RE: Question 2: Single curriculum

One of the lessons that adult education can perhaps offer to this discussion is that our course outlines are all competency based. Many students engage in independent study under teacher supervision and occasional intervention, assessment, etc. Students complete contracts for coursework reflecting a breakdown into discrete topics, skills, abilities, course requirements, all of which can be objectively verified. Students may carry their contracts over a trimester, or carry them to a different adult school and pick up where they left off. Students can challenge certain requirements and test out. Classes are often open-entry, open exit, allowing students to begin and end as they see fit and as the need or complete the particular requirements. Perhaps some of these flexibilities could be built into the K-12 system within a format of a wholistic learning environment that is experienced as something other than a warehouse or a prison by the learners. People learn in groups, but also as individuals; it is difficult in the age-segregated K-12 teaching system to allow people to learn at their own pace or follow their own passions or best interests. A comprehensive educational plan needs to help provide an overall learning framework in which more individual and self-paced, self-directed learning can take place.