Last year I wrote about the film Two Million Minutes -- the amount of time a student spends in high school and how an American male and female compare to those of India and China. The film was detailed in how the students spent their days, their study times, and recreation times as well as their approaches and attitudes about school and life in general. As you might guess, the number of hours of study spent by the Americans was far below that of the Indians or Chinese and the corresponding standards were much lower.
I have now viewed the latest film, Two Million Minutes – the Solution. This is an inspiring and hopeful film about a school called BASIS. The founder is a foreign teacher who noted that American universities are among the finest in the world, but our K-12 public system is a system of accommodation. She described it as a government monopoly that is disorganized – a safety net for the disadvantaged and a good system for the gifted, but nothing in the middle – no challenge, no teaching of responsibility.
This woman wanted to research the standards of the rest of the world and bring them to the U.S. She fought hard with unions and committees here but finally opened the first BASIS in Tucson, AZ. It is open to all students and average or even slightly below average students can graduate from BASIS.
The requirements of BASIS are rigorous. Part of the BASIS philosophy is “What can be brought down to the 8th grade?” Algebra I, II and Geometry are required to go into 9th grade. Ninth graders must have a minimum of eight AP courses. Pre-Calculus is taught in 9th grade, Calculus in 10th and the Calculus AP exam is given in 11th grade. Differential Equations or Game Theory are options for 12th grade. In general, all math courses are treated more deeply and with more repetition, with proper notation and vocabulary.
BASIS has four years of English and four years of Social Science. In English, the courses delve much deeper into Grammar. There is a minimum of three years of foreign language. Mandarin, Spanish, French and Latin are introduced in 5th and 6th grades. Latin is a big help for English Grammar.
BASIS requires three honor science classes and one taken to AP. Chemistry, biology and physics are taught in 6th grade (Physics is the basis for much of Philosophy). Eleventh graders may graduate if enough credits and many will graduate with 11 AP exams. Twelfth graders can do a 3-month internship.
The teachers all have Masters and PhD’s in the subjects they teach. They must engage kids and encourage them. They both are and inspire students to be creative and autonomous. AP courses are divided into two years to make room for the creativity of the teachers. There is NO boredom and no wasted time. And…teachers are paid for performance. They receive bonuses for AP exam scores, for example.
The BASIS graduates have a 100% college admissions rate.
About the author: Vivian Hobbs
The Pinecone Active Learning Center is the brainchild of Vivian Hobbs. She has an MS in Industrial Psychology with minors in research design and mathematics. She has 30 years of experience in math and research, including operating her own businesses, one of which was a well known supplemental education franchise. She has always been involved with children's education and has visited Italy to study the renowned "Active Learning" Program used there. With this knowledge and an understanding of the problems faced in imparting education to young children, she spent years working with educators and colleagues to formulate a system of teaching using focused individual tutoring that would provide the right foundations for children and also be aligned to state school requirements. The result is Pinecone.
