Image by Getty Images via @daylife
I
Just got back from another meeting where we talk - this has been happening to all people involved in organizations since the dawn of man/womankind... like Nike - I now just want to do it NOW. I can remember when OELMA final went from meetings to action after our strategic plan - now we meet w/ a mission & an action plan w/ a champion and a date for when things we want to do actually get accomplished. What a concept. Today I met a co-conspirator - a real social deviant who wants to forgo the talk & actually create! Isn't that what real innovators and creators really want? Best of all, she's much younger than I am- a junior in college who is on internship @ Battelle - what could be better! She agrees that we are missing the student voice in ed reform and agrees we must move out of the system to create a new model. Someone today said that "form & function" the old Sullivan idea from architecture is amiss in our plan for wholesale statewide reform. She's right- we can't put the new into the old model of education- the agrarian/time/space/place/who is teacher/who is student model. Hence the "unschool."
Someone else told me today that I could create a charter school as a "new school" under the auspice of a new innovative school- as if I did not know that after 32 years in education. No, a charter school is still a school that fits the old mode. I want to break it!
So, if I've learned anything from ed reform it was from Daniel Kim, 2 years ago into this effort. It has to be systematic and begin w/shared vision, not programmatic. My vision/thoughts/brainstorms so far:
- Asynchronous - no summer break or typical breaks
- A faculty/group who respects & buys into the philosophy of engagement, risk, teacher as chief learner, teacher as one who knows something you don't and can communicate/teach it to others
- Unschool = US - it's community
- Many places w/a/several central communal spots - a physical place/an online place to come together
- Many places=museums, art institutes, arboretums, universities, theaters, dance studios
- Mentors for teachers, students, administrators from in/outside education
- PLN's for all - personal learning networks