Module 1 Prompt

If you were to start a school from scratch, what would it look like?  When responding to this consider Papert and discuss how he guided your ideas or how they are different/similar?

I’ve often daydreamed about starting my own school. It typically happens when I am reflecting on change, autonomy, the system, etc. In 2016, I had the opportunity to attend a training at the Ron Clark Academy (RCA) in Atlanta, GA. There, every wall, hallway, and classroom is beautifully painted and themed. A two-story slide allows educators to take the slide instead of the stairs. The entire staff’s presence is contagious and energetic. The lessons are interactive and engaging. It’s a bridge between an amusement park and a museum, and it’s wildly mesmerizing.

If I were to start a school, I’d want to recreate that same energy. I left that day super excited to implement all that I had learned to the best capacity that I could. As I think back to my time there and after reading Papert’s thoughts, I know in the school I could start, I would want equitable access to technology, disruption of the status quo, teacher and student autonomy, and the pursuit of creativity and personalized experiences.

First, I would want students to have access to various forms of technology. At RCA, in math class, students played an awesome arcade-style math game. Papert notes that computers and technology can “[break] down the barriers that traditionally separate the preletterate from the letterate, the concrete from the abstract, the bodily from the disembodied” (Papert, 1993, p. 49). Technology can close so many barriers for our students, and I would want quality technology in a school I started. I also saw first-hand how these barriers can be broken down when we had to do 100% virtual learning. More introverted students had the opportunity to have a voice through digital communicatin systems.

The Ron Clark Academy seems to provide a “megachange” Papert refers to. Their school does not aim to “reduce learning to a series of technical acts” (Papert, 1993, p. 55) by making everything so technical that schooling is controlled through lesson plans and scripted curriculum. In my scratch school, I would want to break from the scripted nature that is being imposted on many educators. The more scripted curriculum becomes, the less I find joy in it. We need a change.

I envision a school that prioritizes less of the technical requirements and the flawed observation systems. Papert’s narrative about the educator who taught an incredible lesson only to be faulted and disciplined for not having a lesson plan (Papert, 1993, p. 60) is frustrating. I agree with Papert in that the system defeats many people in the school community by imposing stringent rules without considering the why behind them. We get boggled down with the rubrics and requirements without focusing enough on the learning that occurs.

Finally, I would not want there to be a “one size fits all” approach in my school I build from scratch. Both at the private Ron Clark Academy and my public school and every school in between, we all have our own sense of what good teaching is. There is not one management style, teaching style, or learning style that encompasses all of us. Papert recommends that “every teacher should be encouraged to go as far as possible toward developing a personal seyle of teaching” (Papert, 1993, p. 63). Learning should be personal, and it should be a co-constructive experience between teacher and learner.

Papert, S. (1993). The children’s machine. New York: Basic books.