My Perfect School Addendum

Of course, as soon as you send anything off or hit publish, your brain is flooded with all the things you DIDN'T include in the original.

So here are my additions to my perfect school, which I'll add to as things occur to me, so it'll be a "live" post in a way my other ones are not.

My perfect school:

• Will not have security cameras or police, or security. Our staff will be trained how to intervene as necessary with students, because familiar faces are always better than strangers. But the school is designed so things don't get here. Students are taught respect, responsibility, and honor. They tell the truth when asked, and volunteer it as a moral imperative. 
• We will not have lockdown drills. Studies show that school shooters predominantly were bullied, suicidal, felt there was no other way out. So we'll build a school where we head off those issues. Lockdowns operate in a culture of fear, and our school won't be party to that.
• Our dress code will focus on self expression and self respect. Teaching boys and girls to respect who they are, their culture, and their voice. We will not slut shame, or punish children for representing their culture. However, we will have honest conversations about how our culture presents sexual value as a commodity, and we will push back on this.
• As a community, we believe in restorative justice. And we will work both in school, and with resources outside the school so students can see the consequences for behaviors but also the value of second chances.

More to come...

My Perfect School

I have not had a good couple of weeks of school.
For a variety of reasons.
I've thought about quitting in a not-realistic-won't-happen-but-man-this-is-messed-up way.
Because I love my students. And professionals don't quit on whims. And lots of other reasons.
But it's been a couple of weeks where it seems like there is nothing good about the modern, United States school system, so much that is wrong, and broken, and hurts our kids in real and tangible ways.

So this morning, I found myself sitting down with my writer's notebook and imagining what the perfect school looks like. It, funny enough, was not hard. So I share this, not because I suddenly think someone is going to give me land, millions, and free reign, but because, by the time I finished frantically sketching out, I realized that while there was a lot of institutional stuff we can't overcome, there was also a lot we could do, in our classrooms, in our methods.

So, here's the list.
Environment

• Classrooms have large windows. To let light in, because this is important. Walls to classroom are glass, because we shouldn't feel like we're hiding. One wall has bulletin boards, because students should see we value them and their work. Storage shelves below. Opposite wall has whiteboard, for projecting, work, notes. There are no desks per se, preferring movable seminar tables, allowing for flexibility because it's no longer the Industrial Revolution, and we're no longer teaching students how to sit in rows in a factory 12 hours a day. Throw in some bean bag chairs, couches, comfy chairs for reading and working in groups. Plants are good too.
• Each first floor classroom opens to it's own mini patio, with open air seating. Because it's good to be outside.
• The entire campus is a closed system, in and of itself, with walls, not of prison-like isolation, but garden-like safety.
• Science classrooms on the second floor have closed balconies that contain greenhouses, and animals.
• The cafeteria is big, and open, and has huge doors that open to a covered patio, and the fields. Which are not designated sports fields, because we won't have organized sports. We have intramural so kids can play, have fun, work as a team, and learn to lose and recover. But we won't have organized sports because kids are there to learn, not play football, it's unethical to rack up injuries before you're 18 for a sport you'll never play professionally, and school schedules should not be designed around high school sports, which all of them are.

• There are no bells. Because kids can read clocks, classes should end when the teacher can finish a thought, or students can finish up a project, and again, we're not training them to work in factories. There are 10 minutes in between classes, and the cafeteria is open for snacks and drinks, although it's all healthy and there are no vending machines, because obesity and diabetes don't need to be school sponsored diseases.
• Music plays in between class.
• There is a lot of open space, where there are charging stations, shelves to sit and work at, couches. The library on the second floor is open, and airy, and someplace students want to be, and displays student work in a section that functions as a mini museum.

• On the other side of the field, connected by covered walkways, or glass hallways,depending on weather/climate, are more outdoor type classrooms. Here you will find our CTE classes, art, music. They're classrooms have large opening doors in the back, and back up to a parking lot, because this makes deliveries easy.
• We have trees. And flowers. And a vegetable garden. We compost. We recycle. We take pride in our space, and how we contribute to it.

• There are lots of bathrooms, and they are not humiliating stalls, but closed walls. And there are no gender designations.

 

• Students decorate classrooms with formulas, helpful tips, content knowledge. Senior classes give gifts to the school that they fundraise for- murals, books, cultural objects.
• Student voices are heard in decisions.

