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How to organize a school?
Our long-term goal is to help optimize education. In the short term, this means first sharing and refining our ideas and developing concepts, and then putting these concepts into practice and evaluating their efficacy.
We are planning to found a "model school", based on the considerations presented here, some time within the next five years depending on our progress (and our group's growth). This means that, in addition to developing our curriculum and didactical standards, there are two kinds of practical considerations that are relevant to our project:
We are planning to found a "model school", based on the considerations presented here, some time within the next five years depending on our progress (and our group's growth). This means that, in addition to developing our curriculum and didactical standards, there are two kinds of practical considerations that are relevant to our project:
1) General considerations
- School size: Our plan is to start small, with a maximum of 50-70 students. We assume (but are still looking for evidence one way or the other) that it would be preferable from a pedagogical point of view to keep our school from growing much beyond that size. Because our didactical concept focuses on flexibility and individualization, a larger student body would probably exceed the capacities of even the most competent administrators and adversely affect the culture of cooperation that we hope to foster. -- If demand turns out to be high enough, the solution would be to found (or encourage the foundation of) independent branches rather than expand the first school.
- Age group: We intend to start as a school for ~12-16 year-olds for a variety of reasons: First, much of what we want to teach (and how we want to teach) is better suited to teenagers in this age group than to younger children. Second, while there is a rich variety of alternative schools in the primary school sector, there is little in the way of alternatives for this age group (at least in Austria; see below under "Local considerations"). Third, we assume based on our knowledge of developmental psychology (but are still looking for clear evidence one way or the other) that most children undergo a developmental shift around the age of 12-13 and might benefit from a change of school, particularly to a school that places more emphasis on individual autonomy, to complement that shift.
- Staff: We will need a core staff of administrators and full-time coaches (ideally at least 1 for every 10 students), as well as infrastructure and tech support (this could possibly be outsourced). The main function of the coaches will be to provide support and basic structure for self-guided learning, as well as to collaborate on workshops with the external experts. For most of the workshops, we hope to hire professionals from relevant fields on a service-contract basis.
2) Local considerations
- Location: Our group is based in Austria, in and around Vienna. Because of this, our first school will probably be located in Vienna. In time, we intend to found (or encourage the foundation of) independent branches wherever there is sufficient demand.
- Demand: We believe that there is a market for alternative schools in the secondary school sector. Offering a school for the age group of 12-16 year-olds (years 7-10 in the Austrian school system) would be a unique selling point in Austria. Maybe more importantly, most existing alternative schools in Austria are rooted either in religious or esoteric worldviews or in ideological assumptions and pedagogical theories that are at least a century old. We are confident that there is sufficient demand for a secular school using evidence-backed and innovative methods.
- Transition: Ending with year 10 has the benefit of allowing students to either continue for another two years in the public school system and do the final exams ("Matura", doubling as qualification for University) there, or enter into an apprenticeship or any other form of vocational training.
- Curriculum: Another benefit of ending at year 10 is that we do not have to constrain our curriculum to lead into the final exams. Austria has very relaxed laws for private schools, allowing great curricular freedom provided students take external exams at the end of each school year. The requirements for these are very basic and can easily be met given a few weeks of preparation.
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