How To Start You Own School

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At any rate, often a very difficult context for a search gets built up pretty fast.

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And there will be candidates. There are hundreds of good people advertising through New Schools Exchange and the Teacher Drop-Out Center out of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Good people, looking for a more together life: "We're into graphics, organic gardening, wool dying, and biology. We'll work for what ever you can pay. Prefer a country place in California . . . " Human, hoping for their needs to be fulfilled, seeking community, a vehicle for making a break with their lives.

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Here's some ideas towards making it less awkward.

Don't worry about your children's relationship to the teacher so much. You may be the problem. Your kids are probably masters at dealing with bad teachers. Unless you choose so badly that you get a bully or real mind-freaking artist, relax about the kids and try and get in touch with what you're feeling.

Get clear, yourself, and as a group, about what you really want. Don't expect teachers, especially the soft flowing people working out a new culture for themselves, to resolve differences about life and human nature, learning and discipline, that may exist within your group.

Take time. Self selection is, profoundly, better than any rational or short-term testing method. It takes time: for a person's true pace to come out; for a person to sense others' paces; for fear to drop to its normal level; to get to know people, to know if you feel right to each other, for sharing.

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If you are going to examine prospective teachers, here are some things to consider asking about. Does he or she: view it as a job, or commitment? want parents close, or away? (Consider the degree to which control trips are usually masked and rationalized: the teacher who must block out all parents or helpers "until things are set" usually has extremely impressive reasons for doing so. But it's still a control trip, and that will stand as the most likely "curriculum" for your kids.) What does the candidate expect from parents? (Cleaning up? commitment? real partnership?) Does the prospective teacher need freedom, space, time? Want content—or a child-centered curriculum? What about fights, discipline, keeping schedules?

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Consider: teaching experience, or learning; education, or living. Teachers with verbal skills. And what children really need.

People who can make it with adults. But not with kids.

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