My Ideal Classroom

The classroom of my dreams would be in France or Switzerland high in the alps in a beautiful little town. The people there would be of great wealth (equals awesome paycheck for me), intelligence, style and have amazing skills on the slopes. The school that I teach at is a private school, that teaches k-12(very small town) everyone in town goes there. Yes I am weird I like uniforms. The building is an old but large Chateau with a Grand Ballroom that is now the cafeteria/ auditorium. Which has a floor to ceiling (25ft) fireplace. We need to get warmed up after having our morning ski class, so yes a fireplace of such great size is necessary.

I know what you are thinking, this sounds more like a rich kids getaway camp than school. It is not though so don't worry. Every morning at 8:00 Students arrive at school and meet their teachers at the bottom of the ski lift (this is considered gym). For two hours students receive technique lessons and strength training to prepare for competitions on weekends with other towns. The last hour of skiing is free time to explore, race, and enjoy the mountains.

After skiing the students gather in the Grand Ballroom for lunch where they enjoy a healthy but scrumptious meal crafted by the school's chef from Italy. Finishing up lunch hour the students quickly freshen up by changing out of ski gear into school uniforms and gathering their books for classes. Classes are separated into grades at this time, I teach a few different classes throughout the rest of the day.

My first class I teach high school age students Art history. In this classroom thanks to generous town members we have collected quite a collection of Monet, Kandinksy, Renoir, and a large collection of underground artists. I teach from classical Greek to post modern contemporary. Weekend Field trips for this class are often to the Louvre, or Architectural studies in Rome. The students are very fortunate to live so close to the origionals of many art history classics.

After art history I work my way down to younger grades where I teach around 6th grade level. In this class we mostly cover learning the great works of english literature. In the classroom/ it is the library the entire backwall is a floor to ceiling bookshelf filled will millions of books. The sides of the room are large windows with window seats for great comfortable reading. I read for about half the classtime on the classic book we are reading, then spend the other half discussing what we have read. For homework students have their own books of choice in the assigned genre for the month and create book report presentations of their choice.

My final class that I teach is a science class. I partner with my husband during this class, but he teaches during the rest of the day Logic and Philosophy classes .The last class of the day the whole school meets in the greenhouse on the side of the school. In this class we teach the students about herbology, botony, and biology. There are also few fresh and salt water aquariums where we can teach the students about aquatic life. The greenhouse is filled with student's projects which are caring for and breeding plants of all shapes and sizes.

As you can see this is a non traditional school. My colleagues and I all work hard together to teach these students all that is needed to know, but we teach at a more hands on approach, and make it a open minded environment. Other teachers will teach language, geography and other core classes. Yes since we are in Europe the students learn up to three languages by the age of seven. This is a school where everyone can say they love school. There are more ways to get an education than the traditional sit in school for seven hours and listen to the teacher lecture. The classes I teach will be different and interesting. Never a dull moment!