There are those seek revolutionary, structural change. Most of these folks see the need for a complete restructuring of the way public education works - no grade levels, flexible scheduling, and schools that don't look, sound, work the way they do today. There are also those who seek incremental change at the school or classroom level. Most of these folks accept the practical need for maintaining some if not all of the policies and procedures that exist in today's schools, largely for administrative convenience.

What makes this a great debate is that both camps are correct. (Isn't that always the case?) There is a need to completely restructure the way American public schools and school systems do business. The American approach to school is simply not up to the task of 21st century education despite the heroic efforts of those who work in the field. On the other hand, successfully implementing such dramatic change is likely impractical due to the required micromanagement from state Departments of Education and fragmented interpretations/approaches at the local level. Seems like a no win situation.

However, what we may have here instead is a no lose situation. Revolutionary change toward customized learning (what I would refer to as mass customized learning) is a worthy goal which can move the effort forward without requiring the immediate, wholesale changes that could potentially lead to educational anarchy. Meanwhile, there's no excuse for schools, or at very least teachers, to not take smaller, immediate steps toward greater customization. This is doable and is reasonable to require of current educators. I know this because my classroom features many of these steps already, despite being  just a year into customized learning implementation. (To learn more about this, read some of my earlier posts.)

While that progress alone is worthwhile, another product would perhaps be even more significant. Requiring incremental progress toward customization with the ultimate goal of mass customization could bring a critical mass of educational stakeholders on board the customization train. While not every teacher is willing to do everything, every teacher should be able to do something. The key to this is one of the necessary producers of motivation. People (not just students here, but teachers as well) are more likely to engage in a task if they feel that it is attainable. Mass customization may be too much to ask from most educators in the short term. However, smaller scale customization is reasonable to ask for  and results in the intrinsic rewards that come with a job being well done. I am in a unique position to make this claim as I have found that my move toward customized learning has resulted in a more positive teaching experience. Despite the shortcomings that plague me and the rest of us mortals, I feel like I'm doing more good than was possible before. I give much of the credit to the change of approach at the classroom level.

Therefore, I would suggest that there's room for both camps under the big tent of customized learning. Mass customized learning is a worthwhile goal; incremental customization is a worthwhile immediate measure. By recognizing the value of both camps, the entire conversation is shifted from the moot question of "Should we do this?" to the more progressive, "How should we do this?"