Personalize

I think a good way to personalize a student's education is through essays, particularly ones with very open prompts, like:

Identify a set of materials that illuminate an aspect of the novel for you, as a reader.
What do you make of the changes? Feel free to speculate on the reasons for these changes and analyze the effects of these narrative “I” voices.
How do these changes alter the entire frame of the novel?

This personalization would work for any subject, except possibly math.  

Grading Scale

I do not really like the standard GPA system and the weighted/non-weighted classes system because I expect all of my students to be at the same, high level, and I think a 4.0 and 5.0 grading scale is silly if all classes are weighted the same.

Also, if all of my students will be taking generally the same classes all four years of high school, then the grades out of 100 will reflect each other. Just like people take GPA boosters all the time, classes like culture and the arts could be grade boosters (though I want particularly culture class to be challenging).

This also could make students aware of how each grade they get in each class for each assignment could effect their GPA's but also that it is more of a holistic experience, and that each assignment and each class is a give and take of the others.

After School Activities

I'm thinking that activities like debate, choir, and sports should be after school, but I also wonder if those should just be part of the arts classes. Or, doing it after school would be good because those who are serious about it have a good time to practice, and they can spend their arts period doing something else. And, the daytime classes could be for students who are at a more basic level so everyone gets a shot at, for instance, choir, but the competitive singers aren't held back by beginners in the classes. 

English

English should have a global focus (but with maybe one full year of American Literature) and a focus on good literature that the students would enjoy with classics like The Great Gatsby.

Some of my goals: 

• Expose students to works (including fiction, nonfiction, short stories, and poetry) that they wouldn't see in their high school, particularly international works 
• Expect students to have an advanced level of writing and a particularly advanced level of grammar and spelling 
• Offer many opportunities to write in response to prompts, subjects, and no prompts
• Connect literature to film adaptations

Further Studies

Further studies are there to expose students to as many subjects as possible so they can, hopefully, know more about their own passions and what they want to do with the rest of their lives. Some of them would be units in the Further Studies class, but some would also be offered as semester courses. I think that this should be structured like the arts classes, where high school students get to pick which semester classes they want, middle school students have units in the fall and semester classes in the spring, and elementary school students have just units.

I'm thinking economics and government should be required, just like they were in my high school. I'm also thinking something about international affairs/relations should be required.

Some subjects: 

Computer science

Astronomy

Earth Science

Ethics

Philosophy

IT classes

Archaeology

Criminology

Economics

Government

IT class

Education

Linguistics

Political science

Sociology

Law

Psychology

Communication

Development studies

Military science (ROTC)

Mythology

Environmental studies 

Neuroscience and behavior biology
Anthropology & archaeology 

The Arts

Some of the arts I could include are: architecture, sculpting, painting, choir, band, orchestra, poetry, dance, theater/cinema, dance, drawing, gastronomy (culinary arts), and comedy



In high school, students should be able to pick which arts they want each semester. I this this would be better to do than for each year because then each student would have more opportunities with each art and would feel better about the choices they make since much of the curriculum I'm offering is fixed.

In middle school, schools should have units of arts in the fall and get to pick in the spring.

In elementary school, schools should have units of arts all year.

The arts should have an emphasis on practicing, history, knowing something (not just memorizing everything), being well-rounded, knowing the greats, and proving what they know (instead of what they don't know). 

Social Studies

12 - 20th and 21st Century/World Topics
11 - European History
10 - American History
9 - World History 

I'm not sure what most middle schoolers learn in social studies, but I think another way to promote multiculturalism would be to do world history and American history in different years and a year (or semester) of the history of each continent. That could mean that world history could have more of a focus on the relationship between the histories of all of the continents. This could translate into: 

12 - 20th and 21st Century/World Topics

11 - World History 

10 - American History (North American History?)

