The Organic Microsystem Of School Project

The Organic Microsystem Of School Project

Instructions/Descriptions

The Organic Microsystem Of School Project

EDFD 220 FALL 2019: FINAL PROJECT

DESIGN A UTOPIAN SCHOOL that takes its elements from the concepts presented in the readings, videos and PowerPoint slides, and from the schools we have learned about from our small group presentations. The idea is to turn abstract theory into concrete forms of life, which is a creative act. Organize your paper on the template of the “organic microsystem,” as follows:

THE ORGANIC MICROSYSTEM OF SCHOOL

1. SPACE (meeting spaces, pathways, commons, indoor-outdoor connections)
2. TIME (tight or loose, segmentation or flow)
3. GROUPING (large groups, small groups, individuals: variety & flexibility)
4. CURRICULUM (fixed & emergent; who decides & how)
5. PEDAGOGY (variety of group sizes and types of instruction/delivery)
6. TEACHER CULTURE (planning, problem-solving, interaction)
7. ASSESSMENT (judgments of value, success or failure; forms of measurement)
8. GOVERNANCE (how power works, across all actors; levels of agency)
9. MESOSYSTEM (parent & community involvement)

Follow these baseline features in your design:

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1. No graded classrooms. Instead, groups will be organized in HOME BASES, which are spread around the school in various places. Each home base will house 10-15 students, OF VARYING AGES. A teacher/mentor’s office will be part of each home base. It will also include comfortable chairs, a seminar table, individual study carrels for each student, and a snack bar, as well as French Doors to the outside and play-ground. Home Bases are places to relax, plan, study, meet in small groups, meet with one’s mentor, etc.
2. CURRICULUM will be:

Project and/or theme (e.g. “central subject”) based

Emergent: Negotiated between students and teachers

Integrated (inter-disciplinary)

Customized for each individual student, and partially self-paced

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Emphasis On Arts: Music, Dance, Plastic Arts, Video, Literature, Theatre, Crafts

Each student will, with their mentor, develop and maintain an INDIVIDUAL WEEKLY OR MONTHLY PLAN, OR IEP. When they come to school in the morning, they will go to their home base, consult briefly on their IEP with their mentor, and go off to the scheduled activities—meeting with other students (from different home bases) on a project they have signed up for (for example), “Ocean Pollution and How to Fix It”), practicing a play they are working on with another group, going to the language lab, attending a seminar on a certain book or film, serving on the Judicial Committee, harvesting food from the greenhouse, a yoga class, engaging in peer tutoring in math, working on a programmed math module in their study carrel (or somewhere else) or attending a special class for help with a math module; attending the Weekly Meeting, preparing food in the kitchen, just hanging out for an hour, etc. etc. Students will come and go from their home base for these activities. Explain how projects are developed and organized, etc and INCLUDE A DETAILED “DAY IN THE LIFE” OF ONE STUDENT IN THE SCHOOL.

3. PEDAGOGY. Small and large group instruction, peer tutoring, individual tutoring, asynchronous instruction, and independent study. Abundant documentation (continuously changing wall displays, production of self-made books, exhibits and performances)
4. SPACE. The school will include a large greenhouse that connects directly with the main building, a black box theatre, study rooms, library, labs, and studios for art, music, and dance. Pathways will be irregular (i.e not like a prison or factory or office building—more like a hive or a labyrinth). Lots of indoor-outdoor interfaces (a terrace outside each home base, for example), and there will be many both large and small commons, as well as many spaces around the school for sitting and communicating (window niches, an outdoor section to the cafeteria, etc.). Pay special attention to a) the relationship between your building’s inside and outside, AND b) to the way that the spatial configuration of corridors and other interior spaces contribute to how people move through a building and whether they meet or remain apart. c) Create multiple and diverse work and meeting spaces, and be sure to include at least several commons, one very large one and several small ones; d) Create fixed spaces for display of student work all thorough the building; and e) pay attention to the “entry transition”—that is, the transition from street into the building: consider gateways, shifts in in pathway direction, level, surface, light, and view. Think in terms of a variety of gathering spaces—for whole school assembly, large groups, small groups, seminar rooms, consultation rooms, kitchen and multiple dining rooms, café, art studio, shop, recording studio, greenhouses, terraces, adventure playground and black box theatre.
5. ASSESSMENT. Based on the Descriptive Review Process. Also, you can add other forms of mini assessment to your plan–portfolios, individual interviews with children, mastery tests for moving on in specific areas, like math, etc., performances, exhibits and presentations, and regular conferences with mentors and with parents and mentors. Include a general description of the Descriptive Review Process meetings.
6. GOVERNANCE. Direct democratic whole-school governance. Include a description of the governing structure, including Weekly Meeting, Judicial Committee, and other committees (grounds committee, library committee, etc). Describe schedule and responsibilities (e.g. rotation of students in serving on JC) in detail.

