Naming our Free State School project in Keene

[Kat Kanning]

Liberty Tree Learning Center

[rothamerica]

Thanks Kat.

[BlueLu]

I would rather not see the school limited in that way.? There might be some very worthy instructors who would like to be paid for thier efforts.? But then, maybe it will be up to some others of us to open the for-profit school.....

I don't want to bash anybody's attempt to offer many free classes, on any variety of topics, at the Liberty Tree Learning Center, either.? It is just that I would want instructors to have the flexibility to charge if that is how they wanted to handle it.

Maybe any free-of-charge classes could be cross-advertised with a Free Learning Exchange, as mentioned above, if we continue to have people interested in both outlets.

[Kat Kanning]

Well, anyone could set up a class for profit on whatever subject.  We just wanted to offer a few free classes to give people some knowledge about libertarian ideas and open up a discussion about them.

[jcpliberty]

Well, anyone could set up a class for profit on whatever subject.  We just wanted to offer a few free classes to give people some knowledge about libertarian ideas and open up a discussion about them.

*nods* Good idea.

Jim P.

[jgmaynard]

EXACTLY. Most of the classes would be for profit, with the instructor making a good deal of money for teaching, as long as the room was (or was almost) sold out.
The free classes would just be the propoganda... err... liberty-learning classes.

You know, this MAY give us a chance to break the back of government school opposition to the FSP and fiscal resposibility in school budgets.

Here's why.... Government schools suck up a TREMENDOUS amount of money in administrative costs, really bad insurance contracts, and overhead. We don't.
The school administrators encourage their employees (the teachers) to go out and rally against us at election time (the exit polling of the last municipal election showed this - Shelly and I were tied for first place for city council until 3pm? ).

Suppose we gave the teachers a REALLY good reason to vote for us, instead of working against us? The reason? Money.

The government schools, after all their overhead, only pay teachers around $12/hr. Our teachers can theoretically make 10x that amount of money.

So, in an engagement with the teachers, we can casually mention "Gee, it's really sad that you guys make so little money. I taught one class last week, and made $250 doing it".?

So then what happens is the teachers get into their circles, and the rumor starts spreading... "Hey! Did you HEAR how much teachers are making at the Liberty Tree Learning Center? Man! How come WE aren't making that much?"

So, an organization paying their employees a pittiance tries to tell their employees to rally against an organization whose employees at the same level 10x as much money. They're not going to think of how they can hurt us, they're going to think of how they can get us to let them teach for us.

Letting the news out to teachers about how much better they could do with us, rather than opposing us, should quickly destroy the incentive for teachers to work against us, while helping them, and ourselves. It's a win-win-win plan.

BTW, just so I am NOT misconstrued - I am NOT talking about letting every teacher in government schools to teach for us, but there ARE a few diamonds among the chucks of coal, who COULD be a good resource for us, and just letting the news spread in their circles would provide us a great advance in bringing members of the school district out of the opposition forces.

Ideas? Opinions? Insults?

JM

[Michael Fisher]

Heyyy... giving teachers an alternative to working in public schools is a good idea.  They can make a fortune working for themselves rather than the government.  Even good public school teachers can supplement their income with independent teaching.  Then, like Jim said, they will not want to oppose a non-public education.

You could also have classes where you teach teachers to become independent teachers.  To do this they'll need to learn how to focus on teaching a few subjects, start and run a business, how to network (with homeschooling groups?), etc., just like any other entrepreneurs must do.

If you can find prior teachers that have made this move to independent teaching before, they would be the best ones to teach the teachers how to become independent teachers instead of being teachers in public schools, forced to teach people who don't want to be taught lame, watered-down interpretations of subjects that they are not even interested in learning.

[AlanM]

Hey, sounds cool! I love Shakespeare. Favorite play of all time, "Much Ado About Nothing"

Jim P.

Ah Beatrice, you salty tongued wench. We love you. Dogberry for President!!!

[AlanM]

Reading Shakespeare in High School was O K, but, the real fun was seeing it performed at the, now defunct, I believe, Shakespeare Theater in Stratford, CT.
Shakespeare on The Housatonic!

Lloyd,
Shakespeare was never meant to be read. His work was never published in an authorized version during his lifetime.

[SLounder]

Hello

[SLounder]

I think I hit enter.? oops.? Try again.? I was googling along and typed in unschooling.? (I have just decided that is what we do.? I didn't know there was a name for it.) This website came up.? I am intrigued, is this the group I read about in the paper?? Hmmm I get the general gist of what you are all about but tell me where I can learn more.? The real attention getter for me is I am a unschooling homeschooler in Keene, NH, and I saw the Free State School Project.? I used to belong to a group that had a co op and we had a nursery and preschool for the smaller kids.? I look foward to seeing or reading about this project. Luck to you all.

[AlanM]

Hello

Hello, SLounder! Welcome to the Underground. Don't know if we are the group you heard about, because we don't know WHAT group you heard about.  Glad to hear you are unschooling! LeRuiner and I hold protests weekly in Exeter trying to encourage folk to get their children out of Government Schools. Education is GOOD, public schools are NOT GOOD. 

[John]

Welcome SLounder!