One of the features of the phone game I’ve been playing doesn’t reset until 6am on Mondays, I have a few minutes to write a second post today (also, it might not be the most flattering look to have the first post on this page be about the sorts of things that people are arguing about on Facebook, so I don’t mind pushing the previous post down one slot) (but I do want all the friends-of-friends on Facebook to know that I read their arguments seriously and think carefully about the points they are making and the rhetorical techniques they are using). I guess this means that the quilt photos might be pushed ahead to tomorrow.

There was a fawning profile of WeWork in yesterday’s New York Times. One of the things mentioned in the article is that they are starting an elementary school from the ground up, including designing their own curriculum.

I am going to be watching this with fascination. First off, when we branched out from online-only education to in-person learning centers, we already had a full math curriculum and a supporting series of textbooks, and it took a lot of us (who already had experience in curriculum development) an awful lot of hours to put together the curriculum to be used on the ground.

I’m really curious about what they plan to do in their school. Sorry to drag Facebook back into things, but you have probably seen someone you know share some sort of terrible worksheet that their child brought home from elementary school. The major publishers of elementary school curricula put out enough bad worksheets for there to be a lot of justifiably annoyed Facebook posts. Many good curriculum developers have teaching experience, but not all good teachers are skilled at writing curriculum. This dynamic is what led to a lot of the bad worksheets that you see on Facebook.

Also, our society has done a really good job of building a collective mental model of the field of education being poorly compensated and lacking in respect. I’m wondering where they are going to find teachers who are going to do a good job. Especially if they really are going with a brand new curriculum that has not been classroom-tested.

Will their brand recognition for offering communal office space give them an edge in hiring excellent curriculum developers and elementary school teachers? Are they going to be upfront in their job ads about the compensation for these roles? (I should check, but it is fairly uncommon for job ads for professional-type roles to clearly signal what they are paying). This is the internet, I can go check now: ads for teachers are hazy on the details. Their “our team” page shows nine people, five of which seem to be handling the education side of things (the rest focused on operations). The claim is that this school will offer classes in a wide range of fields, including literacy, STEAM, social studies, foreign language (no details about which one(s)), yoga, meditation, spiritual studies, global citizenship and philanthropy, visual arts, dance, music, farm-to-table cooking, conscious eating, martial arts, sports, hands-on farming, and more. That is a lot of curriculum to be written.

School starts in just over six months. Lucky for them, no one agrees how to assess the quality of a school.