- The purpose of schooling is to assess and recognize student learning.
- A “student” is “a person engaged in or dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge.” ((Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “student (n.1),” March 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/6093015258.))
- Students must be given the opportunity to show themselves to be engaged and dedicated.
- All school tasks should require the student to take initiative.
- Most schools place the responsibility of learning on the teacher, rather than on the learner.
- Placing responsibility on the teacher is counterproductive because the purpose of schooling is not student learning but assessment and recognition of student learning.
- In modern contexts, especially expensive schools, students have a passive role relative to that of the teacher. It is almost as if students are testing the teachers’ ability to make them learn. This cannot be allowed.
- Students will demand that teachers present the material in a way that the students find most convenient, all of which is made up without evidence, none of which is the duty of schools.
- Courses should be able to be laid out easily and completely with simple means of assessment that requires the student to demonstrate his learning, not the teacher to produce it.
- The best student is the one who can make the greatest progress in learning at the lowest cost to others. These are the students who should be honored by schools.
- The worst students are those who are not, in fact, “students”.
- Parents may choose, or, society may choose, to attempt to pay teachers to force children to learn, but this will never succeed.
- A school must identify the necessary learning and skill that is to be assessed. The school should provide students with the best study materials that provide the necessary instruction. Cost and accessibility must be included when judging any source to be “best”.
