Manifesto of My Open School

Why 'school'?

• It’s a school in the sense that it’s concerned with education.
• As a school, it involves working to long term schedules.
• As a school, it involves achieving educational goals through structured activities.

What makes it different from a conventional school?

• Being nonmainstream means, there’s less focus on testing and more on learning.
• Progress is more easily measured individually against each child’s potential.
• Priority is given to long-term learning goals rather than short-term – and rather short-sighted – exam-passing goals.

Economically and financially

The setup and running of the school is motivated by making a living and not by boosting a bottom line.

Philosophy

• I believe education is a heavy industry; it is about human beings, the most complex of beings.
• An educated person is capable of making decisions and choices for themselves as well as contributing meaningfully to humanity.
• Guaranteeing a job is more suited as a goal for the educated person than for education itself. In other words, an educated person is the one to decide what to do with their education.
• With education being increasingly privatised and commercialised, job selections – at least in our part of the world – are decided by an employer’s demographic preference more than individual merit. This means that what education used to guarantee is no longer so.
• Essential for learning to take place are feedback and personalization. I build my programme on communicating with my learners about how they do and helping them personalise their learning English experience.
• We learn by talking to other people, and the best lessons are the ones based on input from learners.