MASTERY

What is school for?

The authors of this manifesto argue that the goal of learning is “mastery”—the ability to take knowledge and direct it to the goals of personal advancement and social change. They outline three features of mastery learning. First, the focus of teaching should be “the development of essential and enduring cognitive and character skills needed for work, citizenship, and personal growth.” Second, success in learning charts how students can “use the skills and knowledge they have learned.” Third, schools should build “character skills” as “an integral element of the learning process.” The authors write in a breathless, revelatory style, somewhere between a Silicon Valley product rollout and a TED talk. Their approach fits well with the ideals of upper-middle-class American ambition: Don’t just succeed but become a better person and improve society in the process. Project-based learning becomes one pathway to reimagining the relationship between education and work. “Build a plan, implement it, and share with the community what [you have] learned and accomplished.” They offer a series of case studies of schools where students “become advocates for the land and its people….How do I build that confident cultural identity?” Such a question may motivate parents and their children in the rarified communities of social awareness. For the increasing number of first-generation students entering higher education, for adults looking to retrain for new careers, or for parents awestruck at the increasing costs of college, this book may offer little in the way of practical advice. For a nation increasingly skeptical of expertise, it will do little to convince Americans that knowledge is a good thing.

An argument for learning as a process of personal growth, keyed to the ambitions of those who can afford it.