Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Alternative education/Archive 1

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Welcome, everyone. I am really excited about this project. It's my first collaborative effort at Wikipedia, so I'm also a little nervous. But I am also confident that we have what it takes to make this project succeed. I'm sure that some of you will be sidelined by other projects or important life matters, and others will simply lose interest. Let's do our best to be civil and not run anyone off. Attrition is natural, so we should also keep our eyes peeled for others who are interested in contributing to help keep our numbers at least stable, if not growing.

First things first. We all need to take a thorough look at the project page and discuss the best way to complete the fields provided (or better yet, just start filling them in, we can discuss later), so that we all know what our purpose and focus should be. I have taken the liberty to start many of the fields, but as I have expressed before, I have no interest in man-handing this project. It belongs to all of us, and all Wikipedians. I am merely trying to keep things moving. My edits are up for review just as yours are, and my ego is not tender--so hack away. Thanks again for your involvement, Master Scott Hall 00:02, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

We could also delete (or hide with HTML comments) any headings that we're not actually using. We don't anticipate any descendant projects for the foreseeable future, so it just clutters up the page to have that header in there. At the moment 90% of what's on that page is just in the way. Wahoofive 01:22, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Article discussion location 2 Adoption of Articles 3 Outdoor Education 4 Fantastic 5 Alternative school 6 International terminology

Article discussion location

Is there a rule or accepted standard regarding where to have article discussions? In other words, should we do all of our talk here or on the specific article discussion page. It would be nice to keep it all together here, but that may give the impression to those outside the Project that we are working in quasi-secret. How is this normally handled? Thanks, Master Scott Hall 15:56, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Discussions about individual articles should take place on that article's page. Committed members of the project should add all pages listed on this project to their watchlists. The only discussions here should be meta-discussions about the project itself or more general philosophical or coordination issues which would apply to all pages in the project. —Wahoofive (talk) 20:03, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I had a feeling it might work like that, but had nothing to base it on but common sense. Thanks, Master Scott Hall 20:19, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Adoption of Articles

How do I adopt an article? I'd like to adopt the Open Classroom article. Alan Nicoll 00:04, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Just click on an article on the list, click "edit this page" at the top, start writing. You might find How to edit a page, Your first article, Guide to layout, and Guide to writing better articles helpful. Feel free to ask more specific questions. Happy writing. Good luck, Master Scott Hall 00:49, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Outdoor Education

Just found this project - looks great! Happy to contribute. Would you also consider including outdoor education? Jtneill - Talk 05:39, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. I have added Outdoor education to the project. If you notice more omissions, please feel free to add them to the list. I'm sure there are many more. Let us know if you have any questions. Glad you have you aboard. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 12:51, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Fantastic

Great - I've been meaning to propose a WikiProject on Education for a long time, so this project should really be a sub-project of that one (that project would need many subcategories anyway, as it would be unmanageably big). Education is at the core of Wikimedia projects, but still a weak point in terms of its spread and depth of information. I just might create this now - watch this space.. Cormaggio ^@ 22:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

That would be great. Somehow, I thought that project already existed when I suggested this one. Probably because Education has a portal. After the fact I noticed that their portal seems a little under the weather. Perhaps after getting this one well underway, that'll take a while, we can expand or shift in that direction. Anyway, that's for later. In the meantime, glad to have you on board. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 23:00, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I've set that project up at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Education, and notified the wikiEN-l mailing list about it (as well as plugging this project too). Looking forward to working on both, but for now, I need some sleep. Thanks for the welcome :-) Cormaggio ^@ 01:09, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Alternative school

The term Alternative school and the article Alternative school do not refer to the same thing. The article describes Alternative education(but also mixes it with Independent school), while the term refers to schools for students with special needs, i.e., "at-risk" students, potential drop-outs, pregnant teens, returning students. I propose we merge the info on the current Alt. school article with the Alt. ed. and Ind. school articles, so that Alt. school can be used for the correct term. Input? Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 21:13, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "correct", above. I'd agree that Alternative school should describe schools for at-risk students and the like, and Alternative education should be a broader topic including all kinds of alternatives. Independent school should be merged with private school since the terms are nearly synonymous (except in England, where "independent school" and "public school" are synonymous). Or maybe independent school should be a dab page. —Wahoofive (talk) 22:27, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

In the current Alternative school article, most of the lead section describes Alternative education, while the Types... section describes types of Independent school which is actually a type of Alternative school itself. It appears that we agree, so I will proceed with the changes. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 22:40, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead with the changes we discussed. However, I received a message from User:Rbellin that the changes had been reverted due to lack of discussion. I think this editor has valid concerns about the proposed actions and I have replied, explaining the rationale behind the changes and am awaiting Rbellin's response. In the meantime, is there an widely accepted protocol involving how much time should pass between the time that there concensus for a change and when the change is actually implemented? I am just curious about how to avoid future complications of this nature. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 19:28, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

