Public schools need freedom and games

The public schools are very different than community colleges and universities for one principle reason: they hold education as a right. You might think that every child has a right to education, but from this point it is easy to choose either compulsory, boring education, or free, fun, enlightening education. I agree that it is a good thing to ensure that every child have the opportunity to receive all of the education that they are capable and interest in claiming.

The problem is that the philosophy of education as a right (while seeming benign and a "no brainer" on the surface) is usually interpreted in a very foolish way. You see, education as a right implies compulsory learning. Plato reinforces that compulsory education takes no hold upon the mind in his famous quotes:

"The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things."
"Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind."

To make matters worse, compulsory learning typically implies "cookie cutter" instruction, which is to say that all students will be presented with the same instruction and tests. Some teachers try to enrich their instruction with a variety of instructional styles for a shotgun effect. The problem there is that usually only one pellet of the correct learning style hits the target, if the child's style is similar to the ones chosen, and the wasted pellets represent wasted time and effort on the part of both the student and the instructor. The difference is that free education allows the child to freely claim his education without unneeded stress and through his own way, while compulsory education forces every child to receive the education in the same way or ways. Examination of public education clearly reveals that the public schools routinely force both students and teachers to embrace compulsory education. The connection of the problems commonly seen with students and teachers in the classroom with compulsory education inspires us to explore alternate approaches and condemns the compulsory education approach. Making students and teachers engage in coerced learning violates so many ethical and natural principles that it comes as a relief to back up and see the problems which follow directly from them.

For the pessimists who say that no student will learn given the freedom not to learn, I make 3 counters: 1) Learning is by nature fun and free unless the instructor kills either the fun or the freedom, 2) The learning environment remains compulsory, and 3) The natural mind is easily excited by its primary interests and all topics which unlock those interests.

Learning is naturally fun. Most games exist for teaching students skills needed to do various tasks and jobs. Rodeos demonstrate proficiency with the cowboy profession. Americas Army is a video game developed by the US Army as a tool for developing interests and skills required by the US Army professions, while war games develop the soldier's proficiency in fighting war. The game of "House" naturally develops an interest and ability in managing a house. The spelling bee is a game used to develop the skill of spelling, of course. Other games are designed to develop specific muscles or skills used in other activities or for other purposes. But how many of those games remain fun after compulsion enters the equation? Interest and compulsion are antagonists.

Some students are lazy, even when learning is made fun through games, and avoid the fun because of an established bad habit of avoiding anything requiring work in favor of their own meaningless games. Because of these students, the learning environment is compulsory, which only means that the must remain in a study hall type environment until their work receives a SATISFACTORY grade. Contrasting the boredom of a study hall with the fun of the games offered, the students will likely choose the games. Participation in the games requires of course that they follow the rules or else return to the "study hall" to be mentored by teachers without games.

So I ask, how much of our public education is games? Furthermore, how much of it is compulsory?

While those questions speak clear volumes, I will slam the dagger home into public education. How free is a child to enter the classroom or a teacher to accept or deny the student in our public education system? While dozens of questions and justifications may race to your mind at those questions, I ask you to suspend them and ask yourself how much better education might be if the student chose to enter the classroom knowing that the teacher was free to accept or reject him or her, and knowing that he or she could leave at any time? The logistics of discipline and responsibility for minors follows as a separate, unrelated, and easily addressable issue, so just consider the previous questions without the baggage of wondering about the consequences of "unacceptable" decisions, which is the root of all compulsion and the enemy of all liberty and enlightenment/learning.

You may have begun to make connections with post-secondary education because college is much more similar to this approach and enjoys much more effective education; though the damage done by this point is already extensive and almost irreparable.

What of the games, though? That sounds interesting, right? Why don't they happen? The primary reason is that the system doesn't like games because they remove the professional atmosphere and threaten a disciplinary system which is already heavily taxed with continual compulsion. If that weren't enough, the system taxes the teachers with the job of discipline and compulsion, leaving little time or energy available for the intense creativity required for both devising games and executing them. Finally, policy makers simply don't know how to evaluate the effectiveness of games either for learning or for testing.

I leave you with eight points which open the door to a whole new educational world of possibilities: 1) Teachers need to be free to work together to make games and to practice them, 2) Teachers need to be free from discipline, 3) Students need to receive complete responsibility for their learning which includes choosing their teacher and deciding to go to class, 4) Student testing must be done by a tester, not by a teacher, 5) Discipline must be monitored and enforced by an administrator without question for a teacher's or tester's acceptance of the student, 6) Teacher evaluation is only done by their students' scores, 7) Students must be in study hall run by administrators when not in class, and 8) Administrators track their students at all times.