OTHER FEATURES:

• No more than 100 students
• Ages 6-12, not age-graded
• At least 10 full-time teachers
• No number or letter grades
• Artist-in-residence on staff
• Co-op status (parents commit two hours a week to the school)
• Students participate in food growing, cooking and serving and in building maintenance

SOURCES FROM THE READINGS:

Here are some suggested texts, videos, charts and slides that may be useful in constructing each section of your school plan. Obviously any text or video or slide can be used in multiple sections of the paper, so these are just associative suggestions. WHERE POSSIBLE, drop some of these references into your narrative, in order to signal the philosophical origins that inform your design.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OF THE SCHOOL: This may be at least in part framed in a critique of the conventional, reproductive model (for example Gatto, Blechman, Dewey), but only for purposes of proposing another model that transforms school into a reconstructive microsystem. Mention the philosophers who elements or dimensions of your plan are inspired by or resemble or are taken from.

Gatto (critique of conventional education)

Miller (reimagining school for a new age)

deMause (empathic childrearing mode)

Blechman (critique of state control)

Bronfrenbrenner (microsystem theory)

Kropotkin (mutual aid)

Patterson (self-actualization)

Fromm (having and being)

Westheimer and Kahne (kinds of citizen)

Dewey (child and curriculum) (the three evils of conventional education)

Freire (problem-posing education)

Lancy (informal education)

Adorno (education for empathy)

Jones (emergent curriculum)

Charts: Two Forms of Order, Child Rearing Models, Curriculum Models, Forms of Control, Temperament Theory

Theory of SKHOLE as presented in slides

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

Alexander, Children’s Home

Chart, Two Forms of Order

Post-Fordist theory

Chart: Curriculum models (how does the space fit the curriculum and visa versa?)

INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL AIMS OF THE SCHOOL

Kropotkin (cooperation vs competition)

Blechman (critical thinker)

Patterson (self actualization)

Fromm (being mode)

Rousseau (natural development)

Westheimer & Kahne (justice oriented citizen)

Adorno (non-authoritarian)

Bronfrenbrenner (school as healthy microsystem)

School as place apart: skhole)

Bellah (for traditional, non-capitalist morality of care)

Robinson video: Changing Education Paradigms

PHILOSOPHY OF CHILDHOOD

Rousseau (the child of nature)

Sorin (the agentic child)

deMause (the empathic mode)

Tomasello (children as cooperative)

Mercoglioni (the self-organizing child)

Carini (the child as active meaning maker)

Chart: Four Child Rearing Modes (the democratic mode)

Pearce (video on play and learning)

Reggio Emilia (the competent child)

PHILOSOPHY OF LEARNING AND TEACHING

Fromm (having and being)

Piaget (Bjorkland)

Mercoglioni video on Self-Organizing Learning

Dewey (child and curriculum match)

Freire (dialogue)

Paul (critical vs didactic)

Reznitskaya (dialogic teaching)

Lancy (informal/holistic learning)

Levine “School of One” (individualization)

Chart: Four Curriculum Models (open framework)

“Blooming and Pruning of Brain Connections” (brain friendly curriculum/school)

Chart: Two Forms of Order (open and closed)

CURRICULUM

Jones (emergent curriculum)

Reggio Emilia (project method)

Levine, School of One (individualized curriculum)

Dewey (child and curriculum)

Chart: Four Curriculum Models (open framework)

Reznitskaya (dialogic teaching)

Paul (didactic versus critical)

ASSESSMENT

Carini (Descriptive Review Process)

GOVERNANCE

Sudbury Valley videos (whole school meeting, judicial committee)

Democratic Schools movement

Fromm (rational authority)

Westheimer & Kahne (all three kinds of citizenship)

Freire (dialogic governance)

Sorin (agentic child)

The Organic Microsystem Of School Project

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