Happy Friday, everyone. If I had to one adjective for our approach to education, it would be “high-agency”. As in: Guidepost offers high-agency education. We offer an education that cultivates agency. An agent is someone who is active in the world. An agent is a cause, a doer, a bringer about of things. To stress agency, to say that it can be higher or lower and that it’s good when it’s higher, is to stress the active, self-moving part of living. It’s to say that what’s important is our power to take circumstance and
And power? Kids often lack power, which is why stories about wizards and superheroes can be so appealing.
As a kid, if you really want to author your own life, you'll need to cultivate certain virtues that lead to power. For example, adults will happily cede control to young people who are reliable and trustworthy.
Agency is the term I've found is a great substitution for the idea of Free Will. The words, "Free Will," mean being in charge of your own life and making choices, is a conceptual phrase, representing the single concept, agency. People have been debating Free Will for two hundred years, and most schools teach that free will is a myth and determinism is inherent.
No such problem adheres to agency. A person can develop a confirmation bias toward determinism or to agency. Both biases are cultural, the result of thought, training, and development. In primitive societies, the chief's children have agency, the other children do not. It's that simple. In totalitarian societies, the elites have agency, the others have less. In a laissez-faire society, the job of parents is to raise their children to grow into agency.
Agency as a concept for children is probably the best thing a parent or teacher could ever impart to the child. I know from personal experience. When I was in fifth grade, I took up the clarinet. The instrument was stiff and new, very difficult to play. Miss Howden, my music teacher, was patient. She was a thin, elderly spinster. When the school choir didn't behave, her chin would tremble and her eyes would tear up.
She gave me a piece to learn for a music festival. It was not a hard piece but to get any good sound was a challenge. She worked with me two or three days a week before school and in band after school. I was very nervous. She made me see how my success was important to her. I practiced a lot, and I won a blue ribbon for my solo. That was nice, but what she told my mother was priceless, and has informed my actions ever since.
Miss Howden was very proud of my blue ribbon and said to my mother, "That girl is going to accomplish in life whatever she sets her mind to."
Her words were a challenge and a burden, and I cannot tell you how many times those words scared, sustained, and inspired me to push forward. Miss Howden gave me agency by way of my mother.
I never fell for the determinism crap, the multiculturalism hash or the "oh, poor me mentality."
Thank you, Matt for this article. The children you are teaching and their parents are getting a priceless gift, and I hope that my story will help you show its value.
I’m instantly having a puzzle over this 3rd aspect, while I’m certain that the Montessori environment will naturally lead to this, it feels as though projecting its likelihood will discourage risk taking and experimentalism.
If a child has the agency to carry a tray with a glass on it, drops and breaks it, do they lack agency then?
> Agency is rate limited by competence.
And power? Kids often lack power, which is why stories about wizards and superheroes can be so appealing.
As a kid, if you really want to author your own life, you'll need to cultivate certain virtues that lead to power. For example, adults will happily cede control to young people who are reliable and trustworthy.
Thank you, Matt.
Agency is the term I've found is a great substitution for the idea of Free Will. The words, "Free Will," mean being in charge of your own life and making choices, is a conceptual phrase, representing the single concept, agency. People have been debating Free Will for two hundred years, and most schools teach that free will is a myth and determinism is inherent.
No such problem adheres to agency. A person can develop a confirmation bias toward determinism or to agency. Both biases are cultural, the result of thought, training, and development. In primitive societies, the chief's children have agency, the other children do not. It's that simple. In totalitarian societies, the elites have agency, the others have less. In a laissez-faire society, the job of parents is to raise their children to grow into agency.
Agency as a concept for children is probably the best thing a parent or teacher could ever impart to the child. I know from personal experience. When I was in fifth grade, I took up the clarinet. The instrument was stiff and new, very difficult to play. Miss Howden, my music teacher, was patient. She was a thin, elderly spinster. When the school choir didn't behave, her chin would tremble and her eyes would tear up.
She gave me a piece to learn for a music festival. It was not a hard piece but to get any good sound was a challenge. She worked with me two or three days a week before school and in band after school. I was very nervous. She made me see how my success was important to her. I practiced a lot, and I won a blue ribbon for my solo. That was nice, but what she told my mother was priceless, and has informed my actions ever since.
Miss Howden was very proud of my blue ribbon and said to my mother, "That girl is going to accomplish in life whatever she sets her mind to."
Her words were a challenge and a burden, and I cannot tell you how many times those words scared, sustained, and inspired me to push forward. Miss Howden gave me agency by way of my mother.
I never fell for the determinism crap, the multiculturalism hash or the "oh, poor me mentality."
Thank you, Matt for this article. The children you are teaching and their parents are getting a priceless gift, and I hope that my story will help you show its value.
Looks like I’m guilty of 12.
9. Applies to my comment?
BTW, very good reading.
“and a high degree of ability to succeed at it.”
I’m instantly having a puzzle over this 3rd aspect, while I’m certain that the Montessori environment will naturally lead to this, it feels as though projecting its likelihood will discourage risk taking and experimentalism.
If a child has the agency to carry a tray with a glass on it, drops and breaks it, do they lack agency then?
Really good