Great AMA, I had no idea something like this existed.
I'm genuinely curious how your school works. I think i've read all the answers, but some things still boggle me.
1) You say you only have 3 staff for 60 students. I assume in a day atleast half the students don't require the staff for that day. But say I wanted to learn something, would I just sit around till a staff member frees up to answer my question? This seems like a more annoying system than when I used to go to group tutoring classes, where more than half the time I was there was spent waiting for the tutor to come around so they could answer my question before I could move on.
2) If your parents have no real say or provide you a push with what to learn, how does one form an interest in what to study? I know you like theatre, but for subject areas like economics or philosophy, how would a student randomly just decide to learn it unless they had some sort of exposure to it earlier? Since you guys don't have science experiments in class like the baking soda volcano one, I just don't see how young kids will even think of fields out there without some form of introduction.
3) How do labs work? like for physics. It seems like kids who want to go into say engineering, would be at a disadvantage grasping content if they didn't have labs. I mean sure, your staff could maybe provide you with a video tape but it isn't the same as actually doing it and learning concepts.
4)For subject areas like philosophy that depend on writing essays to further your thought, how would a student at your school (I'm thinking high school age here) go about doing that? Would they tell their staff that they would like to write a philosophy essay, staff says ok, and then hand it in? Without a background in philosophy, I don't believe the staff can truly "help" or offer constructive criticism. So how would that work? I don't suppose your staff are super geniuses and encompass expertise in everything...
5) What does the fees go to exactly? $7500 x 60 = $450,000. 3 staff with say salaries of ~$70,000 ($210,000). is the rest just building maintenance? I don't really get where the funds are going since you say your library isn't good, you have no resources to run labs, no organized sports.
6) students who want to pursue athleticism. Without organized sports how do they go about learning it if they can't play it? These students probably can't join provincial tournaments and such right? and you say if there aren't enough students interested, sports can't happen. wouldn't that be frustrating for someone who really want to play soccer but just can't because no one is interested?
7) has anyone ever requested to learn something that was denied? Seems like a waste of tuition if a student's ideas are shot down half the time. I'm thinking specifically if someone wanted to learn something like woodworking. Who would teach that? Would the student have to pay further money to bring in their own power tools, wood etc to take part in this? Or would the school happily provide these sources? How does requests happen? I imagine it go something like "Mr.____, I want to learn wood working." and the staff either says yes, or no..or puts it up to vote if they can provide resources for this one student.
8) Will a class happen if there's only one student interested in something? For example, if I wanted to spend every single day learning biology (I'm in bio) encompassing ALL the material taught in public school, and say I bring in a textbook, how would that work? There has to be more to this school than just self-study/read-this-text-book-all-day. I don't believe a student studying all the content on their own (and really, a staff learning "with them" isn't the same as an expert teaching you EVERYDAY)
I realize this is a lot of questions, i can see some benefits in your schooling but otherwise I can't help but feel like a lot of self directed learning can't be happening as they claim it to be, unless it wins majority vote or something. Hope you can answer my questions!
skipitydoodah2 karma
Great AMA, I had no idea something like this existed. I'm genuinely curious how your school works. I think i've read all the answers, but some things still boggle me.
1) You say you only have 3 staff for 60 students. I assume in a day atleast half the students don't require the staff for that day. But say I wanted to learn something, would I just sit around till a staff member frees up to answer my question? This seems like a more annoying system than when I used to go to group tutoring classes, where more than half the time I was there was spent waiting for the tutor to come around so they could answer my question before I could move on.
2) If your parents have no real say or provide you a push with what to learn, how does one form an interest in what to study? I know you like theatre, but for subject areas like economics or philosophy, how would a student randomly just decide to learn it unless they had some sort of exposure to it earlier? Since you guys don't have science experiments in class like the baking soda volcano one, I just don't see how young kids will even think of fields out there without some form of introduction.
3) How do labs work? like for physics. It seems like kids who want to go into say engineering, would be at a disadvantage grasping content if they didn't have labs. I mean sure, your staff could maybe provide you with a video tape but it isn't the same as actually doing it and learning concepts.
4)For subject areas like philosophy that depend on writing essays to further your thought, how would a student at your school (I'm thinking high school age here) go about doing that? Would they tell their staff that they would like to write a philosophy essay, staff says ok, and then hand it in? Without a background in philosophy, I don't believe the staff can truly "help" or offer constructive criticism. So how would that work? I don't suppose your staff are super geniuses and encompass expertise in everything...
5) What does the fees go to exactly? $7500 x 60 = $450,000. 3 staff with say salaries of ~$70,000 ($210,000). is the rest just building maintenance? I don't really get where the funds are going since you say your library isn't good, you have no resources to run labs, no organized sports.
6) students who want to pursue athleticism. Without organized sports how do they go about learning it if they can't play it? These students probably can't join provincial tournaments and such right? and you say if there aren't enough students interested, sports can't happen. wouldn't that be frustrating for someone who really want to play soccer but just can't because no one is interested?
7) has anyone ever requested to learn something that was denied? Seems like a waste of tuition if a student's ideas are shot down half the time. I'm thinking specifically if someone wanted to learn something like woodworking. Who would teach that? Would the student have to pay further money to bring in their own power tools, wood etc to take part in this? Or would the school happily provide these sources? How does requests happen? I imagine it go something like "Mr.____, I want to learn wood working." and the staff either says yes, or no..or puts it up to vote if they can provide resources for this one student.
8) Will a class happen if there's only one student interested in something? For example, if I wanted to spend every single day learning biology (I'm in bio) encompassing ALL the material taught in public school, and say I bring in a textbook, how would that work? There has to be more to this school than just self-study/read-this-text-book-all-day. I don't believe a student studying all the content on their own (and really, a staff learning "with them" isn't the same as an expert teaching you EVERYDAY)
I realize this is a lot of questions, i can see some benefits in your schooling but otherwise I can't help but feel like a lot of self directed learning can't be happening as they claim it to be, unless it wins majority vote or something. Hope you can answer my questions!
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