The Coaching Model

Microschools promise to supplant the status quo as the predominant educational model. Small, personalized, and independent, families can select the microschool that best suits their needs and their goals for their children.

Learning coaches are the equivalent of teachers at microschools. They are immediately responsible for the education of the students in their care. They nurture, grow, and instruct children to the best of their abilities. Their approach is hands-on and direct. In many cases, a learning coach will cultivate a cohort of students through an entire program–elementary, middle, or high school–rather than through just one school year. A learning coach becomes intimately familiar with the strengths, needs, and personality of each student.

Teachers at traditional schools are viewed as instructors. They have a set lesson plan, and teach authoritatively from the front of the class. They are expected to be great sources of knowledge, and to proactively pass that knowledge to their students, making assignments and handing out grades.

In the microschool model, coaches are seen as guides rather than instructors. They assist each student in their individual quest for knowledge, but are facilitators rather than organizers. In some cases, guides are forbidden to ever answer a single question, instead helping students find their own answers by asking questions of their own.

The coached model empowers students to take charge of their own education, and provides much more appropriate preparation for the real world than the artificial school environment.

Learning coaches work for private microschools; sometimes a single learning coach makes up the entire staff of their own microschool. They're compensated primarily through tuition, which tends to be modest and efficiently allocated. They aren't required to have any particular certifications or credentials; as long as they have the confidence of their students and their families, they can be successful. Learning coaches can be compensated as highly as the market will bear, and can dictate their careers just as their students take control of their educations.

Microschools are private institutions with no government regulations, funding, or oversight. Learning coaches are empowered to instruct students the way they believe is best, according to each student's needs. They can focus on what they, the students, and their families feel is most important, and are exempt from standardized tests and mandatory curriculum.

Politics also tend to be minimal in microschools, which are structured according to best practices as opposed to mandates handed down from an artificial authority.

Microschools are free to select their learning coaches based on qualification rather than certification. There are no set criteria to become a learning coach, aside from willingness, aptitude, and competency, and of course the goodwill of the students, so coaches come from a wide variety of backgrounds.

Different skill sets and real world experience beyond the bounds of formal education serve to enrich students' experiences, and provide them with broader perspective.