In fact, with Skype, when the rest of the area schools have a snow day, my students automatically know to log on at 9am, where we meet in audio, I share a plan for the day and gather feedback for their ideas, then they have a few online lessons. I always give them a few “do at home projects” and by 1pm, we’re done with school. I have their completed products in hand so we’ll never have to deal with “make-up days!”

Online teaching is becoming more and more desirable at this time of year.

There’s a movement called “unschooling” that I’ve written about frequently over the months. Do a search of this blog with that term and you’ll find some leads.

Also try a technorati search for “unschooling” and “home schooling.” I recommend Relaxed Homeskool, Life Without School, and Day by Day Discoveries as starters. They’re all blogs by unschoolers.

Also search “Mydlack” in my blog search bar to learn about the Fairhaven Sudbury School approach.

Good luck! Report back!

Clay Burell’s last blog post..Boundaries Blurring, Writing Getting Real at School

1. You should know my feelings on daily forced schooling. When you factor in the time (and resources, financial and environmental) of transportation to and from school, and the opportunity cost of that to student learning time - for students at my school, probably two hours a day - mandatory school attendance in a physical building, when virtual teaching is as easy as this post tries to show, seems another scrap of industrial age schooling ready for the rust belt. I wonder if school days could be reduced to once or twice a week so that learning and other types of development could increase.

But in high school, the students had other classes with teachers that were there, so staying home wouldn’t work on my absent days for them. Elementary school, though? I guess if there’s a parent at home.

3. I love this question. Seems I should be paid, despite being at home, because I did chat with them for the whole class, giving as much one on one time - possibly more - than I do when in the room with them.

Depending on how sick I was, I may have skyped in anyway. But I often sleep through bad flus, so I don’t think that can be counted on.

@Dean, Bill, and Rodd: I don’t want to misrepresent my school as more than it is. Even though we adults see the power and potential, the majority of the students don’t. They’ve been in school too many years to know how to enjoy learning, and to allow themselves to be creative. Plus they think computers means Powerpoint, Word, gaming, and Facebook. To me, the only way this transformation of learning into creative pleasure is going to happen on a large scale is to implement it in the early years, and then train teachers not to squelch it in the later years.

Then there are other squelching pressures: college admissions, the SAT, and AP classes primarily. These inhibit parents, students, and administrators from the freedom to redefine learning as something other than passing tests and regurgitating information. I fantasize some sane philanthropist will pour money and power into campaigning for an end to the reign of the College Board and the SAT. But we know how likely that is.

But my relative freedom to experiment with new ways of learning at my school, with all its resources and administrative support? I guess that’s as ideal as it gets.

Thanks for sharing this…

Rodd Lucier’s last blog post..Excessive Computer Use Harms Learning!?