More about my vision for a perfectly awesome school:
see my other blog: http://minnesotalearningacademy.blogspot.com
and please visit my website in progress (I'm learning Dreamweaver) at
http://personal.stthomas.edu/pcdunkirk/MN-Minds/index.html
...But the original concept was more about student empowerment: small class sizes, student decision-making, real-world projects that would motivate them,etc.; about partnerships with professionals and adults of all stripes to get the students off campus and into the guts of what professionals do. The "project-based departments" organize the school. Each is based on a project: performing arts, visual arts, running the school cafeteria, school publications, running science fairs, running the school finances and a school bank, etc. Technology can tie things together and facilitate things, but the main focus is the motivation of the students and the awesome untapped resource that is the adult world to act as mentors, coaches, guides. I taught in inner-city LA and saw the huge potential that school has- when done right, and this is very rarely the case- to literally SAVE these kids from the crap around them. This is what motivates this idea: getting the most out of this thing we all suffer through called school. Transforming it into something creative, meaningful, engaging, and empowering. The exercise is to dream up the best possible scenario of a school, not based on current modes and models, not based on current restrictions and limitations, but built on the crazy, dorm-room epiphanies of "wouldn't it be great if school was like this..." Using that as a starting point and then saying, "Why not?" And, "OK, let's refine this a little and slowly make it more practical while not losing the original inspiration". Steve Jobs said in an article in Forbes something like, you see these great prototype cars in auto shows but by the time they get mass-produced they've lost most of what was so appealing about them in the first place, and Apple tries not to do that so everybody is involved in every part of the business. Something like that. Point being to not lose too much of the original uniqueness and creative insight and the power of inter-disciplinary structures and transparent operations.
...But the original concept was more about student empowerment: small class sizes, student decision-making, real-world projects that would motivate them,etc.; about partnerships with professionals and adults of all stripes to get the students off campus and into the guts of what professionals do. The "project-based departments" organize the school. Each is based on a project: performing arts, visual arts, running the school cafeteria, school publications, running science fairs, running the school finances and a school bank, etc. Technology can tie things together and facilitate things, but the main focus is the motivation of the students and the awesome untapped resource that is the adult world to act as mentors, coaches, guides. I taught in inner-city LA and saw the huge potential that school has- when done right, and this is very rarely the case- to literally SAVE these kids from the crap around them. This is what motivates this idea: getting the most out of this thing we all suffer through called school. Transforming it into something creative, meaningful, engaging, and empowering. The exercise is to dream up the best possible scenario of a school, not based on current modes and models, not based on current restrictions and limitations, but built on the crazy, dorm-room epiphanies of "wouldn't it be great if school was like this..." Using that as a starting point and then saying, "Why not?" And, "OK, let's refine this a little and slowly make it more practical while not losing the original inspiration". Steve Jobs said in an article in Forbes something like, you see these great prototype cars in auto shows but by the time they get mass-produced they've lost most of what was so appealing about them in the first place, and Apple tries not to do that so everybody is involved in every part of the business. Something like that. Point being to not lose too much of the original uniqueness and creative insight and the power of inter-disciplinary structures and transparent operations.
