COHORT Education Infrastructure
Sep 2021
Curriculum: grades-courses v deep-dives
Covid’s message: simplify to thrive
Feedback … transcripts and certificates
The idea of cohorts is simple and found everywhere in nature: combine the UNIVERSAL, the INDIVIDUAL and the COMMON in a single working hierarchy just as they occur in many different instances in REALITY. The allocations of power/compulsion and resources/property within the hierarchy are based on the allocations of knowledge and information as related and explained in various sociological concepts such as
The principles of cohorts must be tailored to each specific hierarchy. In the case of Northfield and microschools, we have found one helpful [albeit not perfect] metaphor to be that of
With this rough idea in mind, let's dive into some details of how it works at Northfield.
“Learning” is a common [even continuous] experience that occurs in many settings, is known by many names [including evolution] and appears to take place, naturally and purposefully, in many [if not all] life forms. Ideally it links individual perception to organic reality … practice to potential … mankind's nomos to God's logos.
“Education” is the name we give to the formal environment of our learning experiences which generally includes some or all of the following characteristics:
The primary parties of interest in education are the family [consisting of parents and children] and the teacher. Without both of these being strong and functional, education will fail. [1]
On the issue of pedagogy, the major [and highly contested] options are
At Northfield, we have long examined and embraced the tool-based pedagogy of the trivium as the more general of the two [even universal] and thus our proper focus for reasons that we [and others] have documented over centuries. [2]
On the issue of curriculum, the major [and highly contested] options are
At Northfield, we followed the customary grades-courses approach … until [as explained below] Covid forced us to try the deep-dive alternative temporarily.
Thus the mission of Northfield is to support learning by advancing the understanding and infrastructure of formal education using a secondary school cohort model which
If parties, pedagogy and curriculum form the “structure” of education, its “infrastructure” could be viewed as the way in which education’s structural elements are identified, chosen and combined. [4]
Neil Postman’s “Teaching as a Subversive Activity” helps us understand the importance of the often hidden and under-appreciated infrastructure to the resulting structure of education when he convincingly argues that it is impossible [in education or life] to separate “the message from the medium” … or, we might say, “the structure from the infrastructure”. In other words, infrastructure matters.
At Northfield, we are convinced that the infrastructure of American society [beginning with the family and extending to sociological subversions of every sort] is collapsing around us. And as it does, the structure of education has [as Postman and others argue [5]] degenerated with it into one of preservation by special and bureaucratic interests not one of innovation by local stakeholders.
cohort - the Latin assimilated form of com="with" + hortus="garden"
The importance of seeing structure and infrastructure as coordinated forces shaping education might never have become so clear to us without Covid which required an infrastructural return to small, sequestered groups [similar to a one-room school] which refocused on families and teachers working together [with right reason AND common currency as their co-media of exchange] to provide education. Suddenly “grades and courses” gave way to “cohorts and deep dives” in which parents worked directly with teachers to craft a customized educational experience for a small group of students … happy milestone by milestone rather than drudging year by year.
By June 2021, the results of this “temporary” make-do had become so noticeably better than before that we decided to permanently decentralize our educational structure at Northfield. So beginning in September 2021, we will officially move to a COHORT educational infrastructure in which
In CP1, Northfield will undertake the necessary steps to allow parents and teachers one uninterrupted academic year to transition to direct contractual relationships for structural educational services with infrastructure services provided gratis by Northfield.
In CP2, Northfield hopes teachers can make more informed decisions about the infrastructural services needed by certain cohorts and begin to share the cost for them with Northfield as one of various potential service providers. We do not anticipate ever again asking parents to pay tuition to Northfield: they will pay teachers according to COHORT contracts negotiated directly with specific teachers.
Northfield’s COHORT approach is not novel. It is described and documented by James Tooley in his latest book “Really Good Schools, Global Lessons for High-Caliber, Low-Cost Education” as educational entrepreneurship which is already delivering high quality, low-cost education in various formats around the world. As such, Northfield believes it is consistent with our mission and worthy of a real-life experiment in Wichita KS in 2021.
“One-piece flow [OPF] is a term used to describe the process of manufacturing or assembling one unit at a time without building up any inventory between processes.” Toyota Tips on Lean Manufacturing
The COHORT approach also mirrors aspects of lean manufacturing’s OPF. Instead of multiple teachers passing the grade [a “batch” of similar aged students] around across courses, one teacher takes total responsibility for one student by performing ALL the tasks needed to meet and monitor that student’s learning process thereby reducing gaps and overlaps in the learning process. This resembles a return to earlier models of mentoring and tutoring and even apprenticing which preceded modern education.
Instead of measuring education over time, it can more easily be measured by milestones that permit learning to slow down and speed up according to the student as opposed to the grade and the course.
The well documented benefits of OPF which we hope to achieve include:
After COVID, OPF is being explored and adopted by many service industries [from restaurants to hotels] that have replaced other paradigms [such as grades and courses in education], division of labor and specialized jobs [such as faculty and administration] with a host of individual “jack of all trades” service providers who, sharing certain common resourses [ie. a
“common wealth”], take on the remaining, enterprising responsibilities [and rewards] for the educational needs of their cohort members. [See PBS Future of Work, Futureproof, Episode 2].
