I recently finished Dr. Stephen Hicks’s Philosophy of Education course on Peterson Academy. Eight lectures, about ten hours, from Homer to the present day. Hicks’s closing line stuck with me: education is philosophy in practice. Whatever a school believes about people, about knowledge and about authority shows up in its timetable, its desks and its report cards.
What I kept noticing was a pendulum. Education swings between two poles: the student as a vessel to be filled and drilled, and the student as a curious person to be drawn out. I think, for the first time, we have the tools to settle firmly on the curious side.
The course in eight lectures
Hicks has posted the syllabus publicly; here’s my one-line take on each.
- The Radical Greeks, from Homer to Aristotle. Parents are the first teachers, stories are the first curriculum, and Socrates shows that the real learning happens in the conversation after the story.
- From Plato to Augustine. Plato’s cave, then the Church institutionalizes learning. Education becomes about the soul, authority and human badness to be corrected.
- The Renaissance, from Aquinas to Alberti. Aristotle comes back, the “universal man” returns, and individual excellence is something to aim for again.
- The Enlightenment, from Galileo to Locke. Reason, liberty, and “knowledge is power.” John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education treats a child as someone to be reasoned with and shaped by good habits, not beaten into shape.
- Rousseau and the Romantics. A reaction against reason: let nature and feeling lead. Émile is the founding text of “let the child be.”
- The Prussian Model, from Kant to Fichte. Duty, obedience and nation. After Napoleon defeated Prussia, schooling became a tool of the state, and the age-graded, bell-driven classroom most of us grew up in owes a lot to it.
- Progressive Education, from Dewey to Du Bois. Learning by doing, school as a small democracy, and the teacher as an agent of social change.
- Entrepreneurial Education, from Montessori to the Future. Maria Montessori’s prepared environment, the “new Socratics,” learning as play, and agency and freedom as the core. Hicks names AI as both the challenge and the opportunity.
(The lectures themselves are behind Peterson Academy’s subscription; these summaries are from my own notes and Hicks’s public syllabus.)
The thread I’d pull: Socrates, Locke, Montessori
Out of the whole sweep, three names point the same way for me.
- Socrates didn’t hand out answers. He asked questions until the student found the answer, or found out they didn’t know. The student does the work.
- Locke argued that children are reasoning beings who learn best when learning is made enjoyable and when they are treated with respect, and that curiosity is an appetite to be fed, not squashed.
- Montessori built the classroom around it. The child chooses the work, the materials correct the mistakes, and the adult is a guide who watches more than talks.
The authoritarian model (Augustine’s correction, Fichte’s obedience) has its reasons: it scales, and it produces compliant workers for a factory age. But it treats curiosity as a discipline problem. The Socratic line treats curiosity as the engine.
Why now: AI tutors and a better grasp of how kids learn
The Socratic method has always had one weakness: it doesn’t scale. One Socrates, a handful of students. Montessori needs carefully trained guides and a lot of materials.
Two things have changed.
- AI tutors can be patient, personal and Socratic. A good tutor asks the next question, notices where a student is stuck and won’t move on until the idea is mastered. That used to cost one adult per child. It’s now becoming software.
- We understand the psychology better. Motivation, mastery, the value of struggle, the role of relationships. We know more about what makes a kid want to learn than Locke or Montessori could.
Two schools are already showing what that looks like:
- Acton Academy. Jeff and Laura Sandefer founded it in 2009 as a learner-driven school: adults are guides, not lecturers, Socratic discussion is daily, and students run their own “quests.” There are now hundreds of affiliates. Jeff Sandefer talks through it with Jordan Peterson in How to Educate Your Children (Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, ep. 336).
- Alpha School. Joe Liemandt describes students spending about two hours a day on AI-driven, mastery-based academics, with no lectures, then the rest of the day on leadership, entrepreneurship and projects they care about. Listen to Joe Liemandt: Alpha School and the Future of Education on The Knowledge Project.
Both put the student’s own drive at the centre and move the adult from lecturer to coach. That’s Montessori’s guide and Socrates’s question, with technology doing the heavy lifting.
What this means for schools and districts
If you lead IT in a school or district, here’s what I’d take from it.
- Curiosity is the skill to protect. A kid who can ask good questions will do well with AI; a kid who only waits for instructions will be outrun by it. Asking a sharp question is becoming the most valuable thing a student (or a staff member) can learn.
- Measure what you want to grow. Most school data is built to spot problems: attendance dips, failing grades, students at risk. That’s important. But if we only measure risk, we only manage risk. We should also see who is thriving, curious and engaged, and learn from them. That’s the reason Actful-KPI looks through two lenses, risk and promise.
- Be ready to adapt. These models are moving fast, and the schools that try them will be the ones able to change course quickly.
Celerity’s own aim is simple to say: a love for learning, especially in K-12. If we push the curiosity front with kids and develop their ability to ask questions, their future is bright.
I’d like to hear how your schools are approaching this. Email us at info@celeritysw.com.
References
- Stephen Hicks, Philosophy of Education, Peterson Academy (8 lectures), and the public syllabus
- Hicks, Lecture 8: Entrepreneurial Education, from Montessori to the Future
- John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
- Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method (1912)
- The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, 336. How to Educate Your Children | Jeff Sandefer (March 2023)
- The Knowledge Project, Joe Liemandt: Alpha School and the Future of Education
- Acton Academy (Wikipedia)
