As I am growing in my learning about education and schooling, quite often I am left overwhelmed by the sheer complexity and enormity of the subject.
The more I am learing more dots I am able to connect, I am able to see the invisible connections and unobvious associations.
While I still strive to get clear and learn more about alternative education and schooling or deschooling if you prefer that term, I posed myself this question - What kind of school will I open today ?
One cannot keep pondering on things for thoughts alone are of little use. One cannot , not act based on the understanding. So, I am slowly growing into the zone of acting soon. While on one hand I do not wish to initiate something that I am not sure of, on the other hand I am wary of turning into a "thought leader" who can speak well, explain the problem, analyze it but is paralyzed when talking about the solution.
So based on my limited understanding as of today (hence the "TODAY" in block), I'd open a school with following qualities :-
1.) Small group of students : Number of students will not grow more than 20-25 for the teachers and students must know each other personally, must know each other as evolving human not a "role" fulfiller.
2.) The study will be done of 2 things -
A) The Essentials : The parents, teachers and the student will sit together to decide for the year/six months - what is the essential knowledge or skills the kid must have. It could be maths, science, computers, english, mountaineering, agriculture, environmental science, bird watching so on, depending on the background of child and wisdom of parents and teachers. Each have equal say, while the child will hold veto power to eliminate or include something based on common dialogue and understanding.
B) The Element : Second part of education will be dedicated to the passion, talent, interest of the child - which Ken Robinson refers as "The Element". This will be mainly student's choice. He can come up with one or more areas s/he want to explore. This could be dance, music, engineering, religion ...whatever under the sky is possible. The passion will be pursued by the student for a period of time with hardwork and perseverance. The school might not have masters for all the skills, so here the school will act as a bridge and help find a good mentor to support the student's learning journey.
3.) Finance - The fee will not be decided by the school but the economic status and willingness of the parents. Ethics and service will ride over profits. If in crunch, the school will do its own fundraising to support the expenses and find creative ways of dealing with money, but in no case link learning opportunity with money.
4.) Admission and Certificates : There will be no certificate or association with any board, however each child and parents are free to pursue it personally using options available (like NIOS, IGCSE etc..) if they find it useful. Admission will simply be based on common dialogue and understanding.
5.) Focus on Exposure : Exposure will be the only policy of the school. To gets kids exposed to various experiences, to give them a oppurtunity to explore and extend their horizons. This would mean a lot of travel, meeting people from all walks of life, learning all skills from the meanest to the most technical , so on.
6.) Day Structure : There shall be sessions on essential but none will be compulsory to attend. The underlying belief will be holding the individual student responsible for their learning, the school or the centre can only assist. Only the student will decide what to do, how to do and when to do. The teachers, computer, books and other resources will be at disposal if he wishes to refer to them.
7.) MOST IMPORTANT : To stay updated and keep renewing the processes, the school will revisit all of its work every single year and will have right to think all over again every year and introduce newer processes and take away existing ones. The school for its entire life will remain an experiment but unlike so-called alternative schools where few teachers / thinkers experiment on kids, here the students will be the key participant to decide what experiments to do with their lives. The world will be their laboratory.
These are some raw , unpolished thoughts I shared on the kind of school that I imagine might redefine education. I do understand this is not comprehensive and might need a lot of tweaking. But this is the beginning of thinking on those lines. Your feedbacks and comments are welcome, I look forward to them.
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