Once More With Love: Going Back to Schooligan

It is hard to educate people. Some do not like it, some fear it, some doubt it, some find it impossible, some oppose it. And some simply could not get or find or enjoy the very grace and glory of it. But many would return to school in a moment. So here’s an idea for those who miss school and want to do it right.

Schooligan would be an after-school program for any-age grown-ups. You get to go to school again, now that you have yourself somewhat in hand. The grades from 1-12 are done again. One at a time. Courses are designed by the best to be the essential course. 

Let the classes be held at the high school, middle school, or grade school during the week, after 6 pm, in the actual classrooms. The teachers might be actual teachers from that grade, and there will be training and manuals. The idea is to re-enact each grade year, for grown students: progressions and regressions, horrors and thrills, pleasure and pain, meaning and little meaning.

I wish I coulda, I wish I had — I wish simply that it had been different. Schooligan is to do the obvious, to do the abstract, to do the dull, to listen and learn. To start language from the very beginning, to spell, to write, to make a paragraph. To start math from the first numbers, to see the contractions, to hear pi, to see relations, to see shapes.

The first grades will go quickly, but intensely. There will be little time for anything but attention. By grade 5, there will be several teachers and separate courses within the evening. And there will be homework — for study, not for grades. Assuming the classes are once a week, then grades 6-12 will likely each take a full month.

It will be important to offer specific concentrations for each field. English literature, for example will be offered in each grade as a specific — such as four weeks of Grade 7 English, one month. Then the next month, grade 8, and so forth. There would be specific history sessions — the World Wars, the Louisiana Purchase, China Trade, history of Mexico. Schooligan will attract some senior teachers to return for a short time.

And, like high school, there would be Home Ec and Music, how to make a pie and the magic of Mozart, on a Tuesday early evening. You will need a review board, to ensure that the classes are accurate and done well. There are many who are very capable and, for limited times, would love to help.

Some areas, like mathematics, have their own histories of attention and attendance. Many wish they simply had followed math more closely. Math would begin at its grade- and middle-school origins  and progress into high school.There are no grades and little pressure and a clearer chance to follow. 

The teachers would come from the community. Perhaps there would be three weeks reviewing the best plays of Shakespeare. Perhaps there might be the history of design in Norway. The framework of high school allows many things to be hung on the coat rack.

For sports, perhaps the Mariners coach could come and review the upcoming season. Perhaps the director at the opera could review the details of the next production. Schooligan is the analog of learning and study, and would form an interesting confluence of people. It is a kind of PBS in real time. It would start as Sesame Street and graduate with a review of food and politics. It would have humor and it would have intent.

“A country that does not want to have the best schools in the world is a fool’s country.”