RE: The Education System Needs A New Design For Our Children & Future Generations
@clemdane thank you for such a thought response - I definitely agree with this comment. I believe the school was made for workers while on the other hand it does bring structure. But the structure that it brought was a lot for us to work for them and the system. Although I have seen within my own life that the structure the school system created for me, is also how I like to do my daily tasks, I like having blocks of time where I can focus on one subject and then move to the next. It is more left brain thinking, instead of Right brain - while on the other hand it never really put me in creative mode unless I was in Art and even then they told me I had to design this exact picture or I wasn't doing the right thing. I too believe there are some schools that do, create environments that connect individuals, but there definitely needs to be an upgrade. I would love to one day soon create a new schooling system that addressed all of these issues, while not shaming the other, but just putting a new light and creating a new way for children.
I agree. I think there needs to be a balance of Right and Left brains. I went to a wonderful school in kindergarten through Second grade where we had "classes" but there was also a lot of play and experiential learning. It was a private school in an old mansion that they had taken over and repurposed. There was a whole working kitchen and in Second grade we started cooking and baking things as a way of learning basic chemistry! It was pretty cool. And starting in kindergarten our music class consisted not just of singing songs together but of performing entire musicals! We were each given parts and had to "rehearse" and then perform these musicals, like Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Snow White, etc. It was so exciting! I was a child, so to me it seemed like we were really performing in a play like the big people who put on shows in theaters (my parents took me to a ton of theater.) We also had free reading periods, lots of recess, a wonderful art class where we drew, painted, made clay pots, did wood carving and linoleum block printing(!), and also classes in manners and etiquette, which I adored. When we learned math we had a physical representation of the progression of numbers printed on the floor from 0 to 10. If we were adding 5 + 2, one child would go stand on the 5 and take 2 steps. Then she and the class would see what number she was on - 7. Later it was even easier to learn negative numbers because on the other side of the 0 the negative numbers began and went down to -10. So if the teacher asked us to subtract 3, the child would walk three places towards the negative direction. It was extremely cool. We also had parades, festivals, costume days, etc. Those were 3 of the best years of my life. Apparently the founder had studied these new theories about experiential learning for children and she created the school based on these philosophies. This was in the 1970s. She was already 80 when I left there and I found out she died in 1983 at age 88.
I sometimes daydream about founding a school that is similar to that one. The only problem (ha!) is I have no background in education. Also, society has changed so much and become so knee-jerk and litigious about a lot of things that you probably wouldn't dare do most of the things we did in that school. More's the pity!
Woowww! Your school seemed so cool and very experimental! I would have loved to go there. The math I learned was so hard compared to the way you learned haha. I definitely dream about creating a school like that and adding a few things. I have no background in education either but where there is a Will there is a Way! I'm going to keep seeing where this can go lol