TheMAPP

In this seventeenth episode of The MAPP, Post-Trump Public Schooling, an image emerges. Through the method of letter writing, if even to an imagined “Mother” at a dystopian crossroads, we explore the intersections of critical curricula, school design, and deindustrialized community engagement methodologies.

Archaic revivalists will be glad to know that time and space are coming into an emerging crash yet again–wherein we all will come to reckon with our own epistemological taxes.

Consider the trivium + quadrivium + apostolic educational leadership model presented here as such: The Living School.

Dear Mom,

I hope this letter finds you well. I miss and love you very much, and I can’t wait to see you again. I was happy to hear that you had made some new friends, and that you’re starting to swing again (that Mr. Toth sounds pretty plucky!), but please take your time with things—both your body and your heart are still healing. The doctors say that it could be any day now really, and I hope that you’ve kept those promises you made (both to me and little Seth). Anyway, I love you and miss you. I have some great news!

Do you remember back when I came to visit you from college, back before the Trump wars and stuff? You remember when I told you about that Ethiopian priest who was starting a school in Vancouver, and he wanted me to be his assistant? Well Mr. Oliver built his school, and it’s really thriving. We have graduated 1 doctor, and a dozen or so masters of arts. The students keep coming too—as long as we’re all stuck like this, I think they’ll come. Mr. Oliver trained me to start my own school too—mine is gonna be in Nome, your birthplace. Do you remember how I told you that Mr. Oliver said he had a supernatural experience when he was hiking one day? He collapsed on a trail and fell and hit his head. He says that he had a vision of a place called The Living School, that was architecturally designed after ancient, sacred geometrical shapes—specifically a 7-circle sequence that produces the so-called seed of life. Mr. Oliver says that this design models the golden ratio, a numeric sequence inherit to all of life on earth—all of the known universe. All motion and interplay between objects in time and space unfold after these same hidden, and highly mathematical, organic algorithms. Anyway, he also took ancient teachings and modeled our contemporary curricula after the same schema. Sounds crazy, huh Mom? Nothing like back when you were teaching. Remember how you guys had all of those rules? It’s a new day.

Our students are selected from the poorest communities in the state, and some start as young as 3 (Mr. Oliver says they have to at least be potty-trained), and all of our students have graduated with their Master’s by twenty years, save the sole Doctoral grad who finished at 18! She’s a bonafied genius though. Mom, it’s a real grassroots, apprentice-type framework for schooling and skill training, and because of Mr. Oliver’s sustainable engineering background, the school model is designed to be collapsible, transportable, and replicable in almost any environment (except “Texas” of course, it’s still not habitable). We’ve been able to produce a prototype of fully collapsible, lattice-block aluminum, with reinforced gortex lining that can be carried in a large backpack. Actually, Mr. Oliver’s first apostle was our PhD grad, Melky. As I write this, she is walking to Mexico from Vancouver, with a school on her back and a curriculum in her head. I’m so lucky to be a part of this. You would love it Mom. You would love Mr. Oliver. He says that ever since the de-industrial tide—when all of the standardization and accountability bodies went washing away—the children have been hungry to learn. They can’t get enough of the work. They devour books, and create more art than any generation, probably, ever. We we’re spoiled rotten! Mr. Oliver is always saying about the age of cameras and clones.

Hey Mom, remember how it was always a thing in public schools about African-American achievement gaps? Well these days it’s all about war-orphan gaps, and white male gaps. But Mr. Oliver is adamant about all future Living Schools being replicated identically to his prototype in Vancouver—serving only those children who are alone or impoverished, but bright and curious also. Being able to take a good punch helps, he says.

Let me tell you about the school Mom. Firstly, our core curriculum is based in the ancient Grecian Trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric), though we’ve added coursework, respectively, in linguistics, history, and organizing, as modern expansions. Since grammar and linguistics are the primary curricula, all students must be fluent in 2 languages and proficient in a third. Most of our students—those who come to us before the age of 5, achieve this linguistic goal by their fifth year of life. However, by their tenth year of life, all of our students—who have been with us since the age of 3 (at eldest)—are highly proficient grammarians, logicians, and rhetoricians. They are also highly skilled in linguistic analysis, literary and oral history, and organizing one another (and themselves!). It’s really something to see Mom. I give all of the credit to Mr. Oliver for the success of the students (he gives it to his fall in the mountain). They say that he was Sri Oshiru So Isis’ translator before the bombs at Salamanca. He’s a fucking genius Mom. Sorry.

