Not school or homeschooling, but modular learning

Meet the new wave of teachers, artists and techies who are reinventing K-12 education one kid at a time.

May 30, 2023

For the last 20 years, I’ve taught over 2000 children in 3 countries (of all socio-economic backgrounds). I pioneered an English language program in an impoverished area is the Middle East. I’ve worked as a public school teacher at some of the highest and lowest performing public schools in all five boroughs of NYC. I’ve tutored 18 subjects in three languages to some of the wealthiest families in NYC, San Francisco and Paris to make up for shortcomings in private schools they were paying up to $60,000 a year to attend.

Since 2015, I’ve helped hundreds of parents start microschools (way before this was a household buzzword). In 2019, I founded a virtual learning program to help families through the pandemic, a free online math tutoring program, and a hotline that served 100,000 families impacted by school closures.

I’ve climbed trees with children in forest schools in San Francisco, and tested new digital apps with kids in seven countries.

I’ve also coached dozens of families at different stages in their homeschooling journey. Most recently, I founded Modulo, to help families curate their children’s education, social and childcare experiences drawing from a diverse array of in-person and online resources.

Based on what I’ve observed in my experience in this wide array of educational settings is that that there are thousands of extraordinary people working diligently to fulfill very unambitious goals.

We could be doing so much more, with less exertion and more joy if we just expanded our vision to what’s possible. If we woke up to all childhood education can be…what many of us, I believe, already know intuitively, but don’t dare to trust.

“The first goal of school is to do an adequate job preparing our future workforce to do jobs that were relevant yesterday”

From what I’ve seen, the first goal of school is to do an adequate job preparing our future workforce to do jobs that were relevant yesterday. Though more often than not, school is actually still optimized to prepare kids to work in industrialized factories. Or at best, schools may aim to prepare kids for currently relevant jobs in tech which are bound to also be obsolete when they actually join the workforce in 5–10 years, taking our inflexible school system another 100 years to catch up to prepare kids for what were our most needed careers today which by that time will also be obsolete.

“The second goal of school is to fulfill education, childcare and socialization needs all at once in one place in one institution at one time”

The second goal appears to be to do the bare minimum to help parents in the current work force take care of education, childcare and their children’s social needs all at once in one place in one institution at one time, and miserably failing by trying to be all things to all people, serving active complainers at a bare minimum and leaving less vocal or influential communities behind.

So many brilliant educational visionaries have tried to build the perfect school for all time, optimizing childcare, social and education in perfect harmony, but that is exactly why these initiatives fail.

We need to stop building the perfect school for every child, and start building the perfect learning system for each child at any given moment in time.

Building the perfect curriculum, social experience, or perfect childcare center for every family is bound to fail, because what we need to do is create the perfect education, childcare, social and academic experience for every individual child at any precise moment in time and continue to re-create it as each moment passes and they grow. Because children are different, families have different needs, and communities are diverse. People are different. One system does not fit all. It will never fit all, or likely even two identical twins perfectly. And even if perfection for all people at this time was achieved, it would cease being perfect at the moment after it came into being because we live in a world that is changing all the time. To live and learn is to adapt to a world that changes around us.

Glomming together education, socialization and childcare.

While it would be wonderful to hear a parent say that school provided fantastic childcare that allowed them to thrive at work, gave their children a vibrant, healthy social-emotional life or intellectually rigorous and engaging educational experience that made them love learning and prepared them to achieve any goal they set their minds to, these testimonials are few and far between and we rarely all three at the same time.

What we see more often is parents scrambling to find after-school activities or babysitters to fill childcare gaps, seeking counselors to heal emotional wounds from bullying and racism at school, or hiring tutors to help kids catch up with class work or appeal to a learning style that deviates even a fraction of a degree from the norm (over 20% of kids are diagnosed with a learning disability). Or choosing not to homeschool even if it would provide better educational outcomes “because I’m worried about socialization.” Almost all decisions are based on lack, fear, and with the sense that something must be sacrificed to get to “just ok.”

Students may also benefit from free services at libraries or non-profits, but these programs are also generally structured to help them catch up with class work, sometimes and at best ensuring they perform well on standardized exams, graduate from high school and attend college, but not necessarily correlating with the cultivation of skills like autonomy and creativity. In our own free tutoring platform, we’ve been criticized for allowing children diagnosed as gifted to participate alongside children struggling, with the implication that they don’t deserve to accelerate because they’re not behind.

Some parents reach a breaking point with school, and decide to homeschool, rarely out of a desire to innovate, but out of sheer desperation or disgust with what’s available.

Re-creating school at home

Parents who opt out often end up re-creating school at home home.

Unfortunately, parents who’ve reached their breaking point and opt out often end up fearfully re-creating the whole thing in their own home or learning pod, relying on standardized curriculum and a typical 9–3 schedule, assuming school must be doing something right or at least have some correct underlying assumptions, all the whole not quite able to pinpoint what that right thing is….

Why do homeschoolers use curriculum aligned with state standards, designed to prepare them for tests developed by large corporations with private interests?

Why do microschools meet from 9-3pm when this is a far cry from the modern parent’s childcare needs?

