Dive Summary:
- The Netherlands' 11 new "Steve Jobs schools" are opening in August, with the around 1,000 students between the ages of four and 12 abandoning notebooks, textbooks and backpacks for iPads.
- The schools will also allow students to choose what they want to learn based on their curiosities and do away with blackboards, chalk, classrooms, homeroom teachers, formal classes, lesson plans, seating charts, schedules, grades and just about every other recognizable feature of traditional schooling.
- Gertjan Kleinpaste, 53-year-old principal of the Steve Jobs school in Breda, says that what the schools are doing "will seem pretty normal in 2020."
From the article:
... The Steve Jobs school will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 on every workday. The children will come and go as they please, as long as they are present during the core period between 10:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. The building will only be closed for Christmas and New Year's. The children's families will be able to go on vacation when they please, and no child will have to be worried about missing class as a result, since classes in the traditional sense will be nonexistent. ...
