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Imagine A School:
A Community School

Imagine a School that Connects Students to
Community, People, and Nature.
Imagine a School that is Sustainable.
40 ways a school could be beneficial to children, society, and nature.

After reading the 40 ways that a school could be beneficial, you can read about the kind of school that potentially can be like this imagined school.

1. A community school is connected with its local community and the local outdoors.  A community school includes a schoolyard with infrastructure (outdoor classrooms) such as an ABC Garden, that connects students to local nature and the community. It unites families, enriches friendships, and supports the environment. The fosters students having sustainable interrelationships with nature in the local community.   A community school is truly a "public school," which is controlled by the public, the parents, and the local community. A community school is not heavily controlled by centralized governments and by capitalism (the global market and excessive corporate powers).

2. A community school has a minimal bureaucracy that is run by local powers, the local society of loved ones (parents, family, friends, and close-knit local community members). The school does not do state standardized testing. The community sets its own sustainable education standards. The school is a sustainable community school that pays attention to communities, people, nature, and the community economy.  (Also see the top 8 goals and success indicators in culture, education, ecology, and economy. A community's goals in culture, education, ecology, and economy need to be the same, otherwise they hinder each other's differing goals. Also, a nation has to support its community's goals.)

3. A community school’s top goals are to nurture each child and to help global society and global nature, by helping the local community and local nature.  The school adapts education to suit each child, the local community, the community economy, and the local outdoors and natural resources.  The school helps each child learn useful and beneficial wisdoms and skills to be a benefit to communities, people, and nature. A community school includes a schoolyard with infrastructure (outdoor classrooms) such as an ABC Garden, that helps students learn about the community, nature, local ecology, local economy, and more. At school, students learn to live self-reliantly, to make their own necessities, to help their local community, to help their local natural resources thrive, and to live sustainably.  Children learn academics in a way that supports the community and nature. Furthermore, a community school's top goals and success indicators of education are the same as the community's economic and ecologic goals and sucess indicators. (See the top 8 goals and success indicators in culture, education, ecology, and economy. ) As community schools help students to develop local small businesses to overcome community poverty and to distribute local organic family-farmed food throughout the community, students are helping to diminish many social, economic, and environmental global chronic disasters (poverty, pollution, etc.).

4. The local community of loved ones (parents, family, friends, and close-knit community members) run the school.  Only the child’s loved ones can properly nurture and appropriately educate a child.  Bureaucracies, strictly-professionals, and strangers are incapable of adequately educating a child because bureaucracies, strictly-professionals, and strangers are incapable of benefiting society and nature.  Only people who are deeply connected to the community, students, and nature can be a benefit to community, students, and nature.  Thus, it is only parents, family, and friends, both children and adults, that can help children to make true connections to society and nature.

5. Generally, a community school is exciting and inspiring because it is connected with family, friends, people of all ages, the functions of the local community, and the great outdoors.  Furthermore, lessons are useful, relevant, and meaningful. A community school has an exciting and inspiring ABC Garden that connects students to the outdoors, community, nature, science, art, ecology, economy, and more. The ABC Garden is the exciting and inspiring infrastructure for exploration education, outdoor education, and nature education.  

6. A community school teaches academic subjects in ways that connect children with the community, the outdoors, local ecology (nature), local economy, and basic and vital human needs (housing, water, food, etc.).  Plus, the academic subjects are taught in unison with each other (language, art, math, social studies, and physical science working together).  Lessons are often interdisciplinary. Furthermore, the academic subjects are taught in ways that are relevant to each children, the local community, community economy, and local outdoors.  The school helps children see how wisdom, skills, actions, and processes directly link to the tangible local society and nature; information is not fragmented and irrelevant academics. A community school teaches interconnected holistic information and skills on how to run a sustainable community economy. 

