The Alternative Me

Who knew I was an “alternative schooling” kind of gal?  Not me, at least not until I did my Master’s in Education a few years ago.  Did you know the public school system in America started out as a way to reinforce Christian religious teachings from home?  Public schooling i.e. using public funds for Christian purposes didn’t make much sense when more people of different faiths and cultures settled in the U.S.  Since then, the public schooling system pendulum has swung every which way and isn’t resting even now.  The further into my M.Ed. I got, the more I discouraged I became with “regular” public schooling and the more I’ve thought about and looked for alternatives ever since. At the time, I was fascinated with some of the ideas of Summerhill school in England which allows kids to pick what they study and when.  If someone wants to talk with friends all day and never go to class, no one worries about it.  It really is a neat way of learning, if you look into it, BUT it's a boarding school and parents have little to no rights regarding their children and their study habits/pursuits.  So, nope, that won't work for me but it will influence me as I see curriculum being jammed into kids, ready or not.

My favorites are charter schools.  They have the public funding and approval so its affordable for any family, but they get to try out different teaching philosophies (i.e. Plato/Socrates-style, project-based, community-based).   The problem with charter schools, however, is that they can limit the number of students, so the demand is always more than the supply.  That means they do a “lottery” which makes every parent anxious because what do they do if their kid doesn't get in?  Another problem with charter schools is that they are stuck with the philosophy they choose, which doesn’t allow a whole lot of flexibility.  Finally, unless a parent is researching options, many families (especially where English is not the primary language) don’t even know about these charter schools and therefore the school population for charter schools is absent of a lot of diversity and  less advantaged families.

Now that I’m on the parent end as well as a career person in education  (X starts kindergarten next year!) I am looking at lots of options.  So far, I’ve been thrilled to find two schools here.  One is a charter school and the other is a virtual school.  As a parent, I’m worried about safety, convenience, and learning opportunities at the right level.  I found (and applied for) one charter school for X that has 20 students per grade.  They seem to have a more realistic philosophy- working to integrate students as citizens of the community (making sure kids know there is a world outside of the school and how to use it) and helping students of all ages work together as they will do in the workforce. 

The school's reading and math are all done at the same time and students are grouped by ability, not age, for those subjects.  So, yes, technically a 1st grader could be in a group of 7th and 8th graders learning a particular math concept if s/he were at that level.  Most likely, however, the "brilliant" 1st grader would be surrounded by other 1st, 2nd, or 3rd graders working on the same concept .  I also like that Spanish is taught starting in kindergarten. If plenty of research has shown that learning a second language is best done at an early age, then why is the foreign language requirement in jr high and high school instead of in elementary school?  The other thing I like is that P.E. and science are community-based, so thestudents might take the local bus to go skiing or ice skating, or do a paper on a local bug found in the nearby river.  Music and arts are also shared with the community.  I’m crossing my fingers for this school.  Joe has valid concerns.  If X gets ahead of students in a regular public school and we have to move, how do we keep up the intellectual challenge?  Ok, he didn’t really ask it like that, but you get the idea.  Basically, how would the charter schooling transfer if we ended up getting a job somewhere else?  Good point, dear!  I wasn't sure, so, I kept looking and found…K12 virtual academy!  I think this is more of how schools should/will lean toward learning in the future, but we’ll see.

K12 combines homeschooling with online learning and public schooling.  It goes from kindergarten through high school. It has both a virtual public school and a private school option.  The public school option is free, obviously, and even provides a computer if needed and subsidizes internet costs.  Basically, FedEx delivers the entire year’s curriculum, science projects, etc. to your door in 4 or 5 boxes and your kids work through them from home at a somewhat set pace throughout the year.  It may only take them 15 minutes to figure out and complete some assignments but then much longer for others.  Licensed teachers monitor progress and work from their homes during “office hours” to give specific help to students.  The teachers live in the state you are in and there are optional face-to-face meetings with parents and students every month.  K12 students get together and go on lots of fieldtrips as well.  I’m not exactly sure how that works but it sounds interesting.  From what I saw on their website, high school students are allowed to participate in student clubs and have a regular graduation, although graduation looked like there were about six people in the room.  J  The biggest con for K12 that I could see is that it is also a charter school, therefore limiting student numbers, and requires a lottery for students to get in. 

What I think public schools should do is to combine physical schools and teachers with the K12 idea of self-paced online schooling.  I guess what I imagine is that the school sets up computers for students with several teachers monitoring and helping either at their own computer or physically walking around.  Other classrooms would have teachers and areas available for science and other experimental or physical work.  Students would work through the curriculum at their own general pace but also have the advantage of having more social opportunities and a way for families who usually have free or reduced lunches to continue having their kids fed.  Everyone would have recess, lunch, music, arts, P.E., etc. at set times but could easily pick up where they left off on their own specific learning in the online/at home curriculum during the rest of the time. 

So there you have it.  Now that I’ve explained this all, I have to go to work at the regular public school kindergarten and ignore my internal fight with myself that by teaching in the traditional style I am teaching “all wrong”.  J