Educational Strength

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Educational Strength

This is Providence Elementary School, a public school in Huntsville, Alabama, which is where I was born and raised. These principles of educational strength, the conditions that ensue, and the tools that support the conditions can all work in public schools, in private schools, and in unconventional schools that do not fit neatly into the US public or private school models. These principles, conditions, and tools do not replace what schools are already doing well; they are things that are usually missing which should be added to the educational experience.

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Title Principles

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Incremental Growth

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Neighborhood Schools

Build neighborhood schools again. Do this and many children can walk to school, reducing school traffic & eliminating the need for land-wasting stack lanes. This is Providence Elementary School again. DPZCoDESIGN is the planner of Providence. In the design charrette we met the Huntsville city school board; their first comment was "where are the stack lanes? We need 10 acres." I said "you don't need stack lanes." "That's impossible." "What if I showed you how it works?" They looked at me like I was crazy. I said "there's a school not far from here with no stack lanes; you might have heard of it. It's called Huntsville High School." Because HHS is embedded in a neighborhood, parents stack on neighborhood streets which are empty that time of day. Stack lanes are a huge waste of land, and are only used for 30 minutes/day on school days, so they're empty about 99% of the year, during which time the only thing they're doing is soaking up the sun's heat and elevating the temperature of everything around them.
A couple rules for neighborhood schools: 1. The school should be on the edge of the neighborhood, otherwise it creates a huge "pedestrian shadow," discouraging people from walking all the way around. 2. Sport fields should be open for neighbors to use outside of school hours.

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Principle

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Title Conditions

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Condition

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Condition

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Condition

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Education Tools

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Marketplace of Skills

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Marketplace of Ideas

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Heritage Skills Schools

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Tool

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Tool

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Tool

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Tales & Tools

These ideas support the Educational Strength foundation of the Original Green. The Tales are on Original Green Stories, while the Tools are in Original Green Resources. Several of these ideas support other foundations as well, so you'll see them listed wherever appropriate.