The Neanderthal School of Wizardry Part Two, Broad Outline

"Let a hundred flowers bloom"
                                              ---Mao Zedong


My daughter had a terrible math teacher this year. 25% of the time, she simply did not bother to show up for class. Since this is advanced math, it means that the rest of the time when she did show up to teach, she went very quickly. Yet no effort was made to assess if the class understood the material. The test went ahead, even in some cases where a concept was quickly taught just a day before. When she did not understand a theorem, my daughter resorted to typing the theorem on google and learning from the material she found online. In fact, that is a great way to learn new material. There are plenty of material online, like khan academy, that will teach you everything under the sun.

Imagine that the student is ready for the next lesson, she logs on, there are five different tracks on the same subject, all taught by some of the best teachers of the nation. In some cases, for those that are intellectually endowed, a few diagrams and some words of explanation gets the concept across. For most of us, a good lecture by the best teacher in the country makes the learning fun. Still for others, where perspiration is needed, the concept must be pounded in incrementally by breaking it down into several smaller segments and taught with examples and exercises. For each of these tracks, past students give comments and ratings. Having learned other subjects in the same system, the student would know which track generally works best for her. After getting the concept, the student does some exercises found for the track. Once she is confident that she mastered the subject, she takes the test on her own to see if she understand the subject. There is no need to cheat as she is alone, trying to check her own understanding of the subject. If she fails on some parts of it, the test sends her back to some other lectures that will explain those parts in greater detail. More exercises are done to help her understand the subject. She will take a different test to see if she understand the material. Once the student has a basic understanding of the subject ( as indicated by passing the test), she will consolidate her understanding of the subject by thinking about where the concept would breakdown. These are called the boundary conditions. After thinking about this on her own, she would then go to the next step where boundary conditions for the subject are explored. For 99.9% of the time, all the boundary conditions for the subject have already been thought of by others, these are posted and explored by her. for the rare case where she came up with a boundary condition that no one has thought of, she will post her thoughts on subject related forums. Others on the forum will try to help find a resolution to this new boundary condition. For those wishing to have a deeper understanding of this and related subject, there are pointers to other sites that help provide more reading for the related subject. If a student has a question about something, she can tap into the reservoir of Q & A related to the subject, all posed by past students and answered by other students and teachers. If she is unable to find the answer to her questions, she can even pose a question to a forum to ask. Students who learned the subject in the past will answer the question. These are added to the Q & A reservoirs.

What would be the role of the teacher in this system? If anyone ever dealt with kids, he would know that the natural inclination for a kid is to play. If you leave the kids alone, 0.001% of them would catch the learning bug on their own. The majority would be playing games with their iphone most of the time. Teachers in this school system will be there to provide advice, structure and direction. Teachers would organize the group interactions for the kids, including presentations, sports, and games. Teachers would make sure the kids stay on track. They would ensure that a kid who gets mental blockage or emotional issues gets addressed. They would encourage a kid with the intellect and curiosity to pursue extra-curriculum activity of her interest.

The first school that Neanderthal would run would be a boarding school. There are many reasons for this. The first reason is that boarding school minimizes the interference from the parents. In my observation, most of the parents, while well meaning, really ended up contributing negatively to their kid's well being by their meddling. A boarding school can help the kid build good habits and good interactions with others, especially nowadays where many kids don't even have cousins to play with. Being with a group of kids their age help them form bonds and interact with people. Finally, there are many tasks that is required of a boarding school, anything from laundry to cooking and cleaning to gardening to repairs. There are also administrative tasks such as budgeting, purchasing etc. These are tremendous opportunities for the kids to learn to contribute to the community. They learn leadership skills and integrity with the work they do at the boarding school. The students basically would take care of the school and themselves with the guidance of the teachers. It would also make it easy to learn organized sports and games since all the students are at the same place. Finally, older students would help out the young. This help them mature and be caring for others.

While the students are mostly learning subjects on their own, they would gather for reason other than attending classes. The gathering of the students would be much more about learning to interact with others and learn about cooperation and competition. After learning about a subject, a student would gather in small groups to present to each other about their newly discovered subject. They would gather to learn organized sports and play games designed to teach them about human interactions. They would put on shows for each other. For a student who did something really special, the reward would be for her to present to a larger audience her experience and findings. Students also come together to clean the school ground, the bathrooms, their own dorms. They would help cook for their fellow students and teachers. Of course, the teachers and the principle would be there along with the students at doing these tasks. When things break, the student would fix them while others learn from him. This is also a great opportunity to learn about the different subsystems of buildings and structures. Students would also be given some time during the week where they can just go play for fun.

To sum it up, students at the Neanderthal's boarding school would learn their material on their own. They would come together for activities that help students learn interactions with other students. They take care of each other and their school with the help of the teachers and principle.