There's no hard and fast rule. Wikipedia editors are encouraged to act boldly in making changes. There's no way to guarantee lack of conflict. Anyway, if this other editor reverted you so fast, there's hope he'll respond to your comments promptly too. —Wahoofive (talk) 21:47, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I think we may have worked out a compromise on the changes. When you get a moment, visit the discussion and give us what you think. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 23:16, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

International terminology

We have international terminology issues that we need to address early on in this project. Even though this is the English language WP, the English speaking countries have decided to rearrange terms and their meanings over the years. For example, Public school (US)=State school (England)=State school (New Z/Aus)=Public school (Scotland). The meanings of the terms state, private, independent, public, and several other less-used terms are all used interchangeably. Sticking to the language used by any one country would be biased, while switching back and forth between countries would be nothing short of chaos. I think switching across the board to more descriptive rather than colloquial terminology would be one way of handling it. For instance, state-run, publicly-funded, privatly-held, independently-operated. Those are just examples of terms that would mean the same in English no matter where you are from. Maybe this in conjunction with some sort of disambiguation/article hybrid that just compares the different terms used by different countries. Maybe this is not the answer, but we really need to work out a standard that is as unbiased as possible, because the deeper into the project we get, the worse this is going to get. Any other ideas are more than welcome. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 15:44, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I see the problem, but I don't think it's as urgent as you make out. The difference between elevator and lift has never been resolved in favor of Vertical people transporter. Articles such as Independent school and State school already clarify the terminology in the opening paragraphs (Private school doesn't, but that can be changed), and Public school is a dab page; anything else can be handled via piping or parenthetical comments if there are ambiguities. Is there no article on Public school (United States)? The article School is in desperate need of work; we should nominate it for WP:COTW. In fact, the more I look at articles like Education, the more I realize that the Education area needs a WikiProject more than alternative education does. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:21, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it's not a half-bad idea to make an article/dab hybrid about the terminology for different kinds of schools across the English-speaking world. The subject itself can be fascinating, and having an article to clear the meanings of the terms would be useful even if we try to stick to using self-explanatory terminology to avoid confusion. Michael%Sappir 18:21, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps my suggestion goes a little far, but we need some sort of protocol. If we wait until the project is more developed, we will have a lot more work on our hands. At minimum, we need to use the same terminology across the board. Good point with the "lift/elevator" analogy, but this is a bit more complicated, especially since in most instances, the terms and their meanings have been completely reversed and many times there are several of these terms in a single article. Is there some sort of "neutral English"? Perhaps with dab pages and piping, it can be handled, but a standard method of some sort needs to be implemented. I still like the article/dab hybrid as a sort of clearing house/glossary with a "see also:" or something similar on every relevent article. BTW, one of our newest members, Cormaggio, just started a WikiProject Education. We should maybe get involved in that as well, because both projects will run into many of the same issues. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 19:44, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Could you explain the term "article-dab hybrid"? —Wahoofive (talk) 05:41, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Not sure what Michael%Sappir has in mind, but I am picturing something like an expanded dab page. Not excessive, but list a number of educational terms that have cross-nation ambiguity and explain the difference. It's just an idea for something to avoid a full explanation at the top of every education article, and to avoid several standard dabs that cover a number of specific terms. If you prefer to not look at it as a dab, but as a "English education terminology" article (or something like that), that's fine by me. We just need to adopt a standard, and we could direct all questions of ambiguity to this article. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 13:39, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I asked because I'm also involved in WikiProject Disambiguation and they're pretty tough on the style of dab pages. I'd recommend you not put a {{disambig}} tag on any page unless it's exclusively disambiguation. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:19, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

So, what about the original issue? What standard do we use? If we don't use general adjective-type terms, like state-run school, then what local colloquial system do we use? The UK's, because they are the oldest, the US's, because they are the biggest, or the Aussies', because they are the coolest. We have to do something, because the articles that we are working so hard to develop will be linked many, many times to one another. Case-in-point, I did some recent work on Charter school, where another editor and I played musical chairs on the lead sentence because we were using different sets of terms to describe the same thing. If we keep switching from one set of jargon to the next, it will be nothing short of a mess. Maybe not to us, but to the world at-large. This issue has to have come up before in another set of inter-related articles with world-wide implications. If it were as simple as "lift/elevator", "guy/bloke", "friend/mate", it would not be a big deal. However, these are multiple terms with multiple meanings, many times completely transposed and seemingly illogical. To expect the average reader to follow the flow from one article to the next, written by English-speaking people from three continents with no guidelines to follow, is highly negligent. Again, I am not claiming to have the best answer. But until someone suggests something else, anything else, it's the only answer. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 23:40, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

