Practical solutions

5 Organizing one's studies 5.2 Options Today's education leaves little space for personal preferences. Students might be able to chose between a small number of schools near the area where they live and later the choice of University is only limited by financial reasons. A general direction of studies (for example arts, science or business) can be chosen in most high schools. Yet once a school and a programme is chosen, the possibilities are few. 5.2.1 Teachers No doubt that every student has his own favourite teacher. Many of the teachers I liked during my highschool and university lectures were disliked by my friends and vice versa. A teacher must be cunning in his subject and he must have sufficient skills to be able to talk to a group of people and explain things well. Yet most important of all - since it is not the teacher but the student who has to take action to learn things - is that the teacher is able to wake make the subject interesting to his students and that he does not give them any negative impression so that they do not want to go to his lessons. These are feelings that are caused by highly personalized sets of criteria which can include the talking speed, the dialect and the overall appearance of the teacher. Since there is no 'perfect kind of teacher' that will fit anybody, the only way to provide access to one's individual preferences is to give students a free choice of the teacher they want. This will be done in such a way that once a student ahs decided which module to take, he is able to consult the database to generate a list of all teachers who offer this module in a giver period of time and from that list he can choose to apply for a place in the lectures of which ever teacher he likes most. Since modules often very specified subjects and will not take much time, a student can apply a trial and error method to find out which is the ideal teacher for him for a given subject. Although there are no certain criteria for a good teacher, there will of course always be teachers that are more or less popular than others. For those more popular than others, students will line up to get a place in the lecture and it is the student's choice whether he wants to wait or go on to another module first or even take a place with another teacher. Everybody's choice cannot be granted at all times, yet the reader should agree that this is the best system possible. Concerning those teachers who will find holes in their schedules due to less popularity, they can still do other academic work such as creating question forms for tests and homework and evaluating their respective answer submissions. 5.2.2 Classes Since a fixed group of acquaintances and a professional guardian in a child's free time is already provided in the daycare center, a fixed class and teacher throughout one year is no longer relevant. All individuals will start taking one or a few modules at an age when they are ready to do so and they will remain in that class until they are ready to leave it which will be once they met the target of the module. Ideally a teacher offers a module at a given period of time (roughly the day when it can start) and students will apply for it online until places are filled up (a minimum of students will be required for the module to be offered and a maximum will be allowed to take part; the actual numbers depend on the type of content that is taught such that a discussion class won't exceed a reasonable size and a physics lecture is not for too few students to make use of it effectively) upon which a message will be given out as to when and where the first class is to be and what is to be prepared. Students that the teacher considers ready, can leave the class and go on to another module while the rest will stay on for a while longer. Once the size of the class has reached the minimum, there will be two options: take in new students or let the old students finish the module if the prospects are positive that this can be done in a reasonable period of time. The maximum number of participants in one class should be kept as low as possible. Certain classes on higher levels might be pure lectures with little room for individual questions and it is understood that classes of this level can allow for a relatively large number of students (equal to today's university lectures with up to 500 students at a time) although it might be worth considering to record these lectures and broadcast them on the web so that no time and money need to be wasted on a lecturer every time the module is offered. Yet other classes such as lessons to explain mathematics or discussion groups for language studies or the humanities (history, religion, philosophy etc) will be kept as small as possible to ensure as much individual attention as possible. After all, the teacher is supposed to judge when the student is ready to leave the class and thus must know his level of proficiency personally. Higher degree of individual attention will naturally bring about better results and smaller classes will give students the possibility to change their schedule to a personal preference. If a class of 10 or 15 students can agree on the time and place of the lecture, they can chose to have their history lesson in a café or at somebody's home or where ever they feel most comfortable at what ever time of the day they learn best (you might want to take a class in photography in the morning before and during sunrise or at night for special techniques while a conversation class is best held over teatime when you are in the mood to talk a lot); different environments can be very stimulating for the process of learning. Hence, a class will not be fixed but will always be in motion. Students will have the option to meet new people frequently or they might stick to gangs and apply for the same classes as their friends. Since it presents no organizational problem, a student is always free to leave a class if he doesn't like it for some reason. This system (of leaving a class when ever the target is met) lays the ground for the grading system described later which is based on a pass-only solution. I had some feedback though, where a friend of mine was worried about students who