In 2000 an American high school student by the name of Marcus Arnold became the leading law expert on the Internet’s most popular knowledge sharing site, AskMe.com. Despite having no formal education or any legal training, Marcus managed to acquire his lofty status on AskMe.com after falsely registering as a “law expert.” Marcus simply had the motivation to study law, and the resources to do so were within his grasp. (For more on this story, see Michael Lewis’ Next.)

In the late 1970’s, a high school dropout by the name of John Robison became the lead concert technician for the band Kiss, devising some of the coolest guitars and special effects ever created. John later became an engineer at a toy company, now he restores high-end cars for a living. (See Robison’s Look Me in the Eye.) How did John manage to learn so much about engineering without ever setting foot in a technical school?

I work as a technical consultant at a software company. Some of the most senior technical positions in my department are occupied by people who have had no formal training in programming, and I can assure you that they are amongst the most skilled and knowledgeable employees in the department. As with Marcus and John, they were able to successfully learn outside a school system because they had the means and the motivation to do so.

I have to ask: what good are schools if I can learn the same stuff in a more related, relevant capacity outside school walls?

Sociologist Alvin Toffler explains that schools in their present form were originally devised as a solution to instill characteristics that would make for good factory workers in the 1800’s. Classes run in shifts, bells ring, attendance and shift breaks (recess) are taken, educational material is distributed and taught en masse in a pre-packaged, static format. Toffler also explains how schools are one of the slowest evolving institutions in America, slower even than most other government bureaucracies and regulatory agencies (see Toffler's Revolutionary Wealth). 

Humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers explains that one of the reasons why America thinks it needs schools is due to the normative impact behavioral psychology has had on our thinking. Behavioral psychology claims that man is born with only the bare minimum of innate tendencies, and that he learns everything else by means of rewards and punishments. Sound like school? That’s because most schools operate on the principle that people will avoid learning unless coaxed by means of rewards and punishments, such as grades. Regardless of whether we have an inbuilt instinct to learn or not, schooling teaches us that grades, curriculum, and teachers are required in order to do so.

Religious schools that regard human nature as inherently evil trust people even less to learn by merit of their own personal motivations…

A third take on human nature and schooling is that man, when he is free to listen to his inner core, in the absence of external influences, naturally takes it upon himself to learn, according to his own personal growth needs. Studies show that this method of learning can be incredibly effective. Schools that allow student self-motivation, self-direction, and self-assessment to guide the learning process - where teachers exist merely to dynamically facilitate student learning -students in these schools actually look forward to learning, and don't as often forget what they learn. (See Carl Rogers’ Freedom to Learn for examples of such educational systems.)

This is not a new viewpoint on education. Aristotle touches on it in Nichomachean Ethics, and Rousseau wrote passionately about it in On Education. Oxford University is one of a minority of educational institutions that takes advantage of such a “person-centered” approach towards learning. This pdf provides an informative account of how Oxford's tutorial system works.

Yet person-centered schools can be expensive and they are definitely in short supply. So what to do? One option is not to go to school at all, and instead to hire mentors and work on ad-hoc projects either by oneself or with groups of like-minded individuals via the Internet.

In Deschooling Education, social critic Ivan Illich states that a proper education requires four things: resources (books, equipment), peer groups, skill exchanges (places where skills can be learned), and mentors. Without going into an exhaustive examination, it is my opinion that the Internet facilitates the first three, and is on its way to facilitating the fourth.

What would a good mentor/mentee matching webiste look like? Under what circumstances would learning necessitate a mentor?