7. Community schools usually conduct lessons so that learning is a direct, tangible, experiential, and delightful task for many students by providing optimal educational circumstances, such as immersing students in the local community, community economics, and local nature, such as at an ABC Garden. (Also see points 11 and 16.) Sometimes learning about the community is quick and sometimes it is slow and challenging, but it’s always rewarding and worthwhile, instead of stupid busywork and a lot of hardship for nothing. Most of the school day is spent on learning about the community, the outdoors, nature, local economy, community jobs, and sustainability. Less than half the school day is on academics (writing, reading, math). Younger students work 1-on-1 with a mentor for academics - for example: 30 minutes of writing, 30 minutes of reading, and 30-minutes of math.

8. Generally, a community school allows and promotes an education of practical, beneficial, and sustainable wisdoms.  The school is structured to include many opportunities that allow children to be creative active producers, instead of too often having students memorize standardized information and to be passive consumers of trivia.  Thus, students learn how to live and to get materials and make necessities (food, clothes, shelter, tools, art, etc.) in ways that sustain and enrich the local community and local nature, as well as society and nature beyond the community.  The school encourages students to focus on creativity that benefits society and nature.  The school does not distract children with useless bureaucratic routines (such as busywork, artificial successes and failures, boredom, isolation, anti-social behaviors (e.g. anti-community behaviors), and trivia memorization) that forces children to neglect social and environmental problems. The school allows children to get a useful and sustainable community education.  A useful and sustainable community education helps students learn how to live an enriched, healthy, wise, artistic, free, self-reliant, sustainable life and how to run a community economy that benefits both people and nature. A community school provides a community arts education that engages its students in the very important part-time light-manual-labor of working in the community and local soil to be responsible active stewards of the community, people, and nature.

9. At a community school, importance is placed on the uniqueness of each child, the local community, and local nature; and not standardized information or an excessive bureaucracy.  Importance is placed on local independent powers, real concerns (e.g. get every community member out of poverty, distribute local organic food to every community member), local and real places, local times and natural cycles of day and night and seasons, and what is happening for real, to each student and the local community, at the present time.  The school encourages each student to develop his or her unique individual talents and interests to benefit the local community; thus, students thrive.  The school focuses much less on concerns of distant centralized powers, artificial concerns, distant or artificial places, distant times or artificial schedules; thus, students usually do not suffer depression.

10. A community school is focused on wisdoms and skills that are useful and beneficial to students, society, nature, communities, and community economics, and not to trifles and artificial achievements.  The good education of a community school diminishes most poverty in the community in 10-years, and gets everyone in the community enough local organic family-farmed food. A community school is run by people, not a bureaucracy.  Only people, functional communities, and community schools can care about children, communities, nature, and education.  It is not possible for a bureaucracy to care about each child, community, nature, and education.  Bureaucracies (such as in 20th-century style schools) are kept busy obsessing about trifles and artificial achievements (such as report card grades, standardized test scores, graduating students, and getting students into college); thus meanwhile, children, global society and nature, local communities and nature, and education deteriorate. 

11. A community school allows students to explore society and nature, to be engaged in community functions, in indoor and outdoor events, all day long, and to connect with society and nature.   A community school has a schoolyard with an ABC Garden for outdoor education and nature education. The school does not isolate students in a single-purpose building or classroom or closet and prevent students from making connections. Keep students out of buildings designated for only students. Let students explore and learn outdoors, in the schoolyard's infrastructure for learning (outdoor classrooms) of an ABC Garden. Plus, let students learn in multi-purpose buildings where the functions of adults running the community government, economy, and ecology also take place during the school day. Let students participate in the community, not be kept separate from the community (government, economy, ecology, etc.). Learning happens while living, working, playing, directly experiencing, and being actively involved with family, friends, local community, the local outdoors, the local community economy, and locally gathering and growing natural materials to make necessities such as food, clothes, shelter, tools, and art. It’s important for students to play with local natural elements.  Spending lots of time with local nature and playing with local nature helps students learn about nature and how people can use local nature for necessities.  While playing with, living with, and using local natural elements and resources, students gain a value for nature, students learn how nature develops and replenishes itself, and students learn how to protect and sustain nature.  Children automatically and effortlessly learn a vast knowledge about society and nature while being immersed in and directly engaged in the local community, community economy, and nature.  Knowledge of society and nature helps people sustain the environment and natural resources so that people can use the environment and natural resources for social elements such as health, economy (food, clothes, shelter, tools, art, etc.), education, freedom, art, values, family, friendship, fun, inspiration, and etcetera.

