Objectivist-Oriented School
Posted by Pecuniology 4 years, 6 months ago to Education
Who here is interested in following the establishment of an Objectivist-oriented school, primarily for pupils who age out of Montessori? The curriculum is inspired by Peikoff's Why Johnny Can't Think and Jamin Carson's PhD dissertation "A Philosophical Analysis of Objectivist Education."
My first choice for undergraduate degrees is Charter Oak State College in Connecticut, which is part of the state university system in Connecticut and requires only two courses that are administered by the college: Orientation and Final Capstone. Everything else can be completed with AP, CLEP, and other standardized tests.
Ideally, we would set up our own undergraduate college, but that is really tedious.
I've taught at a bottom-feeder private university, a Catholic liberal arts university, and a regional state university. While I avoid doing business with government, I have no illusions about the nobility of the private sector.
Likewise, I chafe at the idea of operating as a non-profit. In the early years of my career, I worked with several Washington DC-area 'free market' think tanks that lived off the largesse of the productive. It wasn't so much the 'irony' of working for free-market beggars as the hypocrisy that made me leave within a few years to join the ranks of the Dot.Com moneypunk movement in the late 1990s.
If this thing is to fly, then it will have to be on its own merits.
Engineering should be full of Objectivists, but wayyy too many embrace totalitarian worldviews.
While this is fine for a conservative, it is not for an objectivist. For an objectivist, the curriculum's foundation must be on a single, objective reality and everything that that implies, as Ayn Rand described in detail in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.
Peikoff and Carson focus on core subjects: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, General Science, History, and Literature. To this, I am adding Mathematics & Logic and Business.
Sure, he was groomed by AR but he is far from being the heir of her abilities.
There are a couple of points that we disagree on - and a couple I disagree on with Rand. Some that I don't like - but I don't have enough study yet to decide who is right.
On thing that Peikoff said in Teaching Johnny to Think that I thought was pretty contradictory was when he said "Why would a genius write a book?" - meaning, in context, that he didn't think it was worth a genius's time to write one. Maybe he did not consider Rand to be a genius - but if he did - that was not a very well thought out comment. I think she was. I also think it is pretty insane. A genius is the perfect person to write a book - to pass along their understanding in mass and for longevity. Look at Rand's books. They are teaching beginners yet today - and will be for many years to come - hopefully decades and/or centuries. I would like to have seen his lectures in real time - but as I didn't - I can't. "He" did not write Teaching Johnny to Think (nor some of "his" other works) - but turned them over to editors to write the books for him based on his lectures without him even reading the finished products for accuracy. That to me is not genius - if you have great thoughts and don't pass them on - they are wasted. Passing them on in lecture will never reach the numbers it can reach in book form - if published in mass as Rand's were.
Then again, even Ayn Rand strayed outside her sandbox in some of her later applications of her earlier foundational work.
I found an interesting document put together by the US Board of Ed giving a lot of details on all 50 states in terms of their rules, regs, requirements, etc... for private schools - and as you said FL seems very friendly to them. We moved from FL about 12 years ago to WV. WV is also pretty open to private schools.
I do have one suggesting that you should consider. I don't know your finances - but starting a school of any significance is obviously very costly. Our initial thought is to seriously consider setting up as a non-profit. The idea really irks me too - but consider a few things: 1. You are not required to take anything from the state/fed. 2. You don't have to pay taxes to the state or fed :) . 3. You can still sell yourself on the merit of the school you setup and can then ask for donations from those with the funds that would be happy to support such an initiative. 4. Rand was not opposed to charity - it just had to be voluntary and worth it to the grantor of the charity. Would it not be worth is for those producers out there - the Reardens, the Dagny Taggarts, the d'Anconias, the Galts to help establish a proper school system to try to combat this collectivist expansion? I think they would. It would be of great value to them. But they are busy - doing whatever they are doing - they do not want to setup the schools and spend their time running them. To people in that position - to help someone else that is willing to do that would be a fair trade - especially in the long run.
Just my thought. We do not have the money do do anything of scale. We cannot even afford to leave our jobs. Just for us to get started would require enough initial funding to at least allow us to get the doors open and start transitioning into it full time.
