Grand Plan vs. Specific School Ideas

Over the past 6 months, I have been writing down thoughts about education and schooling. Since there was no outline prepared before writing, the blog entries took their own direction. Or, so it seems - two distinct directions: One group of entries has to do with specific ideas of how to teach a kid, or a class, or how to run a school. The other group has to do with a grad plan for an education/schooling system, that should be useful for any type of school. There is a bit of a contradiction between discussing the Grand Plan and discussing Specific School Ideas, since one of the premises of the grand plan is that there are many sets of specific school ideas, which are equally valid. From the point of view of the grand plan, specific school ideas have very limited value. Still, they are my ideas, so like them.

I will now put some order into the previous entries by categorizing them as either Grand-Plan-related or Specific-School-Idea… Or somewhere in between.

1. April 11, 2009 - About K12 Education - Grand Plan introduction
2. April 14, 2009 - Bare Necessities: Goals - Grand Plan basics
3. April 15, 2009 - Scope: Education for whom? - Grand Plan scope
4. April 18, 2009 - Bare Necessities: Measurement - Grand Plan basics
5. April 19, 2009 - Bare Necessities?? Research - Grand Plan basics
6. April 20, 2009 - Bare Necessities - A summary - Grand Plan basics
7. April 20, 2009 - The State Of The Art of Education - 2009 - Both Grand Plan and Specific School Ideas - context
8. April 22, 2009 - The roots of the problem - Grand Plan context
9. April 23, 2009 - "It can't be helped" - Grand Plan context
10. April 25, 2009 - I don't have a plan - personal
11. April 26, 2009 - Some old ideas - Specific School Ideas - context
12. April 27, 2009 - Goals - Foundation Layer - Grand Plan foundation
13. April 28, 2009 - Measurement - In Practice - Grand Plan practicalities
14. April 30, 2009 - Finland - How to form a reform - Specific School Ideas - context
15. May 1, 2009 - Primum non nocere - First, do no harm - Grand Plan basics
16. May 5, 2009 - Learning and Meaning - Grand Plan basics
17. May 7, 2009 - Critical Mass of Learning - Specific School Ideas - basics
18. May 8, 2009 - Pedagogic Urgency - Grand Plan basics
19. May 9, 2009 - Teaching and Salesmanship - Grand Plan basics
20. May 10, 2009 - What we can take home from school - Grand Plan basics
21. May 14, 2009 - Hear, See, Do - Grand Plan basics
22. May 15, 2009 - Education and The State - Grand Plan basics
23. May 16, 2009 - Emotional Involvement in Learning - Grand Plan basics
24. May 17, 2009 - Explaining to a six-year-old - Specific School Ideas
25. May 18, 2009 - Customers - Grand Plan practicalities
26. May 21, 2009 - Long Term Results - Grand Plan practicalities
27. May 24, 2009 - Wild Ideas - Student Teachers - Specific School Ideas
28. May 25, 2009 - Experiments? NIMBY! - Grand Plan practicalities
29. May 26, 2009 - Tests and Announcements - Specific School Ideas
30. May 27, 2009 - Learning to Err - Specific School Ideas
31. May 28, 2009 - The Ultimate Knowledge Work - Grand Plan philosophizing
32. May 30, 2009 - The Main Course: Feedback - Grand Plan practicalities
33. May 31, 2009 - For Whom the Test Tolls - Specific School Ideas
34. June 1, 2009 - Wild Ideas - Anarchy - Grand Plan wilderness
35. June 2, 2009 - Mind the Gap - Grand Plan practicalities
36. June 6, 2009 - If We Build It, Will They Come? - Specific School Ideas
37. June 7, 2009 - Research Based - Grand Plan practicalities
38. June 9, 2009 - Teaching Teachers - Grand Plan details
39. June 10, 2009 - Paid Volunteers - Grand Plan practicalities
40. June 17, 2009 - Defining a system - Both Grand Plan and Specific School Ideas - practicalities
41. June 18, 2009 - Ask Around - Grand Plan practicalities
42. June 20, 2009 - Dumbing Down - Grand Plan context
43. June 24, 2009 - Let Kids be Kids - Specific School Ideas
44. July 2, 2009 - Administration Remystified - Grand Plan practicalities
45. July 3, 2009 - Communicate^3 - Grand Plan practicalities
46. July 4, 2009 - Wild Ideas - Distributed Establishment - Grand Plan practicalities
47. July 4, 2009 - Education Market Analysis - Grand Plan practicalities
48. July 5, 2009 - What... Is Your Mission? - Grand Plan mission
49. July 8, 2009 - Mission - The Easy Part - Grand Plan mission
50. July 8, 2009 - Mission - Complicating Factors - Specific School mission
51. July 9, 2009 - Regulation - Grand Plan practicalities
52. July 11, 2009 - KIPP, SIPP and HIPP - Both Grand Plan and Specific School Ideas
53. July 11, 2009 - Example: Technology Oriented Schooling - Grand Plan specific examples
54. July 14, 2009 - Interim Summary - Both Grand Plan and Specific School Ideas
55. July 15, 2009 - The Essence of Time - Grand Plan philosophizing
56. July 18, 2009 - Still No Plan - Both Grand Plan and Specific School Ideas practicalities
57. July 19, 2009 - Example: Art Oriented Schooling - Grand Plan specific examples
58. July 20, 2009 - Centuries 21 and 22 - Grand Plan context
59. July 21, 2009 - Australia - Specific School Ideas - context
60. July 23, 2009 - The Graduate - Grand Plan basics
61. July 24, 2009 - Education System Architecture - Grand Plan basics
62. July 25, 2009 - Information Exposure - Grand Plan context
63. July 27, 2009 - Data Crunching - Specific School Ideas - practicalities
64. July 29, 2009 - Limitations of Data - Specific School Ideas - practicalities
65. July 30, 2009 - Evolution vs. Revolution - Grand Plan basics
66. August 22, 2009 - Creativity - Specific School Ideas
67. September 20, 2009 - Too busy - Grand Plan practical philosophizing
68. September 23, 2009 - Unspecial Education - Grand Plan basics
69. September 23, 2009 - Quotes - Both Grand Plan and Specific School Ideas philosophizing
70. October 7, 2009 - Research and Student Privacy - Grand Plan practicalities
71. October 8, 2009 - Research - Technical Issues - Grand Plan practicalities

The classifications above - Grand Plan or Specific School Ideas - are open to debate. Often the grand ideas stray away from the consensus, and should be demoted to specific-school-ideas. Sometimes specific ideas are actually general enough to qualify as part of the grand plan. Still, the above list gives a good idea of the content of the posts.