Low School

Low School

Summary: If you are a parent and are interested in forming a Low School, the following things are needed; adequate financing, an annual starting class of 30+/- children aged 4-5 who have been extensively exposed to the standard 25 languages (preferably from birth and preferably to include exposure to the 20+ languages available for Sesame Street from age 2), 25 teachers whose native language is one of the 25 languages and who are available to teach in that language only for one hour a week for the topic set out below and who are willing to teach on the basis that a majority vote (3/4) of the students can fire them immediately (no appeal, no tenure; the replacement teacher must be tolerated for one full school year), a place for classes to be held and internet connections to countries in which these languages are spoken and persons/sites in those countries with whom video/audio interactions on a routine basis using that language is possible. The "homework" is to translate the work done each day in a class into another language -- a major responsibility of a teacher is to assist in these translations into their own language (which may take up a lot of class room time). There are no lesson plans. 5 languages are utilized each day for each of 5 days (25 languages each week). 2 half hour recesses in the morning. Each of the 5 sets of class room work is translated (daily homework) into one the 25 languages (these are randomly selected throughout the 9 month school year). Thus, for example, for one week, French (cooking) may be translated into Bengali, German (chemistry) may be translated into Hindi, etc. -- the target language for each course changes each week. The first couple of years is to seek to understand the basics -- reading, writing & general comprehension. Note that a given class is taught for 10 years -- until age 15. The object is to (gently) create multilingual adults (in 25 languages). Any of the school staff can be fired by the students.

Low School is specifically oriented toward children who have heard the Snow Water CDs (or equivalent materials) when they were infants and who have been exposed to these 25 languages on a systematic or regular basis through the age of 5. Low School is designed for the age group of 5 to 15 and can be broken into 2 or 3 schools as a function of age (i.e., as is done with grade school, junior high and high school), although this is not viewed as being essential. This approach is a new path for education.

The basic approach of Low School is to teach the same courses once a week for 10 years (39 or 40 weeks a year). Each of the 25 courses is permanently paired with one of the 25 languages. A given subject is taught in a specific language.

Class work is initially very simple and each student has their own “Week Book” which is completed each week. They start fresh each week with new Week Books. The Week Book has 50 pages. When opened, the left side of a page is for class work in a given class; the right side is reserved for homework. Homework for a given class is to translate the day’s class work into a different language. The language into which the class work is to be translated changes every week until all 24 of the other languages have been used.

There are 5 classes a day (25 a week in the 25 languages); 55 minutes each. The classes are not scripted (no lesson plans). As the homework becomes more complex, the Week Book entries turn into summaries of the work done.

Classroom instruction is considerably slower than usual as the complexities of grammar and the irregularities of given languages need to be gradually incorporated into the instruction.

For example, French is always used to teach cooking (any type of cooking). One week the cooking notes might be translated into Arabic and another week it might be translated into German or Bengali. Translations from and into all 25 languages are done once each week.

Initially all the classes are very simple, but over the years they become more detailed. It is expected that children will cooperate with each other to complete the homework (5 translations a day). The proposed pairings of languages and subjects is as follows:

Arabic -- Poetry

Bengali -- Astronomy

Chinese -- Ancient (bronze, jade, etc) & modern manufacturing

English -- Computers, math

French -- Cooking

German -- Chemistry, physics

Greek -- Philosophy

Hebrew -- Business

Hindi -- Drama

Indonesian -- Mountains, islands, wild life

Italian -- Mediterranean related

Japanese -- Art

Korean -- Media

Punjabi -- (open)

Polish -- Agriculture

Portuguese -- Sailing, airplanes, rockets

Russian -- Mining, lumber, oil, grain, jewels

Spanish -- History

Swahili -- Africa related

Swedish -- Snow related

Tagalong -- Oceanic cultures and oceanography

Thai -- Jungle related, wood, biology

Tamil -- Dance

Turkish -- Geography

Urdu -- Travel

It has been observed that children tend to acquire a language when it is part of an interesting or inviting activity and when other children enjoy the activity. If the situation is fun and exciting, the language being used should become a critical part of the events and not a burden.

To this end, it is important to involve children directly by having a party or event each week with a different activity and language. Adult native speakers for a given language should always be present at these events and should only speak that language.

Baby Safari.US -- Akilo.Com -- The Snow Water Corporation

2 Hayfields Road, Portola Valley, Ca 94028 -- (800) 872-5244