Education Improvement Ideas

Here are the elements I'd like to see in the education system my own kids would have. Some of these elements exist today in the US government public school system, and some do not, and some do to varying degrees. Rather than shaping this piece as a "what's wrong with schools/teachers" attack, which I think is misguided and too common, I think it's more productive to do a thought experiment and imagine you can start with a blank slate and just add to it whatever elements you wish to have. That way we maximize the chance of "keeping the baby" while also "getting rid of the bathwater." Sometimes a rethink and fresh approach is good to kickstart our imagination and achieve breakthroughs in areas where many people otherwise felt pessimistic or hopeless.

• kids not grouped by age; if any grouping, by interest and abilities; a kid can be in many groups
• kids not grouped by location -- as much; rather, not be limited by it; let kids communicate and socialize and collaborate with kids anywhere else whether across town, state, country or in another country entirely; use technology to help make this happen; respect the importance of socialization, community-building, playmates, friendships, and face-to-face communication skills therefore interacting with other kids nearby is still critical; but the increased connection with kids in far away regions and countries will have a net effect of increasing cross-cultural understanding and (likely, hopefully) more future world peace and a greater international consensus on Earth-wide stewardship issues
• kids are not forced to all learn the same topics/lessons at the same time
• kids allowed to go as fast or as slow as they need in any topic in order to master it; not held back by parents, teachers, fellow students or any rules, regulations or traditions
• if grading occurs, grades not shared publically with fellow students or the school at large; at best they should be used to help guide a student, parent and teacher as to where the child is doing well and not as well, and where either more work is needed, a different approach, or a switch in emphasis to different topics or fields
• realize that not all kids are going to master or do as well as every other kid in a given topic; they should not be punished for having lesser/different talents or a weaker/different intellect
• reduced emphasis on testing and test preparation (has assessment value but far too abstract and unlike real world; with respect to testing cheating is a sin, but with respect to real adult life "cheating" is often a virtue, smart, more efficient, more effective, faster; testing based on regurgitation of memorized static trivia is increasingly at odds in a world where Google and smart phones are ubiquitous; testing that tests deeper things will still be useful; testing that is faster, cheaper, more dynamic, more interactive, personalized, internationalized, multimedia, iterative, and refining will be more effective and widespread)
• increased emphasis on projects and portfolio-accumulation (closer to real world, and results last much longer)
• reduced or zero tolerance for trouble-makers and bullies; not by pushing them out completely or denying them further education but by reducing their ability to mess with others
• emotional/psychological education of greater importance; earlier, deeper, longer
• nutrition/health/exercise education of greater importance
• ethical education and life decision-making/planning education of much greater importance and focus; earlier, deeper, longer; still try to keep out religion-specific elements/twists
• money/financial education of greater importance; earlier, deeper, longer
• history education is not distorted or propagandized to cause host country nationalistic spin; don't whitewash
• science education is not distorted or watered down by a religious agenda
• STEM education in general is important and should be made more cool and sexy but not at the expense of all other topics/areas; as an example to prove my case anecdotally when you read a city's typical daily news it's like a set of case studies on people who are under/mis-educated in emotional/psychological issues, nutrition/health/exercise, ethics, life planning, money, finance, history and government -- NOT a litany of woes caused by kids grown up without enough STEM skills/knowledge ("The police report that one Mary Smith of Kentville Maryland, age 27, was driving last night while inebriated, ran a red light and smashed into an SUV, killing four children on board, instantly. The root cause is believed to be Smith's poor grades in calculus, exacerbated by her apparent complete lack of civil engineering classes back in middle school.")
• strive to provide a typical education experience that is twice as broad and twice as deep as what we have today; it can be done if we turn enough of the right dials the right way
• education delivery/provision should be frugal; don't buy something expensive when something cheap will do just as well; don't buy something cheap which can be gotten equivalently for free; in order to provide the most and best education to all children we need to make the money dimension "scale" up to reach all of them
• be more time efficient, do things faster that can be without any relevant loss
• educating the bottom 10% of children (measured by parental/societal wealth, or by talent/intellect "potential") is just as important, and perhaps more so, than the top 10%; all children should be treated with importance because they will eventually become the adult decision-makers of the next generation, at all levels; the decisions we make today with them will influence the decisions they make tomorrow, which in turn influence the kinds of children they have and the world they inherit, and the cycle repeats; this should become a virtuous cycle not a viscious one
• students should be learning from the *best* teachers of any particular topic (regardless of that teacher's location: such as in a different state or country; or of that teacher's position in the time continuum: dead or retired, or in a different timezone), not necessarily from the *closest* teachers who happen to be available and affordable; to a large extent, the current government school model is an echo from an era when this was not possible because there were no appropriate enabling telecommunications technologies or information media; now that we have the Internet, video, video calls (one-on-one and group) and interactive multi-media software, let's use them to flip the emphasis from what's the cheapest-for-the-most students to what's best-for-all students; the role of local community-based in-person teachers can remain but their duties and requirements shift to become more about what they can provide best, in person, in real-time, such as being a facilitator, guide, advisor, caretaker, and "catchall" to help do anything that other resources can't do better, and to provide the human touch. Technically, books have existed for hundreds of years and they have been one medium in which students can learn from the best not necessarily the closest. Let's keep books but add to that all these other amazing and effective things we can do that could not be done before.
• in general, much of the current mainstream government public school model is arguably an "echo" from an era 50-100 years ago, or from the European Middle Ages; let's wake up and change things to take better advantage of (1) what is possible today, and (2) what we should be doing today; in some cases this may require starting from a blank slate with zero assumptions, so we can keep the baby (the good things that we want) but get rid of the bathwater (the old/bad/irrelevant practices or constraints or assumptions)

up