My background is in IT and running multiple small businesses over the years. Some of that being specialized in customer services for other businesses. I learned a lot from dealing with other businesses - in terms of the people, the work ethic - the disrespect given by their employees. I did conversions from paper based accounting systems to computer based. Setup the networks, built and sold the computers, setup their accounting system software, inventory management systems, point of sale software and equipment, general troubleshooting, servers, etc, etc. So I REALLY knew their businesses well.
Long story short - I know the regulatory part of this could be a pain, I know how to deal look at the numbers - incomes, expenses, tax issues, etc...
Many of the standards for private schools is very flexible - no teacher certifications required in many if not most cases - unless going after accreditation. Pros/cons there - not sure yet which way I lean on that - but probably not. Seems an open door to doing things their way - instead of the right way. But, it definitely means having to take the time to put together a large curriculum, having enough staff willing to follow the methods prescribed for teaching that curriculum, etc. It's scary to consider - but if successful would be so rewarding. And, even from a non-profit stand - you can still be paid well. Not to mention that there are ways that could be considered for breaking it up into multiple companies - profit and non-profit to take advantage of their respective traits to make good money on it if successful - yet allow for tax exempt donations as well.
Glad you are working on this too. I think you are ahead of us though - and we are not sure if we want to do it. I'm late 40's and my wife is early 50's and this is a long term task - and a large one. So we're not 100% sure. Issues at my wife's teaching job makes us consider it more and more. Exactly what you said earlier - the schools are getting absolutely pathetic. Education and doing good by these kids is not the goal of too many involved.
And, great good luck with that!
Education has been subverted through a self-conscious Long March through the Institutions that began more than a century ago. Those opposed to this kind of thing are much more likely to pursue careers in the trades, engineering, science, or business than bureaucratic careers, while radical activists are hopeless with their hands and with math, and they don't mind spending their days attending meetings and filling out TPS Reports with the new cover sheet.
The only way to reform the system, without resorting to outright revolution—and those things are messy and loud, with unpredictable outcomes—would be to reverse the process and have radical activists pursue careers in the trades, engineering, science, or business, while those inclined to be productive are conscripted into the educational bureau-crazy. Such a plan would be absurd on its face.
Consider, also, that the Colleges of Education are where both school teachers earn their teaching degrees and school and university administrators and educrats earn their PhDs in Education Administration. The lunatics have completed their takeover of the asylum. It would take more than a flame thrower and a fire hose to clean out that infestation.
One alternative is to give up on trying to save the world and to focus on one's own children, maybe also the children of one's neighbors, and perhaps some few children from the surrounding community. If everyone did that, then there would be no need for a revolution. And, if hardly anyone does that, then that creates an opportunity for those of us who do.
But I also get your point - I'm not hold my breath for that - but the more thinkers we can produce the better off we would be as the public schools have almost completely ceded that responsibility. You find pockets that are better than others and individual teachers that are better than others in terms of trying to create thinkers - but even those that do - don't really know how - because they were never taught.
In the long run - the more Progressive government grows and the worst the educators are that are spit out of the college system - they will eventually ban/shutdown/regulate out of existence/etc private schools and home schools that are opposing them and getting in their way to keep control. Any left over will be forced to teach the way of the progressives.
Probably in the end - we will be the Reardens and Dagnys - struggling up until the very end to just have it taken or destroyed. But our thinkers will be out there. And maybe they can start it over again when the looters and moochers finally collapse under their own weight.
But it would be really awesome - if we could stop it before it gets there.
Elementary
Reading
Writing
Arithmetic
General Science
Secondary
Literature
History
Mathematics/Logic
Business
That bottom item is our 'special sauce'. The goal is to have the graduates start and operate businesses. One business option that we want to be available to all is opening satellite campuses.
Why reform the corrupt public school system, when you can start your own private school mafia?
The IT guy in me would definitely have computer programming woven it - definitely in the Secondary level - but probably all the way through. It is such a good method of getting logical problem solving skills into their thinking processes as well as to build real typing skills. I started programming and repairing computers when I was around 10 - so in 1981.
I think that had a very strong impact on me very early on. I consider myself to be a pre-Objectivist Objectivist in that I felt like Rand and Objectivism just helped to more clearly define why I think the way I do. But it was, and is, something I did not have to convince myself of in any way.
