Uncommon Academy
New Model for Public Education — There are two core elements to Uncommon Academy’s model for public education:
1.) Replace teachers with mentors
2.) Turn learning into an autodidactic process.
Under Uncommon Academy’s model, students are allowed to study whatever interests them. They collaborate with other students to discuss their progress and work on group projects. The teacher-turned-mentor spends a portion of each day conversing with each individual student in order to understand the student’s progress up to that point and his or her goals as well as to provide suggestions on how to continue learning. The student then uses that discussion and the mentor’s suggestions to continue learning the material he or she wishes to. By turning the teacher into a mentor, this model allows each student to utilize and the mentor to suggest resources and methods of learning that cater to the student’s individual preferences. This preference is a product of their own interests and past experiences making such individualized attention necessary; by allowing a student to choose whether they would like to learn by reading a textbook, watching online videos, or a multitude of other, possibly combined, methods, the learning process caters to his or her independent needs.
Long Term Mission — Uncommon Academy seeks to implement a new educational model that incentivizes life long learning and passion. By removing the coercive and arbitrarily determined paths traditional education creates for students to traverse, Uncommon Academy turns education into a cathartic process in which students’ personal interests and ideas can be pursued and expressed. Currently, traditional education is a rigid path in which personal interests and ideas must be repressed so that students can narrow their focus on the educational material imposed upon them.
This switch in educational models has tremendous benefits for both the individual and society. The individual begins to lead a life shaped by their own pursuits, passions, and instincts resulting in work he or she is passionate about and an active interest in the world around him or her which leads to a much happier and productive life. Society obtains generations of individuals that think freely rather than conform to conventional norms; they will not necessarily have been trained to specialize in certain topics but instead to understand how they learn best so that they can continue to learn, innovate, and advance society for the rest of their lives.
Uncommon Academy Mentor Program — If a student wishes to learn SUBJECT-A, for example, then the student is assigned to a SUBJECT-A mentor. The mentor works with the student to assess the student’s current knowledge of SUBJECT-A during a mentor session. Then, the mentor helps the student decide what material to examine next and possible methods/resources that the student can utilize to best study that material. Once a plan of action is created, the student will use it as a guide towards learning the recommended material until the next mentor session. Finally, the student and mentor meet again a couple of days later to assess the student’s progress and come up with the next plan of action.
It is important to note that the mentor is not teaching the mentee actual content during this process. Instead, he is providing individualized guidance (in place of the outdated lecture model that provides no individualized guidance) to the mentee in order to help him develop a plan of action to study himself. With the abundance of resources on the internet and elsewhere, the teacher that regurgitates specific content has very little value whereas the mentor that helps an individual assess his strengths, weaknesses, and interests provides a great deal of value.
Uncommon Academy website — At uncommon.academy, there will be a schedule of mentors that specialize in aiding the learning of certain topics. Students will sign up to participate in a specific mentor program. Eventually, there should be enough mentors so that students can sign up for any available slots on the site and immediately join that mentor program. However, until enough traction builds, the students will apply to participate in individual mentor programs. If accepted, the student will participate in a mentor program (as described in the section above) for the subject advertised. There will also be “Home” and “About Us” pages with a “Donations” link on the website.
Mentor Selection Process — While a mentor’s specific knowledge of a subject is useful, it is not as important as his or her ability to assess the individual needs of a student as they pertain to the subject and then make recommendations as to how the student ought to proceed in learning the material — being careful not to teach specific material to the student throughout this process. A mentor can only make such an assessment when they truly care about the student and approach the mentor process with a great deal of empathy. Therefore, Uncommon Academy selects mentors with strong knowledge of their subjects but more importantly, with excellent communication skills and an outstanding understanding of other individuals.
Why this model works -
Feasibility due to technology:
Perhaps 30 years ago, a model such as this one would have been very difficult to implement. Solving the problem of a need for individualized education would have been even more difficult. However, with the advent of the internet, an overwhelming majority of the information needed for an education is available whenever we need it. As long as we have mentors to guide us in understanding where to look as we pursue our educational goals, our potential is unlimited.
Yet we continue to prescribe a sort of “one-size-fits-all” model for every student. We’ve known for a long time that humans learn in different ways and at largely disparate rates, and we continue to ignore it. The Internet allows us to take advantage of this and get a tailored education that works for each individual.
With the advent of video education and MOOCs, we now have the ability to learn from any number of esteemed professors or educators from the comfort of our own seats. More importantly, we can PAUSE when we don’t understand, REWIND to re-learn, and SPEED UP the content when it progresses too slow for us. This only scratches the surface of what technology now enables us to do. The problem is no longer a lack of access to education, but rather, a poisoning stubbornness across educational institutions that are stuck in their ways.
Interactive education allows us to witness and be led first-hand to the point of enlightenment in a self-guided process rather than have a lecturer regurgitate a textbook. Rather, it is of much more use to lead learners to the point of enlightenment rather than to teach that enlightenment itself.
Aiding the goals of the individual:
The potential and benefits of these forms of education are obvious, so why aren’t we taking advantage of it? Lecturers become too complacent with tradition because it is conventional.
Human beings’ minds naturally desire to explore content that does not fall nicely into general broad categories such as English, Science, Math, and History. In allowing students to tailor their own education with the guidance of a mentor, Uncommon Academy’s model allows them to explore interdisciplinary as well as entirely new fields. While traditional education represses students’ interest in new and unexplored areas by enforcing rigid distinctions between subjects, it can instead turn into a cathartic process through which these areas are explored.
Even more importantly, we currently place an emphasis on what people will DO rather than what they will BECOME. The following quote by Sir Ken Robinson clarifies this point:
“The point is that education is not a mechanical system. It’s a human system. It’s about people, people who either do want to learn or don’t want to learn. Every student who drops out of school has a reason for it which is rooted in their own biography. They may find it boring. They may find it irrelevant. They may find that it’s at odds with the life they’re living outside of school. There are trends, but the stories are always unique. I was at a meeting recently in Los Angeles of — they’re called alternative education programs. These are programs designed to get kids back into education. They have certain common features. They’re very personalized. They have strong support for the teachers, close links with the community and a broad and diverse curriculum, and often programs which involve students outside school as well as inside school. And they work. What’s interesting to me is, these are called “alternative education” ”.
If you are interested in participating as a mentor for Uncommon Academy, please contact us at contact@uncommon.academy. Finally, look forward to the launch of Uncommon Academy’s website, further studies regarding the learning process and associated neurological effects, our favorite articles and talks about education, and much more!
