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https://reasonstobecheerful.world/brightworks-california-school-of-the-future/>
"Walking into Brightworks could be a shock for helicopter parents — there are
no rows of desks, no hallway passes and no bells to jolt students from one
class to the next. Instead, the K-12 school is alive with invention, autonomy
and what founder Gever Tulley calls “the energy of a big multi-generational
family household.” In a quiet pocket of San Francisco’s Presidio, just a short
walk from the Golden Gate Bridge, a sandy beach and a winding forest creek, the
three school buildings buzz with purpose and possibility.
The topic this semester is space. In the basement workshops, student Reza
proudly shows off a Mars habitat model; another is designing an alien
restaurant. In the light filled atrium, Bix is writing a screenplay about alien
politics, and Truman discusses his model of Larry Niven’s imagined Ringworld,
giant wheels where humans will hover in their habitat held in place by
centrifugal force. In a transformed room-turned-planetarium, kids recline on
couches pushed to the side, gazing at student-constructed celestial
projections. Others are working on terraforming Venus or sketching Martian
gardens.
“I think it’s arbitrary to form collections of kids that are all exactly the
same age and they only play with the exact same age,” Tulley says. “That seems
very unhealthy to me. It also seems weird about schools that parents drop off
their kids at the perimeter and then are somehow not invited to be in the mix.”
Therefore there are no traditional grades or classes at Brightworks. Students
are grouped into “bands” by interest and maturity, not by age. There are no
teachers — just “collaborators,” and parents are invited to visit and join as
they please.
“It might sound futuristic,” says Tulley, “but the idea is for students to be
intrinsically motivated. They should learn because they want to, not because
someone’s forcing them.”"
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
