Homeschool-Concept-Based School Concept

This idea has sat in my drafts folder of my email for over a year now, just waiting to be finished and posted to a blog. Instead of finishing it, I'll just post it here. I haven't even re-read through it, so who knows what follows....
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General:
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Building/Facility: Your basic single-family dwelling. Or really any residential type location.

Faculty/Student ratio: 1 to 5/6

Daily Schedule: Open 6am-9pm, and flexible to accomodate students and teachers desires. Student attendance hours determined by individual student and their family.

Students can choose their teacher(s) based on current needs/interests.

In a single building/house/school would be 2-3 teachers, 10-15 students on average, but who may have very different schedules from one another and may not all be present at any one time.

facility requirements: each school with library of books and several computer systems for "student" and "teacher" use. Lots of quiet reading/studying places throughout. Kitchen as laboratory. Backyard or other outdoor space. Discussion spaces too: dining table, living area...

students: all ages. infants to teens. No age groupings. Students of different abilities/knowledge levels can teach/help each other.

curriculum: Entirely student-led, teachers available for guidance/assistance. In the event a student is not yet taking initiative for what he/she wants to learn, fall back to basic grade-level curriculum until student finds initiative. "Necessary" skills/lessons taught in short bursts when needed. Play not discouraged. Periodic informal assessment of "basic" skills for targeting any missing "basic" skill sets.

Expansion: Ideally started in a place with room for expansion. Each dwelling could accomodate 10-15 students. In my ideal scenario, approx 10 dwellings along one cul-de-sac/dead-end street. A growing, learning community. Students able to freely move from one dwelling to another to confer with different students or teachers. Learning and constructive/beneficial activities going on everywhere indoors and outdoors. A larger learning community would give students and teachers more opportunity for growth. Too large of a community would allow too much anonymity and lower accountability for individuals. Multiple dwellings would allow for more specialization by each one. i.e. a house each whose focus is music, art, technology, science, literature, math, etc... Within each specialized areas, but also space for all other learning to take place as well.


Benefits:
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More one-on-one time.
In a public school, assume 20 elementary kids to 1 teacher, 8 hours a day. That's 480 minutes throughout the day, divided amongst 20 kids for a max of 24 minutes spent focusing on each. And that doesn't take into account all the myriad other distractions and events going on in your average day. For secondary school, assume 1 hour classes, 20 kids each, 7 of them a day. That's 3 minutes for each student in each class, 7 times over. 21 minutes of individual attention, again, not accounting for any distractions or events that interfere in a day. In this system, even at a ratio of 8:1, if you're working with an 8 hour day, that's a full hour of individualized instruction for each kid. And with a lower ratio of kids, the time only increases.

Better use of time.
Fiddly bits of the school day are eliminated. No lining up to go to the bathroom, cafeteria, etc., no class changes and hiking through buildings to find teachers. Misbehaviors of individuals will no longer take up the teacher's time spent with the entire group.

Specialization of Curriculum
Can be tuned to student's ability and interests. No slowing the class down or leaving a speedy student bored while the rest putter onwards.

Diverse socialization
Students are exposed to interactions with kids and adults of different ages. Rather than 30-1000 kids within a 4 year age range. Strong learning community. More accountability for students behavior, interests more easily directed to positive topics.

Teacher Improvement
By helping kids discover and explore the topics they are most interested in, teachers also gain diverse knowledge bases. Each teacher is able to assist students in learning any topic, rather than students waiting on a teacher to tell them something about a topic. Students will also discover that each teacher has a different approach and knowledge of each subject, rather than being limited only to their own assigned teacher for a given subject. Students and teachers both will be able to learn in a way that works best for them. Teacher pursuit of interests and display of knowledge/skills is encouraged throughout the entire school.




Organization:
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Students whereabouts: Clock like the Weasley's have?
Students current studies: same sort of clock!

Idea Bank: Centrally located electronic file system. Containing things like web-links, scanned worksheets, descriptions of project ideas, photos of past student work/projects on the topic. Cross-referenced with other subjects. Anything related to the topic. Books, stories, newspaper articles.... Anything found that might be useful.

