It’s time to redesign school - The Case for Multiple Learning Pathways

Why Aren’t There Different Schools for Different Kids?

In my small suburban city, we have nineteen, yes nineteen, elementary schools — not including the private schools or charters. Nineteen buildings filled with amazing teachers, unique communities, and their own school cultures. But despite their differences, one thing remains the same across every single campus:

They all teach the exact same standardized curriculum.

The branding may change. One school calls itself a STEAM magnet, another emphasizes leadership, another highlights its garden or robotics club. But beneath the surface, the academic content, pacing guides, standards, testing requirements, and classroom structure are nearly identical.

Nineteen schools.

Zero diversity in learning pathways.

And it raises an obvious but strangely unasked question:

Why don’t we have different schools for different kinds of kids?

Where are the schools built around children’s natural strengths, interests, or aspirations? Why do we assume that every child must be educated in the same way, with the same priorities, at the same pace, regardless of who they are?

Because the reality is this:

Children are not built the same.

So why is their education?

Where Is the School for Our Builders, Makers, and Hands-On Learners?

Some kids come alive the moment you put something real in their hands — a tool, a recipe, a seed, a project, a blueprint, a hammer, a mixing bowl, a garden hose.

These kids thrive through

• fixing things

• building things

• cooking

• gardening

• constructing

• tinkering

• designing

• working with animals

• making things from scratch

These are future engineers, chefs, mechanics, contractors, designers, farmers, artists, innovators.

Yet these kids are forced to spend the majority of their day sitting at a desk completing worksheets.

Why isn’t there an entire school designed around hands-on learning, where core subjects are woven into real-world projects?

Why isn’t this an available pathway?

Where Is the School for the Artists, Creators, and Storytellers?

What about the kids who think in images, movement, rhythm, and color?

The ones who thrive through:

• drawing

• performing

• storytelling

• designing

• composing

• expressing

• imagining

Their minds are bursting with ideas — but the current model offers them tiny slivers of art or music squeezed between long blocks of standardized content.

Why isn’t there a school where creativity is the foundation, not the leftover?

Where Is the School for the Athletes and Movers?

Some kids can’t learn without moving first.

They regulate through motion.

They think more clearly after physical activity.

They need it.

And many kids aren’t just active — they’re serious athletes.

Dancers. Gymnasts. Cheerleaders. Martial artists. Soccer players. Wrestlers. Swimmers.

But their training gets crammed into the last ninety minutes of a long, exhausting school day.

Why isn’t there a school that partners with sports programs to integrate training, conditioning, choreography, flexibility, or strength work into the academic day?

Why isn’t movement treated as a learning tool, not an interruption?

And Yes — Where Is the School for the Academically-Inclined?

There are kids who absolutely love academics.

Kids who thrive on:

• depth

• challenge

• complex ideas

• rigorous material

• extended study

• abstract thinking

These are future doctors, engineers, attorneys, researchers, scientists — kids whose career paths will require years of higher education.

These students deserve a learning environment tailored to:

• accelerated pacing

• deeper intellectual exploration

• more complexity

• higher expectations

• like-minded peers

But in the current model, these students are often held back — forced to move at the pace of a classroom full of children with wildly different needs and interests.

Why should academically gifted children be limited by a system designed for standardization rather than specialization?

One Standardized Pathway Serves No One Well

When we squeeze every child into the same mold:

• Builders feel caged

• Artists feel disconnected

• High-level athletes feel exhausted

• Academically-inclined students feel held back

• ADHD kids feel overwhelmed

• Sensitive kids feel stressed

• Creative thinkers feel unseen

• Hands-on learners feel “wrong”

Children aren’t failing school.

School is failing to reflect who children actually are.

Kids Don’t Need More Facts — They Need More Relevance

Children don’t need to memorize every detail in a standardized test.

But they do need:

• meaning

• movement

• sunlight

• hands-on mastery

• social skills

• responsibility

• identity

• purpose

• real-world tools

The things that make them feel whole, capable, and connected.

Yet the system devotes almost no time to these fundamental human needs.

How does that make sense?

We Already Have Dozens of Schools —

So Why Are They All the Same?

Nineteen elementary schools in one small city.

Nineteen opportunities to create diverse learning pathways.

Nineteen chances to meet kids where they actually are.

And yet…

every single one is built on the same blueprint.

A standardized list.

A standardized schedule.

A standardized definition of success.

It’s time to ask a different question:

If children are diverse, unique, and wired differently…

why isn’t our education system?

It’s time to rethink childhood — and redesign school in a way that finally reflects the kids we claim to be serving.