This title borrows a phrase I developed in my DVD, The Upward Spiral, in response to the question: How does life exist in a universe shaped by the Second Law of Thermodynamics? The first solution to the question is by harvesting energy from outside of yourself, living at the expense of others. The second solution lies in the altering of flows so that possibilities accumulate.
John Taylor Gatto, one of my heroes, references an article by Jean Anyon (Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work) that demonstrated a correlation between a school’s socio-economic level and the style of teaching. In lower class neighborhood schools, for example, students are given rote assignments with no explanation of why they should do it other than, “You need this to pass the test.” Being a “successful” student means following the rules. Listen and repeat what the teacher says. In the upper class schools, the emphasis is on thinking for yourself, learning to shape your own education, seeking verification of validity from the world rather than the authority of the teacher, learning how to control your world.
I aspire to have Chrysalis be like an elite school, except that “elite” schools have one major fault—their elitism. I went as a student to some of the elite colleges that were filled with students from the elite prep schools. I experienced these schools as serving two overlapping audiences with two overlapping purposes. One audience is gifted students that are given, on the whole, as good an education as they are willing to receive. The second audience is children of rich families who buy a prestigious degree for a prestigious sum of money.
These two purposes reinforce one another. The first audience of talent needs the second audience’s wealth to fund the individualized, in-depth education that nourishes excellence. The second audience of wealth needs the first audience of talent to maintain the academic reputation of excellence associated with the diploma.
An important job of the elite schools is to help wealth justify and perpetuate itself. We see graduation from a prestigious school as evidence of excellence and intelligence. Creating that perception is one of the jobs of the elite schools—to bestow a label (e.g., ‘Harvard graduate’) that people associate with excellence—though, in many cases, that label is merely a mask for having a lot of money.
In order to thrive financially, these elite schools need to be perceived as creating an aura of superiority around their students. That aura, and the value placed upon it, teaches the children to perceive and engage life in terms of the first solution, a zero-sum game. Winners and losers. This view is then carried by most of the students after graduation into positions of leveraged power where they interact with and alter the world in a way that makes it seem even more like a first solution world. When that happens, this type of education fails the world in a fundamental way.
Many of these schools would dispute these results, pointing to their efforts to increase student body diversity and programs that get their students in touch with the world beyond privilege. And, in fairness, the aura of superiority is not just taught by the schools. Our culture infuses this lesson upon these schools. Parents strive for their child’s admittance into these schools because that is seen as the established path to success. Therefore, the lesson is whispered for years before a student even enters these schools. Admittance is one of the strongest lessons of them all. “Only a few will be admitted. Your success depends on being one of them.” The world divides us into winners and losers—the first solution.
At the same time this is happening, our public education is being shaped by high-stakes standardized testing. The emphasis on test scores is pushing more and more teaching towards what Anyon would describe as lower class education. “Learn to repeat what the teacher says because that is what we need you to do.” The already-wealthy are taught how to control the world and every one else is taught to “do what you are told” in a Mengeleian ripping apart of our culture into a vast lower class and an upper class with little in between.
What I am exploring at Chrysalis is Second Solution education. An elite education without the elitism. An education that is freely available to any who choose it so it is free from that arrogant aura of superiority over others. From that strong foundation, a different kind of education can be developed where we learn to see the world in terms of flows, our lives as containing the power to alter those flows, and the universe as full of still unexplored, unknown possibilities.
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The New York Times just published an article about “semester schools,” schools that offer a semester-long program that puts high school students in a natural setting, working together as a community, with high academic expectations. The schools cost about $17,000 for the semester and are filled almost exclusively with rich kids from expensive private high schools. The article was extolling the virtues of programs like this; how they expand one’s character and put one in contact with the real world including your fellow students. I have written about some of these virtues in Cairns because this is what we are trying to do at Chrysalis. The difference, however, is that instead of one semester, we are trying to offer a nine-year program. Instead of high school students who have already mastered the academic fundamentals, we are working with K—8th grade and including teaching of the fundamentals. Instead of the $17,000 a semester winnowing of students down to those of “privilege,” we are working with any family interested in our approach. (Currently, 55% of our students are eligible for the free or reduced-price lunch program.) Instead of providing an experience for 30 students a semester with an annual budget of around a million dollars, we are providing the experience for 100 students with an annual budget of around six hundred thousand dollars.
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