Experimental School Gets Rid of Classes, Teachers

[HomeschoolrsRUs]

Shocked to see this on NPR, but ...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15322289&ft=1&f=1001

Experimental School Gets Rid of Classes, Teachers

Enter a typical high school, and the first thing you see is the front office. It's the "belly button" of the school, the place where the principal dwells, where grades are stored and where visitors must sign in.

< snip , snip >

Now, imagine a school where the organizational structure is completely flat. At the New Country School in Henderson, Minn., there is no front office. Visitors are immediately embraced by an airy atrium that is the centerpiece of this one-room schoolhouse.

< snip , snip >

New Country, a charter school, is the biggest institution in the small town of Henderson (pop. 910), about an hour southwest of Minneapolis. It's not the kind of place you expect to see radical experiments.

[Rhino]

Shocked to see this on NPR, but ...Why?

Dee Thomas listens as a student defends the credit she thinks she deserves for the work she's done on a project. Thomas is disappointed that the student hasn't carefully logged the time she invested in the project. The student concedes that was a mistake. But in the course of the critique, advisers agree that the student has learned how to get along with other students, and has made important progress in non-academic areas. She gets the credit she wanted.They're giving credit when the work is not done. Why wouldn't NPR support that?

Actually, it sounds pretty good, except for their math problem.

[HomeschoolrsRUs]

Why?

They're giving credit when the work is not done. Why wouldn't NPR support that?

Actually, it sounds pretty good, except for their math problem.

Well, the answer to your question, can be found in the third line of your post, :smirky:. Yeah, I'll agree, your second line definitely sounds like something NPR would endorse, :D.



There is a movement within the homeschooling communty called "unschooling" which is what this kind of sounds like to me. I don't ascribe to it myself, but it has some similarities with the way our family chooses to homeschool. Both of my children became pretty good independent learners, but with the guidance of a weekly schedule. They had/have goals they must accomplish in that time frame, but I don't necessarily put down in minute detail how to accomplish them.

I guess what I would like to share is that like everything else in life changes, so to is it time for education to change. It's simply becoming antiquated to do business as usual when it comes to the education system.