Edition 0.1
Table of Contents
1 Concessions for Shifting Institutional Philosophies......................................................... 1
2 Making the Transition....................................................................................................... 1
2.1 Encourage Independent Study.................................................................................. 2
2.1.1 Independent and Group Reading and Work...................................................... 2
2.1.2 Relaxed Schedule............................................................................................... 2
2.1.3 Inter-Reliance..................................................................................................... 2
2.2 Change Testing Approach......................................................................................... 3
2.2.1 Competitions...................................................................................................... 3
2.2.2 Reduced Formal Testing.................................................................................... 3
2.2.3 Primary Graduation Examinations..................................................................... 3
2.3 New Facilities............................................................................................................ 4
2.3.1 Rebuilding.......................................................................................................... 4
2.3.2 Renovation......................................................................................................... 4
2.3.3 Concessions for Inability to Renovate............................................................... 4
2.4 Expanded Homerooms.............................................................................................. 5
2.5 Self-Maintenance....................................................................................................... 5
2.6 Introduce Volunteers................................................................................................. 5
2.7 Expanded Daycare.................................................................................................... 6
2.8 Year-Round Facilities................................................................................................ 6
2.9 Overnight Stay.......................................................................................................... 6
2.10 Orphan and Foster Care.......................................................................................... 6
At least one school in an area should be kept as a traditional facility during the shift. Children having trouble adjusting to the changes of this new facility can be moved to the more traditional facility which will shift its approach at a slower pace. Children new to school system while it is in the midst of shifting should initially be paced in the schools that are rapidly adjusting to the new system, and should only be moved to the more traditional facilities if they are not responding well to the shift.
Many parents may not appreciate the changes taking place. The first response should be to explain the principles to the parents and allow them to observe how those principles are applied. If other schools exist that use these principles, parents can be presented with the results from those schools as evidence of the effectiveness of the new system. If the parents are still not convinced, they should be encouraged to send their children to another school. For this reason, if a public school system should choose to adopt the institution described in this document, it may be necessary to maintain at least one permanent traditional facility, in order to meet the desires of skeptical parents with children in the school district.
The timetables presented here are suggestions. Far more important than meeting a rigid transition schedule, is following the principles of when each phase of transition of transition should be entered, which are generally subjective and will likely vary from school to school depending on the personalities of the children, teachers, and administrators and the amount of resources available for transition.
Encouraging independent study is the first task that should be undertaken. The move to independent study centered education should begin as soon as the institution is committed to making the transition to the new system. It may be best to wait until the beginning of a school year to begin the process of moving to an independent study approach. This allows for a full year to make the move and also places the beginning of changes at a natural starting point, when teachers and students are already prepared to begin again, making both more willing and eager to adopt to the changes.
Leave more time in the day for students to read and work on assignments by themselves and with each other.
As students work more individually and in groups, begin to relax the schedule. Instead of having a time period set aside for math assign a certain amount of math work for the day and allow them to complete it on their own natural schedule.
At first they will forget to do things, or do them at the last minute, but as they learn to work in groups, and as you help them build an academic atmosphere by engaging with them and encouraging them, this will lessen. In the beginning having staggered due times, like English due at 2:00 and Math due at 2:15, may help. Occasional reminders may help too, but being too forgiving or too “on their backs” will only slow the process.
As they adjust to having daily assignments, assign more weekly assignments. Hopefully by the end of the first year they should be able to work in groups and complete weekly assignments at their own pace.
After Expanded Homerooms older students, or just more precocious students, will share space with younger students or students that find certain things challenging. Instead of acting as tutor to all of the students, the teacher should start to adjust to noticing which students are good at what, encouraging students having trouble or questions to look to their peers for help.
At this point projects and presentations should become a more involved part of the institution and the greater part of the learning process for the children. Hopefully by the end of the year when Expanded Homerooms are introduced the students will have established that they are responsible for their own education, and will be comfortable with helping each other, presenting to each other, and working on projects with each other.
