Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments My fantasy school...

...would be structured like this:

1. K-12 are in the same building or the buildings are extremely close.

2. All classes are ability grouped. This includes music, PE, art, and anything else.

3. In aid of #2, math/PE/whatever meet at the same time every day and kids change rooms as appropriate.

4. No homework until 7th grade.

5. The cafeteria serves nutritious food.

. 5a. Deep-fried food is banned.
. 5b. Stir-fried food is allowed.
. 5c. There is an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables.
. 5d. Soda and sugary fruit juices are mostly banned. BUT, in the interests of not getting all extremist, fizzy drinks like IZZE (fruit juice in carbonated water) are allowed now and then.
. 5e. The school should provide sugary snacks in careful moderation. Let's face it: there's nothing wrong with handing out a few cookies (allergies excepted) during the party on the last day of school in December.

6. The lower grades get ample recess time (a.m., after lunch, and in the afternoon). The upper grades get an hour for lunch.

7. Teachers must have a solid understanding of subject matter.

8. Most gifted students can meet graduation requirements early, but not all will be ready to move away so soon. They can stay enrolled by avoiding one required class until they're ready to go. In the meantime, college-level courses are offered or students are taken to the local college for courses.

9. Sports teams practice after school on school grounds, and kids are taken to away games on school buses at 3:30 p.m., not by bleary-eyed parents at 8 a.m. on Saturday mornings.

10. The school runs on a balanced budget with a minimum of administrators. As a result, parents are never fleeced for, say, money for band uniforms, because the school has a budget for them.

11. Vaccinations are required for enrollment. No exceptions. If you don't like polio vaccine, try having polio or passing it to someone else.

12. Bullying is not allowed.

13. Rule #12 is enforced.

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Ha! I'm always whinging about the state of education, so here are my ideas for change. Anyone else want to help design the school?

Val

Sounds great. Might also add high academic standards, but with a sense of humour - divergent and independent thinking encouraged. Very well-resouced for music, science etc. Smallish classes (15-20ish),and smallish school (400-600). Consider teaching philosophy (a school in the city does this from Gr 1, apparently with great resuls).

Oh - close to home and not too expensive!

And extremely strict rules re wearing sunblock and hats. And beautiful. With lots of trees, fresh air and natural light.

Note to self - for pity's sake get back to work!

I was thinking along the lines of "free."

I agree with everything else you added!

Val

Val-
Not to toot a horn but we have a nearly identical school to what you've described. The only major downfall is that it is a charter school for visual and performing arts. It's 6th thru 12th grade but there is a K-5 charter they work closely with. They see many many gifted kids and have a close working relationship with the community college for math and science because that's not particularly the teachers' forte. But if you're a 6th grader and you need geometry, they put you in the high school class with no hesitation. Kids take afternoon specials in their focus area- theatre, art, media, drama, music, dance or vocal. Some of the high school kids actually go to school until 6pm, then have rehearsal for performances and STILL look happy at 10pm!

It's not perfect but it's really, really good.

Now... they have a 100-200 kid waiting list and it's lottery system to get in either in 6th or 9th grade. THAT is a huge bummer.

Re: no 11, you would not even allow medical exceptions??? That seems pretty harsh to me, and we are standard on-schedule vaxers.

Also, it seems to me that nos. 3 and 7 are mutually exclusive, unless we're talking about spending crazy amounts of money here.

We love IZZE. Too bad Target here doesn't carry the Apple flavor, that's a favorite. I keep waiting for someone to think it's a soda in DSs lunch because of the can.


This is the first school DS has attended where there are two recesses - one in the morning and one after lunch - and they're not withheld as a punitive measure. The only way one misses a recess is if homework was not turned in that morning, which I guess could be argued that that child had 'recess' the day before instead of doing homework (barring parents not providing time for child to get it done). The child spends the recess time doing the homework and if they complete it, they get the rest of the allotted recess time. And the recesses are longer than 5 minutes....

I'll also go out on a limb and say this is a pretty good description of the school my son goes to. Only our school is so small that there is no cafeteria. They do exist!

I love Val's school. Here's a few things I would add:
- recycle and compost as much as posssible
- edible garden, teaching kids to grow and prepare some of their food
- no prepackaded cookie/cracker snack bags. Fresh fruit/veg/yogurt/cheese for snack whenever they need it
- no competetive parents
- access to a wooded area and/or a creek for outdoor classroom activities
- diverse racial/cultural/ecomonic respectful environment

Chrys, this sounds like my kids' school:

http://www.environmentalcharterschool.org

I'm in, and I love Chrys's additions too!

How about having/teaching a sense of humor? It's just as educational to add up toilets as it is to add up apples! And who wouldn't rather study "Who's On First?" over "Young Goodman Brown"?

I would also really, really love to see theme-based curricula - one year the whole school explores the notion of change as it relates to each major subject of study, the next year it might be law or ethics, etc. Maybe a four- or five-year rotation would be good, to allow topics to be revisited in much greater depth as the students mature.