Here are my thoughts, assuming unlimited resources and compassion:
1. Focus on ethics, integrity, diversity, and paying it forward.
2. No grade levels. Work to your ability.
3. Collaboration > competition.
4. Focus on teams, speaking, and effective communication.
5. Activities that enhance self-awareness and mental health.
6. Reinforce creative thinking, critical reasoning, abstract reasoning, decision-making, and higher order thinking vs. memorization, rigidity, and checking boxes.
7. Actively seek and celebrate strengths. Acknowledge different intelligence types.
8. Provide hands-on active learning.
9. Interactive vs. passive (discussion over worksheets).
10. Adaptive learning for different styles. Ditch the one size fits all model.
11. Freedom of course selection/creation.
12. Mentorship.
13. Mixed age groups.
14. Focus on emerging tech and trends.
15. Learning beyond teachers – from groups, individuals, and independently.
16. Interactive exercises to identify strengths and improve on weaknesses vs. tests to assign proficiency. Prioritize learning and value over grades.
17. Smaller classrooms.
18. Ditch district-dictated barriers to entry.
19. Emphasize entrepreneurial skills.
20. A global perspective.
