Friday, May 4, 2012

Development of an Idea (or My Brain Won't Ever Shut Up)

Read, read, read. Research, research, research. SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING! PROJECT APPROACH! UNSCHOOLING! I can't send my kids to a crappy school while immersing myself in these amazing educational ideas here at home. Can I even go work for a school district again, when I'm rapidly losing faith in the model?

I will homeschool. I guess I'll continue to provide childcare to earn a living?

Read, read, read. Research, research, research. Or ... I could open a preschool, right here in my house! REGGIO EMILIA and MONTESSORI inspired for early childhood education!

Read, read, read. Research, research, research. YOU CAN START YOUR OWN CHARTER SCHOOL IN NYS???

How do you open a school for unschooling?

Public school for unschooling? Look no further! THEY'RE ALREADY DOING IT! With locations in Western New York!

Oh. It's for high school. I want to do elementary school.

I need a network of people.

I hate developing networks of people. I like ideas. I want to be the idea person. I want someone else to be the people person.

Read, read, read. Research, research, research. YOU CAN GET PAID FOR BEING THE IDEA PERSON!? *SWOON*

Okay, I want to be an infopreneur. My idea is to take unschooling principles and make them work in elementary school. This could happen in one of two ways: we can take what they're doing in high schools like these ones, and bring them down to the elementary school level, OR we can take the approaches used in early childhood education, like these, and bring them up to the elementary school level.

So: homeschooler-->infopreneur-->open a charter school. Then who knows, because I would send my kids to this school, and then I'll either have to get a job there, or figure out a new life plan. :)

Assuming I don't have a WHOLE NEW idea next week, how the hell do I go about making THIS happen?

6 comments:

  1. What a swirl! I have no idea how to make it happen, but I know I'd send my girls to your school.

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    1. Thanks Em! I'd love to send my kids to my school too, if I could get it off the ground in time. Or if I don't whirlwind into 20 new plans in the next month! :)

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  2. This is exactly how I felt when I first started thinking about homeschooling. There is no end to the fun and excitement that goes into learning about and putting together the perfect way for your children to learn the world. It truly makes me giddy!

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    1. Giddy is the perfect word for it! And it just seems like there will always be more to learn, which will probably be exhausting sometimes, but just seems exciting from this vantage point!

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  3. Yes! Do it! I don't know how to do it, but I know you'll figure it out! Bea goes to a home-based Reggio preschool. The people who run it were in other lines of work, but then they had kids and decided this was a way for them to make money and stay home with the kids. I know that it has been a challenge for them in many ways, but what emerged is a great school and a lot of happy kids. You can totally do this!

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    1. That's fascinating! Esp that they were in other fields beforehand! What age group does Bea's preschool serve? I actually DO know how to open a preschool in my house. I've done that research and it's surprisingly easy. If I keep it to under 3 hours a day, I just have to ... do it! No paperwork with the state or anything (obvs I have to pay taxes, but that's it).

      The charter school, on the other hand, is a grant through the state. I would need a whole team of people to commit to that if we had any chances of winning it. I'm impatient, I think is my problem. Too many ideas, and I want them all NOW! Need to slow it down and make some sense of them all!

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