
Durham Pathfinder Free-School: Self-Directed Learning - jadell
https://indyweek.com/news/longform/durham-pathfinder-community-school-free-school-self-directed-learning/
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jasaloo
Can someone help me out here... this is _not_ a charter school, correct?

"Indeed, half of Pathfinder’s inaugural class was previously homeschooled,
Wilder says.

Legally, they still are. Despite its name, Pathfinder isn’t actually a school.
It’s not accredited and doesn’t have a state license, which means it doesn’t
have to abide by state laws on mandatory attendance and testing. It doesn’t
award grades, nor will it give out diplomas should it take on high-school-age
students. (It will help them create portfolios as part of their college-
application process.) Instead, it’s a “homeschooling resource center,” a place
that offers homeschoolers opportunities to socialize and learn in a small-
scale, customizable environment. "

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piokoch
I am really interested in the new schooling trends although I don't find
"traditional school" as something intrinsically bad (typically, everything
depends on people who work at school and parents being ready to cooperate with
teachers and with each other). So I made an effort to go through that long
elaboration and here is my 2 cents.

The claim that current school system "is based on a system that was developed
over a hundred years ago to prepare people to be Prussian soldiers" sounds
strange. Maybe that was the case in Prussia, but there is quite a lot of
countries that didn't have particular reason to follow the Prussian way of
education.

Another important thing. This school is not a school. "Pathfinder isn’t
actually a school. It’s not accredited and doesn’t have a state license".
Legally kids that attend this school are homeschooled so all the
responsibility for passing legally required tests lays on their parents. It is
hard to say how much work parents has to put into actual pupils preparation
and what are results as compared to traditional schools.

This schools is also a private, paid school. The price and ability to pre-
selects (recruit) kids automatically filers out many "problematic" kids.
Public school system does not have such luxury, they need a system that will
provide some way of dealing also with kids having various background
(including aggressive, non-cooperating kids with parents with the same
attitude).

It is easy to have "open" education and "free" collaboration without any
"Prussian discipline" when all kids are smart and well behaving and you have
parents that take active part in the education process.

"Consider that every county in America has standing armies of professionals
paid to teach children how to read. Then consider that Sudbury Valley has no
reading instruction whatsoever, yet its graduates all leave campus perfectly
literate." The question is what would happen if they got kids with dyslexia,
serious problems with concentration, luck of support at home, etc. Wouldn't
they need someone from that "army of professionals" to actually figure out how
to deal with such kid?

Next it seems this kind of schools fail often "Wilder says. Sudbury schools
have a high failure rate. So, too, did the previous generation of free schools
that arose in the sixties and seventies, characterized by their “brief life
spans and the often loosely defined nature of their educational practices,” as
one study put it.".

Apparently something is not working that well, although their approach sounds
very cool and people behind that particular schools seems to be passionate
about what they are doing.

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EL_Loco
>Public school system does not have such luxury

This is a very important point. Private schools can simple expell troublesome
students. At the public school one of my kids goes to, there's a 10 year old
who sometimes gets very agressive and lunges at teachers, punching and
kicking. The teachers are female, and not much bigger than him. The school is
the only one in this district (small town), they can't send him to another
town unless transportation is provided for. If it was a private school, he
would have been expelled on the first or second episode.

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em-bee
right, the problem with most experimental schools is that they are not trying
to provide education for everyone. until a school model attempts to scale and
reach the general population without being selective we won't know if that
model is really going to work.

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jl2718
Anybody want to do this in Silicon Valley?

I was fairly obsessed with this concept in high school and college and then it
got me in so much trouble that I dropped it. My idea is to have parents each
spend a day or two a month at the school ‘teaching’ which would mean just
showing what they do, or what interests them, or reading to them, or just
talking to the kids about anything. This is really what I think kids need,
perspective from a lot of ‘real’ adults. I think it’s possible for about
$1500/mo, no profit no salary, and only because I have a volunteer with the
right certifications, but I think it’s worth it.

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emilecantin
My kids are homeschooled, and there is a very big self-directed learning
movement in the homeschooling community.

What people outside the community often forget is that kids are inherently
curious, and can actually do TONS of learning on their own. Learning a
language is a huge undertaking, yet every kid below the age of 3 manages to do
it without any special teaching.

Self-directed learning is just the extension of that, but for some reason it
scares people. It's nice to see that it's gaining a little traction in
"schools", even if it's still technically homeschooling.

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andrei_says_
Curious, do you have an opinion on unschooling (leaving kids’ learning to
their curiosity and then letting them prepare for college when they choose to)

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76348930
Does anyone have any insights what it is like to work as a software developer
in RTP? What are the public school systems like in that area?

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CuriouslyC
Decent area, incomes are good by non bay-area standards, and the cost of
living is extremely low. There are a lot of software jobs but most of them are
unexciting. Traffic isn't too bad as long as you work and live in the same
general part of RTP. The food is decent if you are into barbecue and southern
hipster, but the ethnic options besides Indian are a bit weak. There's a lot
happening but if you're into fringe stuff it's a bit slow.

Don't have kids but people who do have told me Raleigh and Chapel Hill have
decent school districts but Durham should be avoided. Ironically I think
Durham is the most interesting part of the RTP area.

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patwolf
+1 that Durham is the most interesting part of the RTP. Having lived in
Durham, Raleigh, Cary, Morrisville, and Chapel Hill over the years, I liked
Durham the best. But like a lot of cities, gentrification is causing a lot of
social and cultural upheaval in Durham and the surrounding suburbs.

