Is a 'School of One' What Kids Really Need?

We live in an era of personalization, where individuals are able to design and assemble the services and environments that best serve their needs, from the apps on our smart phones to the features in our cars and the news and entertainment streaming on our computers and televisions.

With all this at our fingertips, it’s astounding to think that education may be the only system that’s remained virtually unchanged for centuries. Children, by and large, sit at desks facing a teacher who lectures and demonstrates on a chalkboard. Instruction is designed to target the most students in the classroom at once: as such, it generally follows a one-size-fits-all design.

Students who struggle in this format are designated as learning-disabled, assigned tutors, or simply left to slowly fall behind. Standardized tests exacerbate the problem, and the result is a host of children made to feel as if they can never succeed in school.

What if, instead of casting a wide net over the classroom and hoping to reach as many children as possible, we tailored our teaching towards student's individual learning style?

That’s the idea behind the 'School of One,' an after-school math pilot program at I.S. 339, a middle school in the South Bronx. The focus of an article in the July/August issue of The Atlantic, School of One uses an algorithm that weighs each student’s learning preferences and academic needs and creates a lesson plan that’s updated daily. The classroom is divided into stations designed to target the same skill set using different modalities, from teacher demonstrations to virtual tutoring and online learning programs. Each child is allowed to use the station that most appeals to his learning style and maximizes understanding and engagement.

Launched as a summer program in 2009, the experiment posted a 28 percent improvement between the beginning and end of the program before moving to I.S. 339, where a tech-savvy principal set on boosting student scores went wireless and gave every student access to a laptop. The program is set to expand into the regular math curriculum of three pilot schools next year.

The jury is still out on just how effective School of One’s model will be, especially as a large-scale venture. But it’s heartening to see technology used to maximize each student’s learning experience. It’s time to move past the one-room schoolhouse model and towards an approach that respects the learning potential of the individual. Personalization through technology has made almost every aspect of our lives easier and more efficient, and it can do the same for our kids’ education.

Image credit: bionicteaching