9 - European History

8 - South America and Asia

7 - Africa and Australia

Foreign Languages

For the languages, I'm thinking Spanish, French, Chinese, German, Latin, Italian, Japanese, and Russian. Narrowing those down, I have Spanish, French, Chinese, German, and Latin. And narrowing it down to Spanish, French, and Chinese. I know of a language magnet elementary school that teaches those three languages starting in first grade. 

In high school, students must take three years of two different languages. This is standard of most schools, but this will be special because my students will have started learning these languages from elementary school.

In middle school, there will be multiple levels of the languages, so students can experiment around with which languages they want to study. 

In elementary school, I'm thinking that classes should be designed to mix things up so students are exposed to all of the languages that they can take when they're older at a time when they soak up languages like a sponge. However, younger students sometimes mix up languages (interesting story about a young friend of mine whose father could not understand her half the time because she mixed up her English and the Dutch she learned in school) and may not be able to comprehend learning so many languages. This would promote offering just two or three languages from this time until graduation.

Experimental Sciences

I consider the experimental sciences to be chemistry, physics, and biology. 


9 - Intro to chemistry, physics, and biology 
10-12 - Take one of those three for one year and another one for two years


The idea is that each student is exposed to all three of them, not all students are well-suited for all three, and students should have advanced study in at least one of these fields. An alternative schedule would be: 


9-12 - Two years of two of the three sciences (Chemistry 1+2 and Physics 1+2, Chemistry 1+2 and Biology 1+2, or Physics 1+2 and Biology 1+2)
8 - Intro to chemistry, physics, and biology 


However, this could be a problem because students may not know which sciences they want to study for two years until after the first year. Depending on how early I could start students with Chemistry, Biology, and Physics, I could just require that the second year of two of the sciences in high school, so the schedule could be: 


6 - Intro to chemistry, physics, and biology 
7-12 - first year of all three and second year of at least two of them 


However, this one could be a problem because I worry that middle school students could not handle the second year of one of the sciences or that they would take the first year of both of them and have to skip a year or two before getting to the second year of the subject. 


I also want to make sure that ethics (like bioethics) is present and emphasized. 

Math

I think this could be problematic for students who come in later than 7th grade because this is a little bit faster than many students learn math (in terms of starting algebra 1), but some students could take lower level ones and possibly skip either calculus or stats. 


12 - Probability and Statistics
11 - Calculus
10 - Pre Calc
9 - Algebra 2
8 - Geometry
7 - Algebra 1

Volunteering

I think every year's students should have some sort of volunteer activities that they need to do. The service projects would have to include all students in the grade in some way and would focus on leadership, goodwill, community outreach, environmental awareness, and other similar skills and lessons. We'd have to be careful that students could work on these projects throughout much of the year, and it is preferable that students would not have to go off campus many years for their projects. Also, many projects would have to be split into smaller parts on which groups within each year could work. Student council in high school could pick exactly what to do (younger kids' activities are planned), but there would be general outlines for each year, if not all.

For example:

Lower elementary: going to animal shelters to play with/socialize animals, draw cards for hospital patients/military, play/talent show for a nursing home

Upper elementary: feeding/washing/cleaning up after animals, making cards for hospitals/military/school faculty and staff, raising money for a charity, play/talent show for nursing home and one-on-one interaction

Middle school: tutoring elementary kids, food drives/work in food pantry, maintaining school grounds (flower and vegetable gardens, tree nurseries, etc.), community environment/clean-up projects, raising money for a charity, crafts (like blankets) to donate

High school: raising money for a charity, tutoring middle school kids, doing something special for the elementary/pre-K kids) like fun days, volunteer at an animal shelter/nursing home/on-campus day cares/hospitals, environment projects, maintaining school grounds, working with orphanages, letters (to people or answering letters to Santa, letters to government officials)

If necessary, culture class could take some sort of grade for volunteering so that it is mandatory and there is a way to track the volunteering.

