The Best That School Can Be

“The ideas… are extremely simple and should be obvious.  The difficulty lies not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones.” – John Maynard Keyes, 1936

When we started to build the ideal school we asked ourselves “how do children learn best?”  We made this list without consideration for the way schools currently look.  We wanted to break away because we could see, quite obviously, that what ‘is’ in schools is not what ‘should be’.  Big ideas had to re-thought:

• Sorting children by birth date. Who ever said that children learn and grow in a standardized way based on their age?
• Putting our school in a major population centre. This is definitely the most convenient for the adults but how can children connect with nature when it is not outside the door?
• Inviting the community back in to our school and our children back in to the community.  Why were children removed from the mentors in their communities in the first place? (the answer to this, should you research it, will surprise you!)
• Encouraging our students to run their own businesses.  Why should this literacy, learning, and experience be only the domain of the adults?

We also decided on daily physical education, daily outdoor education, and very different approaches to music, French, and the arts.  We invite you to come join the conversation today and help your child escape the ideas of the past.