I'm not really an expert in education. I just get ranty about it. Go talk to John Taylor Gatto, or the people behind Frontier College in Canada, or Room to Read

I'm not really an expert in education. I just get ranty about it. Go talk to John Taylor Gatto, or the people behind Frontier College in Canada, or Room to Read, or self-identified Edupunks... the list goes on. I offered the martial arts metaphor not because I think graduation lacks pizzazz, but because in the martial arts, students learn at their own pace. Someone who walks in the door at the age of 50 is exactly where some kid is who starts at the age of 12. It is anti-pedagogical to label some students as stupid because they just learn a bit slower than others and aren't advancing in lockstep. It's similarly wrong to label some students as "brilliant" because they happen to master some subjects more quickly. Often what you are measuring there is just greater preparation and support in the home. Schools are a reward and punishment system for trudging through certain institutional expectations of potential (not even actual work or achievement). We don't have this concept in any other human institution -- even the army acknowledges that some people will progress through the ranks at their own pace, and that some people are specialists, others are generalists, some are leaders, others are followers. The expectation of standardized results of human development is a sign that the institution is not being run with the intent to develop real skills. I have no idea what peer to peer learning would look like, but perhaps that is an interesting model. I disagree that there is limited teacher bandwidth. A society that can pay $5 for a cup of coffee could afford many teachers. A world where the most brilliant and hardworking professionals are confronting nearly 20-30 years of retirement could probably have a glut of teachers, if it wanted. Do you think an open platform that allows this would be sufficient? I don't know what that means. Books are a pretty open platform, and students haven't managed to teach each other using those. What about your technology is going to be superior to books?