A Different Kind of School

I had a dream last night about a different kind of school. We all remember school. Endless hours hunched over workbooks, textbooks, textbook and now of course netbooks. Lines, rules, regulations, codes, policies, rules, procedures, hierarchy, and of course rules.

This was a different kind of school. There were no long dark narrow hallways reminiscent of hospitals. This school had large airy south facing windows and skylights in every classroom. As I walked around the structure I caught snippets of conversations. The ninth graders were engrossed in a unit on sacred geometry. They were studying the sacred geometry of the pyramids and speculating on whether or not there was contact between the Egyptian pyramid builders and the Mayan Pyramid builders.

The English class was getting a little noisy with their poetry slam so the principal walked down the hallway and quietly closed the door. The students were engaged in a vigorous rap, hip hop and beat poetry competition. Yes kids were excited about English class!

The science teacher was concerned about the ph level of the chicken feed so he sent a student out to the school garden to measure the level. That student recorded the levels and emailed them back on his iphone to the classroom so the class could come up with solutions. Emailing saved a trip back and then she could help the Sustainable Futures class (formerly called Consumer Education) gather eggs for the mid morning school snack.

Another science class was  across town  wiring the solar shingles into the new Habitat for Humanity straw bale home. The home had been built as part of a learning expedition. The Sustainable Economics class had raised the initial funds through an innovative cottage industry program and then invested those funds in environmentally responsible stocks and bonds. After a year, they had enough to start. They sure had to be patient that year! The math class had decided after a consensus session to build the home based on the principles of the Golden Mean. This gave the home a feeling unlike any other. Almost everything in that home came from the local area. The poles to make the framework had been salvaged from a slash pile in a nearby logging operation. The straw bales came from a local farmer.

As I continued walking I noticed things I had never seen in school before (at least no school I had ever seen). The civics class (were they teaching that again?) was extremely nervous about their upcoming test so the teacher was leading them through some breathing exercises and a few sun salutations to help them prepare. Of course one student had to be different and insisted on doing a head stand instead. He wasn't punished but the teacher did insist on a few spotters.

Each week the school had different kinds of music piped over the school wide intercom. The music was sometimes chosen by consensus but at different times of the year there were silly competitions between classes and clubs to determine what music would be played. The FFA (was that back too?) had won the bubble blowing contest this week so the hipsters were suffering good naturedly through Taylor Swift and Merle Haggard.

I found the principal again in the enormous greenhouse that provided both heat and food for the building. She was engaged in a vigorous debate with the permaculture class over whether today was the optimal time to harvest the basil. They wanted to wait three days. She thought the time was now. The students won.

Then I woke up. I never did get to see the rest of that school.

Was it just a dream?