12. Because a community school lets students engage with the community and outdoors and connect with the goodness of society and nature, many students are inspired and actively doing beneficial things.   Hence, many students don’t want to participate in the vices of smoking, drinking alcohol, cussing, abusing drugs, and resorting to violence and crime; and many students successfully avoid them.

13. Because a community school lets students connect with society and nature, students want to help society and nature.  Thus, school inspires students to solve problems, global chronic problems, in society and the environment.  A community school helps students to help to diminish poverty in the community and to help to distribute local organic family-farmed food throughout the community. A community school has a schoolyard with an ABC Garden, at which students learn to grow, make, manage, and distribute vital basic stuff (shelter, water, food, etc.) throughout the community, to help to diminish poverty.

14. Because a community school lets students connect with society and nature, many students know a lot of wisdom about the local outdoors.  7, 8, and 9-year-old children, who need to play and connect with nature, are allowed adequate play time and a connection with nature.  Although students learn to read at school, the school will not prevent children from the most important things, such as connecting with the local community, community economy, people, and nature.  Reading is not the most important thing to do; it is more important to connect with the local community, community economy, people, and nature.  Making connections is the first priority; reading is a lesser goal.  Reading may be a useful skill in helping a community and nature; however, reading-for-the-sake-of-reading is not important. 

15. At a community school, reading and academics are useful. The school encourages students to use reading, other academics, and other wisdoms and skills to holistically help local people, the local community, community economy, and local nature.  For each student to be a benefit one's family, to one's local community, to the local community economy, and to local nature is the most important goal in education, not reading and other academics. (Also see the top 8 goals and success indicators in culture, education, ecology, and economy. A community's goals in culture, education, ecology, and economy need to be the same, otherwise they hinder each other's differing goals. Also, a nation has to support its community's goals.) Children need social, economic, and environmental reasons and inspirations in order to eagerly, quickly, easily, and effortlessly learn.  As children have goals to help the local community and nature, many children will eagerly, easily, quickly, and effortlessly learn to read, to gain other academic abilities, and to be proficient with other wisdoms and skills.  To make reading and other academic subjects the first priorities in education, is confusing priorities; to put it figuratively, it’s putting the cart in front of the horse. The pointlessness of reading-for-the-sake-of-reading or doing-academics-for-the-sake-of-doing-academics makes education uninspiring, meaningless, boring, arduous, and painful for many students, and even makes learning impossible for some students. More often, the need to help communities inspires reading and other academics. Less often, reading inspires people to help communities. While reading is prioritized, most people tend to read useless novels. To learn about the community economy and ecology should be the priority of the community's education, ecology, and economy.

16. A community school rejects state standardized testing. The community and local school board sets its own community standards to provide a sustainable community education to help students learn to run a sustainable community economy and to take care of local nature.

17. Each child continues to learn at his or her own pace and learns according to his or her interests in the local community and nature.  Having a direct tangible connection to local nature and the local community, each child sees the vital concerns of society and nature and naturally learns in relation to the concerns of nature and society.  No distant centralized excessive bureaucracy needs to show the child what a community and nature need.  Each child knows what he or she can do and cannot yet do and what his or her own interests are; and by directly observing the child, each child’s loved ones (adult guides) know what the child can do and cannot yet do and what the child's interests are.  At the school, successes are their own rewards and failures are their own penalties.  There is no state testing; there is no required annual state standardized testing to test student skills or to test if schools are teaching according to what the state and federal governments dictate.  State standardized testing is harmful because it narrows and dumbs down education.  (See The Underground History of American Education, by John Taylor Gatto.) Furthermore, state standardized testing is a distraction from important things in life, such as supporting people, the local community, local community economy, and local nature. Each community (including the local school board) needs to set their own sustainable standards and academic standards. (Also see the top 8 goals and success indicators in culture, education, ecology, and economy. A community's goals in culture, education, ecology, and economy need to be the same, otherwise they hinder each other's differing goals. Also, a nation has to support its community's goals.)

