OurGoods

A Future History of Education

Wednesday night, Chris Kennedy and Cassie Thornton gave a performative lecture as the first class of a forthcoming summer project called The School of the Future. The night involved everything from sundial-as-watch-crafting to Prom-dance to a satirical presentation of the past 200 years of education and a scan-tron pop-quiz.

(photos by Trade School “Pilates in a Chair” teacher Anna Larson)

Q&A

I asked Chris Kennedy, why are you interested in Trade School?

He said:

I wanted to teach at Trade School because I think learning is inherently about exchange; authentic and meaningful exchange. A kind of exchange that I think is about more than just knowledge but rather - experience with people, with the world and the objects, situations and relationships that make up that world.

Education and learning provide for us a way to structure this exchange. And through this we become a community. A community of practice – as novices exchange with experts, experts exchange with novices. A community of interest – the gathering of the like-minded, the curious and the impassioned. Trade School in this sense provides the opportunity for us (the teacher and people of NYC) to initiate and continue many different kinds of communities of practice/interest. It provides a tangible example of legitimate peripheral participation – this idea that learning is situated; that learning happens best when it comes from the ambient community, our surroundings, our rubbing ourselves up against life!

More than anything Trade School for me is an archetype of the plausible alternative to over-structured, hierarchical and standardized learning we now take for granted and use in the developmental transformation of over 1.1 million school children. Trade School is an opportunity to subvert the teacher/student relationship to be reciprocal. For me it’s about valuing our collective knowledge and not the expertise of just one person. It’s about finding ways to eliminate currency and the problematic funding structures that currently drive educational institutions and their “innovation”.

Finally, I find the physicality and philosophy of Trade School amazingly refreshing – even magical. For, to find a place in Manhattan to feel like my ignorance will be embraced, my lack of cash will not be an issue and that I can teach and be a student simultaneously is revolutionary. Because in those moments I think we can all better see there is a community in NYC, if at times quite hidden, that will support me regardless of socioeconomic standing, regardless of my associations, my interests or passions – if for the simple reason that we all love learning, learning with people and learning about the world together.