If I Could Design a School...
Just a few weeks ago, I posted about how I really do believe in the mentor model of education and that's convicted me to keep going through high school with home educating my kids.
But we are in the midst of one of the most intense social and medical global crises of the past century. Our whole lives are shut down and everything is turned on its head, including education. I've seen lots of posts and articles on how families are reacting to this downtime, and it's mostly been positive. Kids are behaving better. Parents are less stressed. People are eating together. There is no rushing from one activity to the next. Kids are actually less bored and more happy.
I really hope all of this makes all of us take stock of how our lives had run away from us, like an out-of-control horse with us just hanging on for dear life, not sure how to stop it. I hope this experience gives us permission and confidence to say "no" in days to come so as to preserve a little bit of the margin we've had for all these weeks while sheltering in place.
One of my biggest hopes is that it gives us the space to re-think education and realize a few things. Like how kids need to play and have unstructured time. Not just preschool kids, but pre-teens and teens as well! Like how capable they are of learning and taking on some agency for their own learning when provided with good resources and attention and time. Like what's really most important and essential in a quality, humanizing, liberating education.
It's made me think, if I were to consider a school, what would that school need to look like? What kind of an environment would I want my kids to be in all day every day? Would school need to be all day every day? What could it look like? What should it look like?
Here are some just rambling thoughts I've been rolling around.
The building would need to be beautiful. No institutional plastic or metal chairs and desks or cold paint colors. Warm colors, wood tables and upholstered chairs in a circle with students facing each other. Art on the walls. Sunlight in open windows. Rich curtains and inviting ambience with plants. Like a home set in beautiful order.
This.
The classes would need to be small. And long. The teachers would be people that I'd want my kids to be like, that love their subject and find wonder in it, that love Truth, and that model by being the lead learner, not the master. In my ideal world, a school would cater to 5-12th grade. I think kids around the age of 10 or 11 are most benefitted by formal instruction and community learning. There could be 7 blocks in the curriculum:
-mathematics
-natural sciences
-Latin
-Composition(5-9th)--> Logic (7-9th)--> Rhetoric(10-12th)
-music: choir and theater, instrumental music
-humanities: integrated history, literature, art, science, government, philosophy and Bible with church history
-Electives: lots of handicrafts, creatives, music theory and composition, shop, robotics, drafting, so many options
To provide students with plenty of time, there would ideally be two blocks before lunch of 90 minutes each, then a 60 minute lunch and outside time, followed by two more 90 minute blocks. Each Monday and Wednesday would have the same schedule, and Tuesday and Thursday would have the opposite schedule. Humanities would meet everyday, and the rest, twice a week.
Fridays would be set aside for Scholé. Families could chose to stay home together. Students could volunteer to do community service or visit elderly in nursing homes or find various other ways to give back. Fridays could be used seasonally for building beautiful sets for theater and choral productions. Students could opt to pursue another course of study on something that interests them.
Alternatively, I think a University model school would be even more ideal. University model schools hold classes 2-3 days a week depending on the learning level, and students are home with families the other days of the week. The school provides the curriculum and resources and at-home plans and assignments. Parents get to enjoy reading aloud and helping with assignments and co-teaching, but without all the planning and assessment.
Surely I'm not the only one who would want an education like this for their kids? A school with long leisurely classes with plenty of time to discuss and reflect, focused on these few things that lay the skills of thinking well with language and mathematics that lead to the ability to learn anything else, with a mind well-furnished with knowledge of art, literature, music, people and ideas from across geography and time?
This is what a liberal arts high school could look like. Wouldn't it be beautiful?
But we are in the midst of one of the most intense social and medical global crises of the past century. Our whole lives are shut down and everything is turned on its head, including education. I've seen lots of posts and articles on how families are reacting to this downtime, and it's mostly been positive. Kids are behaving better. Parents are less stressed. People are eating together. There is no rushing from one activity to the next. Kids are actually less bored and more happy.
I really hope all of this makes all of us take stock of how our lives had run away from us, like an out-of-control horse with us just hanging on for dear life, not sure how to stop it. I hope this experience gives us permission and confidence to say "no" in days to come so as to preserve a little bit of the margin we've had for all these weeks while sheltering in place.
One of my biggest hopes is that it gives us the space to re-think education and realize a few things. Like how kids need to play and have unstructured time. Not just preschool kids, but pre-teens and teens as well! Like how capable they are of learning and taking on some agency for their own learning when provided with good resources and attention and time. Like what's really most important and essential in a quality, humanizing, liberating education.
It's made me think, if I were to consider a school, what would that school need to look like? What kind of an environment would I want my kids to be in all day every day? Would school need to be all day every day? What could it look like? What should it look like?
Here are some just rambling thoughts I've been rolling around.
The building would need to be beautiful. No institutional plastic or metal chairs and desks or cold paint colors. Warm colors, wood tables and upholstered chairs in a circle with students facing each other. Art on the walls. Sunlight in open windows. Rich curtains and inviting ambience with plants. Like a home set in beautiful order.
This.
(I promise I wrote that paragraph and then went looking for a picture, not the other way around).
Not this.
The classes would need to be small. And long. The teachers would be people that I'd want my kids to be like, that love their subject and find wonder in it, that love Truth, and that model by being the lead learner, not the master. In my ideal world, a school would cater to 5-12th grade. I think kids around the age of 10 or 11 are most benefitted by formal instruction and community learning. There could be 7 blocks in the curriculum:
-mathematics
-natural sciences
-Latin
-Composition(5-9th)--> Logic (7-9th)--> Rhetoric(10-12th)
-music: choir and theater, instrumental music
-humanities: integrated history, literature, art, science, government, philosophy and Bible with church history
-Electives: lots of handicrafts, creatives, music theory and composition, shop, robotics, drafting, so many options
To provide students with plenty of time, there would ideally be two blocks before lunch of 90 minutes each, then a 60 minute lunch and outside time, followed by two more 90 minute blocks. Each Monday and Wednesday would have the same schedule, and Tuesday and Thursday would have the opposite schedule. Humanities would meet everyday, and the rest, twice a week.
Fridays would be set aside for Scholé. Families could chose to stay home together. Students could volunteer to do community service or visit elderly in nursing homes or find various other ways to give back. Fridays could be used seasonally for building beautiful sets for theater and choral productions. Students could opt to pursue another course of study on something that interests them.
Alternatively, I think a University model school would be even more ideal. University model schools hold classes 2-3 days a week depending on the learning level, and students are home with families the other days of the week. The school provides the curriculum and resources and at-home plans and assignments. Parents get to enjoy reading aloud and helping with assignments and co-teaching, but without all the planning and assessment.
Surely I'm not the only one who would want an education like this for their kids? A school with long leisurely classes with plenty of time to discuss and reflect, focused on these few things that lay the skills of thinking well with language and mathematics that lead to the ability to learn anything else, with a mind well-furnished with knowledge of art, literature, music, people and ideas from across geography and time?
This is what a liberal arts high school could look like. Wouldn't it be beautiful?
Comments
Post a Comment