Please remember when I am proposing these ideas, they are for a small-medium sized community. Like most of my ideas, expanding it to a large scale project would make the system collapse. This is not to say that multiple similar sized communitys couldn't impliment these ideas. The classes would most lilely be best described as the way that our college classes are set up now. There will be a small set of required courses and a lot of extra classes that will be available. I just hope that we take our lesson and make more extra than required. Maybe just have a lot of lists of 'take one set out of these five' kinda thing.

For the education of the children in this community, I would like to see a year round Monday, Wednesday, Friday type set up. They would be required to attend school on those days and on Tuesday and Thursday, they would work on some sort of apprenticeship. For the younger children this would most likely mean they would stay home or go to work with their parents to see if they want to follow in their footsteps. For children who think they know what type of buisness they want to be employed by or own, they would go to a similar enterprise. I have had a bit of oposition among my friends when I suggest this type of education. I would like to remind all of you who came to college and had no idea what you wanted to do or have changed majors at least once, that you could have saved yourself some time if you had had experience in an area which you found you didn't like earlier, you could have been spending time with something you enjoyed much more earlier. I'm not looking for slave labor. I'm looking for an apprenticeship type education. The children wouldn't have to shaddow the same person every Tuesday and Thursday for their educational career. They would have the opportunity to work with many different people in the same area or different areas.  They could also spend the time researching an area they are interested in, if there is no similar occupation in the area.

The classrooms would consist of a certified teacher and a parent or community volunteer (since the class they will be sitting in on would only be an hour or so every other day, this shouldn't be a big hamper in their schedule). I hate the idea of grades and a grading system. I was one of those gifted and tallented kids in school, just because I could decypher a standardized test. I have many friends who are much more inteligent than I am who recieved worse grades than I. The classrooms would focus on teaching a subject to everyone. The students who grasped the subject easier would help their fellow students with the concept. I don't see this being the same person all of the time. Naturaly we all have our strengths and weekneses. One student would help another with understanding the principles of how a submarine works while the other can help the one with a german asignment. Teaching them at a young age of how to help and when it is appropriate to ask for help will be more of a benefit for them than a 4.0 in any system. Simarilary, I would like to see no formal grades where when a child is 12 then they should be in a specific grade. I don't have a real grasp on how this end could be accomplished other than each student has to complete a level of compitence in each subject. If they pass the subject, they are allowed to the next harder level, if not, they stay there until they understand it. In no way does not understanding one or two subjects hold them back from learning the next level for other subjects though. Unfortunately there will have to be some sort of standardized way of telling the compitence for each subject, but that doesn't mean that it would have to be strictly a test that determines it. Evaluations and essays or presentations could also show compitence.

Additionaly, the theatrical and arts literacy in this country is terrible. I am ashaimed to admit that most of the time I can't name a classical song that is playing, or even it's composer, heck some days I have a hard time pinpointing the period!!! The same is true of most of the other forms of artwork; theater, sculptures, paintings, architecture (I'm a little better here about the periods, but not much), the list goes on. I don't have time while I'm jumping through the hoops of trying to get a degree, or earlier, a diploma to be able to divote some time to learning much more than the basics. Yes, this is classical music, and that is country. I would like to set up some sort of group membership to art centers in the surounding areas and offer another type of class. Each week, more or less, the class would get together to study some theatrical work then go see it, or study an artist and see a show that a museum is sponsoring on them. Read some literature that is not as common on the list of literature that is studied in school, compare and contrast them, try to figure out why those books aren't on the list while others are. Read the books that are on the list of must read books that aren't required for the children to read, or the adults never got around to. Basicaly, the schools don't have the time to teach the history of the arts, the community and inhabitants should make it priority to study the past. Repeat what was good about it, and avoid what was bad.

Continued education should be high on any community's list of important things. It's a shame that the generation before mine are generaly scared of the computer if they don't have to deal with them at work, and still scared to touch them outside of what they are required to know for work. The teaching of new technology shouldn't be entirely for those who can't afford it. As a general rule, most of the people my age are either trying to bust their rear in a full time job to stay afloat or are studying at some university, and can't afford much after tuition and books.  We and the people younger than us are the ones who are given the greatest training on the technological advances. For some reason it is assumed that the older people have gotten their degree, they will be able to figure out whatever they need to know on their own from now on. Not true. They should be given scholorships and grants too. I have seen so many scholarships and grants that specify highschool senior only, or a certian grade level (freshman, sophmore...) only. I haven't seen ANY that specify that the money be awarded to someone who is taking a few refresher courses to catch up on the latest advances in a certian area, or are trying to broaden their knowlege by taking a language class. With the grade level assignment, they are restricting money to full time students only, or at least ones who are trying to attain a degree. Children may be our future, but adults are our present. The are the ones who have to take care of it to hand off to the children later. If they mess it up, the children won't do anything but try to correct the wrongs instead of making new rights.

If you have any comments on this page or any other of my ideas, please write me. I also encourage; other ideas, spelling corrections, punctuation corrections and grammar corrections. Comments and ideas will be posted here with any aditional remarks by myself.  I will withhold all names unless otherwise specified, however, the names will be posted on the list of contributors.