After working at so many schools, and with so many homeschoolers, time and time again, I encounter parents who have been disempowered and told they don’t know best what’s for their kids, that the school does, the teacher does, the test does. They assume that schools knows something they don’t know. But they don’t know what that is. That kind of conditioning is hard to break, but it’s essential if we want our kids to have the education they so deserve.

Deschooling Society

“The current search for new educational funnels must be reversed into the search for their institutional inverse: educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of his living into one of learning, sharing, and caring.” -Ivan Illich

In 1971, philosopher Ivan Illich advocated for a new education system. His argument was that education should be a fluid arrangement that took place through what he referred to as webs of learning and put out a call for advanced technology to facilitate these webs. This new system was to facilitate greater equity in education, promote lifelong learning and connections between those who wished to learn and those who had knowledge and resources to share. The four main webs he described were:

Resources: A directory of curriculum and tools for learning
Skills exchange: Mentors and experts willing to share knowledge
Peer-matching: Facilitating friendships and collaboration on learning projects
Directory of Professional Experts: Professional teachers offering services on their own terms.

Meet the Modular Learners

Flash forward to 2023, and a new movement has begun to emerge.

Modular learning

Parents and educational innovators have started to build exactly the webs Ilich described. And this, through years of experimentation and iteration, with the highly motivating driving goal of providing the best educational and social-emotional experience for their unique child, and best childcare situation for their family.

Many chose this route because they looked at what was out there, and the simple, bold thought occurred to them.

“I can do this better myself.”

The thought grew and grew and grew until they decided to take the leap.

Key characteristics of modular learners

They set their own goals for education, socialization and childcare, optimizing for each.

Rather than taking place at one institution at one time using a standardized curriculum, Modular learners set their own goals for their children’s education, childcare and social life.

Every child’s education is unique and customized

They create a unique mosaic of resources , drawing from digital apps, workbooks, teachers, experts, other families, local classes, community groups, cultural organizations and even world travel.

Community is diverse and unite around a shared value of education

It’s a diverse and inclusive community of teachers, artists, makers, investors, healthcare workers, techies and community activists.

Community share skills and resources

The community influences each other, shares resources, skills, knowledge and evolves together.

Education evolves fluidly, not periodically

Nothing is stagnant. Their children’s education is constantly evolving as they experiment with innovative education techniques as they emerge, pioneering the future of education starting with their own children.

It’s not school, because most of the education happens outside the classroom .

And it’s not homeschooling, because much of the education happens outside the home and some of the children have school as part of their mosaic.

It’s also not remote school, because education is often a mix of in-person and virtual experiences. Rather than isolate themselves , these families band together to share ideas, resources, skills and childcare too.

They form robust, inclusive, diverse and exciting communities where new ideas are circulating all the time.

Modular learning is a innovative, cutting-edge approach learning designed by families who are fed up with what’s available to them and/or deeply curious about exploring new models as they emerge.

Some of these families have found their 4 year old does the entire PreK-5th grade curriculum in 6 months using an adaptive digital learning app.
Some of these families form cooperatives where a science professor teaches science, an engineer forms a maker space, an artist gives water color classes and they all pool together to hire a local college student to teach chess.
Some of them travel the world, visiting museums and historical sites, complimented by workbooks and apps to give their child a well-rounded education.
Some of these families have no college education and others have PHD’s. They are of all races, nationalities and income levels.
Some are teachers and others have zero teaching experience, never having taught or even spent time with other kids than their own.
Some are extroverted and others are introverted.

New tools and technologies are facilitating the rise in modular learning

However, as this new learning movement has emerged, so have the tools to support it workbooks: apps, parent guides, teacher scripts, for anyone wanting to play a bigger role in their children’s education. Many were afraid to teach their child, but quickly found that they understood their children’s learning style and, with the right tools, where better able to support them than anyone else. Furthermore, they found support from those with more teaching experience in their Modular Learning community. Some hire tutors, but they don’t have to as they find there are so many experts and mentors in the community who are happy to step in and teach their child.

What they share in common is that their children learn quickly at their own pace, grow their innate passion for learning, make friends with children’s of all different ages, feel accepted and loved for who they are and build incredible projects like writing their own book, making a film or building a boat. Families make lasting friendships too, based around a mutual excitement around education and genuine care and interest in each other’s children.

What do you think ? Are you interested in designing your child’s education, childcare and social life ? What, if anything is holding you back ? We’d love to start a discussion in the comments.

We’re building a movement

At Modulo, we’re building movement around modular learning and building the technology, facilitate the connections Illich described in Deschooling society where families, teachers and local experts can share knowledge, resources and community.

And where we make a new evolving educational system for every individual child, not a one-size-fits all system for all children.

We’re just getting started and we’re curious to learn how Modulo can help to empower families and teachers to create new and innovative forms of education to their kids. Please reach out to us for help, to collaborate on building the platform or join the community.

Not sure where to begin?

Here’s our step by step guide for getting started with Modular Learning. Or you can see some examples of what life looks like for a family doing modular learning in our post, “What’s a typical day look like?”