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One of my goals in life is to create a progressive school which focuses on developing apassion for living and self-knowledge in children. Schools nowadays have a rote, one-size-fits-all curriculum, which is conducive to learning for only a small percentage of children. My idealschool would be communication-based, blending aspects of social work, traditional learning,team building, and conflict resolution.

Classes would be limited to fifteen students, a size small enough to allow individual attention

but large enough to furnish the feeling of belonging to a group.

Creative projects would be the fundamental principle, of the curriculum, incorporating all thelife skills that make this method of education unique. The class would be presented with anumber of ideas at the beginning of each project, and would also have the option of coming upwith their own idea. Some examples are raising money to donate to a charity, creating ananthology of short stories to be bound and publishedin a local newspaper, starting a website,writing and recording an original song. Because of the amount of coordination required foreach project, both successes and failures would inevitably spring up along the way, giving thechildren a meaningful experience of what it is like to work on a real-world project. The teacherwould have an important role, psychologically coaching the learner through the highs and lows

of the project and facilitating discussions to make them work better together and motivatethemselves.

Each school day would begin with a half hour of discussion of the project that the class iscurrently pursuing. The rest of the morning would be divided between various academiclessons. However, instead of standard lessons, my school would introduce each subject as auseful part of the real world. Romania and Europe history lessons would be justified byexplaining to kids what their lives would be like if we were a otoman colony. Math lessonswould be justified by having the kids run a school store, or by introducing them to otherpractical uses of numbers.

In addition, academic lessons would be split into two halves. The first half would be a basicskills seminar, and the second an advanced class. Children would be able to choose whetherto stay the second half, or else they could leave to work on their current project, read, orpursue an independent study of another subject. The students who stayed - the secondhalfers - would be known as the students with the greatest passion for the subject.

No grades or competition would exist. Rather, the motivation to work would come from adesire to earn the respect of teachers and fellow students and establish a positive self-identity.Kids would also decide the degree to which they would like to participate. Involvement wouldbe based on interest and the satisfaction of publically confirming their talents.

In contrast to todays system, which anticipates the negative, using poor grades anddisciplinary procedures to discourage students, my school would have positive reinforcementas a basic tenet of its educational philosophy. Kids would be regularly praised for their goodwork, and taught to compliment others. Rather than being trained to avoid the negative,students would actively seek out positivity. For the same reason that a child on a little leagueteam doesnt want to strike out, no child in my school would want to sit back idly and not learn- it wouldnt feel right to him on a personal or a group level.

Each afternoon, creative activities such as art, music, reading, and writing would take place. Aportion of this time would also be dedicated to the current class project. Once per week, kids

would spend the entire afternoon in Talking Time, where they openly discuss their feelingsabout any issue, personal or school-related. These sessions would help to build relationships,foster the discussion of difficult issues, and congeal the class as a team. In the larger picture,Talking Time would help kids to become communicative rather than internalizing their issues,helping them to become happier adults.

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In accordance with this policy of positivity and openness, disputes between children would beresolved through a conflict resolution process. The skills of compromising and understandinganother persons point of view would be instilled in children from early grades. Kids wouldopenly discuss their disputes in front of the class. In this way, positive attention would comenot just from doing good things, but from correcting bad things. The only behavior that wouldnot be tolerated in my school is bullying.

If these ideas could be successfully implemented, the learning environment in my schoolwould be a fascinating self-journey, as useful for building emotional knowledge as it would befor sharpening academic skills. Learning would be a fulfilling, exciting experience, and kidswouldnt have to dread school, as they do now. Most importantly, when my learner graduated,they would have a firmly-instated sense of purpose that would make them better prepared forlife.

How could these ideas ever work? Very simply -through the flexibility of young minds.