Education

• Teachers must have a Master's degree, or be working on one, because content knowledge is important.
• Teachers must agree to our school's approach and philosophy.
• New teachers are paired with experienced ones as mentors.
• We are a semester system, with four classes a day, in a workshop length class (roughly 90 minutes). Students take eight classes a year. 
• A concern with semester classes is that students could go a year between math, which depends on prior knowledge. We fix that by getting all the math out of the way in the first couple of years. Unless a student is going to be a mathematician or engineer, or scientist, there's not reason not to. And if they are, we will serve them, but not design a whole system around punishing others.
• Our students take English 9-12. They take pre-algebra (if needed), algebra, geometry, trigonometry. If they want they can take pre-calculus, and calculus. They take state history, world history and US history (both are two semester courses because history is vial). Seniors take civics. They take physics freshman year, because it pairs with algebra. Then chemistry, then biology, because that's the level of difficulty. We also offer anatomy and physiology to upperclassmen. We offer art, ceramics, sculpture. Foreign languages. Music. Foods, woods, welding, financial literacy.
• We don't start until 9a, and we end at 4p. Lunch is an hour so kids can eat and play. We serve breakfast, and afternoon snacks. On Wednesdays, classes are only an hour, because community service is mandatory. 
• We are a year round school, so students do not lose ground.
• Freshman English includes a digital literacy component.
• We're a one to one technology school but not in place of manipulative learning, project learning, and not as a way to encourage screen dependency.
• Seniors take civics to learn how to be good citizens.
• PE teaches students how to set good habits for physical, mental, and sexual health for their lifetime. 
• Our health classes teach sex ed that incorporates LGBTQ+
• We have a psychologist on staff, full time, because being a teenager is hard.
• Our seniors have senior projects that are an exploration and plan for their next steps.
• We do no offer AP. 
• Students their senior year are encouraged to try dual enrollment classes, but it's not a requirement.
• We encourage our juniors and seniors to take morning classes, and get credit earning internships for their afternoons so they can get real world exposure and experience.
• All students take pre-assessments at the beginning of class, and regular assessments at the end of units, so we can move them one way or the other if they need more support or more freedom.
• The staff has established skills for each course, that students track their mastery of. Students can demonstrate mastery in a variety of ways. Students use this tracking to conference with teachers about progress, and final grades. We don't give interim grades.
• We do not give state tests.
• At the end of each marking period the teachers have a work day for grades and conferences. 
• At the end of each marking period we also have a day set aside for field trips because we understand the value of field trips- for cultural exposure, college experience, learning. 
• Teachers teacher 3 out of the 4 periods, and we require common planning, across grades, subjects, and for interdisciplinary work.
• Classes are capped at 20. And teachers never have more than 60 students at a time, because teachers need to know their students. They need to know their strengths, and weaknesses, and how to help them.
• Teachers work 8a to 430p, because even though our school day runs 9a-4p, it's important for teachers to have scheduled time where students can talk to them, and for students to have safe, free time to themselves.
• We push announcements out to students and families.
• We hold afternoon and night classes for our families, to give them the tools they need to live their best lives, and be able to support their students.

• We focus on teaching our students to think critically, form opinions based on facts, discern the best argument, and separate fact from fiction.
• If something is important, we teach it, we make time for it, we do not shuffle it to after school or extracurricular. If our students need to know it, then we cover it, during the school day, to all.

 Community Life

• We encourage our students to be involved in their community, through structured service. This means their school community on Wednesdays, their larger communities with internships and job shadowing, and structured through classes. The Woods class partners with Habitat for Humanity. The art classes bring in local artists. Everyone brings in speakers. The Foods classes help with local food banks and soup kitchens. We believe in well rounded students who see their duty to contribute and give back.
• We encourage all our families to come to school, as elders, as sharers of culture, as storytellers, as experts.
• We strive for a balance of representation in our school staff and students- gender, sexuality, race, cultures.
• We believe that the best way to teach our students how to be good citizens is to model it for them. So we all take part in community service, outreach, partnerships. 
• We are not separate from the communities we teach, so we welcome the voices of our families, our elders, our businesses on how we can better serve our students and benefit us all.
• As much as we bring our communities into our school, we carry our school out to the community, not just through service but also to cultural events, theatre, music, and other enrichments that we think would benefit our students.
• We celebrate cultural holidays and calendar events but not religious ones. We check with our families, and encourage them to take lead on these activities so that they are properly respected, and presented.

So there you go.
The model for the perfect school.
And here's the thing that (hopefully) will tumble around your brain- there is absolutely nothing here that is unobtainable. There is no reason why a school, right now, today, could not be run like this. The technological requirements are not beyond us. Neither is the building set up. Neither is the approach to teaching, or credits, or courses.

What it does require is for people to let go of some hard-held beliefs in how schools should be run.
It requires people to acknowledge and let go of the fact that high school schedules are built around high school athletics.
It requires people to acknowledge and let go of how we assess our students and their learning.
It requires us to acknowledge and let go of the fact that we do not serve our whole students and their physical, and mental, needs.
It requires us to realize that we need to serve our families and communities as well as our students.
It requires us to recognize that how we teach has serious flaws, that are easily fixed if only we try.
It requires us to recognize that we've been failing our students on a grand scale, and that the more pressures they face from society, the wider the gap gets.

So I had a bad couple of weeks.
And certainly, I'm not going to any time soon walk into my perfect school.
But the fact that it's possible. Doable. Attainable. This all gives me hope.