MINDDRIVE
Where is - Kansas City, USA
Number of students - 50
Type - Community (NGOs) and free
A group of students is gathered in the classroom in the middle of a heated debate. But the lesson here is not math or history - they are trying to adapt a normal car in an ecological and economic model. This is just one of the lessons of this school, called Minddrive, Kansas, USA. In fact, the greatest achievement of the students there is to have developed an electric vehicle capable of running 128 km with the energy equivalent of one liter of fuel. This is not a normal school, of course. The Minddrive actually is a school support for teenagers who do not go well in mainstream education. But its educational method is not as exotic as well. It is all based on epistemic games, a kind of RPG (role playing games), in which students simulate everyday situations and think of solutions to problems that arise. "The challenges that our schools face today are too important to stay isolated. We need to prepare students for the real world," said David Shaffer, pedagogy professor at the University of Wisconsin and head of epistemic games project for use in education. The basic idea of Minddrive is to present a real big challenge to students and under the guidance of an instructor, make sure they find the solutions to this problem. The learning come naturally as a result of the process. In fact, after entering the building, almost all teenagers improved their performance in the traditional school.
Green school
GREEN SCHOOL
Where is - Bali, Indonesia
Number of students - about 370
Type - Private - cost of approximately R $ 2,000 monthly
In this school, everything is natural: the structures are of bamboo and classrooms, open, so that the heat and the Balinese wind can enter. Created by American John Hardy, it is based on the methodology of the British educator Alan Wagstaff, who advocates a way of teaching that connects rational, emotional, physical and spiritual. In practice, this means that knowledge is divided into themes rather than subjects. For example, in elementary school, children learn seven years "counting standards" jumping rope. In another class, the aim is to relate felt ment and the numbers happen! Cement-historical. Thus, students think of dates and numbers and imagine the colors you want. According to the method of teaching, it humanizes the knowledge and, consequently, helps to memorize the facts. The speech may seem a hippie, but Hardy ensures that works. Especially because one of the Green School goals is that their students come out of there ready to open their own businesses - sustainable, preferably. Still in high school, they simulate the creation of a company. And many end up leaving the paper. Rasa Milaknyte, who created his company in 11th grade (junior high school), was one of those cases. "My business is a service: teaching aikido for children five to 12 years," he says.
The school community
MUNICIPAL DESEMBARGADOR AMORIM LIMA SCHOOL
Where is - São Paulo, Brazil
Number of students - 700
Type - Public and free
Everyone can participate in all school Desembargador Amorim Lima. Parents organize parties, students coordinate the debates, the director makes paper guardian. Even the school's Facebook page is updated by parents. There is even a board in which all have power to decide on future directions. "The conquest of the public space must be made by everyone," says the director Ana Elisa Siqueira. Students study in groups of different age groups, spread across large halls - the largest, fit more than 100 students. Part of the school's walls was literally torn: the spaces were formed from the union of the old classrooms, at the end of the 1990s The slate still there, but unused: no lectures in these spaces - just the English, Portuguese and mathematics happen around the blackboard, in smaller rooms. If you enter one of the lounges, are several small clusters of students, and teachers standing, running from one side to the other to meet several calls. Each of the young walks with a research roadmaps book, whose contents carries the topics that can be studied during the year, such as "consumerism", "communication and memory" and "blood and excretion." And guess who chooses where to start and where to end? The students themselves, who are encouraged to be independent.
The school hyperlinks
POLITEIA
Where is - São Paulo, Brazil
Number of students - 18
Type - Private: cost of approximately R $ 1,200 monthly
One of the students developed an interactive game that follows the journey of zombies. Another, a survey of Albert Einstein - during a presentation, he even explained what is the twin paradox, a mental experiment on relativity. Another of the students began research on dogs and stray cats, motivated by his passion for animals. They are all students of the Politeia, a school in São Paulo that leaves students immerse themselves in the topics that interest them. The research lead to unimaginable ways. The example of Joyce Dorea, a 13-year-old who decided to search for abandoned animals, is emblematic: to look into the matter, she discovered that many animals are not just left on the street, but they are also deliberately abused. She then researched it further and came across the following story: a Russian dog named Laika was launched into space on a ship, with a tragic end, as he died during the experiment. The girl was very curious to understand the historical context of that fact and began research on the space race. This issue is directly connected with the Cold War and terms that even then she did not really understand, like "capitalism" and "communism." It was then that the girl found the cartoons of Mafalda and its impregnated thoughts of political considerations - yes, the character became the subject of the latest survey of the young. Joyce's journey is just one example among others in Politeia. It shows the logic of the hyperlink: from one point to another and to another, in an unpredictable way, learning along the way. The development of the research is done with the help of tutors and teachers. "During the research, the teacher must enter the apprentice role, accepting that do not know everything and learning along with the students," says Yvan Gold, one of the tutors.
