Our belief is that both reschooling and agency are periodic needs for adults in the 21st century. Reschooling Agency seeks to bring people together in online courses as a straightforward way to promote our individual and collective growth.

A big breakthrough came in 1997 with the launch of Google search on the Internet. That product proceeded to change research. People learned to look online at Google.com for solutions to their search queries. A big breakthrough came in 2005 with the introduction of YouTube, a video-sharing and social media platform. YouTube changed development. People learned to look online at YouTube.com for solutions on how to do something.

Before I get to Reschooling Agency, let me acknowledge a few crucial facts and factors. Google Search and YouTube, which Google acquired in 2006, were among the most popular. Millions of users went to their websites. Reschooling Agency does not have that at all. There have been few courses and few registrants. At this juncture, when we are just getting going, I am not discouraged. Big things can still have small beginnings.

Reschooling Agency, established in 2025, promotes mind(s) in the community. Courses provide a platform for a mind (the course creator and/or teacher) to be amongst others (the TA and course registrants). It lends itself to people growing from their interactions with one another. This may be vitally important. We are in an age of AI spreading its influence and disruptive effects. Reschooling Agency calls for humans to uplift humanism with human-driven creativity and purpose. Even though the number of those involved in the Reschooling Agency is presently minuscule, those who are pulling on the rope can remain steadfast, oriented toward making progress, and continuing to build a new approach for these new times.

The title of this third column in the series on the Reschooling Agency brand is “Glimpse of Promise of Mind(s) in the Community.”

The source of the concept, or approach, is Lev Vygotsky. He was a Russian and Soviet psychologist (1896-1934) who died at the age of 37 from a relapse of tuberculosis. The Wikipedia biographical article dramatizes his early death. One of the last private notebook entries stated:

“This is the final thing I have done in psychology – and I will like Moses, die at the summit, having glimpsed the promised land but without setting foot on it. Farewell, dear creations. The rest is silence.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Vygotsky#Death)

In the west, there wasn't silence. In the latter part of the 20th century, Lev Vygotsky and Jean Piaget became known as the two forerunners of developmental psychology. Vygotsky had two widely read books in English. Thought and Language was published in 1962; Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Process was published in 1978.

Our mind(s) in the community approach is an offspring of Vygotsky’s Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Process (1978), except with a few developmental twists. Vygotsky’s influence was children-directed. Vygotsky emphasizes movement from the social toward the individual.

“An interpersonal process is transformed into an intrapersonal one. Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological), and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relations between human individuals” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 57).

The value of this formulation is that those close to the child help to shape and form the child’s thinking. Watch the interaction between the parent, caregiver, or teacher and their child or charge. The patterns of interaction that Vygotsky describes are beautiful to glimpse and even behold.

What if we flip the formulation in the 21st century? The target for developing higher psychological processes is no longer children but adults. The aspired pattern of movement is from the inside (intrapsychological) to between people (interpsychological). This is implied in our formulation of mind(s) in the community. How might we encourage this individual-to-people pattern? Next week’s column develops the perspective and introduces the concept of a cocoon to better flesh out the approach.

The title of this fourth column in the eight-part series on the Reschooling Agency brand is “Going Within to Strengthen the Mind in the Community.”

Picture a scenario in 2026. One wants to know more about something of interest and importance. What does one do? A likely recourse is to turn to online resources for assistance and possibly direction. Is there another way to go? This fourth column answers in the affirmative and even claims that this alternative way is not that difficult. A concept of the cocoon provides support for this way of going within.

Many know about the caterpillar. This animal provides an extraordinary model for transformation. The caterpillar eats lots as it grows. The caterpillar then enters the cocoon for the pupal stage, where it turns into a pupa. The caterpillar form breaks down during this pupal stage, emerging as a butterfly.

Yuval Noah Harari uses of the concept of the cocoon on the macro level of worldly affairs. In his 2024 book Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, Harari titles Chapter 11, The Silicon Curtain: Global Empire to Global Split. The heading states FROM WEB TO COCOON. Harari writes:

“The two digital spheres may drift further and further apart. Chinese software would talk only with Chinese hardware and Chinese infrastructure, and the same would happen on the other side of the Silicon Curtain. Since digital code influences human behavior, and human behavior in turn shapes digital code, the two sides may well be moving along different trajectories that will make them more and more different not just in their technology but in their cultural values, social norms, and political structures. After generations of convergence, humanity could find itself at a crucial point of divergence. For centuries, new information technologies fueled the process of globalization and brought people all over the world into closer contact. Paradoxically, information technology today is so powerful it can potentially split humanity by enclosing different people in separate information cocoons, ending the idea of a single shared human reality. While the web has been our main metaphor in recent decades, the future might belong to cocoons” (Harari, 2024, p. 377).

