No Classrooms Building Plan?

If I said CTK was going to an Educational Model where there were no classrooms and students work on their own, you might think I was crazy.  One of the newest schools in Sweden is just like that.  Dr. Bernard Bull of Concordia University Wisconsin, a personal friend and mentor, shared this article on his Facebook page.

This school was built to foster "curiosity and creativity."  They use collaboration zones and small conference areas (called houses) to help the student become an independent learner and life-long learners.  To top off not having any classrooms there are no letter grades and students are grouped by level not age.  You would think this is a type of private education with high tuition costs, guess again.  Students attend for free as long as parents pay taxes to Sweden.

This school uses Project Based Learning, here is a short post about Shift to PBL (I will write more about PBL at a later date),  to make sure students are meeting the standards put in place.  Sweden is looking to their neighbors, Finland, to see what is working.  Finland is rated as having the best schools according to the PISA studies.  PISA, Programme for International Student Assessment, compares 15-year-olds' reading, mathematics and science abilities.  What Finland does and Sweden is copying is more teacher training, and lots of special-needs teaching.  But, as a whole, Sweden is not there yet.  Sweden's orthodoxy for education has been, since the 1970's, competition and grades destroyed a child's motivation.  Kids are just passed along.  Sweden's independent schools (like charter schools here is the US) are changing the look of education.  A Burger King "Have it Your Way" type of education.

What does this mean for CTK?

No we are not knocking walls down.  We are, however, knocking down the belief that students only learn in the classroom.  Inside the 4 walled rooms which we call classrooms, we are starting to use social media and technology as a tool to engage students and help them understand the importance of learning and help them become life-long learners.


PS. I will be keeping track on how this school works and what the outcomes are.

Here are a few photos from the new school in Sweden (see article for more pictures)