Jeff Lackney of School Design Studio facilitated a month long series of design workshops with students and teachers from West High School in Madison, Wisconsin aimed at creating smaller learning communities within the large 2,000 student school.
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Secondary [should be] the final shift over to project-based learning and allow much more freedom to students on their choice of topics..[students] will learn whom to go to for certain problems...will not be in classrooms much at all anymore ... will have to organize their time properly and meet with peers and facilitators when necessary. Once completed, if done throughly enough, the student will progress to graduation. Using their skills, portfolio and connections, they will then be able to sell themselves and their capabilities to employers or organizations, or advance to university. Paul Hillsdon, High School Student
All the power is in the hands of the student; where it has always been. While it may be against the law is not be in school under the age of 16, it's definitely within the control of the student whether he or she wishes to actually learn something. Paul Hillsdon, High School Student
What we need most to improve the quality of our learning is more contact with adults other than parents and teachers. We know what our parents think, because we’ve heard it every day for years. We’re slightly suspicious of what teachers say because they’re actually paid to say that. What we want to know is what do other adults think… and we don’t meet very many of those. A group of teenagers in the UK, as quoted by John Abbott
Laurie Chancey spent her childhood immersing herself in topics of her own choosing. She was never forced to learn something simply because tradition and/or society said it was necessary. No one was looking over her shoulder to make sure she was learning the “proper” subjects.
She enrolled in college when she was eighteen, and graduated summa cum laude three and a half years later. Laurie is a bright adult, but her IQ is not why she did so well. She spent her life learning to learn and it’s something that now comes easily to her. The Unprocessed Child was written by her mother and is full of examples of raising a child with respect and dignity. It is the first book written about a radically unschooled child who has now reached adulthood and is a responsible member of society. Read more This volume presents approaches to eliciting students’ natural curiosities through journals, questioning frames, critical thinking challenges, visits to museums and long term curricular projects with authentic assessments.
Read more The notion that all children could and should be inventors of their own theories, critics of other people’s ideas, analyzers of evidence, and makers of their own personal marks on this own complex world - this is an idea with revolutionary implications. Deborah Meier, Educational Reformer, Writer and Activist
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