An end-of-year competition should be planned as soon as an institution is committed to making the transition to the new system. If the first year of the transition goes well the competitions should be held. If the first competition does not go very well, spend more time the next year preparing for it and only hold the end-of-year competition. Continue only holding one competition a year, adjusting your approach each year, until things go smoothly. If the competitions were successful then the following year competitions should be held half-way through the school year as well as at the end of the school year.
After the students are able to cope with a Relaxed Schedule the methods used to evaluate students should begin to change. If the children are reasonably comfortable with a Relaxed Schedule by the end of the first year, then the shift in evaluation should begin in the second year.
Begin by grading students based on final understanding, rather than incremental understanding. Don’t grade assignments as much, or allow students to redeem themselves by completing additional assignments of a similar nature (not the same assignment over and over again). Follow the same principle with tests.
As the children are more comfortable with a Relaxed Schedule stop testing them all at once. Collect their assignments as they complete them, and give them tests when they feel they are ready. This may require more personalized testing, but this is a good thing. Teachers will be spending less time being the focus of education, so they will be able to spend more time evaluating students on a personal level. As teachers adjust to this role the institution should shift its focus from grades to written teacher evaluations describing the student’s strengths and weaknesses in a way that promotes parental encouragement and assistance, rather than expectations and insistence.
As Competitions become successful, grading should be phased out, replaced completely by teacher evaluation and parental observation of the Competitions. There is no longer a need to judge students by numbers and letters, their skills and deficiencies can be observed directly, both because of the Competitions and because the teachers are spending more time evaluating students and less time leading the educational effort directly.
Once Competitions and Expanded Homerooms are established and successful, annual Primary Graduation Examinations can be introduced. These could optimistically take place at the end of the third or fourth year. These tests should test the sum of all knowledge and skills required of any adult in society, regardless of occupation or social circumstance. Students should not be permitted to attend the Secondary Care Institution until they have completed these exams. As soon as a child completes these exams they should be permitted but not required to attend the Secondary Care Institution. Many such children may still be young, and may wish to stay with the Primary Care Institution for a while longer. This is good because it also allows them to help their peers.
Plans for altering the physical arrangement of the facilities should begin as soon as the commitment is made to shift to the new system. The plan should be for construction to end by the beginning of the third year of the shift. By then the school should be ready for Expanded Homerooms. The extra space of doubling classroom size and having two teachers per classroom might be useful for the Expanded Homerooms phase of the shift. Note that if the opening of the new facilities occurs prior to Expanded Homerooms, or if the Expanded Homerooms phase is particularly difficult, then some of the functionality of the new facilities, particularly the functionality associated with Self-Maintenance, should probably not be used.
If the associated Secondary Care plan is implemented or in the process of being implemented and if the primary level has not built new facilities, then the secondary children can provide some or even most of the labor for building the new facilities for the primary level. This should make the new facilities far less expensive, and if the secondary children are highly supervised, the quality should not drop significantly, if at all.
Around the fourth or fifth year, or whenever the children are deemed ready for Overnight Stay, dormitories may need to be built if such a program is desired. These may be incorporated in new facilities if new facilities can be afforded.
If it can be afforded, new facilities should be built or purchased. After they are built, renting out space in the old school or selling the building can recoup some of the expense.
If the school cannot afford to build new facilities the old ones can be adjusted during the summer at the end of the first and second year. Hopefully most of the construction can be completed while the school is not in session. If not, supplemental space may need to be rented or purchased.
Adjustments in descending order of importance include:
Building a kitchenette for every two rooms
Building a bathroom for every two rooms
Building doorways between rooms such that every “homeroom” consists of at least two rooms, each with a kitchenette and a bathroom
Homerooms can now be doubled in size, so that if there were 20 children in a classroom before, there are 40 now. Each homeroom will now also have 2 teachers.
