We moved to America in 2015, in time for my kid to start third grade. Now she’s a year away from graduating high school (!) and I’ve had a front-row seat for the US K-12 system in a district rated as one of the best in the country. There were ups and downs, but high school has been a monster.

–

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/16/flexibility-in-the-margins/#a-commons

1/

  • Cory Doctorow@mamot.frOP
    1·
    10 months ago

    But there’s no reason that math teachers in a commons built around the (unfortunately) rigid procession of concepts and testing couldn’t generate procedural quizzes, specified with a simple programming language. These tests could even be automatically graded, and produce classroom stats on which concepts the whole class is struggling with. Each quiz would be different, but cover the same ground.

    25/

    • Cory Doctorow@mamot.frOP
      1·
      10 months ago

      When I help my kid with her homework, we often find disorganized and scattered elements of this system - a teacher might post extensive notes on teaching a specific unit. A publisher might produce a classroom guide that connects a book to specific parts of the common core. But these are scattered across the web, and they aren’t keyed to the specific, standard components of common core and AP.

      26/

      • Cory Doctorow@mamot.frOP
        1·
        10 months ago

        This is a standardized system that’ss all costs, no benefit. It has no “architecture of participation” to let teachers, students, parents, practitioners and even commercial publishers collaborate to produce a commons that all may share and improve.

        In an ideal world, we’d get rid of standardization in education, pay teachers well, give them additional time they needed to prepare exciting and relevant curriculum, and fund all our schools based on need, not parents’ income.

        27/

        • Cory Doctorow@mamot.frOP
          1·
          10 months ago

          But in the meanwhile, we could be making lemonade of out lemons. If we’re going to have standardization, we should at least have the collaboration standards enable.

          28/

          • Cory Doctorow@mamot.frOP
            1·
            10 months ago

            I’m Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by #WilWheaton! Pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover. There’s also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback:

            http://thebezzle.org

            eof/