ideas
We’ve described the general idea of this community (and youth project) elsewhere, but here let’s discuss a few particular ideas. The particulars will be determined by the personalities, needs, and interests of the people who join, the relationships that form, and the particulars of our resources and locality.
Once we have a physical location, one first rough configuration could be to have two spaces: one space for kids and youth connected to another co-working and social space for parents and adults. Generally, only trusted or certified adults could enter the youth area, but kids could enter the adult area at will. Maybe there would be certain times of day where no adults (besides the staff or facilitators) are allowed in the youth area, to allow a greater sense of freedom and independence. As in the case of Sudbury schools, we may create a policy that children under a certain age can only leave the location in the company of people above a certain age or who have demonstrated a certain capability of responsibility. All of these policies could be modified as we discover how to culturally impart greater skills of responsibility of everyone involved. Safety for children and for all our members will always be a priority, so the open and inter-generational environment will be designed to maintain that safety. Within that constraint, the more open and intergenerational the environment can be, the richer the interactions everyone can have, and the more everyone can learn from and gain from each other.
We may be able to join and partner with existing groups and institutions, to tweak or repurpose them to fit our philosophy (if we can convince others that this is the best way of moving forward). We could partner with an existing child-care group or even a mainstream government school, if they are brave enough! Here’s an article proposing such a transformation of a government school. This may be more difficult than simply starting from scratch, however, because institutional momentum and habits are very hard to break and there may be many people who feel a need to politically battle against such changes.
This community is partly inspired by hackerspaces and makerspaces, and the creativity, productivity, and joy that occur in these spaces. We’d like to be a “holistic hackerspace”, with activities spanning interests from very fundamental personal and interpersonal skills to hobbies of various kinds to big social projects. For instance, deeply learning communication skills can lead to projects of mediation and translation, from the personal to the global scale. Or if people get into gardening, that could lead to many projects, including food cultivation and preparation, learning and mastering the micro-biology of composting and fertile environments, waste recycling, automated and robotic irrigation systems, etc. Some could build miniature or personal-sized sailboats and learn the physics of sailing. Some could sew clothing, create new fashions, and integrate new technologies into their clothes. Some could buy, disassemble, and reassemble engines. The possibilities are really endless.
For kids, youth, and anyone of any age who is interested in social entrepreneurship and business entrepreneurship, building this community itself is a great opportunity for real-world learning and knowledge-building and skill-building. If you’re currently going to school, and if your schooling is not working out for you, maybe you would be better off dropping-out rising-out of school and joining the effort to build this community.
As one of our members and organizers has a PhD in physics, as well as a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and some experience with artificial intelligence, the conversations regarding these topics will be able to go very deep, with plenty of nuance and passion. Each member of the community brings a unique combination of experience and talents and interests. You can learn something from anyone, and we look forward to learning what we can from each person and sharing in the fun.