If the school cannot afford even to renovate, then homerooms can be combined anyway, just not physically. The cafeteria will still need to be shared, so instead of each group of children preparing their own meals, the children can take turns, in groups, preparing the meals for the entire school. While this is not ideal, it is the best that can be done while having to share a single kitchen.
Once students have become comfortable with a Relaxed Schedule, classrooms should be rearranged. This rearrangement should probably occur at the beginning of a school year when teachers and students are already prepared for a new experience. Preferably this rearrangement would occur simultaneously with or after the opening of New Facilities, as having two teachers per classroom would be invaluable, and more students per classroom could mean more peers from the same grade level, which could help with stability.
Rooms should be rearranged to incorporate a balance of children from all grade levels. It may be necessary, as teachers and children adjust to this major change, to hire extra assistants to help out in the classroom. Seek to employ volunteers or hire teachers in a long-term substitute capacity if enough are available. When this settles down the assistants may be in surplus, and it could be far more difficult to let go of full-time teachers, both for those teachers and for the institution. Teachers from different grade levels should also be mixed, so that teachers experienced with older children and teachers experienced with younger children can help each other out. Teachers from different classrooms should also be encouraged to assist each other when necessary.
The first 6 months or more will likely be tumultuous. It will take some time for students and teachers to become comfortable in this new environment, and it is more than likely that many transfers of both students and teachers will be required. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different environments by allowing teachers and students to shift which classroom they are a part of, it may take some adjustment before a healthy match can be found. Classrooms that are functioning well should be willing to adopt children that are causing particular trouble in less settled rooms, in the hopes that the more settled environment will help the student adjust. Avoid placing all of the “problem children” in the same classroom, this does not help anyone.
As children adapt to Expanded Homerooms, Self-Maintenance can be introduced, as now with a balance of students from each grade level, responsibility can be held by the older children while the younger children provide assistance. If it appears that Expanded Homerooms will be problematic, hold off on incorporating Self-Maintenance. Otherwise, introduce Self-Maintenance simultaneously with Expanded Homerooms, as both of these changes work well together.
Cooking, cleaning, and repair should become the responsibility of the children. Some of the support staff associated with such responsibilities could be kept on as specialists in these activities if they are also competent as teachers and care-givers, acting as assistants or even homeroom teachers in addition to their specialist role.
Volunteers should be an important part of the institution during and after Expanded Homerooms. The elderly and secondary level volunteers can be incorporated lightly before Expanded Homerooms are introduced. The involvement of the secondary level should increase as the children adjust to co-existing with other children of various age groups. Involvement in the primary education process can be an important step to implementing the secondary education system.
After Expanded Homerooms have stabilized and New Facilities have been opened the school day should be expanded into the early evening. Since there are two teachers in each room, one could come in early and the other could stay late. This way the children do not require additional day care and can become more comfortable with their surroundings at school instead of having their time divided among many different places.
Around the same time as Expanded Daycare, Year-Round Facilities can be introduced. Without formal grading and formal grade levels, there is very little reason to distinguish an official beginning or end of the school year. The lack of formal grading and increase in independent study also offsets the need for keeping attendance for anything more than ensuring parents know where their children are. The benefit of this is that families can comfortably take vacations, go on trips, send their children to special camps, or get sick whenever it is convenient or unavoidable to do so.
If an overnight program is desirable, then it should be incorporated around the same time or after Expanded Daycare and Year-Round Facilities. Overnight stay should be encouraged even for local schools. The children could certainly go home for the weekends, go home for dinner occasionally, or take some time off to spend with their parents. However, if the Primary Care Institution is functioning correctly, it may be good for the children to have the sense of independence and inter-dependence that the facilities and environment of the institution can provide.
Once Overnight Stay is established, giving free housing to orphans or foster children would cost the school almost nothing and could have provide an invaluable service to these children. Such activities are therefore highly encouraged.