Orphia Nay
Penguilicious Spodmaster., Tagger
If you could design a school, what would you want it to be like?
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If you could design a school, what would you want it to be like?
- Thread starter Orphia Nay
- Start date
What does this even mean? For what ages? For what purpose? And are you talking about physical design, or curriculum, or teacher qualifications, or student-teacher ratios, or what?
Sideroxylon
Featherless biped
As you have astutely observed the question lacks such constants. We might thereby infer an authorial intent of seeking responses that include all, none or more of your own suggestions.
Its not a ******* university essay.
Pretty dumb question though tbf
Sideroxylon
Featherless biped
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.
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.
And all the teachers could have indepth interviews, with students asking little kids "Are you sure you you know what gender you are"
Have you tried wearing a skirt?
Sideroxylon
Featherless biped
Not interested in your sick fantasies.
Porpoise of Life
Illuminator
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Sounds good to me...
BobTheCoward
Banned
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Taxation is theft.
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
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.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Also well ventilated, as it's difficult to pay attention when it's stuffy and hot indoors.
Now that I think about it, optimal HVAC might be one of my top school design priorities.
calebprime
Penultimate Amazing
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flickering as they all turn together instantly in the light, except for the shark which is asleep and swaying in the current on the bottom
Porpoise of Life
Illuminator
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Keep religion out of our utopian schools.
P.J. Denyer
Penultimate Amazing
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Sounds good. Could it also have no need for active shooter drills or corridors designed to reduce line of fire distances?
Well when I was in high school I'd have been pleased if my school had burned to the ground (while empty), so my answer is **** schools. Free soda and joint machines, free notes to get out of class maybe....nah just burn it down.
rjh01
Gentleman of leisure
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.
Relationship skills would be taught, both theory and in practice.
Brainster
Penultimate Amazing
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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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Orphia Nay
Penguilicious Spodmaster., Tagger
I love you, Sidey.
Yay, another supporter of a healthy UBS!
Thanks for taking this up a notch! 
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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Sideroxylon
Featherless biped
That reminds me. Nineteen eighty-four on the reading lists.
I think start with the known knowns. The equations leading back to the singularity of the big soundless event. The kids would be deeply fascinated, then add the layers up to the origin of life, Descartes and what he thought.
Also phonetics and arithmetic.
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
Teachers. A building can't be a school without teachers. They are incredibly undervalued.
Totally agree, but would add "quality" to teachers in an ideal scenario.
Nothing better than an excellent teacher for a kids upbringing, nothing worse than a bad one.
Here both get paid the same. Have to love the unions.
Meadmaker
Guest
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- 29,033
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.
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.
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
Teachers unions aren't the sole blame for bad teachers. I had some extraordinarily dreadful teachers in states where there weren't any teachers unions. The root source of the problem is deeper than unionization.
Cavemonster
Philosopher
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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).
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).
Distracted1
Philosopher
As is property.
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
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.