The Paideia Program-Part III - Ch. 14- How a Paideia School Should Be Structured

The first thing to remember when structuring a Paideia School, is, that like any public school, no two schools will be alike. However, Dr. Adler points out, any existing school has the capacity to adopt the "Paideia curriculum."

In order to do so, there are steps that must be taken towards "restructuring" a school system. Dr. Adler describes these, "The school principal and a group of key teachers must (1) understand the Paideia Proposal, (2) recognize it for the radical idea it is, and (3) be committed to a series of changes that will probably run a decade or more. All three are prerequisites" (Adler, 1984)(p.168).

Next, Dr. Adler writes about the schedules of the Paideia School systems. They are unlike the typical five, identical days, with uniform class periods, that exist in most "modern school systems." Instead, "The school schedule must be made flexible enough to suit the character of each subject being studied, the mode of instruction, and the differences in learning ability on the parts of its students" (Adler, 1984)(p.170). Also, "regular teachers" and teaching styles will not be the only method in existence. "Coaching and seminars, which serve different educational purposes, call for different scheduling and different grouping" (Adler, 1984)(p.170).

Because of this reason, budgets being tight (similar to regular school systems), in a Paideia school system, "... teachers and other staff members in the school must play multiple roles. They must organize in teams that take advantage of their differing talents" (Adler, 1984)(p.171). For this reason, teaching and learning can become impersonal in a Paideia school system. The teacher cannot spend his/her time getting to know every student well. 
 "Coaching" skills are required with class groupings. With these, one or two students will work with a tutor, and at most six or eight with a coach. "Seminar" teaching is used in larger classroom sizes (25 students or more).

Concerning the Paideia Program's curriculum, it is written that: "The Paideia Program aims at a degree of mastery in all subjects and skills that is proportionate to the capacity of each individual student. A Paideia school will be therefore less ambitious about comprehensive coverage and more ambitious about every student's active engagement in learning" (Adler, 1984)(p.173). This, to me, sounds like what the concept of "teaching," in general, is supposed to be about.

Two statements stood out to me, concerning "Training the Staff." These two statements are: (1) "Program requires intensive continuous training of the staff, especially in the period of transition" (Adler, 1984)(p.175). 
- This statement stood out because if the staff were to "fall behind" during the transition period, and then, whenever the school year began still be behind, I would like to know what the program's plans would be to "catch them up." Nothing was mentioned of any actions to do so in the book.
(2) "One of the reasons for phasing in the Paideia Program over a number of years is to make sure that adequate planning and training smooth the way for each change" (Adler, 1984)(p.175).
- The reason this statement stood out is because the "number of years..." part of the statement. I know that the "estimation" has been given previously in the book, however, what if the school system does not meet expectations? Again, these are things that are not discussed in this book, that I would have liked to seen answers to, for examples.