Each week…
- Watch and work with 16 videos at Khan Academy.
- Read two books.
- Write one essay.
- Do something new.
…year round.
What if this were your kids’ school curriculum? Let’s work out what this actually would mean.
Fifteen Khan Academy videos would take about half an hour to actually watch each day. Add more time for practice if they need it. But since there are only 2,000 videos available right now, if they watched four each day, they could finish all of them in about two and half years.
Then they’d repeat it. Once. Maybe twice, faster each time. The academy will add more videos by then, but the point is they can still get a good base for what they need with just these, especially if they focused mostly on the math and science videos.
Two books is a lot of reading for the average Joe, but that’s just the point. It would work out to about 100 books per year, which could quickly surpass most people’s lifetime reading count.
You could prescribe a certain number of required books, classics or whatever. Also, you might slowly require more non-fiction in the lineup if it doesn’t happen naturally (in the beginning, though, allow pretty much anything).
One essay a week would grow up with your children. In the beginning, it might be three sentences. Then three paragraphs. Over time, work that up to a 1,000-word minimum, about 250 a day.
At that pace, your kids would each write 50,000 words a year, enough to fill a short novel (175 pages). Post it on a blog. Make it public, or at least make it seem that way even if no one reads the blog.
Something new… now that might be tricky, at first. Most people don’t do a whole lot of new things on a regular basis. But did you notice I planned the rest of the school week around a four day schedule? That’s so the fifth day is completely open for doing this new thing.
- Visit a new park in your city.
- Meet a new person in the neighborhood.
- Make a new craft in the bathtub.
- Play a new game in the yard.
- Call a new friend on the phone.
- Start a new business online.
Get out and do new things.
How would this turn out?
Would kids realize they can finish a week’s work in a day? Would they actually do that? Or would they try to game it even more by working like crazy for a couple months and then take the rest of the year off? Or would they do the opposite, procrastinating until the end?
Would they realize they can write a book in a year, do it, and try to get published? Or would they forget publishers altogether and try to hawk their wares online?
Would they cheat by asking google for answers? Could they? Would getting the answers straight from friends online count? Or would that be encouraged? For that matter, what answers are they trying to find?
Would kids work on real problems, not made up junk that, when solved, makes no difference in the world?
Would kids figure out what they want to do sooner? Or would they just do it sooner?
Would hate learning or learn to love it?
Would it teach anyone anything?
Would that even matter?
Sometimes, I like to dream.