The high tech school
Vittra
Where is - Sweden
Number of students - 8 500, in more than 30 units
Type - Public and free
When you walk by one of the units of Vittra sees children with computers everywhere. When enrolling, each student receives a latest notebook from the six years. The devices are then used in activities such as project Future City. In it, each student creates an avatar and choose features and abilities that are important to you. Together, the characters create a city, drawing the physical infrastructure and establishing social relations, including the creation of laws and elections. Group activities mix children of different ages and levels of knowledge, and students choose them from their interests. In a lesson on the human body, for example, it is the older children teach the younger - and can use whatever you want for this: books, animations or digital presentations. "Teaching someone is a great way to learn," explains Professor Frida Monsen. "We observed that students give their best when they know that the work is to your colleagues and not just for the teacher," he says.
The most difficult school in the world
Juku And hagwon
Where is - Japan and South Korea
Number of students - Variable
Type - Private - cost of approximately R $ 1,000 to R $ 1.5000 per month (off the value of regular school)
Juku and hagwon are preparatory courses for children who turned fever in Japan and South Korea. In Japan, about 20% of students attending juku already in pre-school, to prepare for the entrance exams elementary school. Yes, children are five or six years doing prep school. After entering the 1st grade, students go to study in another juku, already with the intention to prepare for the high school, and so continue until the entrance exam. Result: much of the children spend ten to 12 hours a day studying. "Once you get home, parents want further study," said Julian Dierkes, the Canadian University of British Columbia, specializing in teaching methodologies Asia. In South Korea, a country with the highest marks in international school tests, the craze is even more extreme. Both turned police case: there are specialized teams to investigate the night cram schools, the hagwon. By law, these spaces can only work up to 22 hours, but for best results, follow with some hagwon classes late into the night. In a recent case, after receiving an anonymous tip, a special police patrol came to an alley in the Gangnam district of Seoul (that of Psy's music). The police identified the address, surrounded the building and found a classroom, where ten students studied. The teacher was arrested and prosecuted. Concerned about the high levels of stress among students, the ministry of education wants to discourage Korean hagwon. It aims to increase the quality of regular classes and change the entry systems in universities, who are going to consider skills tests and interviews, in addition to supercompetitivas notes.
The YouTube school
KHAN ACADEMY
Where is - On the Internet
Number of students - 43 million
Type - Free
In 2004, the United States, a young American named Salman Khan, Indian mother and a father of Bangladesh, wanted to help her cousin, who lived in India, to study mathematics. As was away, he recorded a video lectures and published on Youtube, so that the press could access their explanations. But he did not expect his classes were turning hits. Khan began receiving requests for taped videos of other subjects. Thus arose the Khan Academy, today a worldwide fever. Khan available free on the internet more than 3 200 classes in video and animation. Together, they already have more than 200 million views. Some schools in the US (! And Brazil also) use videos from Khan in the classroom - which points to a subtle and gradual tendency to gradually replace the traditional classroom with blackboard and chalk. "The old model simply does not meet most people's needs," says Salman Khan. "It's a way of learning essentially passive, but the world requires a more active way to process information. And the technology offers that."
The school where the student decides what to do
SAO TOME OF Negrelos (known as the Bridge School)
Where is - Vila das Aves, Portugal
Number of students - 220
Type - Public
The traditional school is based on the idea that learning follows a more or less the same way for everyone. So we have a division into classes by age, standardized curricula and equal evidence for all students. But there are those who disagree: some theories of education understand that each student is unique and should be free to learn. Based on this idea, emerged in Portugal in 1976, the School of the bridge, which is in a village 30 km from Porto. The school has classrooms, does not separate the content disciplines, not demarcates time to start or end an activity. It works like this: teachers present students with a variety of themes. Each chooses a subject that interests you and say you want to work alone or in groups. Everyone shares the school space, scattered tables groups. If you will, can do outdoor activities. "Students generate, almost complete autonomy, times and educational spaces. They choose what they want to study and with whom," said Pacheco, founder of the school, in a recent lecture in Brazil. At the end of each day, there is a kind of general meeting, where students share with colleagues what they learned. When they feel they are prepared to do a test, define when they take the test, individualized for each one, taking into account the list of acquired knowledge. It seems heaven on earth, but not all fit the model. There are those who give up, and end up going back to the traditional system. But the methodology of the Bridge School convinced the Portuguese government, which validates his degree as any other school.
The school for gays
HARVEY MILK HIGH SCHOOL
Where is - New York, USA
Number of students - 110
Type - Public
The Harvey Milk School (which takes the name of the major American political activist of the gay cause, assassinated in 1978) is geared primarily for young homosexuals. Its guidelines say that "the school is open to all students, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation." But in practice, almost all students are openly gay or lesbian. "The school was created for gay teenagers could study without the threat of physical or emotional violence that used to face in the traditional school environment," explained Thomas Krever, executive director of the initiative. For the director, in an environment where they can express themselves freely, students are better able to focus on academics. The institution was criticized for being overly focused on a specific profile of students, especially after being trans formed into a public school in 2002, from receiving government funds. But by school data, the results of the students of Harvey Milk exams are higher than the average New York. There is hard to dispute.
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