Designing Education to Develop Agency

Even among students currently lacking agency

A child working in a Montessori classroom

The future of education is high agency education. The early adopters, including many entrepreneurs and entrepreneurially people more generally, are already there.

Look again at the seven lessons of schoolteaching: confusion, class position, indifference, emotional and intellectual dependency, conditional self-esteem, surveillance -- all of these things are prime training for permanent underclasses, people deprived forever of finding the center of their own special genius. . . . It is time that we squarely face the fact that institutional schoolteaching is destructive to children. Nobody survives the seven-lesson curriculum completely unscathed, not even the instructors.

John Taylor Gatto

New York State Teacher of the Year John Taylor Gatto argues that the hidden curriculum of conventional schooling consists of:

1. Confusion

2. Class Position

3. Indifference

4. Emotional Dependency

5. Intellectual Dependency

6. Provisional Self-Esteem

7. No Place to Hide

His point is that the medium is the message, so to speak - regardless of the explicit curriculum, most students are confused by disconnected facts, ranked by the academic standard, are not immersed in a world of passionate engagement, are expected to be dependent on teachers for approval and intellectual authority, and are only regarded as worthy human beings when they submit to the demands of the school system. In essence, they are trained to be passive and dependent.

By contrast, high agency programs are structured so that students take initiative for at least some aspects of their learning every day. In a Montessori primary classroom, students are introduced to the materials, and expected to get through all of the materials over time, but even at the age of four they have considerable agency in picking what work to do when. In app based programs such as Acton Academies, Prenda Learning, and Alpha Schools, students typically move through the learning apps at their own pace and then are given opportunities to work on their own projects for part of the day. Choice and initiative are built into the school day.

As an educator who regards student agency as essential, I would always prefer to work with students who have attended a high agency school from the time they were young. They have not been trained in passivity and dependence. Agency is natural to children unless we train it out of them. Having worked with hundreds of students with both conventional and high agency backgrounds, by secondary school there is a tremendous difference in their degree of agency: Those who have consistently had daily experiences in which they take initiative and choose their work are able to do so. Those who have consistently had daily experiences in which they sat in desks and were told what to do each day, are not habituated into taking initiative and identifying the work they need to do.

So what do we do with those who have been trained in passivity by conventional schools?

I’ve already provided a leader’s eye view of the first three days of transforming such a classrom in an inner city school. Anyone who believes that some groups cannot be trained to take intellectual initiative should start there.

Here I want to share the commencement speech by Satori Sole, a student who joined The Socratic Experience (TSE) as a high school junior after having attended conventional schools her entire life.

“Throughout the past 12 years of my life, I’ve attended 9 different schools. To say that my learning career has been out of the ordinary would be an understatement. I used to think that this was highly uncommon and, quite honestly, somewhat unlucky. That is, until my first day attending The Socratic Experience in September of last year.

For the first time, I was surrounded by students who were similar to me . . . Not only in their past schooling experiences, but also in their academic ability, integrity, growth, and care. My mind, as can be said about any one of my peers, has been greatly expanded during my time with this school.

Amazingly, however, I haven’t been shaped to fit the standards of traditional institutions. This fact is visible in every student here at TSE and is what I believe to have prepared us for the real world. EACH day for two consecutive years, I’ve had the privilege of experiencing the exponential growth in confidence, intelligence, kindness, and responsibility of this year's graduating class.

I can say with certainty that every 2024 alum will go on to be a powerful, independent individual, forging their way through adulthood with a very bright future ahead of them. As we enter the world of post-secondary learning, true responsibility, and work, it will be important to remember the lessons that we’ve learned in preparation for today.

There are two that stand out to me.

1/ The first is the power of our own voices. Even if we’re scared to speak up or we feel as though everyone will judge us, we cannot truly learn or grow without questioning and commenting on the things we see and hear.

2/ The second is that we cannot live in someone else’s shadows. We are unique people with unique stories. And we owe it to ourselves not to dilute our immense possibility by following the crowd.

I recently discovered a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that speaks to me deeply, and because of the nature of this school, I believe will speak to all of you as well. He said,

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

Earlier this year, while making the decision to forego post-secondary education, I discovered that this pathless journey would be challenging. Despite spending my entire life envisioning my years in college, I realized that it doesn’t align with who I am right now.

There were so many “what ifs” in my head while coming to this conclusion. And occasionally there still are, but after already having taken the road less traveled for the past 2 years, I feel confident in my choice. Despite not being sure exactly where we’ll go from here, I know that each of our paths will lead us to incredible places as free-thinking young adults.

When I was first told about TSE, I was very resistant to attend. I assumed that I wouldn’t fit in or I wouldn’t be smart enough to keep up with everyone else. “Purpose-driven education that fosters every student's unique genius”? That didn’t sound like me. I was scared of falling behind or being judged, and I was certainly no genius. After one meeting with Michael Strong, the founder, I realized that despite my worries, this was something I needed to try. The way he discussed the program seemed almost too good to be true: real discussions on meaningful topics with students and guides as invested in learning as I was.