18. At a community school, real indicators of achievement are if children are overall happy and healthy, if children and grown-ups are running a local community economy in ways that benefit both people and nature, if the community has local small businesses and jobs that sustain both people and nature, if communities are functional (people work together to run local economy), if poverty is diminishing, and if people and nature are thriving together in a community.  (Also see the top 8 goals and success indicators in culture, education, ecology, and economy. A community's goals in culture, education, ecology, and economy need to be the same, otherwise they hinder each other's differing goals. Also, a nation has to support its community's goals.) Real indicators of achievement are if children and grown-ups are benefitting society and nature and if society and nature are thriving and in good morale: for instance, if depression, obesity, poverty, crime, and greed are rare or diminishing, if health, inspiration, freedom, and sharing are common or increasing, and if habitats, natural resources, air quality, water quality, and soil fertility are improving or sustainably in great condition.  High scores of academic tests and graduating students provide artificial indicators of achievement that students are getting a good education at school.  The true indicators of a good education system include that: poverty is greatly diminishing in the community, most graduates are working at satisfying jobs within local small businesses in the local community, and everyone in the community is getting enough local organic family-farmed food.

19.  A community school encourages teamwork between students and community cooperation between students and adults in the community. A community school encourages students to be friends with classmates, to take turns leading, and to not be bossy towards friends and classmates.  In a community school's schoolyard, at an ABC Garden, students practice community cooperation and doing community jobs related to growing, making, managing, and distributing vital basic stuff (shelter, water, food, etc.). The school sometimes has one adult working with a small group of students (usually one to six students) to give each of them individualized attention.  However, the school does not exclusively use one adult per a group of students.  Frequently, during the school day, there are multiple adults per group of students.  Students get to see adults being friends, working together, taking turns at leading, and not bossing each other around.  Students copy the adult behaviors (such as friendship, teamwork, and sharing leadership) that they see.  A school routine, which almost exclusively has one adult (per class) dictate over a group of students, encourages students to be bossy, and to be bullies and dictators.

20. A community school promotes creative thinking, critical thinking, and unique thinking.  The school wants students to know that there is more than one solution to most problems. The school often has students create unique products: drawings, writing, buildings, makings, etc.  Worksheets of multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank are used sparingly. Excessive usage of worksheets teach student to stop thinking, to stop being creative, and to believe that there is only one correct solution for each problem

21. A community school influences students to act in normal and real social ways.  The school focuses on students learning to be normal healthy social beings, who have deep friendships and genuine conversations.  At the school, students are commonly have regular times to wiggle and move, socialize with friends, and to sit or stand in circles.  Students are permitted time to have deep connections with each other, including by having beneficial conversations about sustaining and enriching the community, people, and nature.  Students usually get to know each other very well.  Even students and teachers usually know each other very well too.  A school, which regularly forces students to stiffly and silently sit in desk rows, influences students to act in artificial social ways and anti-social ways (anti-community ways): students stay estranged from each other, have strained and artificial relationships, and or have shallow conversations.

22. A community school teaches sharing and community cooperation.  The school cheers for students when they share.  Sharing is its own reward in that it feels good to be useful (such as by helping people) and sharing is often reciprocated.  The school teaches students to share local resources with the local community and with wildlife. A community school has a schoolyard with an ABC Garden at which students practice working together to run a fair, sustainable community and local economy. The school teaches that sharing, humility, friendship, and being a benefit to society and nature are the most important things; academics, college, and jobs are lesser concerns.  A school teaches greed if the school primarily and repetitively promotes report card grades, standardized testing, sport trophies, getting into colleges, and having great careers.  The concern of grades, test scores, sport awards, college admission, and careers pressure students to be hyper-competitive, to try to outdo each other, and to be greedy.

