Thanks, Glen. Great questions. Having taught for 40 years (at a state university), my sense is that the struggle is how to get the less motivated 75% of the class to commit.
-- Russ Abbott Professor Emeritus, Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles On Fri, Oct 29, 2021 at 8:47 AM uǝlƃ ☤>$ <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote: > I'm a bit surprised nobody has replied to this. I can't contribute much, > being ill-suited to formal education. But that raises a point. If we divide > causation into 2 types, which I'll call "push" and "pull", structuring a > school like what you seem to be doing will require canalization. Your > purpose is to put in place a (complex) estuary, as it were, that balances > the student's natural pull (desire, curiosity, etc.) against some set of > heuristics you want to push, to instill ... the topology of the estuary. > > There are similar schools in various places, I suppose mostly liberal arts > schools. And, in my travels, I've run across people who have *still* not > found a path through the tangled canals that were "pushed", no matter how > accommodating. Similarly, I've found people (like a couple of old roommates > at aTm) who simply want someone to tell them what to learn so they can move > on, get a job, have kids, and retire. > > So ... admittedly having only barely guessed at your plans ... how do you > plan to balance the push and pull? Must all your students be super > go-getters? Or will you plan to knead the lazy and shiftless ones, too? > Will you use classifiers like Myers-Briggs to route some into the arts and > some into STEM canals? Or rely exclusively on implicit self-classification? > And since you plan to facilitate both poor and wealthy students, how do you > plan to handle some in-group/tribal influences like the draw some of our > poor get towards gang membership or even working the family farm? > > > On 10/27/21 11:25 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote: > > The public education system in South Africa is largely broken. For those > who can afford it, we have very good schools, but the majority cannot and > the education options for them are bleak. > > > > I plan to do something about it. > > > > This is my second attempt. About three years ago I started a school as a > proof of concept with a radical model to have very high quality yet very > low cost education and it failed miserably. (I managed to make plans for > the kids and I don't believe any suffered from the experience - I pulled > the plug before too much harm was done). I've thought, and discussed it a > lot, and I'm ready to roll out my second, very different attempt. > > > > The basis of this is that there are plenty of resources available for > free, and provided you manage the environment properly, kids can and will > teach themselves. > > > > My plan is a model with two legs, both legs offering very high quality > education, but the first leg is relatively expensive and has "bells and > whistles" to attract the wealthy and the second is bare bones to make it > affordable for those kids whose parents can't pay. > > > > The profit from first leg schools then cross-subsidise the costs of the > second leg schools. > > > > The concept for both legs are copied from https://www.khanlabschool.org/ > <https://www.khanlabschool.org/> , adapted for local conditions of > course. The second leg schools will just be a low cost version, but the > education offered will still be world class. > > > > Our academic year starts in January. I'm working flat out to have my > first school of the first leg open in January 2022. Then to have the first > school of the second leg open in January 2023. Then to learn from the > experience, adapt and roll it out so that every child in South Africa has > access to world class education in five years time. > > > -- > "Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie." > ☤>$ uǝlƃ > > > .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: > 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >
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