My use of cocoon is at the micro level, focusing on an individual. I picture going into a cocoon, like an interior space, not only to think about something of interest but also to set up a process of transformation. To demonstrate what I mean, I share a recent story. I seek to create a new course most every month. I work two months in advance to enable lead-up time for course announcement, description, curriculum writing, marketing, and registration. This past May and June, I was beginning to set up the August course. I figured for the dog days of August, an evening book reading course might be intriguing. The key question was which book. The answer came on an outing to Barnes & Noble, where my wife and I were using up gift cards that we had received during the holiday season. Once in the bookstore, we each went our own way. My wife ended up choosing four books; I spotted a display featuring Albert Camus’ The Stranger (1942, 1988). I had seen the book over the years, especially during high school, when many of the students who took French had a copy of L’Étranger. Even though I had never read The Stranger, I figured I would like it because I had read another of Camus’ books, and I generally enjoy the perspectives of existentialists. The clincher was that the book was short: 123 pages! This would be the book that I purchased and soon would read, with the intent that it might end up as my August choice for the new course. The next column continues my experience transforming as I evolve in my cocoon, setting up the upcoming August course.

The title of this fifth column in the eight-part series on the Reschooling Agency brand is “Cocoon Transformation: Hopefully More for the Good Than the Bad.” By that characterization, I remind you that one does not have a clear idea of the outcome when involved in transformation. Stated differently, there are few guarantees in this evolutionary process.

I read Albert Camus’ The Stranger, and it was an eye-opening experience. I felt I could lead a class on the book, even though I was no expert. My justification for leadership was that I was intrigued by the prospect of taking others on an experimental undertaking. There would be three classes, each an hour long, for a total of three hours. The first two classes would have a solid grounding, whereas the third would be intentionally speculative. The first hour would be text-oriented: we would read together brief parts of The Stranger and share our impressions and thoughts. Two likely benefits would be that the group would begin to get to know The Stranger and one another. The second hour would address why The Stranger was a classic during the 20thcentury. There are online resources to guide such an inquiry, yet our own experiences for many of us who were alive during the 20th century would be advantageous. The third hour would be a kicker, since online resources would likely not be very helpful. The claim of this third class would be that The Stranger might be an important springboard for new possibilities and directions for the 21st century. I have my own ideas, but others, no doubt, would have their own thoughts, yea or nay.

There would be a few practical hurdles to get over. Scheduling would be one. In my case, my wife and I planned to be away in the middle of August, so I would prefer to avoid that time. I settled on three Mondays: August 3rd, August 10th, and August 31st. The three-week gap between the second and third classes might be an advantage or disadvantage: time will tell.

The other two hurdles involved people. One was the TA (Teaching Assistant), who would be my partner in the enterprise. The first person I reached out to liked reading classics, yet he showed no interest. The second person was unsure at first, but left the door open. I continued to try to convince. I eventually succeeded, and we came up with the landing page info, including the course blurb and bio descriptions. The other hurdle would be getting course registrants. This has continued to be a challenge for our new business because we have yet to establish effective online marketing.

Before closing this column, I step back and share an assessment about my cocoon process. The easier part is working myself: the imagination does the work, and I try to make sensible decisions along the way. The harder part is getting others involved. Even if my efforts do not lead to many successes, I generally do not lose heart. I lean on insight from William James (1842-1902), an American philosopher and psychologist. He stated repeatedly that “the breach from one mind to another is perhaps the greatest breach in nature” (The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1, p. 237). The cocoon way for transformation is initially an inner path, and getting linked to others may prove quite challenging, to put it mildly. Presumably, our Reschooling Agency business will get better at that over time.

The title of this sixth column in the eight-part series on the Reschooling Agency brand is “Possessing a Sense of Direction Yet Acknowledging Much Work Ahead.” In essence, this column asks the direct question: “Why is Reschooling Agency a good brand name?” Three rationales are explored.

The target market of our Reschooling Agency initiative is adults. That spans from those in in their twenties to the elderly, which can stretch, perhaps, more than fifty years. Why would Reschooling Agency apply to a 23-year-old as well as to a 78-year-old? As adults, we are habituated to our ways of being. Reschooling Agency encourages reflecting on our automatic behaviors, transcending them, and transforming ourselves in the process. That can happen regularly during a course's learning experiences.

