My Ideal School
My Ideal School
One of my ultimate goals in life is to start a progressive school which focuses on developing a passion for living and self-knowledge in children. Schools nowadays have a rote, one-size-fits-all curriculum, which is conducive to learning for only a small percentage of students. My ideal school would be communication-based, blending aspects of social work, conflict resolution, team building, and traditional learning.
Classes would be limited to fifteen students, a size small enough to allow individual attention but large enough to furnish the feeling of belonging to a group.
Creative projects would be the cornerstone of the curriculum, incorporating all the life skills that make this method of education unique. The class would be presented with a number of ideas at the beginning of each project, and would also have the option of coming up with their own idea. Some examples are raising money to donate to a charity, creating an anthology of short stories to be bound and published, starting a website, writing and recording an original song, and patenting a new idea. Because of the amount of coordination required for each project, both successes and failures would inevitably spring up along the way, giving the children a meaningful experience of what it is like to work on a real-world project. The teacher would have an important role, psychologically coaching the kids through the highs and lows of the project and facilitating discussions to make them work better together and motivate themselves.
Each school day would begin with a half hour of discussion of the project that the class is currently pursuing. The rest of the morning would be divided between various academic lessons. However, instead of standard lessons, my school would introduce each subject as a useful part of the real world. U.S. history lessons would be justified by explaining to students what their lives would be like if we were still a British colony, and by showing them what
One of my ultimate goals in life is to start a progressive school which focuses on developing a passion for living and self-knowledge in children. Schools nowadays have a rote, one-size-fits-all curriculum, which is conducive to learning for only a small percentage of students. My ideal school would be communication-based, blending aspects of social work, conflict resolution, team building, and traditional learning.
Classes would be limited to fifteen students, a size small enough to allow individual attention but large enough to furnish the feeling of belonging to a group.
Creative projects would be the cornerstone of the curriculum, incorporating all the life skills that make this method of education unique. The class would be presented with a number of ideas at the beginning of each project, and would also have the option of coming up with their own idea. Some examples are raising money to donate to a charity, creating an anthology of short stories to be bound and published, starting a website, writing and recording an original song, and patenting a new idea. Because of the amount of coordination required for each project, both successes and failures would inevitably spring up along the way, giving the children a meaningful experience of what it is like to work on a real-world project. The teacher would have an important role, psychologically coaching the kids through the highs and lows of the project and facilitating discussions to make them work better together and motivate themselves.
Each school day would begin with a half hour of discussion of the project that the class is currently pursuing. The rest of the morning would be divided between various academic lessons. However, instead of standard lessons, my school would introduce each subject as a useful part of the real world. U.S. history lessons would be justified by explaining to students what their lives would be like if we were still a British colony, and by showing them what