I Have a Dream.... Of an Interesting School Model

I've been reflecting back on our homeschooling years and the kinds of things my kids would have liked. We joined several homeschool support groups over the years but my kids would have liked more interaction with other homeschooled kids. There is a private school here in the Orlando area with a really interesting school model. The high school kids attend three days a week. The other two days are at home, getting their school work finished. You know, like homeschooling. As the advisor for the dual enrollment program at the community college, I worked with many of these students and even gave a talk about dual enrollment at their school. I liked what I saw.

My idea is to have a school where the lower grades (k - 8) attend two days a week for classes such as science, history and math. I know many parents are not into math (a-hem, myself included) and science experiments and equipment are expensive. My vision is to have the students meet two times a week for English, Math, Science, Social Studies and some sort of PE. The emphasis would be placed on Science, Math and with an integrative approach to History and English. Most of the writing, reading, quizzes etc. would be done at home. The experiments, math and the connection between English and history would be explored at the school.

The same would be true for the high school students with an extra day per week for things like debate, theater, music, sports, art, foreign language, student government and clubs. The students would still do much of their reading, writing and math problems at home.

As an unschooling family you may wonder, what the heck? Bear with me though. My goal is for the classes to be hands-on. Math? Hands-on? YES! Have you ever looked at the FULL set of Math-U-See manipulatives? Have you checked the price? Yeah, me too! My goal would be to use the math time to have the students SEE math, FEEL math and hopefully, understand math! Has your high school student ever had to read Shakespeare? Uh-huh. Know what? Shakespeare was meant to be watched, not read. I see the classes where students can take parts and act out certain scenes to better understand what he was saying. Also, English and history are so closely aligned that I would incorporate the two classes into one. It is hard to understand, say, The Crucible by Arthur Miller without understanding first, the Salem witch trials and secondly McCarthyism. Science. Wow. How many of you just wish you could afford a really professional microscope? Me, too! Science would be hands-on in the school where the parents do not have to clean up. We would have hands-on science with good equipment. Sigh, that would be great!

My school would ALWAYS keep the "umbrella school" model as well where students do not come to the school and do all of the school work at home. I would probably have some sort of a-la-carte, pick and choose classes plan as well.

This is my dream. Too bad money does not grow on trees. Maybe we could learn to grow money trees in science class?