It seems, to me at least, that the best solution is to replace Public school with State-run school (or whatever), which will be the dab/article hybrid that you mention above, and which will briefly describe and link to the various types of school pages, like Independent school (UK), Community_school etc. I don't know what the best complement to this would be - Non-state-run school? Independent school and Private school have their own (various) connotations, in the UK anyway, but I personally prefer "Independent school" as an alternative to "State-run school", in which articles, regional subtleties should be explained and directed, if necessary to their own articles. But it's a thorny issue - there are just so many terms, even in the UK alone. Globally, we'll probably have to manage this through Education by country, and the extensive use of categories, of which, again speaking of the UK, there are many. Cormaggio ^@ 13:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I still propose that we use unambiguous self-explanatory terminology across the board without standardizing the terminology (i.e we just use anything that gets the point across, not any given set of terms) and additionally create a Types of schools or Terminology for types of schools in the English-speaking world (or whatever) article detailing these different sets of terms and hopefully eventually exploring the history and the logic behind the choices of terminology in the different countries. The article would be internally organized using unabmiguous titles ("State-run schools", "Privately-funded schools", etc) so thate every section relates to the different terms used for one general type of school in the different countries. We can then link to the appropriate section in articles that touch upon the differences between the different kinds of schools, specifically linking to the appropriate section when necessary. Michael%Sappir 13:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I am, at least the surface, in agreement with both of these ideas. I am going to attempt to combine all of the things we have been discussing into a method. Using this, or similar method, this is how a typical article might start:

"Charter school is a semi-autonomous nonsectarian public school choice educational alternative that operates with freedom from many of the regulations that apply to traditional state schools."

I put state school at the end as a more generic way to say public school, but another editor insisted that public needed to be represented as well. So, now we have two semi-redundant terms—not good writing in my opinion, but consentual. And, how it might look after standardization:

"Charter school is a semi-autonomous nonsectarian public choice educational alternative that operates with freedom from many of the regulations that apply to traditional state-run schools."

Here state-run school adequately represents both terms, as well as cleans up (a little) an already unavoidably 'overwikified' definition sentence. A short italicized statement, similar to a See also: or a dab statement could be place before the lead sentence in an article that refers to an Education glossary. This glossary could be used to detail the regional differences in terminology, as well as many other definition problems we may run into (i.e., the alternative/special-needs school issue that is currently being discussed elsewhere. I don't know how the WikiEstablishment views glossaries, but they seem to be a well-established device on Wikipedia. Eventually, we will probably have enough content for separate Public school (US), State school (UK), State school (AUS), etc., as there are substantial differences between their respective systems to support distinct articles. This proposed system would have a substantial effect on larger, more generalized articles (like Alternative education, where many different types of educational systems are being summarized), and a more subtle effect on more specific topics (like Charter school), where it may only be used once or twice. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 16:15, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

1. Instead of a glossary (which will inevitably become huge and useless as other editors add every possible education term), consider an infobox a template sidebar.
2. As for a generic term for what we Americans call "private school" or "independent school", how about "autonomous school"? 'Course that doesn't apply to religious schools, if you mean to include them.
3. Your proposed definition for "charter school" is still pretty confusing. What does "public choice" mean? Why does it matter whether it's non-sectarian? Anyway, charters are still state-run; the state just gives them more independence from the local school board and certain state regulations.

P.S. I think my trouble with "non-sectarian" is that to me that word means "nondenominational" but still religious in orientation, whereas you really mean "secular". —Wahoofive (talk) 16:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

P.P.S. while thinking more about the term "state-run" I realize that the distinction is that charter schools are state-funded. Maybe we should be classifying schools by their principal funding sources: government, religious sect, fee-based. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

1. I am open to a template sidebar. I like the idea of at-your-fingertips access to terms anyway. Is this widely-accepted at WP? or at least a growing trend?
2. I don't know about autonomous school. If we use the proposed standard, then privately-run or -operated would probably work. And, I think parochial school is the correct term for a religious school, but I think it just applies to Catholic/Protestant examples, so perhaps faith-based school would be a more general term.
3. Public choice? <-Click on it. It is widely used to describe publicly-funded alternative "choices" in education, i.e., charter school, magnet school. An upgrade, if you will. But, you're right...the definition of charter school is a bit much. Maybe making the proposed changes, then splitting it into two sentences would solve the problem.

Secular may be more appropriate, if it is even necessary to point this out.