The second rationale also applies widely to many involved. José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) was a Spanish philosopher and essayist who placed great emphasis on the future. Ortega writes: “Living is a constant process of deciding what we are going to do. Do you see the enormous paradox that is wrapped up in this? A being which consists not so much in what it is as in what is going to be; therefore in what it has not yet become! This essential, this most profound paradox is our life” (Ortega, 1960, What Is Philosophy, p. 223). Reschooling Agency plays into this future-oriented theme, as we aim to focus on who we are becoming and what we have not yet become.

The third and final rationale is more specific and is oriented to those who might be interested. It is suggested by distinctions involving outsourcing and insourcing. For Google Search and YouTube, one looks to outsourced resources for guidance and solutions. Reschooling Agency, in contrast, encourages an insourcing-and-outsourcing dynamic. Insourcing is working within the cocoon, and outsourcing seeks to bridge the breach to meet others in the community.

The immediate challenge is to develop courses that flesh out these three areas: reflecting on and transcending our automatic behaviors; focusing on the future, on who we are becoming; and working this insourcing-outsourcing dynamic to offer guidance and develop solutions.

The seventh and eighth columns in this eight-part series on the Reschooling Agency brand are interconnected. This seventh column focuses on School’s Out: Hyperlearning, the New Technology, and The End of Education (1992) by Lewis J. Perelman. The eighth column seeks to build up a counterpoint of view.

Perelman (1992) describes in four bullet points how learning is changing:

“Learning used to be a distinctly human process. Now learning is a transhuman process people share with increasingly powerful artificial networks and brains… Learning was an activity thought to be confined to the box of a school classroom. Now learning permeates every form of social activity—work, entertainment, home life—outside of school… Learning was presented as the result of instruction: a linear, hierarchical process in which an “expert” teacher would pour knowledge into the empty head of an obedient student… Learning or education was the task of childhood in preparation for entering adult life and work. Now learning is literally the work of the majority of U.S. jobs and will be what virtually all adults… will do for a living” (Perelman, pp. 22, 23).

Perelman calls this new type of learning, hyperlearning. The hyper in hyperlearning evokes the hyperlinks that are the backbone of how the Internet works.

I go into my cocoon and seek to make sense of some of his suggestions that are meant to be a radical departure from the status quo. Perelman writes: “But education cannot be reformed—it needs to be replaced” (1992, p. 283). In the second-to-last chapter, Perelman puts forth an action plan. He recommends outlawing credentialism. Reschooling Agency similarly does not require credentials for a course creator or teacher; a person with initiative is really the backbone of the course creation process. Perelman recommends bypassing where the power is. In continuing education, the power is associated with college or university campuses; Reschooling Agency is not affiliated with any preexisting campus but instead seeks, in time, to build its own online campus. Perelman recommends privatizing; similarly, the Reschooling Agency is not government-affiliated. Lastly, Perelman recommends capitalizing; Reschooling Agency also follows in the tradition of a commercial venture and the underlying motivation that participants might make some money in the process.

The last column veers off to elaborate on how I envision doing it in our own way. The offshoot title for this eighth column is “School’s In: Hyper-development, the New Technology, and the Beginning of Education.”

This last column in the series of eight on the Reschooling Agency brand seeks not only to tie together but also to point forward.

The first definition of education, according to Wiktionary, is the “process of imparting knowledge, skill, and judgment.” An interesting detail is that the word education derives from Latin roots meaning to bring up or to lead out. This is different from our traditional understanding of education: a pouring in of knowledge from the outside. The new focus is on guidance and development from within the learner. So, the “re” in reschooling suggests that this second time can explore and emphasize a shift from within upwards and outwards.

How do we set up a system that encourages this upward and outward movement in a new type of adult education? Lewis J. Perelman’s School’s Out: Hyperlearning, the New Technology, and The End of Education (1992) offers guidance on several fronts. Our approach, as an offshoot a generation later, is “School’s In: Hyper-developing, the New Technology, and the Beginning of Education.”

Each part need not be that big a deal. “School’s In” simply means a Zoom course at a certain time of day, likely the evening, for a manageable duration. “Hyper-developing”: the hyper implies zest and developing implies a change—hopefully growth—as one engages with the endeavor. “The new technology”: in our case, this is the blended classroom experience—namely, content, or curriculum, on the Thinkific platform and interaction, or community, via the Zoom platform. “The Beginning of Education” suggests something different. The new type of education is less comparison-based and more individual- and group-oriented, focusing on how the person and the collective can grow through repeatable protocols and actions under this Reschooling Agency banner.

Has this Reschooling Agency initiative been hard to get off the ground and gain traction? The answer at this juncture is a mix of yes and no. We have struggled to offer a variety of courses and attract registrants. We have received positive feedback during the courses we have taught. So, we keep returning to the drawing board and keep building regularly. Over time, we anticipate making progress and, in our own distinctive ways, making our mark.