Published
This is Green School - it’s a school here in Bali which was founded by a group of people (generally Silicon Valley types, the guy who ran our tour was ex-EA) who felt that the current education system was failing. The school and it’s curriculum was designed based on current research in the field, and was pretty damned inspiring.
The highlights:
The bulk of the learning is done in topics, not subjects (like in Finland). So they’ll do a Vikings topic and learn history, art, craft, maths and science from that angle. They once had year 4 kids do a bridge building topic and their first exercise was building a bridge across the river…
The rest of the learning is done in proficiency lessons (basically academic practice) to transfer skills from the topic to general use; and block lessons (arts/crafts, sports, entrepreneurship, technology)
There’s a focus on teaching not just rational intelligence (which current schools do 90% of the time), but also emotional intelligence, kinaesthetic intelligence (doing things practically) and inspirational intelligence (basically secular spiritualism)
The whole place is, as you might have guessed, green, and they use each of their green initiatives as teaching opportunities. So they have a rice field, a composting system, solar panels, an aquaponics area etc. All the buildings are built in the local traditional way, and students and parents get involved
There’s a focus on community involvement: the parents set up businesses or initiatives within the school (such as a recycling centre or a raw food place) that the kids help out with, and they learn about how businesses run in the process. All the businesses inside the school are cashless (using a card just for green school), and parents can block their kids from spending money however they like. They have a mix of local kids (who get free education but there’s a wait list) and foreign students who pay for the whole thing to work. There’s a big emphasis on play - the playground pictured is actually a ‘build your own’ playground
If you’re ever in Bali I highly recommend going to one of their open days - it’s really inspiring stuff. https://www.greenschool.org/