23. A community school allows students to freely mix and mingle with people of all ages.  While living and playing with people of all ages, students learn how to work together with a diversity of people.  Learning is hindered at schools that isolate students within groups and classes of their exact peers.

24. A community school structure and schedule is healthy; it supports healthy daily routines.  For instance, the schedule allows children to get a healthy amount of sleep.  The schedule usually includes students gathering, growing, and making nutritious food.  Often, the school allows students the freedom to wiggle as needed.  A school is unhealthy for children if, for instance, the school interrupts sleep, prevents children from getting and making nutritious food, and usually forbids children to wiggle as needed.

25. Students learn a lot of useful and beneficial things at a community school. For instance, students learn useful and beneficial wisdoms and skills to be a benefit to society and nature, by helping the local community, people, and local nature.  In the school, students learn to live self-reliantly, to make their own necessities, to live sustainably, to help their family and local community, to help their local natural resources thrive, and to participate in the community economy and community cooperation.  Students learn academics in a way that connects to and supports the local community, community economy, and nature.  Also, students learn to share, they learn about connections, they learn about their own selves, they learn to think, they learn to be helpful in unique ways, and they learn to cherish other people. In a community school, students learn how to cooperate to reduce the use of fossil fuels and to run a locally-self-sufficient functional community economy. To the contrary, at a horrible school, students mainly learn many adverse things.  For instance, at a horrible school, students learn to be greedy; students learn what it is like to experience boredom; students learn that everything is disconnected; student learn to ignore society and nature; students learn to highly value useless and harmful trifles and trivia; students learn to lose their inner voice; students learn to stop learning; students learn to stop thinking and to mindlessly do whatever “superiors” tell them to do and to mindlessly copy whatever is popular for peers to do; students learn to bully; students learn to be snobby and to despise others; and students learn how to skip class and how to access drugs. In a horrible school, students learn how to cooperate in sports, in globalized business, and in capitalism, but not how to cooperate to reduce the use of fossil fuels and to run a locally-self-sufficient functional community economy.

26. At a community school, teachers get out an equal amount (or more) of what they put in. 

27. A community school encourages teachers to treat their students well.  Thus, teachers look like good people and they often are good people.

28. Many students feel that a community school is useful.  Many high school graduates feel prepared to live in the real world and to get jobs with local small businesses that benefit both people and nature.  Having graduated from the school, many graduates and college students feel that life has purpose (the purpose of helping communities, people, nature, and the community economy) and they are full of inspiration, knowledge, and skills to solve problems, self-reliantly and in community cooperation.

29. Students willingly and eagerly attend a community school.  School lets children learn what they fervently want to know: how to be creative, useful, and a benefit to communities, people, nature, and the community economy.

30. A community school is a welcoming and friendly place for the students.   In general, students feel secure that other students and or teachers will not publicly humiliate them.  Students feel welcome to practice things and to try new things (without being ridiculed). Students feel comfortable at trying new things and making mistakes.

31.a community school nurtures children and helps them to grow healthily and to learn to self-reliantly take healthy care of themselves.

32. In general, the community and community school nurture children to engage in the community and run a community economy in which people and nature thrive together. At a community school and in the community, students learn how to nurture, raise, and teach their own children. 

33. A community school is beneficial to the global society and local community, children, family, friendships, health, economics, education, freedom, art, values, local nature, global environment, natural resources, biodiversity, water quality, air quality, and soil fertility. The school supports children on their quests to learn how to live to sustain and enrich society and nature.

34. A community school reflects its makers: the local society of loved ones (parents, family, and friends).  If the local community values morals, responsibility, sharing, humility, creativity, self-reliance, sustainability, freedom, and being a benefit to society and nature, its students will most likely learn how to be moral, responsible, sharing, humble, creative, self-reliant, sustainable, free, and be a benefit to society and nature.

35. Morals, responsibility, sharing, humility, connections, creativity, self-reliance, sustainability, freedom, using and supporting local resources, and the desire to be a benefit to society and nature are the impetus at the school.  Corporations, jobs, careers, money, commercialism, shopping, report card grades, and test scores do not influence (or have only a minor influence) at the school.  

