The Curriculum Project
The vision behind “THE CURRICULUM PROJECT – Creating the Schools of Tomorrow” is to invent the school of the future in cooperation with the world’s brightest minds with the goal to make it accessible to all children. Andreas Salcher strives to narrow the gap between the contents what children are being taught in every day school and what they actually need in preparation for their future.
In phase one of his project, he conducted a series of interviews with some eminent scientists, namely Howard Gardner of Harvard University, Peter Senge of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the researcher on happiness Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Nobel laureate in medicine Gunter Blobel of Rockefeller University. He analysed elite schools such as the Dalton School (New York), the Nueva School (San Francisco), the Raffles Institution (Singapore), the Nanyang School (Singapore) and the Sir Karl Popper School (Vienna, Austria) as well as schools from deprived areas such as Manchester Bidwell (Pittsburgh) and the Epiphany School (Boston).
During his research, he was able to identify a number of principles that are manifest in good schools around the world as follows:
- An excellent principal with leadership skills and the ability to inspire people. This principal is empowered to both select and dismiss teachers.
- Once teachers have passed the tests of a rigorous selection process, their work is held in high esteem. They learn from one another, regularly become feedback on their performance, receive coaching and are offered concrete career options such as becoming a specialist on a particular subject or the pedagogic head of a department.
- The pupils receive a systematic evaluation of their strengths and weaknesses so that they can develop continuously. There is a clear code of conduct which is practiced stringently. In difficult cases experts are available for counsel.
- The curriculum offers fields beyond the classic subjects such as math, languages, and natural sciences and includes learning through project participation, the arts, physical education and social experiences.
- From the outset parents are an integral part of the school’s network – regardless what ever difficulties this may impose on some of them.
For Andreas Salcher his work as a lecturer and writer is the means to approach and engage pupils, parents and teachers together with societal decision makers in his struggle to obtain better schools for all children. The “CURRICULUM PROJECT” is designed to initiate an international network for all educational advocates who are willing to take personal action. Should you wish to obtain detailed information you are welcome to subscribe to his newsletter.