Anyway - your idea for getting your students to move forward with opening their own satellites sounds good and makes sense - they would already be trained in the teaching style. methods, and know business. If we do a school it would be similar - once we feel like the bugs are worked out - I'd like to do it as a franchise - where we have the ability to monitor and pop-up on them to make sure everything is being done to our guidelines. That's more where I was talking about separating the business. Would probably have a for profit for the curriculum and franchising side of the operation - and then have the school be non-profit. The profit side can issue franchises to the schools (including ours) - and to any others along with the curriculum, resources, materials, etc... and then the school would just be the non-profit and handle donations and the scholarship side of things.
I like your last comment - it could be "The Objectivist Mafia Academy" :) - But, seriously, you are correct!
Funny!
Sometimes getting old sucks. I hate it when that happens, LOL!
That said, youth is wasted on the young.
Coding is 21st Century literacy.
Whether it is Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth "Warren" Mann (aka The Red Herring) carping about billionaires, the War on Christianity, Democratic National Socialism, Occupy, or pretty much any other popular radical obsession, it all comes back to activists' not wanting others' stuff, but instead wanting others not to have their stuff. They are obsessed with wealth destruction, rather than wealth creation. This is why they torch limousines and police cars, rather than steal them.
Above all, my message to children is to be ashamed of feeling envy. (For the inner-city children: Get Rich or Die Tryin'.) If someone has a toy, and he did not take it away from you or anyone else, then go ahead and be jealous, in the sense of wanting to have that kind of toy and taking steps to get one, but do not stoop to the level of a dog watching another dog play with a chew toy. If we could convey only that one simple message, then the motivation to embrace socialism could evaporate.
My position is that the vast majority already are. Approximately 10% of the US working population is employed by government at some level, including bureaucrats, firemen, policemen, DMV ladies, etc. A small percentage serve in the military, and the vast majority of them are not career military. Ignoring a handful of other very small sectors, the vast majority are employed in business, both commercial and charitable.
However, Business is not emphasized in the standard high school curriculum as much as Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, even though only the tiniest minority of adults are employed as laboratory scientists.
We can teach quantitative methods, critical thinking, and logic through business disciplines like Accounting, Economics, and Finance, as easily as we can through laboratory sciences, and with much greater relevance to the pupils' lives as independent adults in the real world beyond their mothers' basements. Likewise, field experiments in Management and Marketing can be much more fun and useful that timing the descent of balls dropped from a table or mixing hydrochloric acid with sodium hydroxide to make salt water.
In my case, I enjoyed Chemistry and Physics, and I completed Calculus in the 10th grade. I would have enjoyed Statistics, if they had offered it.
Nonetheless, although I have used Calculus a few times in my academic work, I have had no need for Chemistry or Physics.
In spite of this, Business is not emphasized in the standard K-12 curriculum, while laboratory sciences are.
This really grinds my gears, because if leftists believed 1/100th of what they said, then they would be promoting entrepreneurship and the Business disciplines among the poor, because Marx called on workers to seize the means of production. In the middle of the Industrial Revolution, that might have meant that they should expropriate their employers' factories, but today in an economy based on Information and Services, that means being the capital.
Even if that experimental business is selling Che Guevara and I'm With Her t-shirts. If people are dumb enough to buy swag like that, then you still have to cover your costs, maintain sufficient inventory to avoid having to turn customers away, manage vendors and employees, etc.
Being the employee simply cannot translate to the experience of being the business owner. Their inexperience will never let them properly conceptualize it. This was one of the reasons why I decided to go in a different direction - I really got sick of dealing with the employees in many of these cases. Some of my best friends are previous clients that became millionaires - but while they were building up - and having to take second mortgages on their home to cover payroll - their employees were blasting them for being greedy, rich, fat-cats, that didn't care about them - while getting paid well for their job types with benefits, etc... and the business owners were even easy to get along with and personable. It really got under my skin.
I taught Economics and Finance for fifteen years. I told my students to have side projects, no matter what their primary sources of income were. Even if it is a hobby that pays for itself—like trading comic books or finishing and reselling furniture bought at garage sales—it could become one's primary source of income between jobs, and it might even grow into one's career.
As I point out above, sell "Eat the Rich" t-shirts for all I care. Just do something productive, and above all do not be a burden on others.