36. See the top 8 goals and success indicators in culture, education, ecology, and economy. A community's goals in culture, education, ecology, and economy need to be the same, otherwise they hinder each other's differing goals. Also, a nation must support its community's goals.

37. Students need small groups of people, plus a chance to meet others. Small groups help to establish deep relationships. It's useful to meet a variety of people too. The school includes students with quality time of working together within small groups (groups of 2, 4, 6, and 12 people), plus time to meet a variety of other people outside of those small groups.

38. A community school promotes and teaches fairness, equity, justice, sustainability, democracy, and freedom, and not social and economic injustice and disparity, and not tyranny and slavery.  The school that teaches children how to run sustainable local small businesses and a sustainable community economy supports community democracy and freedom from social and economic injustice and inequality.  A school supports democracy and freedom if it teaches students important things, such as how to help to grow and distribute local organic food to everyone in the local community. Schools promote tyranny, slavery, and poverty if they under-value communities, community economies, people, and nature, are obsessed with academics, sports, competition, and high-technology, and are helplessly dependent on the global market, excessive bureaucracies, unsustainability, fossil fuels, distant resources, passive consumption, globalized large corporations, shopping, fragmented information, trivia, trifles (such as report card grades and test scores).

39. A community school is the best that a school can be because it is run by people of the local society, loved ones (parents, family, and friends).  It is not run by a centralized and excessive bureaucracy.  A person or a small group of people can change and adapt school to make it better suited for specific children and the current needs for community and nature.  A person or a small group of people is flexible and can change a school to adapt it to each child and to the local community and local outdoors.  Whereas, it is impossible for an excessive bureaucracy, constrained by state regulations, to change a school for the better. 

40. A community school connects and engages students with basic and vital human needs (community, nature, housing, water, food, etc.), and with social, cultural, economic, and natural elements.  As the school helps children connect with basic and vital human needs, everything will improve to a great condition or sustain a great condition.  Everything connects to everything.  As education is optimal, individuals, society, family, friendships, all social elements (health, economy, freedom, art, values, etc.), culture, and all natural resources and elements (habitats, plants, animals, water, ground, air, etc.) will have the best chance of being optimal.  The school of connections to society and nature is beneficial not only to education, but also to children, families, friendships, society, and nature. 

Links:

ABC Garden
www.z-hub.org/ABCgarden.html

See the top 8 goals and success indicators in culture, education, ecology, and economy. A community's goals in culture, education, ecology, and economy need to be the same, otherwise they hinder each other's differing goals. Also, a nation a has to support its community's goals.

Read the top 8 goals and success indicators in culture, education, ecology, and economy to help communities, people, and nature.

The Imagined School: Homeschooling (and Locally-Run Community Schools)
This Imagined School is only possible through Homeschooling (and Locally-Run Community Schools that do not follow state standardized testing). Only through homeschool is it possible for children to get a completely sustainable education. Homeschooling can benefit children, society, and nature. Homeschooling can connect children, society, and nature together.

Holistic Community Education "Holistic" means not herbal medicines alone, but yes it broadly means whole culture, including economy, education, science, art, the way we live, learn, work, etc.

A Great Life, Great Culture
The lifestyle and culture that supports a sustainable education and homeschooling.

40 ways public school harms children, society, and nature
The problems with public school.

Questions about Civilization and Uncivilization
Explores education and school in civilization and uncivilization.

Southwest Michigan's Sustainable Pursuits
In Southwest Michigan, various examples of how people are trying to improve social, environmental, and school conditions to be a benefit to children, society, and the environment.

Additional Sustainable Pursuits
Various examples of how people of Michigan, USA, and beyond are currently taking action to enrich and sustain nature, society, education, and children.

Nature Connections
Explores many natural resources and habitats that people and society use and enjoy. A sustainable education includes learning how nature connects with society.

100% Totally Sustainable
What it takes to have the optimal conditions in society and nature for people to have a sustainable and superior education.