Barter-Based School Catching On Globally 118
sethopia writes "In 2010, three people had the crazy idea to start a school where the teachers teach whatever they want and the students pay for classes with whatever teachers need — cutlery, art, advice — but never with money. Trade Schools have been popping up around the world and are now active in 15 cities and 10 countries, with almost no prodding from its founders. Caroline Woolard, one of the founders, discusses the challenges and opportunities of adapting their idea to an international audience and making the Trade School software — based on Python and Django — great."
Re:Ugh. (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe not. This may be nothing more than an advancement of an Apprenticeship. This is how I learned commercial refrigeration. When I worked in a classified space, we rarely shut down to allow outside trades in, so much of the HVAC was done in house. As such I learned much of the trade including hard silver soldering, hydraulic unloaders, adjustment and proper use of thermostatic expansion valves, etc as OJT with the textbook Modern Refrigeration and Air Conditioning which is pretty much the bible on the subject. http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Refrigeration-Conditioning-Andrew-Althouse/dp/1590702808 [amazon.com]
It took me the longest to grasp the theory of how continious cycle absorption cycle worked, but I finally understood it too.
With my training, I am now trained to charge, maintain, service, and repair systems for chilled water up to 500 Ton.
teach whatever they want better then college (Score:2, Interesting)
teach whatever they want better then college as college is loaded with filler classes, way off base classes, required classes that some times are not even related to what you want to learn. Loads of gen ed and lot's theory based classes that do not give much help in learning what you want to learn. There needs to be more apprenticeship like learning out there with REAL skills. HVCA, pumpers , ECT don't take 2-4 years full of mainly theory based classes and off base filler classes to learn how to do there work.
For the tech field apprenticeship like learning is needed as jobs say they want CS but then say people with CS BA don't have the right skills. Lead to the facts that 2-4 years pure classroom is to much and that CS is a POOR fit all for tech jobs when you have tech school out there that do tech skills that are better a fits for the job so why not have some kind of 1-3 years mixed tech school + apprenticeship like learning in place of a BA,AA,MA for tech jobs as real job skills are big.