Saturday, January 10, 2004

Do-It-Yourself School

Joanne Jacobs linked to an article about a do-it-yourself school started by a parent. PTC Elementary is apparently a "parent teacher child cooperative school". I'm fascinated by these kinds of education alternatives -- not quite homeschooling, but radically different than "school" in the usual sense.

A few days later, Joanne posted this reaction to the Macleans cover story about grades, including many interesting reader comments. I sort of feel like both the article and the reaction miss the real points -- most of the material kids are being graded on is irrelevant, and the most common types of assessment don't measure anything resembling real learning.

Brian sounds off about opponents of alternative schooling: "...Instead of 'defining new forms of public schooling', why don't these people just let other people go ahead and do them? Especially when these schools only require 'reduced personnel and facilities'." He also posted some interesting ideas about the amateurization of everything in the internet age.

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