What if we made a school?

What if we made a school? I asked. What if we started from nothing, with nothing more than the end goal to educate people? And created a system of education. What would that system look like?

I don't know, they responded predictably.

What if it looked like the Boy Scouts, like their merit badge program.

That was the beginning for me, the Boy Scouts. Merit badges. Now, of course everybody's been in a hullabaloo about digital badges and such lately and of course they've entirely missed the point – merit badges provide an excellent opportunity to bring education back to the learner in the real world; real world badges still have merit, digital badges – maybe.

I'll tell you why.

The merit badge program allow learners to study at their own pace.

Merit badge programs are self-motivated (yes, I know – just as many moms have earned eagles scouts as have boys, but that's beside the point).

Merit badge programs create a product of value, often tangible.

Merit badges can be earned regardless of rank our age.

They are achievement based and are rewarded with recognition.

They are solutions to many of the most noted problems in our present education system. They would be a solid foundation for our ideal school.

But it doesn't stop there, no, it doesn't stop just with merit badges.

This school would be immersive. Completely. And it would strive for excellence and test for mastery. In short it would be the best. Think Jedi training.

It would immerse. For children above the age of 18. Learners and professors would live on campus with their appropriate families (spouse and children, not helicopter parents). The curriculum would be completely holistic and character based, focusing on "kindling the flame, rather than filling the vessel". It would span from diet to self defense, and teach goal setting, interpersonal relations, negotiations, world politics, personal integrity, piety, and most of all the ability to instigate change in one's environment.

It would test for mastery. Instead of present systems were we take a final test for a class, get a 70 percent and then move on, in this system you would continue to study until you achieved a hundred percent. And then you would move on to the next material.

Upon graduation, a learner would enter a broad alumni program. They would engage in a mission similar to that of the Peace Corps – venture off into the world and proceed to make the area in which they live a better place. They would return and report periodically, and part of any of the profits of their ventures would be returned to the school to sustain it, since the upfront cost would be quite low, as its primary focus would be excellence, not profit, for surely, profit is no standard of excellence.

Yes, essentially, what I'm telling you, is that it would be an Academy for Heros.