Ray Kroc got involved with McDonald's at 52, and Mary Kay Ash started Mary Kay Cosmetics 45.
If you're still mean enough to kick with both feet, when you fall flat on your back, then you're young enough to make a go of things.
(I'm older than your wife.)
The IT angle could make for an after-school program that could grow into a proper school. Give it some kind of snappy name like Startup Apprenticeship and pitch it to the local schools and churches. Maybe connect with a local Junior Achievement chapter. ...or something.
Whatever you do, I strenuously recommend that you play up the Appalachia angle.
I can still kick with both feet - just getting a little harder :)
We are very remote here. Our county only has 7000 population. 2 middle schools and one high school. The high school has - I think - under 400 kids. And the population here is mostly poor. Really no very feasible here - again - unless considering a boarding school in which the land prices here would make that route optimal.
We really have a lot of potential options to consider. My wife actually currently works at a Juvenile detention center for the state teaching math and science. There is one private school in that system - and she probably has the connections to even consider that route - BUT - MOST of the kids are special ed on the lower end of the spectrum. Some not hard to work with - but others just nearly impossible. But even that is an option. We are thoroughly convinced that some of them have been taught into their classification and having the right education could bring them out of that label with time.
There's even state based facilities for wards of the state - due to no family and not related to criminal activity. We just have to really get our heads around everything we need to put into this and decide if we're up for it. Home based projects have been an additional ware on us. I think I'm willing - but I'm not sure about my wife. We have had 12 years of a massive renovation/house rebuilding project that has us financially, physically, and mentally drained. And it is still not done. Maybe next year. Then refi and our financed open back up quite nicely. But - I don't know if when that monster finally gets off our back if my wife is going to be ready to jump into a new major project. If not - then I would need to decide if I want to do it by myself. It would be harder without her - she is the teacher with 30+ years of experience - and I'm just the IT guy - she's a better sell.
It is available at archive.org
There is an excellent introduction to Montessori from the Objectivist perspective by Beatrice Hessen, "The Montessori Method." It is available online, but I cannot find anyplace to download it from other than Scribd.org.
One rule-of-thumb is to lay out your budget as honestly as you possibly can. Once you are satisfied with it, double your expected costs and halve your expected revenues. Once you can afford to operate at those levels, perhaps subsidizing the project in the early stages, then you should be good to go.
People have started schools on shoestrings.
However, nothing good happens fast. If any of this were easy, then we'd all be right by now.
heh... When I wrote "irks" above, I did not mean refuse, as such. My wife and I started a non-profit organization several years ago to promote cryptocurrency under the umbrella of 'fair trade' with producers in the Developing World (which we prefer to think of at the Emerging Middle-Income Regions of the world, as we haven't seen actual famines there in decades, and they all have mobile phones with Internet access now).
We've renamed it, and we plan to use it as the custodian of the scholarship fund. It might also be the operator of the school, as well.
1) Depending on one's target market, one might pursue government grants, but one should be very careful to avoid having those become a large enough proportion of one's income to be devastating, if those sources dried up. For example, if one were focused on at-risk pupils, then one might approach law enforcement agencies, which often have grant money that needs to be distributed, with a promise to keep X young persons out of jail for Y years. I've heard that this is a much easier source of government funds than, say, grants for basic science, which are extremely competitive.
While this is not my first choice, if Peter Theil or Charles Koch showed up on my doorstep with a donation check in hand, I probably would invite him in for coffee, and not exercise my Stand Your Ground rights.
2) One must be very diligent about complying with the operating rules and filing requirements with a non-profit organization. Too many think themselves crafty and IRS inspectors stupid, and it gets them in to trouble. I've worked for large and small non-profit organizations, and it has made me very leery of trying to behave too cleverly.
3) Agreed. (See my comment on Peter Thiel and Charles Koch above.)
4) Ayn Rand on Charity vs Altruism: Yes. Even if I disagreed with her, as I do on a couple of her positions—smoking, self-defense, and intellectual property—I still might consider might accept donations for the same reason that I would bend over and pick up a $100 bill on a sidewalk: if the benefit exceeds the cost, then the action is profitable. However, one has to weigh the short run against the long run, as well. One of my greatest fears is what I taught my students to think of as The Wal-Mart Contract. You never want any single customer to represent more than 5-10% of your total business. (This also the danger of having a conventional job, versus running your own shop.) One large customer or employer can represent 100% of your revenue, while you represent 1/n of its vendors. In such a relationship, you have a lot more to lose from severing the relationship than your counterparty does.