On your last point, I think we will run into instances where all-of-the-above will need to be used. For instance, a charter school is independently-operated & publicly-funded. So, I guess we would use the most applicable terms. We would need to work out standards like independently- or privately-, and -run or -operated. All-and-all, I think that we are on the right track now with this idea. Should we start a special discussion page to hash out the details? Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 17:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I think we need to decide upfront whether the control or the funding is more important; otherwise, we'll have multiple hyphens all over the place for hybrids like charter schools. My opinion is that the funding is key; that makes a charter school more similar to my local neighborhood school than it is to a for-profit (or nonprofit) independently-run school. Forget about faith-based, since politicians here in the US have co-opted that term to mean something else; I see that parochial school implies Christian, though; how about religious school? Does this term sufficiently distinguish a Lutheran elementary school from a seminary? As for the separate page, how about the talk page of: Template:school types? —Wahoofive (talk) 18:04, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. More specifically, a predetermined order would be good: funding, control, (anything else). Religious is fine, as there are already subcategories under Education that use the term. The talk page is fine by me, also—if that is SOP. Just curious, what do you mean regarding faith-based and politics? Did they coin the phrase, or just hijack it? Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 18:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, on second thought, the template/talk page should probably be less specific. Education terminology (or similar), rather than School types. The standards would cover schools by default, but cover more ground as well. We will have to include home-education terms as well as others. I like it, but I think it should be broader in scope. Perhaps, that way can be used in the WikiProject Education as well—for simplicity and uniformity's sake. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 18:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Too much info in an infobox makes it useless. —Wahoofive (talk) 21:05, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more. But, that's not what I meant. I don't mean use more terms, just make the terms themselves broader, so that they can be used more widely. With narrower terms, we would need more than one info box to get the job done, which would be equally unwieldy. Maybe something like this:

Education systems
State-funded education	Community school (Ireland) Public school (US) State school (UK) State school (AUS)
Independently- funded education	Private school (US) Public school (UK) Religious school
Alternative education	Alternative school Charter school Home-based education Magnet school

The three broad categories in the left column should cover everything within education. The right-hand list will grow some, but not much more than with the School types list. We also need to think ahead about how to handle the further breakdown between child/adult education, or primary/secondary/tertiary/quaternary education. We will run into that wall before long, as well. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 21:46, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

The internationally comprehensible terminology I am familiar with is:

state school or state-run school

school that is controlled by governmental (political) institutions

state-supported school

school that receives governmental financing

religious school

school that is subject to religious authorities (e.g. a church)

independent school

school that is independent of both political and religious control

Hgilbert 21:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not sure if you are in agreement, or are you suggesting a change? What you have looks pretty close to what we were talking about. If you are suggesting a change, please clarify. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 23:57, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I realize that I am waffling here, but the more I look at this, the more I think that the info on this infobox does not need to be broken down by who funds what. I think that funding is secondary to operation. Funding is, of course, very important on the back-end of the system, but when describing educational systems to lay people, what it is is more important than how it is. When you hear discussions about education, you hear "this is what it is, and by the way, this is how its paid for". So, based on that, I'm shifting my recommendation to this:

Education systems
State-run education	Community school (Ireland) Public school (US) State school (UK) State school (AUS)
Independently- run education	Independent school (AUS) Independent school (UK) Private school (US) Public school (UK) Religious school
Alternative education	Alternative school Charter school Home-based education Magnet school

If WP were a professional journal, I think I would look at it differently. But, it is an encyclopedia, which is aimed at the common person. With that in mind, I think this perspective makes more sense. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 23:57, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not wedded to the funding organization, but I thought the purpose of this box was to clarify the meaning of terms like "public school". I think we've drifted far away from that. Maybe the infobox isn't the right answer. —Wahoofive (talk) 04:55, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Help me to understand where we have drifted. This box has very little different from yours. I only changed the names of the terms by which it is organized, and the order. It's the same content, just organized slightly differently. I think it was a great idea & will work just fine. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 13:32, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think my original version was very good either —Wahoofive (talk) 17:37, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

AUSTRALIAN perspective: Wow, this is quite a thread (it could do with a sort and sub-headings) and I'll confess I've only lightly skimmed it. The basic terminology for LEVELS of schooling in Australia basically runs like this:

• Pre-school (under 5 years old)
• Primary school (~5 years to ~11-12 years)
• Secondary school (or High school) (~12-13 years - ~16-17 years)
• Tertiary education (or Higher education) (equivalent to "College" in the US

The classification for TYPES of educational institutions is:

• State school or Public school (i.e., government-funded and government-run)
• Independent or Private school (i.e., not run by government, but often partially government-funded - the terms are largely used synonymously - these schools may or may not have a religious orientation), Jtneill - Talk 13:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

WP strategy: Its going to be tough to come up generic terminology, though certainly worth the effort to minimize possible chaos. But I also think think some of the chaos could be reasonably handled via appropriate REDIRECTs, DISAMBIGUATION, and specific headings and possibly specific pages on terminology for educational institutions around the world., Jtneill - Talk 13:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

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