Think of learning experiences as stepping stones ...

Think of public school education as stepping stones
in a body of water students must cross
in order to graduate with meaningful certifications.

There are more stepping stones than any one student could step on if they had GPS, Google Map and stayed in school forever.  More stepping stones are added every moment.

Our current approach is to gather up to 30 or more kids with nothing more in common than their age and the neighborhood they live in, and then make them on step on the same stones, all at the same time, for 12 or more years.

Even if you could make kittens jump
from stone to stone in unison, (think Fantasia)
why would you want to?
What purpose does it serve?
except to waste time and annoy the pig, link.

Where are we going to draw the line on student self selection of learning experiences?  Do they have to step on the same stones we did; and the ones our parents stepped on?  Or, can they pick their own stones as long as they're moving in the right direction at an appropriate overall speed?

All that matters is adequate progress toward a worthy goal.

The responsibility of educators is to provide as many kinds of stepping stones as there are kinds of learners and numbers of questions;  It is their responsibility to teach learners how to tell the sound from the unsound stones.

And then, make sure they don't slip off one
because no one's paying attention.