We Can Haz YouTube:

YouTube - SpartanburgDaySchool's Channel

This is certainly a catchy opening paragraph that makes you want to see what these crazy Harvard Profs are up to...

The Answer Sheet - Harvard profs dropping final exams: "Final exams are probably not anybody’s primary concern at the moment, but it is worth noting that the July-August edition of Harvard Magazine reports that many Harvard professors will no longer routinely require final exams."

However, it's not really that uncommon to forego a final exam in lieu of a major paper (or project) at the end of a semester in college. I especially found this to be the case at Yale while at grad school. Even while an undergrad at Wofford College, this was the case in many challenging and critical-thinking heavy courses. It always seemed to me that if a class was especially thought-heavy, there would be a paper at the end of the course rather than a cumulative final exam. After four years of undergrad and five years of graduate school, I can safely say that it is/was always more challenging to end a year of study with a paper than with a test. It made me reflect and look back in a much more critical fashion than if I were rehashing facts on a test. That's not to say that I don't value final exams in some circumstances. However, these types of articles really aren't pointing to a crazy new educational trend coming out of Harvard. The question becomes if we need to start looking beyond final exams in Middle or Upper/High School settings. That's a can of worms that I'm still trying to grok.

What if Google designed a school? What if Apple designed a school? What if I designed a school?

I have grand illusions of starting a Middle School (or perhaps sculpting a Middle School) where children (and their parents) in traditional 5th-8th grades would be challenged to think critically and become relevant and informed citizens. A part of that dream is the recognition that the demands placed on the teachers would be extreme. Our current 19th century Industrial Era school system does not fit that vision and only complicates the ability of people who have a similar-minded folks who'd like to change America by making better local schools. So, it's always promising to see results from studies that are seeking out a better way. However, what I find the most telling about this report in Mother Jones is that "scalability" comes into play:

KIPP: A Limited Educational Success Story | Mother Jones: "But there's always a 'but,' isn't there? And there are a couple of them here. First, although this study design is solid — it compares kids who got into KIPP schools via lottery with kids who applied but didn't get in — it's still the case that these are kids who applied to KIPP schools. All by itself that means they and their parents are part of the upper fraction who care about education and are willing to put in the work that KIPP demands of families. That's a limited set. Second, there aren't very many KIPP schools, and their structure is a built-in reason for this: KIPP schools demand a lot of their teachers, who work very long hours and are required to be on call at all times. They pay a bit more for this, but only a bit, and this isn't a model that scales well. You can always find a small cadre of dedicated young teachers willing to put up with this, but you're never going to find the hundreds of thousands you'd need to make this work on a large scale."

I'll say this (loudly): SCALABILITY IS IRRELEVANT. Scalability is especially irrelevant in the local school setting. While I do appreciate what the KIPP program is doing and I aim to copy their schedule (7:30-5:00pm including weekends and summer schooling), I'm not an adherent of their more rote and disciplinary methods. That said, we do need a vast change in how we teach our children. The United States cannot rely on our broken public (and private) education system to continue the trend we are on (emphasis on 19th century skills and standardized public tests) because NO education is standard. Let's change the world by realizing the mistakes of the education industry (and I don't use that word lightly) that so mis-informed my generation and instead ignoring scalability and practicality in preference of applicability and local needs (which are mainly covered by the need for critical-thinking citizens).