I think every
educator has thought of starting their own school. What would your school look
like?
Randy: I have always thought of
starting my own school. I think the biggest area of need right now is in the
middle schools so I would start a middle school. This is where we start to lose
kids, meaning they start to move down a path of dropping out or just becoming
disengaged. I would start an experiential middle school with a variety of
different things available for students. Our area of New Hampshire is rural. I would like to have
the ability to take kids and have them work on a farm for a block of time.
While there the students could be taught the standards and curriculum through
the real world of farming. They would study chemistry, biology, gardening,
mathematics, etc.
At my school I would have the ability to
take field trips often - the ability to put students on a bus and drive down to
Boston to visit
museums at any time. Field trips are critical for pulling in material that you
just can’t teach within the four walls of a classroom. Teaching only within the
classroom walls is not the best way to get the active culture that I would want
in my school.
Randy Wormald is the 2005 Disney High School Teacher of the Year. The above is an excerpt from my book One-on-One With America's Most Inspiring Teachers.
