This started as a joke, but as I started writing it, I began to realize that there might be a few glimmers of truth in it. Anyway, I thought I'd post it for debate...and maybe a few laughs at my expense.
In Praise of the McDojo
What a Free Market for Education Could Look Like
A line of children are advancing down the floor while a man in angry white pajamas gives commands. The children are wearing different color belts which denote gradations in the level of difficulty for various techniques. A line of students stand on a polished floor with massive long bow in their left hand. They kneel down and remove the sleeve of their kimono and prepare to shoot with Zen slowness. A room full of young men and women pair up and spread out on a matted floor. They kneel down, shake hands, and exchange grips. Soon, they are rolling and sweating attempting to submit their opponents. One person taps and both people shake hands again. Thirty women of various ages enter a room with a chalk board, human shaped striking dummies, and a matted surface. They begin to learn how to be more aware of their surroundings and how to avoid being attacked.
The martial arts are numerous and varied. Some of them are more popular than others. Some of them have clarified principles that the curriculum is designed to teach. All of them are voluntary. The martial arts industry is more or less a free market depending on the country. In some countries there are governmental organizations that regulate the practice of martial arts through licensing and testing. In other countries, there are very few laws and regulations on martial arts schools. On the whole, most governments on this planet have very little interest in regulating martial arts and this has allowed an interesting experiment to take place. The martial arts industry, from the owner of a multimillion dollar business to the man who teaches a few students in his garage, is an example of what a free market education system could look like.
Libertarians often have a difficult time explaining how the various services the government currently provides could be provided if they were offered on the Free Market, without government money or regulation. Often, a number of objections are brought up in political discussions that seem to appear again and again. I will summarize some of these objections in the form of questions below.
- How will the poor people pay for education?
- How can we ensure that people are getting a quality education?
- How do we know that students are learning what they need to know in order to be effective people?
These questions are some of the most pressing questions in education today. Governments constantly alter their approach to the answers and fail miserably. Amazingly, the martial arts industry has innovated answers to these questions and I believe that these answers could lead the way for the entire industry as a whole.
Lets tackle these questions one at a time.
How will the poor pay for education?
Martial arts instruction is often offered for reduced price or offered for free. They do this by teaching out of their homes, in small community centers, or in parks. Many teachers of the martial arts teach in addition to working other jobs because they love the art and they want to pass it on to enthusiastic students. Other teachers offer free lessons online and are willing to correspond with students as time allows. Large schools of martial arts often give scholarships to low income students depending on their ability. Entire professional organizations of various martial arts demand that their teachers are of high quality and offer classes for as little as $15 dollars per month. This is essentially charity and the Free Market has innovated multitudinous forms of which most people wouldnt recognize as charity. All of these and many more could be employed to offer instruction.
How can we ensure that people are getting a quality education?
There are thousands of martial arts federations in the United States alone that monitor instruction to varying degrees. In general, smaller federations do not grow if they do not continually produce a quality product and larger federations do not stay large if they sacrifice quality standards to pull in more and more people. On top of this, a number of martial arts organizations have sprung up to independently monitor various federations to make sure they are teaching what they actually say they are teaching. These independent organizations perform active investigations of schools, instructors, and federations themselves, writing reviews for consumers. These independent organizations will also verify credentials that instructors claim. While a number of frauds still exist in the martial arts industry, the free market policing organizations tends to expose them for customers willing to do the research on various options.
How do we know that students are learning what they need to learn in order to be effective people?
Students can learn exactly the type and amount of martial arts that they want to know. There are hundreds of different styles all taught in various setting and with different methods. Students have the ability to choose the material they want to learn and they can choose the teachers who will instruct them. This is the most efficient method of offering instruction because it changes in response to a students needs giving them what they need when they need it. A student can study a number of martial arts throughout their lives and alter their approach as their interests and abilities change.
In the martial arts community, martial arts practitioners rail against the McDojo. A McDojo, they say, is any school that lets students test for lots of belts, waters down the curriculum to make it easier for students to advance, and charges lots of money for everything, ie uniforms, belts, tests, monthly fees, contracts, etc. People need to realize that there is an upside to the existence of the McDojo. First of all, it shows that martial arts schools change depending on what students need in order to stay in business. Secondly, the schools cant get too bad because other martial artists will identify them for their poor quality and they will cease to exist. Its an example of the kind of self regulation that the market would produce within the education industry as a whole and it required no laws whatsoever to accomplish. The martial arts industry is peacefully and voluntarily regulated through this simple lampooning name.