蜜桃影视

If you don鈥檛 already know Rose鈥檚 name, then you will soon. His theories of smart individualization and adaptive personalization are quickly penetrating education policy debates in unexpected and important ways. And he has a powerful team of researchers, marketers, and believers behind him.

鈥淲e are focused on the personalization of society,鈥� he told 蜜桃影视 of his work at the Center for Individual Opportunity. 鈥淕etting away from a one-size-fits-all view of people and the systems that we build around that and trying to get something that鈥檚 far more personal and helps develop the potential of every single person.鈥�

The below interview has been edited for length and clarity:

蜜桃影视: Your own personal story explains so much about the theory of change you have developed. Tell us how you came to this work and this mindset.

Rose: My interest in these ideas and the failure of average and the power of harnessing individuality probably comes from, really, two things. One was a deeply personal experience and the other was a professional sort of insight.

The personal experience was … It鈥檚 nice that I鈥檓 a professor at Harvard and some other things, but I also failed out of high school, pretty spectacularly. I had a 0.9 GPA and I didn鈥檛 quite fail 鈥� they actually kicked me out. I like 鈥渇ail鈥� because it makes it seem like I had some choice. I ended up on welfare, I had two kids while I was working minimum-wage jobs at 19 and needed a different life, and I did still have this sort of weird belief in the power of education to transform lives and life circumstances. So I got my GED and went to college at night and I sold fence during the day and slowly built up a new view of myself and what I was capable of.

I had always assumed that I鈥檇 be a neurologist. After that I realized that wasn鈥檛 what I wanted to do and Harvard had started a brand-new program called the Mind, Brain, and Education program, and so I thought … I didn鈥檛 know where Harvard was. I actually could never have pointed it out on a map. I grew up in rural Utah.

I wanted to be there, and I actually ended up getting into the program 鈥� that鈥檚 the program I鈥檓 the director of now.

The professional aspect of this was that I knew that the sort of standardized approach to success didn鈥檛 really work for me and that I had to carve off my own kind of path, but when I got to Harvard, it was during a period of time when science was changing pretty dramatically.

I was working at Mass General Hospital, watching changes in medicine, in neuroscience, in nutrition, where we were getting away from one-size-fits-all and really starting to look at personalization of things based on a new kind of science. And so it was that moment where I realized, 鈥淲ait a minute. This applies deeply to education and the workplace and human potential in general.鈥� That really kick-started this whole path that I鈥檓 on right now.

What does the 鈥渆nd of average鈥� mean, more specifically, for pre-K鈥�12 education, and what does it mean to be 鈥渄esigning to the edges鈥�? How is this playing out in American classrooms right now?

The 鈥渆nd of average鈥� for education means that it is unacceptable to design learning environments assuming most kids are like an average kid, because it turns out scientifically, mathematically, there actually isn鈥檛 such a person. It鈥檚 just an empty middle. They don鈥檛 exist, and so you鈥檝e designed textbooks and curricular materials and assessments that fit actually nobody at all, and then kids muddle through and then we reward the ones who muddle through the best with better grades. All the while thinking we鈥檙e actually nurturing their potential, and we鈥檙e not.

So it means flexible design of environments. Every other industry decides education designs flexibly and we still pay for average-based products. We call it 鈥渁ge-appropriate,鈥� but it鈥檚 actually just like you buy an age-based textbook; it鈥檚 just what does the average kid of that age know and can do, and it鈥檚 absolutely creating artificial barriers for kids.

The second thing, the biggest one for me, is right now we鈥檙e fixated on a set amount of time to learn and then we give you a grade and then really at best you鈥檙e going to know how you compare to the kid sitting next to you, but based on this new science and based on the ideas of 鈥渆nd of average,鈥� I think you have to shift to mastery. I don鈥檛 care how my kids perform compared to kids sitting next to them. I want to know whether they鈥檝e mastered the material they need to live the life that they want.

How is personalized learning addressing some of these issues? What are its limitations?

I think one of the mistakes I think we鈥檙e making in education is to view personalized learning as another fad, but it鈥檚 not. It鈥檚 something bigger than that. There鈥檚 something stirring in society. We are realizing the extreme limitations of standardization.