There is a website that has great volunteer ideas for people of all ages, even though it's geared toward middle school students:

Learning in the Class

There are many ways to learn other than in the simple lecture/notes way. I think my American Education professor has a unique way of teaching that works. The class is broken into groups that have to do at least one of several assignments each week, totally one of each assignment for the semester. Because this is an education class, the assignments are focused on education, but they would work for many different classes. Among these assignments are:

News: summarize current local, state, and national news on then lead a short discussion
Debate: two people on each side*, other groups ask cross examination questions so they have to be educated on the topic
Book Discussion: read an approved book, lead a 20 minute discussion
Interview: interview a professional in the subject, then give an oral report to the class and lead a short discussion
Speech: choose any topic related to the course and give a five minute speech
Position Paper: write a few-page paper on any debate issue* that was not that student's debate topic thats briefly summarizes, defends their position, hold a meeting with their group for a small discussion
Topical Essay: same format as the position paper but done on any topic in the subject
Field Experience: certain number of hours working with subject (ex: tutoring at a local school for education, getting a positive evaluation from a supervisor), and write a short reflection

*Our debates are based on the book Taking Sides: Clashing Views of Controversial Educational Issues (16th ed.) by J.W. Noll. Each chapter is an educational question, and there are two short essays arguing "Yes" or "No," which are the sides we take for our debates in class. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in education.

There should also be an emphasis on guided conversations about class material. How many times will a student take a multiple-choice test after they finish school? Basically never. How many times will they write a paper? Depending on their occupation, a few times to many times. How many times will they have to talk about what they're doing? Many, many, many times.

Boarding School?

I'm pretty sure I want my school to be a boarding school because - and I'm just being honest here - I think parents have way too much potential to screw their kids' education up. They can show plenty of support to their education by sending the kids to a good school and loving them like crazy when they're home, so I can control the rest of their educational lives. And with the environment I'd like to provide in my school, the only things my kids should really be deprived of are their actual parents.

However, I don't want kids who are too young at a boarding school. What I'm thinking is either all of high school or just the last two or three years will be boarding school. This is where I will start when I am building my school. Then I'll build down with the day school kids (this causes big problems with who gets to go to the boarding school - local kids who were raised in my younger schools or anyone who can get in...interesting problem).

I'm thinking the boarding school will be the main campus then surrounding it or next to it will be more generic areas for the younger kids. All the facilities will be present and awesome, but all the kids use the same facilities. I'd like to get students all the way down to the baby level on these campuses. Of course, that age children are there with their parents for programs or perhaps day care.

Education in Sweden

I did a biography project on education in Sweden for my Comparative Education class. I did some research and asked my friend, who was raised in Sweden, about her education. The 2010 most popular girl's name in Sweden is Maja, so I am going to call my friend Maja. The name is a variation of the Greek name Maia, which means "great" or "mother."

Peer Biography: Maja from Sweden

Research on Sweden

            At every level of education in Sweden, schooling is free, even at the university level. Sweden spends much more money on its education than most countries do. A school term goes from August to December then another one from January to June (World Education Encyclopedia, 1322). There is no single teaching method preferred by the state, as long as the school meets the state-approved standards  (World Education Encyclopedia, 1325), a policy that was determined by the Education Act of 1985 (Sas, 111). Schools simply follow the standards that the National Agency for Education develops (World Education Encyclopedia, 1329). The Agency assesses knowledge through national tests and assessment guides for teachers. It also evaluates schools and provides support for issues like problems in subjects or others, like bullying (Agency). Literacy rates in Sweden are 99% (World Education Encyclopedia).

Time Capsule

Once every four years (or ten or whatever number), my school could make a time capsule. Probably it'd just be for them, maybe to open on their 50th reunion. I do think it'd be interesting to have one that was historical, though, but that would have to be a one-time thing. It could be a community event.

Time capsule historian William Jarvis complains that many time capsules are filled with useless junk that does not actually tell much about life at this time. Therefore I want to make sure my school's time capsule could be historically significant. It could be a school project. Different grades could have different topics, like sports, current events, and politics, and figure out creative and spatially efficient ways to represent these topics for future generations.