People are very interested in Mendicant University, but there is very limited public information out there about it, even now that we've been working on the experiment for nine months aleady. From March 26th to April 8th, I'll be posting short stories daily that might give a better picture of what's inside my head, as well as what's going in the ivory tower that is our Ruby Progamming school.

One thing I like about Sir Ken Robinson is he has a way of concisely describing things that I've felt viscerally for years but didn't have the adequate words to describe. In particular, I like the way he breaks down the concept of education into three categories: curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. Pedagogy is the bit where the real teaching happens, and like Robinson, I agree that it's the most important of the three components. I need to look no further than my own experiences in primary school and in college to see the huge difference that an emphasis on pedagogy can make.

Most of the educators I interacted throughout school were nothing more than glorified proctors. They handed me input material pre-defined by their state and federal curriculum requirements, in the format that those requirements prescribed, and then expected from me output that could be objectively tested and measured so that it could be attached as a line item to my student id number on a 'permanent record'. Both individually and taken as a group, good scores were considered an education success, and bad scores were considered a failure. Rarely were any of my teachers even permitted to interpret this in a different way, let alone act upon it and produce materials that would actually challenge students to think freely rather than numbly follow a sterile process of information collection and verification. Fortunately, some of the teachers I had were subversive types, and so I learned at an early age the difference between being taught a lesson and being 'educated'.

Listed in rough chronological order, here are the things that my real teachers did for me in primary school that the average 'educator' wouldn't dare try:

• In third grade, after realizing I was bored with basic arithmetic, a teacher wrote up a custom hand written lesson for me covering some basic algebra examples. During a study session while everyone else was doing arithmetic examples, I worked on the problems she gave me instead, and she'd occasionally stop by my desk to quietly give me some hints. I failed miserably at the problems she gave me because they were way above my level, but she taught me a ton in the process.
• In fourth grade, that teacher was re-assigned to teaching fourth grade. By luck or by back-room dealing, I ended up being the only student to stay in her class. In either case, it gave me another year of the occasional custom lesson and at least someone who supported me beyond what the exercises called for.
• In sixth through eighth grade, a shop teacher started all sorts of miscellaneous programs for bored students, including building kayaks from scratch and launching model rockets. Most of these programs ran far over their allotted time within the course, but the teacher let us use the shop whenever we wanted, including to work on our own personal projects. He almost certainly broke every rule the school had about this sort of stuff, and ended up buying materials on his own frequently to fund the courses.
• Throughout high school, a few science teachers hosted several independent studies to allow me to persue my own interests. They let me play with pretty much any materials I wanted, taught me on the spot lessons when needed, and one even started helping me design a circuit for a binary clock similar to the ones they used to sell on ThinkGeek.
• A teacher at the middle school that Jordan Byron and I went to gave us chances to do music and sound recording stuff for shows, I mostly helped run wires but Jordan learned a ton from that. He also gave us access to video editing machines and let us hang out and use the equipment well after he left and just told us to lock the doors on the way out.
• That same teacher got me a job as a sysadmin in my school district in my senior year of high school, because he knew I was good with computers and I was actually A+/Network+ certified. I hated that job and it eventually got shut down due to politics upstream, but it meant I got to start on paid computer work much earlier than most people have a chance to.

I could list out more things like this, but now that I write them out, I realize just how boring and ordinary each one of them sounds. They're just the logical things that a real teacher might do given the resources and time to provide opportunities for individualized education to those who clearly want it. But the thing that makes them interesting is that as a result of them, I frequently got in trouble with administrators or fell behind on my assigned work, making me graduate high school only slightly above the middle of my class. Additionally, while most of the things above sound harmless, most of these teachers made it clear to me that I shouldn't tell people about what they were doing for me, because they could get in trouble or even fired for it! You would think that such treatment would be reserved for those educators who were fondling girls in the closet or making racist comments in class, but not for those who umm... actually wanted to live up to the responsibilities that should come with their job, right?

In my time studying at university, things got a little better, but only slightly. Many teachers were too busy or too frustrated with the lack of quality of their students that they fell back on the same drill and test routines that plague primary education. But many others did start to give me interesting projects and enough academic freedom where I finally felt like I was being encouraged rather than stifled by the academic process. One in particular did some special interest courses with me that paved the way for the way that I'm running RMU, and so he deserves a story of his own!