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#1 |
Penguilicious Spodmaster.
Tagger Join Date: May 2005
Location: Ponylandistan Presidential Palace (above the Spods' stables).
Posts: 38,591
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If you could design a school, what would you want it to be like?
If you could design a school, what would you want it to be like?
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"We stigmatize and send to the margins people who trigger in us the feelings we want to avoid" - Melinda Gates, "The Moment of Lift". |
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#2 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: US of A
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#3 |
Featherless biped
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Aporia
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#4 |
Embarrasingly illiterate
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 19,730
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"I mean, you've got the first sort of mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a story-book, man," Biden said. 2007 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna16911044 |
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#5 |
Featherless biped
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Aporia
Posts: 24,129
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It would be well funded by the government, owned and run by the state. The teachers would be well paid and the classrooms would not be ten-year old temporary buildings. The curriculum, pedagogy and layout would be based on best evidence based understandings. Lunches would be nutritious and free, while catering to diverse dietary needs.
The kids would be indoctrinated into a culture of accepting and embracing diversity and fairness. It would be as PC as all **** with unisex toilets and no uniforms. A right boomer nightmare. And billionaires would pay for it all with their taxes and be happy about it. |
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#6 |
Embarrasingly illiterate
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 19,730
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__________________
"I mean, you've got the first sort of mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a story-book, man," Biden said. 2007 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna16911044 |
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#7 |
Featherless biped
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Aporia
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#8 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Oct 2014
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#9 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Nov 2010
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#10 |
![]() Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Monkey
Posts: 58,942
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Walls, windows, roof, floor. Well-insulated as it's difficult to pay attention when it's freezing cold indoors. Chairs and desks, possibly those combo chairs with a desk on it.
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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#11 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Hong Kong
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#12 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 5,363
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It would predominantly consist of big-eye jacks, tuna and cobia over a reef with squirrelfish and rainbow runners. Around the edge would be yellowtail barracuda and a single white-tip reef shark.
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"The cure for everything is salt water - tears, sweat or the sea." Isak Dinesen |
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#13 |
Penultimate Amazing
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#14 |
Illuminator
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#15 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Aug 2008
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"I know my brain cannot tell me what to think." - Scorpion "Nebulous means Nebulous" - Adam Hills |
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#16 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jan 2003
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Franklin understands certain kickbacks you obtain unfairly are legal liabilities; however, a risky deed's almost never detrimental despite extra external pressures. |
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#17 |
Gentleman of leisure
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Students have to do a huge amount of reading and note taking. This would be done via computers. Most of the work would be self paced. However it would be noted if a student was behind on any one subject. The student / teacher ratio would be high, but they are the best society can provide. The hours would be long, but they would have frequent short breaks. In some of these, physical exercise would be done. In others they would have power naps.
Relationship skills would be taught, both theory and in practice. |
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#18 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 18,162
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I would go for something like the Coursera model, with the best teachers in the world giving video lectures, with autograded quizzes that must be passed at a certain level in order to progress. Kids would not have to attend classes per se, although you would want some group activities to allow for normal socialization--things like art classes or phys ed. Teachers would be more like tutors; available on call to help students who need some assistance with the material, but no longer forced to ride herd over 20-30 rambunctious youngsters at a time.
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My new blog: Recent Reads. 1960s Comic Book Nostalgia Visit the Screw Loose Change blog. |
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#19 |
Penguilicious Spodmaster.
Tagger Join Date: May 2005
Location: Ponylandistan Presidential Palace (above the Spods' stables).
Posts: 38,591
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I love you, Sidey.
![]() ![]() Yay, another supporter of a healthy UBS! ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I love you, Brainster. ![]() ![]() ![]() I’ll spare you all a rambling lecture today involving a Romany gypsy, LPs, a crazy old man who dares to sing in public, and his fearful alcoholic mother, a man sourcing medicinal cannabis crop growers, and telling the local nursery about planting a plum tree in a front yard. |
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"We stigmatize and send to the margins people who trigger in us the feelings we want to avoid" - Melinda Gates, "The Moment of Lift". |
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#20 |
Featherless biped
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#21 |
Philosopher
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#22 |
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Waiting for the pod bay door to open.
Posts: 42,986
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Teachers. A building can't be a school without teachers. They are incredibly undervalued.
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Continually pushing the boundaries of mediocrity. Everything is possible, but not everything is probable. “Perception is real, but the truth is not.” - Imelda Marcos |
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#23 |
Embarrasingly illiterate
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 19,730
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__________________
"I mean, you've got the first sort of mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a story-book, man," Biden said. 2007 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna16911044 |
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#24 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 24,807
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Do I have to be realistic?
Assuming yes, I'm going to go with how I would design a typical public high school. And it would look a lot like a typical public high school, except it would do away with the centuries old lecture/homework model and go with the "reversed" model, in which students watch online lectures for homework, and use their time in class to complete assignments with help from the teachers. This is something like what brainster said, but a little bit closer to a traditional model. Students would still take classes, get grades, and be tested. For certain topics, there would be some traditional classroom style activities, like discussion of history or literature. They would be indoctrinated in a culture that values learning, knowledge, and the scientific method, but not in any other ideology. It would have mandatory athletic participation, somewhat like old fashioned P.E. classes, but with a little bit less team sports than we did back in the day, and more emphasis on health and fitness. |
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#25 |
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Location: Monkey
Posts: 58,942
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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#26 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 6,252
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I could go on and on.
But a good place to start might be looking at how schools get paid for. The town/city property tax model leaves a damned near dystopian level of inequality. Where I live, they carved out the wealthiest chunk of the city some time back as its own tiny "town". Now, that town has the highest income in the immediate area and very good schools. Cross to a block over and the city schools are rated far lower, with many serious problems. When rich people can't form a separate district, they take over schoolboards and whatever other local government they need and slash school spending and taxes to the bone. Then they either send their kids to private school or they prop up the schools in their neighborhood with PTA funding, essentially creating their own funding district. The current model seems to just deepen class divides and stagnation. And because income, location and race/ethnicity have so much correlation, it's statistically the same groups who end up underserved by schools. Of course money isn't the only problem. We're not going to fix schools by only throwing money at them. But those resources are a baseline for success. The ability to attract and retain good teachers. Simple facilities and resources matter. I worked a bit in a title 1 school that didn't even have working water fountains (among many other serious deficits). |
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The weakness of all Utopias is this, ... They first assume that no man will want more than his share, and then are very ingenious in explaining whether his share will be delivered by motorcar or balloon. -G.K. CHESTERTON |
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#27 |
Philosopher
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Location: Philadelphia
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The man with one watch knows what time it is, the man with two watches is never sure. |
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#28 |
![]() Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Monkey
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Amen. My family moved a lot so I went to a bunch of schools in a bunch of states. My parents always tried to get a house in the attendance zone of the good schools, but sometimes they misfired. The most glaring example of stark class difference was my junior high, which included students from the attendance zone of two different high schools. You could tell at a glance which kid in my junior high would be going to the good high school and which the bad. Did the kid have a decent winter coat, new school supplies, and lunch every day? Good high school. Did the kid wear handed down clothes, a duct-taped binder, and no braces? Crap high school.
The good high school had lots of AP classes and high test scores and most of the kids graduated on time and went on to college. The bad high school had low everything except the dropout rate and drug arrests. Which side of the highway their parents could afford a house on made a huge difference to the lives of their kids. |
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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