I love this analogy. Monoculture made so much sense when our society was smitten with industrial agriculture and our progress in dominating global food markets. Now I much prefer the ideas of agroforestry and agroecology where biodiversity is exalted for its resilience and our crop systems can take advantage of natural symbioses in the soil and with other organisms in the ecosystem. Our tendency with industry is alway to simplify things down to the minimum amount of parts, to make hugely complex systems seem more manageable. The whole NPK fertilization scheme is an example of this. I think our educational system suffers from the same oversimplification. We want our organizations to run like machines, meaning our teachers and their curriculums become like mechanical components. Students are just inputs and outputs, hopefully somewhat smarter or more prepared for careers after graduation, but not paid any particular attention as individual learners. The quality controls are all standardized in the forms of quizzes and examinations.
There is certainly some sort of analogous “agroecological” educational model out there that embraces student diversity and individuality and is stronger and more effective because of it. Challenging yourself to learn more about diversity is the best step toward this model’s implementation. It is not necessarily going to be the easiest nor the most economical means to educate the masses, but it will certainly be the most affective from a systems perspective and probably the most fulfilling as well.
