Kicking It Old-School: Micro-Schools Bring Back One-Room Schoolhouses

by Alison Oehmen

Much of the rhetoric concerning the present state of America’s education system revolves around the need to create new assessments, new standards and new methodologies. But what if progress lies somewhere in our past? An interesting model of personalized learning—reminiscent of the old-time one-room schoolhouses—is just now emerging and beginning to gain some traction.

Dubbed the “micro-school,” this divergent educational format breaks with the modern trends that have shaped our notion of schools for most of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Over the last hundred years or so, with cost reduction primarily in mind, schools have generally become big, impersonal and inflexible. The institutional focus on efficiency through standardization began to overshadow the bare-bones objective to educate unique, individual students. Thus, the micro-school initiative, for one, attempts to redress this oversight by revitalizing the personal side of learning.

As far as micro-schools themselves are concerned, the major unifying characteristic is their purposefully small enrollment figures. Each micro-school caters to a student body numbering from a handful to a few dozen children. Not only does this allow the teachers and staff to properly attend to each learner’s needs, it also encourages greater experimentation from both the instructor and the pupil. After all, by nature, the small scale of these schools allows each student to discover how they learn best and each teacher to tailor their instruction specifically to meet these needs.

Contemporary strides in software, internet and other technology capabilities have greatly enabled micro-schools to get off the ground. Micro-school teachers rely upon technology to diligently yet easily monitor student progress and track which forms of instruction suit each pupil. Technology is likewise integrated into the classroom setting as a vehicle for instruction. As many of today’s students are comfortable and well-versed in the latest and greatest technological innovations, micro-schools encourage their students to use technology as a way to acquire and process new knowledge.

This is not to say, however, that micro-schools dole out information strictly via technology. On the contrary, micro-schools utilize a wide range of teaching styles, depending on the needs and preferences of the individuals enrolled. From the traditional lecture format to the more private, one-on-one setups like tutoring and homeschooling, micro-schools try to offer up as much opportunity for specialization as possible.

Some micro-schools, like San Francisco’s Brightworks and New York’s Brooklyn Apple Academy, have a project-based learning approach, whereas Austin’s Acton Academy uses the Montessori and Socratic methods to structure student learning. More important than these schools’ specific pedagogic approaches, though, is their overriding dedication to making the educational experience open and fluid. Students who attend a micro-school experience a considerable amount of agency in determining their own daily routines and schedules. The reasoning behind such a collaborative teacher–student dynamic is that it helps not only to inspire deep interest in subject matter but also to instill vital traits like self-sufficiency, self-control and initiative.

Although this endeavor to scale back in class size, re-prioritize modern education and make the individual student the main focus sounds like a grand and noble one, the micro-school model is still in its infancy. It has yet to be seen whether it will produce favorable results that are long-term and widespread. Who knows? Perhaps the idea behind a one-room schoolhouse can, in fact, address some of the problems we’re hoping to repair in our education system.

Did You Know?

In 1635, the Town of Boston founded the Boston Latin School, the first school in America, and allocated public funds toward supporting the school. Philemon Pormont acted as the first schoolmaster and held classes in his home, teaching the humanities along with Latin and Greek. More than a few notable historical figures have attended the Boston Latin School, including five of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence: John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Robert Treat Paine of Massachusetts; Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania; and William Hooper of North Carolina. The Boston Latin School remains open and running to this day.

A final point of interest about Boston Latin that deserves some attention is that Ben Franklin is one of the school’s most famous dropouts. As with many young people from poor families during that time, Franklin’s help in his father’s soap and candle shop was considered by his father to be more important than his education. Franklin was removed from the Boston Latin School age 10 and, from that point on, was self-taught through reading and writing.