Hogwarts-style Houses in Real Schools
A built-in belonging and mentorship
Have I mentioned I love Harry Potter? Even if you’ve never read or watched it, you’ve probably heard of Hogwarts, the school where British witches and wizards learn magic.
One major feature of Hogwarts is its four houses. On your very first day, a magical hat looks into your mind and figures out the best place for you, and you stay with that house for the seven years you go to school at Hogwarts.
Kids from every year of school are in your house, so you automatically have dozens of students who are older than you who, due to house pride and maybe a little competitive spirit, want to look after you.
It’s an appealing idea. It’s probably in our DNA. It’s like organization 101. When you have a large group of entities, you separate them into categories, and if those categories are still too large, you subcategorize. It’s not only good for organizational reasons, but for reasons of belonging. With almost any job you get, you’re probably going to be put in a team. Some teams are, of course, better than others, the best being the ones that have a sense of camaraderie and mentorship. They take new members under their wing and they all look after one another.
One place where this structure is glaringly present is the public school. You’re shuffled from one class to another with little hope of seeing too many people more than once per day. The courses themselves are separated according to grade level, so if there’s someone older or younger than you in a class, one of you is either advanced or falling behind.
Our schools need something like the houses of Hogwarts. Students need to belong somewhere, they need to have a group of people to rely on and to motivate one another. They need older and younger counterparts to receive and provide mentorship, both of which being beneficial to the individual.
We may not have a magical hat. There are probably existing algorithms, and potentially AI in the near future to separate students out, but even if it were pure chance who you end up with in a team, it would still be better than no team at all.
Here are some potential benefits from creating teams of students of various ages:
- Older students develop leadership skills as they mentor the younger students.
- Students have a default group for group projects.
- Teams are rewarded for their teamwork and team spirit. Individuals could be surveyed periodically, and those teams who provide the most support gain extra bonuses.
- Teams can compete against each other in projects and in overall progress.
- In online courses, comment sections can be team-only so they don’t get drowned out by everyone’s comments.
I can see two potential downsides to the team idea: administration time/costs, and lack of buy-in. Theoretically, teams would limit bullying and increase peer-to-peer assistance, both of which would take pressure off administration and teachers, thus leaving a net positive in time and cost. With team satisfaction being rewarded with actual school credit, more individuals in the team want to make them work.
[I feel like a lot of my educational daydreams end this way:] It would require a robust LMS built for these kinds of interactions. If done well, however, I think teams could be a major boon to the dread of public education.
