city as floorplan {deck}

vision

We’re imagining crowded/stressed school buildings start emptying out as people realize options available to pursue interests in the city. As buildings empty, perhaps we restructure existing buildings to facilitate this useful notion of space – not defined by previous stated age groups – buildings could be combinations of – or whatever. (city vision, city sketch up, et al)

[Yaacov Hecht talking education cities at idec 2013 – 5 min video]

[the reoccurring – ish – is to remind us that these are indeed some amazingly cool ideas already out there.. but that these particular examples aren’t as important as the redefining public ed as equity, so that every city is free to choose/be. also note: using city to represent space of eclectic people/resources – not intended as a – versus country or wilderness et al.]:

highschool bldgs: youmedia center and city neighbors high and jeffco open school -ish

middle school bldgs: maker space – ish

elementary bldgs: sudbury, patchwork and brightworks – ish

higher ed: shikshantar/swaraj uni/ lehigh/ bms/minerva -ish

retire\ment communities: all of us.. all of the above

We’d like to restructure at least one elementary, one middle and one highschool. And perhaps youth hostels to get the uni living experience. The whole idea of community owned spaces.

Think – The Met (big picture learning) – gone wild. in the city. as the day. [education cities ness]

Neighborhood hotel/uni (Hamburg) gone wild.  City as uni via CCU’s ecosystem of mentors.

[Again, nothing amazing enough about specific ideas. They are happening all over. Rather than getting hung up on which examples, perhaps we get hyped up about making choice equitable, by redefining school.]

Another great post of the vision – future of ed – world is class.

See deck below for more thinking on this.

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via Paul Goodman http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/goodman.pdf

2. Dispense with the school building for a few classes; provide teachers and use the city itself as the school — its streets, cafeterias, stores, movies, museums, parks and factories. Where feasible, it certainly makes more sense to teach using the real subject matter than to bring an abstraction of the subject matter into the school building as ‘curriculum’. Such a class should probably not exceed ten children for one pedagogue. The idea — it is the model of Athenian education — is not dissimilar to youth-gang work, but not applied to delinquents and not playing to the gang ideology.

3. Along the same lines, but both outside and inside the school building, use appropriate unlicensed adults of the community — the druggist, the storekeeper, and the mechanic — as the proper educators of the young into the grown-up world. By this means we can try to overcome the separation of the young from the grown-up world so characteristic in modern urban life, and to diminish the omnivorous authority of the professional school–people. Certainly it would be a useful and animating experience for the adults. (There is the beginning of such a volunteer programme in the New York and some other systems.)

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John Taylor Gatto proposed a radical solution that would be in alignment with nature, humane treatment of children and a democratic society: Abolish forced public schooling as it is now and establish the entire community as a community learning experience for people of all ages. Children would lead their own learning in a non-compulsory manner. Everyone, from the youngest child to the seniors in nursing homes would be welcomed to facilitate classes, and children and adults can attend – or opt out- at their choosing. Public dollars would be used to fund the necessary supplies and assist mentors of any age or specialty.

If the entire city or town were set up as a learning community for children to explore, apprentice, find resources, collect mentors and to be free to teach, attend or not attend classes, this would be the “educational reform” that would truly heal children and our culture. In open learning communities, children would have all of their bodily, developmental, emotional, social, intellectual and creative needs met. Art galleries, libraries, historical centers, community centers and cafes would all be hubs. Hopefully, diverse businesses would open their doors to be part of the process as well. The now abandoned school buildings would be used as resources and spaces, not as prisons. Anyone would be free to facilitate or attend classes, play in the gym, use the equipment, cook meals, hold meetings, clubs, groups, shows, etc.

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find more at city as school – models

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posted on comment of Peter Sloterdijk‘s youtube video:

I like Alexander’s quote: “…work in piecemeal ways to decentralize the process of learning and enrich it through contact with many places and people all over the city: workshops, teachers at home or walking through the city, professionals willing to take on the young as helpers, older children teaching younger children, museums, youth groups traveling, scholarly seminars, industrial workshops, old people, and so on. Conceive of all these situations as forming the backbone of the learning process; survey all these situations, describe them, and publish them as the city’s “curriculum”; then let students, children, their families and neighborhoods weave together for themselves the situations that comprise their “school” paying as they go with standard vouchers, raised by community tax. Build new educational facilities in a way which extends and enriches this network.”Encounters with and making sense of diversity is key to learning… Learning as a journey of discovery, transforming learners into explorers…

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pdf – city strategies for lifelong learning