A blog I follow named Cup of Jo hosts a wonderful series of posts by Americans raising children abroad. The authors share what has most surprised them about parenthood in the foreign cultural context they call home. I love the diversity of perspectives the series captures.
This past week I have been on a tear reading about educational approaches around the world, especially in Scandinavia. It all started when I had a vision of a private school here in Lander on the acupuncture table...
Imagine a dojo/barn on The Scott Drive Refuge (it was located at Johnny Behind The Rocks in my dream). The main building has studio spaces built around a central atrium and yurts dotting the property provide additional classroom space. Students walk or bike to school, with an option to be picked up in a school van for those who are further afield. A small fleet of school vehicles facilitates the use of the world as the larger classroom.
The day starts in the core amphitheater with the ringing of a gong. Each class enters through their own torii gate and each student is greeted by their teacher as they make the passage. Each student maintains silence once they pass through the gate and lays out their Spear S fleece for guided meditation, yoga and qigong. Then the gong rings again and students leave through their gate for the day's lessons.
Grade levels rotate through the responsibility of providing and serving lunch to the entire school (sourcing food locally and preparing it in the school's kitchen).
Adults go by their first names. Administrators also participate in school life as teachers.
The main curriculum areas are sustenance (farming, ranching, cooking), wellbeing (personal identity, healing practices), storytelling (literature, foreign languages, art forms such as writing, videography, and theater), craftsmanship (creating and building with natural materials, math, physics, chemistry), citizenship (ecology, history, climate change, community inquiry and service, activism), and exploration (expeditions of discovery). The overarching goal is to provide a holistic, relevant, and experiential education for students.
Older grades mentor younger grades. Faculty facilitate inter-generational relationships for students, connecting them with elders in the community.
Each class is composed of no more than twelve to fifteen students. Grade levels have themes such as water, energy, the life cycle, the seasons, etc which serve as lenses through which to examine and link their studies. Each school year builds towards realizing a class dream, created in collaboration with students at the beginning of the year.
Lander's greatest assets are the natural world and the human community. The hope would be that this school leverages both.
Some of the books I have been reading about education are so common sense as to seem basic, but then I remember that they are discussing national policies that are intuitive-- a concept that pretty much blows my mind.
Here is the table of contents from a book about priorities within the Finnish educational system:
I. Well-being
- honor rest (45 minutes on:15 minutes off; 18 hours of facilitated learning per week with 24 total hours of school per week)
- learn while moving (encourage activity)
- recharge after school (minimize homework)
- simplify spaces (cultivate a clean, organized, and uncluttered classroom)
- breath fresh air (let natural light and fresh air into the classroom)
- get into the wild (learn outside as often as possible)
- keep the peace (maintain a peaceful classroom where students feel safe and can focus)
II. Belonging
- recruit a welfare team (identify struggling students early and get them supported immediately by trained professionals so that they don't fall behind)
- know each child (teachers may stay with a student group through multiple grade levels and conduct home visits)
- play together (have a gentle start to the beginning of the school year and focus on team building)
- celebrate learning (actively seek out opportunities to meaningfully recognize and delight in student accomplishments)
- pursue a class dream (determined in conjunction with students)
- banish bullying (prevented through education; addressed with timely intervention and empowering conflict resolution)
- buddy up (older students are paired with younger students to foster connection and learning across grade levels)
III. Autonomy
- start with freedom (trust in students' capabilities and provide meaningful independance)
- leave margins (don't cause stress by packing too much into a day such that you can't flex to the demands of the moment)
- offer choices (give students the opportunity to be self-directed)
- plan with students (collaborate and co-create the school experience)
- make it real (highlight relevancy and engage in consequential learning)
- demand responsibility (focus on being trustworthy with responsibility rather than being accountable)
IV. Mastery
- teach the essentials (distill lessons down to what matters)
- mine the textbook (utilize textbooks as road maps or guides for learning)
- leverage technology (ensure that technology is used as an auxiliary tool rather than a revered distraction)
- bring in music (integrate music into the classroom and material)
- coach (rather than lecture)
- prove learning (create tests of knowledge that are designed to determine how deeply a student has engaged with and understands the curriculum)
- discuss grades (emphasize narrative evaluations and hold performance discussions with each student at phase changes)
V. Mind-set
- seek flow (cultivate flow for yourself and your students and let it inform the direction of your teaching)
- value teaching experience and skill (teachers are held to high standards and viewed as professionals; their expertise is respected and honored by the larger culture)
- collaborate over coffee (informal and formal collaboration between colleagues is both an expectation and a norm)
- welcome experts (invite the strengths of others into the classroom)
- vacate during vacation (prioritize life when not in school)
- don't forget joy (intentionally foster joy in the classroom)