Anyway, the 3 core curricula also intersect with minor lessons in poetry, oral history, civic planning, and lastly, business and commerce. Having completed the Trivium curricula, our students—now ten/eleven years old—begin the Quadrivium curricula. This stage begins with intense instruction in mathematics and structural equation modeling. This module, having followed their previous lessons in business and commerce prepare the students for later modules in entrepreneurship, law, policy and government. By graduation, each student is aptly qualified to open a small business, to work for a larger one, or to continue in advanced studies in philosophy, theology, and leadership—ultimately preparing for scholastic apostleship.

The mathematical and statistical modules are followed by deep engagement with visual arts, physical movement and exercise, musicianship, and master courses in computer and technology. By this stage of their development, our students (ages 13-15) are critical thinkers, effective communicators, and reflective strategists with regard to engaging novel content, analyzing and distilling information, and innovating upon the process with their peers. The bonds that the students have built over the years, most of them having been housed almost their entire life on the Vancouver campus, is something to behold. Their creative intellect, and their unending curiosity—once we turn that light on—are what drive the school, and what keeps Mr. Oliver going to be sure. He hires only the highest quality of thinkers, people who are versed in a vast, interdisciplinary code, and those who, also, have a feel about them—who seem to have almost nothing lose. Those types of teachers he says, will pull an orphan’s broken heart out of his very chest, and polish it to a precious stone. He’s always saying shit like that Mom. We don’t hire teachers based on their degrees or CV’s, but on their dialogical processing of the school’s vision and mission, which in a nutshell professes to “bear witness to the transformative power od education” and to “always advocate for the underdog”. Leaders in the Living School must articulate a similar sentiment in their own words, experiences, and engagement with the students.

Part of the bridge in curriculum from structural equation modeling to computers and technology, involves minor courses on innovating in the public sphere. Students become versed in publishing laws and licensing codes and they are required to engage their home communities—most of which are still very impoverished—and to create a sustainable business opportunity for a group of individuals from that community. This protocol ensures that our coursework is interdisciplinary in theory and practice. Students must have had achieved this service-learning project before proceeding to the final module in the Quadrivium, astrophysics and biology. At this stage, students are 16-17 years old, and nearing the end of their time at the Living School. They can see the end in sight, but they know the hardest part is yet to come.

Mom, one thing we’ve learned about learning—as stupid as that sounds—is that when you get all of those state agencies, and third-party lobbyist types out of the way, children become super-Students. They can soak up almost anything you emit, the quick ones can at least. Students at our school are versed in contemporary theories of cognitive science, molecular and quantum mechanics by the age of seventeen, and most of them write their own computer programs for a multitude of professional and political bodies here and abroad. The school at this point is self-sustaining, with wealthy people stopping by periodically, praising the building and the work we do for the hungry masses. These same starving kids, by age 18 are ready for the final modules of the vignitivium (‘20 ways’), qualitative and quantitative methods, archaeology and genealogy, policy and law, and entrepreneurship and government. The twentieth, and the last module of our curriculum is theater and culinary arts. You would love it Mom.

When students graduate from the Living School, they have the choice to leave or to continue study in philosophy, theology, and leadership. The ultimate goal of the Living School, and of Mr. Oliver’s vision from that day he fell on the trail, is that our graduates would set out into the world in order to engage their held truths headlong with the devils and liars and the myriad tricky ways of us all. Right now, Melky is the only one who has set out to plant another school—though she is carrying a prototype of the fully collapsible, lattice-block aluminum school building (with reinforced gortex lining) on her back towards Mexico (see pic below). I wasn’t ready to set out with the backpack quite yet Mom, but I’m gong to build that school in Nome in your honor (and little Seth’s too, I suppose). Anyway, Mr. Oliver thought that was a good idea. You’d love him. I love you.