Gamal Sherif of ProgressEd commented on the Beta Schools meme that Christian Long, Jeff Utecht and others include me have been tossing around lately:

"Perpetual" education, as it’s been described within the blogger matrix, sounds like democratic education:

1) constructivist, where the student makes meaning
2) reflective, where the teacher adapts to the needs of the students
3) alive, where a democratic education integrates and embraces change in a [democratic] society
4) process-oriented, where learning is discourse
5) populist, where the public ideally engages in dialogue about public education*

This is something that John Dewey wrote about in 1916 and Amy Gutmann* wrote about in 1999.

To which I offer a hearty amen. I re-read Dewey this summer after reading The Metaphysical Club this summer. It’s a little awe-inspiring to read his work and realize what a visionary Dewey was. He is writing about progressive, inquiry-based, hands-on learning a hundred years ago. He was right then. I still love the simplicity of an elementary science curriculum built around the concept of cooking the meals for the school. It’s hands-on, it’s real, it’s service learning. How many schools have that powerful of a curriculum today?

So maybe our concept of Beta Schools isn’t new. I’m o.k. with that. It doesn’t have to be new to be the right idea for the moment. But there’s something else too.

I really do believe that the promise of the new technologies have the power to reinvigorate Dewey’s ideas for a new century. Everything that Gamal cites in his comment can be enhanced when we incorporate the communication and production tools that a laptop and an internet connection provides.

How much more democratic and populist could we make our schools with tools like moodle and b2evolution?

How much more constructivist can education be with tools like FinalCutPro, a laptop and a videocamera?

How much more process-oriented does something like Writely make the writing process?

And when teachers blog and students blog and administrators blog — with the community reading each other’s work — how much more of a reflective community would we create?

And how much more alive would this school be than 99% of the schools we have today?