If you created an Objectivist beachhead in Appalachia, then that could get people's attention!
As much as I prefer to avoid getting entangled with government, I wouldn't turn up my nose at a free building in a town suffering from braindrain.
Free buildings here - not likely - cheap - maybe - but if so due to the need for expensive renovation. We have some of that in a small town near us. They would almost give it away - but being in a flood zone - would require complete retrofitting of electrical, plumbing, A/C, roof work, floor elevations, etc... I would assume similar in other areas. And again, if the areas are that run down - not likely locals could afford tuition.
Our target market is children who age out of Montessori and the children of the beleaguered conservatives, libertarians, and objectivists in the area.
My eponymous BS is in Education. (My MA is in Economics, with specializations in Austrian School and Public Choice; my PhD is in Finance.)
Back when I was finishing my undergraduate degree, the program already was too lefty for my tastes. It was basically a parade of platitudes, pandering, and stereotypes. Nonetheless, the emphasis back then was Internal Locus of Control and Critical Thinking. Internal Locus of Control is all about accepting personal responsibility for one's own fate. Born with a plastic spoon in your mouth? Play the cards that you've been dealt and walk it off. Critical Thinking was mostly lip-service to avoiding logical fallacies and contradictions. The emphasis was still more on Marxist/Pragmatist confusion than on the Postmodernist/Intersectionalist rot that dominates today. For example, I do not recall every having heard the term "social justice" during my program. That self-negating anti-concept did not come into common usage until much later.
Today, Internal Locus of Control has been upended into Victimhood Culture, and Critical Thinking has been upended into cynical, anti-rational nihilism. Roll in No Child Left Behind/Every Student Succeeds Act, Common Core, and the whole "Math is racist" mindrot, and it is no wonder that teenage depression and suicide rates are exploding today.
Jamin Carson's PhD dissertation is a good source, as well. Mind, I would have edited it differently, but the best dissertation is the one with all of one's doctoral committee members' signatures on the cover.
https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/b... (PDF)
I'm going to break up my response into posts that address specific points above. Bear with me, as I probably will not do this all in one sitting.
https://www2.ed.gov/admins/comm/choic...
The link for the doc is very near the top of the body of the page - then there is a link to a page with a map and you can click on the state of interest to get the data - it's a little quicker than jumping around in the nearly 350 page pdf.
https://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/no...
I'm surprised they put this together and put it out there. And, honestly - I'm surprised at how many state seem favorable to private schools. One that did surprise me a bit was TX - they are a bit more tight on the private schools than WV, FL, & KY (the ones I read more carefully). I may look at Tennessee too - I believe if I am not mistaken that they also have no income tax - but would have to check whether or not that's true and if it applies to business and/or individuals.
There is a world-class heart center in Knoxville. Normally, one would have to be in New York City, Los Angeles, or South Florida to get equivalent care.
Politically, the locals should be amenable to what your are up to, and the industrial employers attract skilled employees who earn incomes high enough to afford private school tuition.
It is a lot more tedious than "Let's rent a barn and put on a school."
I started by reading Leonard Peikoff's Why Johnny Can't Think and Jamin Carson's PhD dissertation, "A Philosophical Analysis of Objectivist Education." Then, I drafted an educational manifesto, which I now have split into two works: 1) the core manifesto that relates directly to the rationale underlying the curriculum, and 2) the more general philosophical material that I am reworking as a young person's guide to life.
Once this is complete, sorting out the bureaucratic details takes precedent. Fortunately for me, I am in Florida, where the state Department of Education is friendly toward alternative education and homeschooling.
After the budgets are complete, promotion and pupil recruitment will be the primary activity before opening the doors.
I would be particularly delighted, if other 'stole' my idea and set up similar schools, so that we all could network and cooperate.
I know putting together a business plan an executing it is incredibly hard. Even after you think everything through carefully, things take about three times the amount of work you think they will.
See Ayn Rand's Philosophy: Who Needs It? for details.
Yes. The world needs more reason-based schools. We would send our kids there if one existed in our area and if it were not dogmatic.