will always be the last to finish every class. She was afraid that they might feel upset about it. But I believe that the same problem is applicable to the old system where students get discouraged if they realize that they always get the bad grades. On top of that, in the old system the grading marks the ending of the learning process; what ever has not been successfully learnt, remains unknown to the student. The new system however, will, if though also showing a difference between students, at least leave them with equal knowledge, regardless of the time they need to acquire it. 5.2.3 Location Not only can a class decide on a specific study environment for each lecture, but all students will also be able to choose in which region or country (once the system is applied on a global scale) they want to learn a specific subject. Even though classes are not always held in schools in classrooms, schools will still exist as a base or homeground for teachers and counselors (who can have their office there and/or at home), as a meeting point for students living in the same region and as place for resources such as free computer service, library, printing and copying service, student's cafés and clubs and the like. In many places it will be practical to combine schools and day care centers (as I mentioned above, daycare centers might be the size of a school rather than the size of a kindergarten). In addition, every school should have a number of rooms of accommodation for students. As students are encouraged to visit other regions, countries and cultures, they will need a place to stay. Once free accommodation (electricity and water included, food or anything else needs to be paid for) for any period of time (be it two days, three weeks or a year) is provided, students are much more likely to take the step of exploring foreign regions. One can visit a two days' history lecture on Pompeii in Italy or a series of French modules summing up to three weeks in France. Even a trip within one's own country can be relevant when visiting museums or the like for certain topics on history or science or even to stay near your friend or relative in another part of the country for a few days or weeks without loosing time from your studies. However, travel needs to be paid by the student (government subsidies will be given on a case to case basis, just like scholarships today) and one must show results (that is, proof that a module is finished) in order to be allowed to stay in a school's room of accommodation. More popular schools will have a greater number of rooms but if there are more applicants than rooms, admission will be based on criteria such as who has been cueing the longest time or for what reason the student wants to stay there and for how long he wants to stay. The size of such rooms will be minimal though. Students are not encouraged to permanently live there as it will only consist of a bed, a desk and a wardrobe (otherwise some might get the idea to move away from their parents at a very young age). Sufficient lighting, an electric power point, a network plug in, a chair and madraisse will be provided, bed sheets and all desk equipment will be brought by the student. Some of the more popular schools where students stay for a few weeks (for example in cities like Paris or Beijing) cooking and washing facilities might be provided. Variations are great from place to place of course, but the main point is to provide easy access to accommodation to encourage students to get to know other places. 5.2.4 Course of study It is understood that there must be modules that are obligatory for everyone, just as primary and secondary school today has the duty of teaching the basic without which one can not survive in our society. Besides that there will be a compulsory number of modules in different categories to be taken. Modules will be (by ease in the database) tagged with category identifiers, one dimension containing content categories (such as whether the module belongs to the field of natural sciences, humanities, fine arts, sports etc; this will roughly correspond to the division in folders described above), the other dimension containing categories of depth of study (how specified or general the module is, counted down from the very top folder) and difficulty of study (a statistic of how long it usually takes students to succeed will generate a module's place on a scale of difficulty). There will be flexibility in terms of a set of rules on what number of modules of one or several specified categories can make up for the lack of a module in another category. Besides taking compulsory modules, a student is free to take any module he likes. There will be age limits (one of the few moment where age does play a role) as to when a certain set of compulsory modules must be finished; only reason why a student cannot take a module is insufficient number of places offered. 5.2.5 Holidays Since every student will have his very own schedule, it is only natural that even holidays will not be the same for all students. Most of us have experienced a traffic jam at the beginning of a school holiday which is one more reason not to let everyone start holidays at the same time. Yet, individuals might want to plan their holidays to fit their schedule to their friends' schedule or to visit someone during off-season (maybe to celebrate a birthday or wedding) and so the best solution is to let everyone choose the time for their holidays, the same way as many office employees can coordinate their holidays. Every student will be given a number of free days (maybe 100 days per year for small kids, 70 days per year for teenagers and 50 days per year for young adults; maybe according to the number of modules taken over period of time…need to be fair though… mixture of as much hols as you need and as much as you deserve.) per year; these can be freely distributed. Thus students can take one day off when ever they need it (sometimes one needs to see a doctor or renew one's passport or simply has a bad day) or they can take a five weeks leave to go abroad on a holiday. 5.1 Modules/moments 5.2 Options 5.4 Counsellors 4 Following a child's growth 6 Grading students 7 Refreshing the system