Faculty Traits desired:
varied interests
thirst for knowledge
eager to share/teach
strong skills in at least one area

Student Traits desired/accepted:
thirst for knowledge
curious
willing to take initiative and responsibility for own actions
interested in at least one area

System might work best for students who:
are only interested in one or two subjects/topics
have misbehavior problems at school due to boredom or restlessness
learn faster or slower than the rest of their age-grouped class.
have other learning styles or abilities that aren't addressed in the traditional public school system.



Accountability:
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Keeping track of what's been learned and what progress has been made.

Daily journal/blog for each subject encountered that day. Thought-provoking responses or questions provided by other students and/or teachers.
Calendar of future goals/questions/desires with expected dates and record keeping of actual dates.
Calendar/history of new knowledge acquired.
Sharing of resources found on a specific topic through collaboration on the Idea Bank.

Library Chicken

Should run around and say nothing but "book book book book"

It's Turtles All the Way Down

I want to make a stuffed turtle whose shell is half the globe.

This idea inspired by:
Hawking's relation of the story in A Briefer History of Time, Ottaviani's rendition in Suspended In Language : Niels Bohr's Life, Discoveries, And The Century He Shaped or Two Fisted Science: Stories About Scientists, I forget which. It's all summed up on wikipedia though.

Bus Stop

I want to open an indoor hanging-out place.

no profit would be made. expenses would be limited to basic operating costs of electricity, rent, etc. non-profit community center of sorts, with -very- extended hours. close up around 130am or so. run for the people, by the people.

would provide tables, chairs, couches, counters, etc. for people to inhabit. maybe an old donated computer or two for people to use. wireless access. display space, meeting space, play space. no dress code, but a "cleanliness" code - don't come in stinkin' up the place. family friendly - places and things for kids. Keep a swap space for donations/give-away stuff - second hand clothes, appliances, whatever for free.

i'm imagining an environ similar in feel to... the cool places. chilled out, mellow... artsy. the sort of places that have a sanctioned graffiti wall.

bring your own snacks, games, drinks, friends. share if you care to.

volunteer staff to enforce basic "rules" - just have to hang out and keep an eye on the place.

Idea inspired by:
(1) an episode of Dharma and Greg where Dharma opens a business that makes no money, but is great fun.
(2) A guest blog post on No Impact Man from just a few days ago.
(3) Community center/library model - a place for people to be that isn't commercial.
(4) art gallery model - it's just a space.

Science Lust

I want to see a gathering of informal photos of famous scientists when they were in their 20s.

This idea brought to you by:  My hot high school physics teacher.  A long-remembered sexy photo of Heisenberg in a science textbook.  My current infatuation with the character of Richard Feynman as presented in: 

The Internet

A U-shaped wall built from cinder-blocks covered individually in shredded books, interspersed periodically with computer monitors. Inside the U, a desk with one monitor, keyboard, mouse, office chair. Bonus points for connecting each of the exterior computer monitors to the interior and allowing control by the operator.

Based on several ideas regarding the internet. Namely (1) the internet simultaneously connects people and provides a safety barrier to actually having to see these people, (2) the internet may one day eliminate the published paper media we're all so used to, (3) anything on the internet may be cobbled together from shreds of other things. Thoughts gathered from or inspired by:

Picnic Dress

I want a long floor-length skirt made from red gingham fabric - the kind that looks like a table cloth. It needs to spread out perfectly round so when one sits, you can then spread out the picnic dress and have a lovely meal atop it. Bonus points for weighting the hem a la Whirling Dervish style.

Inspiration found here.

Modern Dragons

I want to dress up an 18-wheeler as a giant scaly black dragon, using only castoff shredded tires found by the side of the road. Bonus points for keeping it driveable with its costume on and/or keeping the trailer part usable.

Save the Whales Whale Tails

Let's take the current thong showing epidemic



and put it to good use by promoting the welfare of endagered whales.



How about thongs shaped like -real- whale tails with whale-saving slogans upon them?

Coke & the American Figure

I'd like to create and/or see a side by side pictorial time line that includes pictures of (1) the most popular single serving size coke bottle of the time, (2) a typical pin-up girl of the time (preferably in a standing pose), and (3) a typical "average" woman of the time (again, preferably standing).

A line graph of the ounces per bottle over time and the inches of the two female waistlines over time would be a nice addition.

I suspect we'll see coke bottle figures on the pinup models, but the models will shrink as the coke bottle grows. I also suspect the coke bottle figures of the average woman will begin to round out over time and become less coke-bottle-like.

Inspired by reading: