My story is fairly simple. At 21 years of age I got it into my head to start a school, something that would offer an antidote to what I took to be the shortcomings of the current system. In 1995, after many years of graduate school (in which I eventually earned a Ph.D. in philosophy of education), I finally managed to get the thing launched—a place called Island Pacific School (IPS) on the west coast of Canada. It was an incredible experience, and with the help of some very dedicated teachers and parents, we created a very powerful school. I ran IPS for eleven years and then, to broaden my experience, I accepted a position as a middle school principal at a larger independent school. All along the way I have been both energized and perplexed about the state of education as it is understood and implemented within our contemporary schools. I can’t seem to shake the feeling that much of what we do in schools represents little more than a cheap facsimile of what a genuine education could be. Fifteen years ago I was pretty sure that I had answers to what I took to be the ills of contemporary schooling. Now, however, I think I may have learned that the important task is simply to ask the right questions.
The purpose of this blog, therefore, is to ask questions—four, in fact—about the “educative project” as it might be carried out within the contemporary world. While I will, to be sure, offer up positions and propositions of my own, my hope is that these will act as a catalyst for thoughtful response and therefore a deeper, richer understanding of the problem. The four questions that I think need most asking are as follows:
-
How do we connect, or better realign, the work we do in schools with a philosophical core that expresses the full scope and potential of the educative project?
-
How, practically speaking, do we “invite teachers to become educators” in the sense of supporting and inspiring them to thoughtfully pursue the educative project with their students?
-
How do we structure schools—i.e. in terms of class size, timetables, teacher loads, curriculum delivery, assessment practices, etc.—in a way that will support, rather than detract from, the educative project?
-
How do we incorporate the potential of Schools 2.0 in a way that will realize and expand—rather than trivialize and degrade—the educative project?
If you would like to send me a note, please email me at: tspear@telus.net.
