Applying Agile in Classical Education: A Student's Experience

Students may be learning agile ways of working and thinking at school without having the label "agility" attached to those values and concepts. In one student's experience, he observed many parallels between agility and education at his school, which is based on the classical education model.

We spoke with Eithan, a 17-year-old student who attends an academy in the Southeastern United States, about the agile approach he’s learning there. Eithan was already familiar with agility because of his mother's experience in the agile space. He has learned more about this way of working and thinking by attending the Global Scrum Gathering in Amsterdam and serving as a speaker at the 2024 TriAgile conference in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Focusing on Outcomes

The classical education model emphasizes people over processes and collaboration to achieve the best possible outcomes, Eithan said. It evolved from an old system used in Greece and Rome, where students used the Socratic Method (a form of argumentative dialogue between individuals based on asking and answering questions) to discuss problems, analyze them, and form solutions together.

"We don’t learn what to think, but how to think. So when faced with obstacles in my career, I now have the tools to reason, form strong conclusions, and express them well," said Eithan.

In Eithan's view, the classical education model often emphasizes critical thinking skills, similar to agile, where teams strive toward self-organization and innovation.

"Most schools ask you to take rigid notes, give you a lot of busywork and stress memorization," said Eithan. "The classical education model uses historical examples and teaches us to analyze and discuss how it applies to the real world."

Forming Self-Organizing Teams

In a school project, Eithan and other students discovered how teamwork and collaboration are components of the classical education model, much like agile teams. They used a collaborative approach to create a movie. They were assigned a team, but within the team, they self-organized and discovered which skills the team had and how they'd work together effectively.

"The team created a lot of new ideas and perspectives that I wouldn’t have thought of on my own. We built off each other's strengths, improving the end product by working together," he said.

The team worked together on the initial ideas and movie script, but then they looked at individual skills. One person directed, another ran the camera, and others acted in the movie.

In addition to school projects, students utilize the classical education model's agile way of thinking in extracurricular activities, like Debate Club.

"We work with a partner to research a topic, discuss findings, ask for other perspectives, and refine arguments, taking in all perspectives to create the best possible debate case," said Eithan. 

Creating School Projects Iteratively

The classical education model teaches students iteratively. With each new concept, they first learn grammar and how things work. In the second iteration, they understand the logic. In the third iteration, students should be able to express higher-level thoughts on a subject known as rhetoric.

Eithan explains how he applies an iterative approach to writing an essay. "We spent an entire school year writing an essay. We started with a simple outline and idea and then submitted drafts in multiple iterations with direct feedback from our teacher. We learned what to improve along the way and ended up with an amazing essay by the end of the year," he said.

Getting Continuous Feedback

In the classical education model, teachers give students continuous feedback, and the philosophy is that everyone is there to learn, not just check a box. This value system is similar to what agile was built on, where feedback is a key component of learning and bettering teams and products.

Removing Hierarchy in Education

"Rather than an overly rigid system, everyone at my school is there to learn. We learn from each other and grow together. We focus a lot on interpersonal relationships."

At Eithan's school, the teachers work as facilitators, much like scrum masters, often participating with teams of students. "The first education systems were think tanks rather than structured education. There was less hierarchy and more democracy," he said.

For more than twenty years, the agile community has worked to transform corporations and remove wasteful processes that prevent great products from being built. Students who attend classical education-based schools may already be learning to be agile by applying outcomes over outputs, forming self-organizing teams, working iteratively, getting continuous feedback, and removing unnecessary hierarchies that have the potential to interfere with creativity and innovation. 

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