Talks with teachers, and with students

An oral history proposal, a project preliminary to and in conjunction with drumming up support for a new school. Getting in touch with some recent high school and college graduates, talking about crazy stuff they’ve done—me, I’d never do much but read at school, which I know now is hardly typical, so what did they do, and how do they feel about it looking back? How would they change it for their little brothers and sisters? Also talking to teachers, hearing about how they imagined the job before they started, how they could imagine improving it now that they know; and about their own schoolday memories, how nostalgia is tempered by dealing with kids every day, and vice versa.

Imagining, perhaps, a school where all the teachers being old friends, they rely on a different kind of tenure, a different kind of union, a less contrived community, trusting in results without hierarchy. A school where the kids notice things, and can be trusted to ask questions. Where they'll learn to want to learn, for the enjoyment of understanding more than they did before. (It might sound elsewhere like this new school is something for Gifted or otherwise Above Grade Level students—it's for anyone who wants to be there.)

But this, again, is exactly the sort of moonshine I'm always spouting, going traipsing around the trackless places of my own voice. It's this that talking to real teachers and students will help keep me clear of, while bringing the new school closer to reality.

Pat suggested doing a film documentary with it. Maybe later, but first I'll want just audio, Studs Terkel style. Call it, like we've said, To learn to want to learn.