I'm starting research on a new post. Conceptually it is about seeking alternatives to traditional education that enable more people to educate themselves. I'm thinking adult people at the moment but I will look at anything for anybody at the moment.
Which generates all kinds of questions as to what does an education mean?
Do we mean training?
Do we mean a certain level of intellectual or cultural literacy?
Or is this more that just a verification path that quantifies a certain amount of knowledge that has been sucked up and waiting for the right place to regurgitate what we have been told?
So in order to construct the right questions I have to look at all kinds of education modes and possibilities.
This is David Grant speaking about an alternative school environment for middle school students. It sounds like the kind of school you would have had to drag me from at the end of the day.
I'd want two schools in every district to be like this one in Portland, Maine but under the current funding levels and political hostilities I don't see this evolving anytime soon.
Certainly not in Los Angeles. Dang sure not in Texas. I guess I'm trying to get a bead on what we as individuals and as a nation want in an education.
What I'd love in the way of education right now is for someone to let me audit PhD level courses in the subject(s) of my choice. You can get something along those lines from the web. Here's a pretty good list: http://education-portal.com/articles/Universities_with_the_Best_Free_Online_Courses.html. I'd have to quit blogging, though, to have time for it!
ReplyDeleteNance that is the thing I have a problem with, If I want to study at the Ph.D level why can't I construct that line of study and then arrange for testing/evaluation to see if I've got it straight?
ReplyDeleteI think there has to be alternative pathways to allow folks to educate for enrichment that is on a different path than education for career skills or verifiable knowledge.
Just a thought.