“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” ― Franklin D. Roosevelt
If you would like to help make this bold experiment in American education a growing success here as it already is abroad, please contact us at Northfield School of the Liberal Arts. Thoughtful and committed donors and volunteers will always be needed.
Although we are still learning, here are some early discoveries about how we will conduct cohort education at Northfield.
Education is the acquisition of the art of the utilisation of knowledge. This is an art very difficult to impart. ... The external assessor may report on the curriculum or on the performance of the pupils, but never should be allowed to ask the pupil a question which has not been strictly supervised by the actual teacher, or at least inspired by a long conference with him [her]. ... Primarily it is the schools [ie. cohorts] and not the scholars which should be inspected [and approved]. … The standards of these schools should be sampled and corrected. But the first requisite for educational reform is the school as a unit, with its approved curriculum based on its own needs, and evolved by its own staff. If we fail to secure that, we simply fall from one formalism into another, from one dung hill of inert ideas into another. - The Aims of Education, Whitehead, 1929
Teachers and/or families that wish to form/maintain a new/existing Northfield cohort must present an Annual Education Plan or AEP [initially and then annually thereafter] which sets out the pedagogical, curricular, economic and practical outline of proposed operations in sufficient detail to permit a realistic evaluation of the probability and impact of success. While we have no specific template or criteria at this time [other than adherence to the trivium as pedagogy and the seven simple rules of conduct as stated above], those may develop in the future as we observe the common elements and best practices of successful cohorts. AEPs will be required, reviewed and accepted [or declined] by Northfield in a timely manner without the use of inflexible deadlines or bureaucratic processes.
Northfield requires cohort leaders to serve their cohort students in_loco_parentis. This means securing acceptable written powers and understandings to act in the student’s best interests in situations where the legal guardian delegates
Each school should grant its own leaving certificates, based on its own curriculum. - The Aims of Education, Whitehead, 1929
Procedures for recording, assessing/measuring and communicating student progress [including transcripts and achievement certificates] will be the responsibility of each cohort. However, suitability of feedback loops will be one of the elements Northfield will review in every AEP. Northfield will provide cohorts with access to a secure Google education domain which can be used [in their sole judgment] for many educational tasks including a simple but thorough feedback system using Northfield’s "Continuous Cloud Communications [C3] Protocol".
Northfield School as an infrastructure provider will continue to provide financial assistance to cohorts in any way available. Currently we encourage the following.
ALL Northfield community members [including alumni] are encouraged to enroll in the following consumer rebate programs which send a percentage of your purchases to Northfield as a charitable contribution. The amounts may seem small but over time and people they can add up to a significant amount for somebody who needs help.
… provide links
ACE [Alliance for Choice in Education] may provide tuition assistance to parents who apply in a timely manner and qualify for available funding.
VELA Education Fund may provide micro or bridge grants to cohort teachers operating thru an LLC. https://velaedfund.org/
This is a way for those who have envisioned or experienced Northfield [the Supporters] to assist students who wish to do so but need financial help [the Supporteds]. If you need assistance, your cohort teacher will help you compose and maintain a suitable ASP [Aspirations and Situation Profile] which [with your permission] Northfield will post on a P2P online site for potential Supporters to review.
This is a way for students who need tuition assistance to receive up to $1200/year/student from Northfield by participating in special seminars with outside community leaders during the school year. If you would like to apply, your cohort teacher will help you compose and maintain a suitable ASP [Aspirations and Situation Profile] which Northfield will consider for inclusion. But apply early because inclusion will be limited by available funding. Qualifying students can specify a breakdown of the Northfield payments to participating cohort teachers.
is a program Northfield coordinates with various local businesses that value education and are willing to provide parttime opportunities for Northfield students and parents to earn money which can then be used to meet their hohort financial obligations.
Northfield School is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that welcomes participants [including parents, students and teachers] of any gender, race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the privileges, programs, and activities accorded or made available to other participants on the same terms and does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, national and ethnic origin in its policies, admissions, scholarships, loans or other programs.
Becky Elder, Northfield Head of School
September 2021
[1] In “Free Market Family”, Maxine Eichner argues for family as the basic building block [the key to actualizing potential] of all sociological structures [including the free market and the state]. Although one may disagree with her explanation of how [and what to do about the fact that] the family has been subverted and weakened by developments in other sociological structures [which makes their downfall inevitable], it is hard to dispute her concerns, the facts she presents and the pivotal importance she attaches to family.
[2] The most widely accepted explanation of the trivium as pedagogy is Dorothy Sayers’ “The Lost Tools of Learning”.
[3] The less conventional deep dive approach to curriculum is, perhaps, best explained by AN Whitehead in “The Aims of Education”. However, it is also forcefully [if somewhat less directly] championed by Postman and Weingartner in “Teaching as a Subversive Activity” where the conscious emphasis is more on “dive” than “deep”.
[4] The same structure-infrastructure dependence probably exists in other sociological activities due to the organic nature of the universe. Thus our notion that there are many means to the same end [implying the end justifies the means] may prove erroneous. We may rather be someday required to admit that the means [always?] determines the end.
[5] “The Revolt of the Elites”, Christopher Lasch