Most everyone wants personalized medicine now. You would never accept average-based medicine anymore. This is true in nutrition. This is true all across the board, and education is just following that same path. We鈥檙e getting away from one-size-fits-all and focusing on systems that really try to understand who you are and help develop you to your full potential.

The mechanisms of personalization are part of that, but it鈥檚 obviously bigger. A big step toward getting there is actually the change in the assumptions that the public makes about themselves. People are still willing to see people through the lens of a bell curve 鈥� thinking some kids are just innately smarter than other kids.

If you believe that, then we should keep building our education system the way we鈥檝e built it, as a great and fair sorting mechanism, to sort the best from the rest. Until we change that fundamental set of assumptions, it鈥檚 hard to create demand for these things. That鈥檚 our charge.

With respect to creating demand 鈥� as this is an enormous paradigm shift 鈥� what are you doing to engage meaningfully with parents?

Parents want this for their kids, but they don鈥檛 want to be the one that experiments on their kids. It鈥檚 interesting.

They know that the old way doesn鈥檛 really work, but they just are unwilling to stick their kids out there, but the second you show them really great examples that other kids are getting, then suddenly there鈥檚 your demand. They find that unacceptable. They want their kids to have that because they know if other kids are getting it and their kid isn鈥檛, then their kid鈥檚 falling behind.

If we go and tell people, 鈥淥h, there鈥檚 a different way to think about education,鈥� like, their eyes just gloss over. We鈥檝e found it鈥檚 really important to tie these ideas to something bigger than just education.

We are absolutely living in an age of personalization now, and we show them. We have to show that this is a complete rethink of ourselves as a society and then position education as part of that, so our work is largely to develop that broader change in the way the public sees themselves as a way to create demand for education.

What is your response to skeptics? To people who say things are going OK?

Here鈥檚 the thing. Relative performance is how some parents gauge success … 鈥淲e鈥檙e doing fine compared to somebody else.鈥� But who cares? What we really want to know is, have we developed your kid鈥檚 potential to its fullest, period? And that doesn鈥檛 have anything to do with what another school is doing and whether you鈥檙e slightly better than they are.

To me, if you think the way we鈥檙e doing it now is fine, then keep your kids in those kind of schools, but I think we could do a lot better, and I think it鈥檚 not even just a little bit better. I think we will write stories about this a hundred years from now about the time when education became something profoundly, qualitatively different than it was before.

Do you think it will take a hundred years or do you think it will take 10 years?

I think it鈥檚 going to take a few decades to really infuse across everything … I mean, things take time and I鈥檓 super impatient, so I hate even saying that out loud, but I think you will see dramatic change in the next decade because I don鈥檛 think we have a choice.

I think it鈥檚 the moral thing to do. I think kids deserve to go to a public education system that tries to know them and develop their potential instead of artificially limiting it and labeling them and whatever. I just think it鈥檚 immoral, but if we just looked at basic national self-interest, economically, we just aren鈥檛 producing the kind of talent we need to even have a functional economy. Even if we just went on that, we have to do something different.

If this was 20 years ago, we probably knew this back then, but we didn鈥檛 have the know-how or the technology to scale it, and so it just was ideological. We鈥檝e seen this all the way back to John Dewey, who argued, wrote a great paper [鈥�Individuality in Education鈥漖. That鈥檚 a hundred years ago, but we can do something about it now. It鈥檚 not more expensive, but it does take a lot of will.

Do you think the election strengthened or complicated your theory of action?

I think it clarified it. If you think about what this kind of education system needs, it鈥檚 a highly contextualized set of solutions. What looks right in LA Unified may not be the same as what it looks like in Salt Lake City. The principles will be the same, but the way it looks will be specific to the kids and the context and the resources and constraints.

I think what we need are a lot of local innovations and experimentation with what really will work for whom under what circumstances, and I think when you have a strong national presence, the sort of knee-jerk reaction is to say, 鈥淲hat if we just had a federal play for this,鈥� but I don鈥檛 think that鈥檚 the best path to a solution here. I think a lot of state and local innovation is what was needed, and now there鈥檚 pretty much no other option but to do it that way.