I figured that the least I could do was give it a chance. If I couldn’t handle it, I’d find something better suited to my needs. That never happened . . . It took one week to understand that this was exactly what I needed. Every student I interacted with was happy to be there; the people I talked to were friendly and bright; my first Socratic discussion, a quick dive into music throughout the ages, was INCREDIBLE. Not only did it introduce me to my main guide for the next two years and students that I’m still friends with today, but it relaxed my nerves and got me talking.

That’s something I’ve noticed numerous times in every class I’ve attended: the people in this school are unceasingly inviting. Whether you’re a full-time student or just touring for one day, you’ll be asked all about yourself by individuals who genuinely care. This environment is one that brings out the best in everyone. I saw it on my first day and I still see it today.

The worries that I had before enrolling disappeared after my first real classes. Yes, the students surrounding me were brilliant, but instead of feeling inferior, I chose to better myself by learning from them. I came to understand that “unique genius” was exactly how it sounded: UNIQUE. Why had I been comparing myself to my peers? We learn differently, we express our knowledge differently, we communicate differently, we see the world differently.

Instead of wanting to improve myself, I merely wanted to be as good as other people. You cannot succeed in life that way. If I compare myself to others, I’ll always be disappointed. Coming to that conclusion was like a glass box shattering around me. I started speaking in class more, I asked the questions that I wanted to have answered instead of what I assumed would make me appear smart. I expressed my real thoughts in everything I wrote, no longer copying someone else’s voice.

Exactly two years after hearing about this school for the first time, I look back with the utmost gratitude for my peers, my guides, my mentors, and my overall growth. While it’s true that the students are what make this school what it is, I cannot stress enough how lucky we are to have had such incredible guidance and support from every staff member. Because of them, we can feel CAPABLE of going out into the world and making our mark. To each of my peers, I say thank you for many reasons. For our engaging class discussions, your warm natures, and for both answering my questions and making me think with yours. This school and everyone involved in it will forever be something I’m grateful for.

Congratulations to the class of 2024. I can’t wait to see where the world takes us. Or better yet, where WE take the world.”

Satori was a capable student before joining our program, but she was not a confident, articulate, thoughtful problem-solver. Now she is. She has developed considerably more intellectual and, if you will, spiritual agency. She no longer suffers from Gatto’s “Seven Lessons” that serve as the hidden curriculum of standard schooling. Given the extent to which constant comparison with others leads to anxiety and depression, I would postulate that helping her transcend that sort of comparison and internalize Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” will also make her more mentally and emotionally robust as she suffers the slings and arrows of life’s misfortunes. I daresay that such socially embedded transformations of personal identity are more effective than are the standard classroom hacks promoted by Angela Duckworth’s Character Lab. Satori is not at risk from exposure to social media, though she may have been prior to joining us.

Henrik Karlsson provides a concise statement of the prerequisites of agency:

“Agency is about having an accurate map of your interiority and a map of the external world, so you can navigate effectively to situations where they overlap in generative ways.”

Henrik Karlsson

With respect to an accurate map of the external world, we are combining a strand of Progress Studies with the basics of empirical modeling and decision education, culminating in forecasting on Metaculus. This program component is still under development. I’ll write a more extended piece on it in the future.

How do we support students at The Socratic Experience in developing an accurate map of their interiority?

1. An hour of Personal Growth every day where we discuss questions such as “How do you set goals?,” “How do you learn from your mistakes?,” “What do you do when you’re not getting along with your friends?,” etc. It may take a few weeks to build trust in the group so that they discuss these issues honestly, but once they do they crave an opportunity to think about their lives.

2. An hour a day of Socratic discussion on classic texts. But while we work to understand the ideas of Plato, Confucius, Twain, etc. the real goal is not scholarly mastery, it is “How do I understand what is true, good and noble?” In light of these diverse, contradictory intellectual frameworks.

3. Every student meets with a mentor for 30 minutes every two weeks. The mentor helps them set goals, design entrepreneurial and creative projects based on their interests, think about what they want to do after high school, and address practical issues such as time management, improving their grades, etc.

4. We offer electives in a wide range of subjects, allowing them to explore interests. Many are related to digital skills, software development, digital marketing, generative AI, audio engineering, video production, etc. because many have entrepreneurial and creative projects in the digital world. But we also have electives on entrepreneurship, relationships, yoga, improv, etc. so they can explore broadly.

5. I teach an optional course on Purpose and Wellbeing for 30 minutes a day, “What do you love?,” “What are you good at?,” “Health and Wellbeing,” “What will the world pay for?,” and “What does the world need?”

In all of these, we ask them open ended questions which students discuss among themselves. We expect all participants (guides included) to respect reason and evidence while remaining civil (see Core Principles here). We have had heated but respectful conversations across religious and political chasms, though most of the time they are not heated. But the habit of constantly discussing ideas prepares us to engage respectfully even when it is not easy. The result is the conscious development of personal identity or, more simply, “Know thyself.”

Satori’s graduation speech is a helpful articulation of how she came to Socratic self-understanding after two years at The Socratic Experience.