According to my view, any one who would be good at anything must practise that thing from his youth upwards, both in sport and earnest, in its several branches: for example, he who is to be a good builder, should play at building children's houses; he who is to be a good husbandman, at tilling the ground; and those who have the care of their education should provide them when young with mimic tools. They should learn beforehand the knowledge which they will afterwards require for their art. For example, the future carpenter should learn to measure or apply the line in play; and the future warrior should learn riding, or some other exercise, for amusement, and the teacher should endeavour to direct the children's inclinations and pleasures, by the help of amusements, to their final aim in life. The most important part of education is right training in the nursery. The soul of the child in his play should be guided to the love of that sort of excellence in which when he grows up to manhood he will have to be perfected.

- Plato, Laws; 360 B.C. -

In the summer of 2008, Roger Schank attended a meeting in Vail, Colorado, run by the Charter School Growth Fund. (You can read the report of that meeting.) The attendees were divided into groups. These groups addressed the question of what learning should look like in the future. Each group issued a report of its ideas. The group of which Roger Schank was a part issued this report (available here).

The main point of the report is that school should be replaced by learning centers that are devoted to activities that children would like to learn to do.  In the spirit of that report, Socratic Arts and Engines for Education have decided to open the first set of these learning centers.

We are calling them Alternative Learning Places (ALPs).

Each ALP will be focused in some way. They will all be different. The first one will be focused on 5-6 year old boys who are interested in vehicles, construction, computers, and many similar activities. All of these activities will be used as a vehicle for improvement in the basic cognitive learning skills of diagnosis, description, planning, causation and so on that are discussed in Schank’s new book, a preview of which can be downloaded from www.RogerSchank.com.

Twelve boys will meet with one teacher in a rented room in various locations. These locations will be determined by demand and are likely to be in places where the private schools are expensive and the public schools are unattractive learning places. The curriculum they will study is entirely project-based. Each project starts by reading about what they will do and planning out how to do it. They will make budgets and assign jobs to each student. They will plan the time and materials needed. They will build things that 6 year old boys like to build.  They figure out how and where to purchase supplies. They will build various things and then have races or contests using what they have built. If they build an airplane they will try to fly it in the park. Then they build robots and compete with their robot against others student’s robots. The teacher does not teach them what to do; she simply points them towards materials and makes sure they stay focused.

When they are finished, they will present what they have done to another group of boys working on the same stuff in another city. They compare their results and then criticize, in writing, what the other class has done. They try again and try to improve. They write a newsletter about what they did. Later, they make a movie about what they did. They write the script as soon as they are able to do that. Later, they plan a trip to visit the other groups in Florida or Chicago or wherever they are. They make friends with the other kids in other cities and create Facebook pages about their activities so they can see how they compare to the other group. They teach each other and learn about the place that the others live. Eventually they plan a trip to visit the other kids.

We have no financial support for building the first grade ALP ( it is simply too weird for standard funders). Nevertheless we have been contacted by many people who want to run one in their own part of the world. If you wish to volunteer to help us we will guide you in the process of building a piece of the curriculum (hopefully in an area in which you are an expert.) We offer you the use of the final product (that is, the entire first grade) for your use. We are happy to teach you (by learning by doing with mentoring, of course) how to build this sort of thing so that we all can make use of it.

They will learn and play sports in nearby parks and make up, write, video, and tell stories as well. They will learn some activities while using a foreign language. It will be fun, not stressful. No tests. No workbooks. No homework. No sense of a classroom in any way. But we will use directed activities. This is not a place which each kid does what he wants. The idea is sign up kids who would be attracted by the planned activities.

There will a board of prestigious academics to advise the group. We are signing them up now.

Write to Roger Schank if you have a child that you wish to enroll or have an interest in starting one of the ALPs.

Learn more about the cognitive skills the ALPs will be designed to improve:

Restructuring First Grade: Part 1: Theory (.doc)

Restructuring First Grade: Part 2: The Engineering ALP curriculum (.doc)

 

The First Grade Activities (currently planned for the engineering ALP)

Robot building
Airplane building
Bridge Building
Kite Flying
City Planning
Food Preparation
Map Drawing
Football, Basketball, Soccer, and Baseball
Newsletter Writing
Computer Use
Diagnosis of Illness and Treatment
Orchestra
Spanish language
Movie Making
Trip Planning