Even School Can Be

Even School Can be a Place for Learning and Growth.
Initiated by Hanan Yaniv (hyaniv@ucalgary.ca)

This page is not another attempt to dream a utopia. This page is aimed to become a garden for ideas to grow. Ideas of how an everyday school (just your common neighborhood school) becomes a place that all practices in it are serving a common, agreed upon, goal: providing the student an opportunity to become a person. What is our image of "a person" and how are our practices serving that vision will be examined here. No stone should be left unturned.

Every person who stumbles upon this page is invited to contribute.

Let's begin by discussing our vision of "a person".

What type of a person would you like your private children to be?

Here are some of my hopes, please add more:

- Loves to learn - Compassionate - Likes himself (herself) - Glad to accept new stuffs and Challenges - Sociable, helpful & friendly - Courageous - Genuine - appreciates diversity - Empathic (similar to compassionate above) - Honest - Generous - Open-minded (open to new ideas & differences of opinion) - Healthy - Willing to take risks (in a constructive manner) - Humanistic & Socially Conscious (willing to help) - Culturally & Socially Aware (knowledge of all forms of diversity) - Forgiving - Responsible - Empowered & Empowering - Strong-minded (able to independently overcome negative peer pressure) - Respectful - Active - Fun - Well Rounded & Knowledgeable - Curious - Culturally & Socially Aware - Assertive - Ability to Lead - Humble - positive contributer to society - independent - appreciation for the sustainability of nature and a healthy society - collaborator - trustworthy and trusting - daring - heartfelt - opinionated

Please add your own stories or definitions to the above skills as "internal links" once you select a skill in editing mode and click the icon "internal link" it will open a new page with the skill as its title.

Grouping the list into "skills" here is a map of the "people" skills:



And here is a map of "Inner" Skills:



How are these treated in school?

How much of the "curriculum" is devoted to these skills?

What is the proportion between "human" skills to "knowledge" skills in a school day?

If "human" skills are expected to be a by-product of dealing with content, why isn't it the other way around?

What paradoxes lie between our common practices and the above goals?

== Goals Vs. Practice: ==

Loves to learn -

How many people come out from school loving to learn? Some, I gusee... What about the others? Can it be that school, somehow, turning people off?

Why is it? What in every day's practices turns off the light at so many children's eyes?

Is it the fear of failure? What is failure? Why is failure feared?

Isn't failure a powerful way to learn? If so, why is it such a "dirty" word?