It's Long--Get a cup of coffee!! OK Deb. I have been following this thread since the beginning and thinking about a lot of the things you have to say. I have a lot to say in response-but first I want to remind you of my background--I am the one who taught, among other community college courses, GED classes for the past 10 years. I have seen first hand, on the order of 30-40 students per quarter, what happens to the students who didn't succeed in the public school system. That said, I will add that most of the opinion here comes from 1)the fact that I have spent a tremendous amount of time volunteering in my children's (7 and 10) elementary school 2) I know a LOT of teachers--both personally and professionally, 3) I have observed many elementary school classrooms and 4) I have friends and relatives with young children in five states (WA, CA KA MO, OK)and we talk and compare notes on a regular basis. So my response to some of your opinions: **Traditional education is NOT contemporary education: The public schools in NO WAY resemble elementary schools from 30 years ago and before. 1) I have not seen nor heard of any elementary classrooms with children lined up in rows and working exclusively independently since before I was in college. I realize there must be some, but that certainly is not the norm and your using that scenario as a piece of evidence about why public schools are so bad makes you sound rather uninformed. Learning-to-learn activities, group projects, independent, student driven investigations take up a SIGNIFICANT, if not a majority, of an elementary student's classroom time now. 2) All of the intermediate elementary (4th 5th and 6th grade) children I know attend their parent, teacher student conferences to discuss their progress and actively participate in setting their own goals. My son, for example has to keep a copy of the goal sheet that he filled out in the front of his binder for the entire school year. These goals must include something physical, something artistic and as many academic-oriented goals as he wants. Most of the students who attend their own conferences show up with some type of portfolio. This is NOT a new idea. The teachers may not give a name to the stack of work they are discussing with parents and students but they all have some examples ready to discuss. I finished elementary school in 1979 but everyone of my teachers arrived at the conferences with sample work to go over even in those dark ages. **I think everyone here will agree that standardized tests (and forgive the vulgarity) suck. However, it's like Winston Churchill (I think) said, something to the effect, that Democracy is a terrible form of government, its disorganized, unfair, rife with fraud and waste, etc. But does anyone have a better suggestion? The same is true of norm-standardized (investigate Washington states WASL for a great example of assessment testing that is not norm standardized and is being used as a model in other states now) tests. They do, like it or not, have a place in our society. Unfortunately, very few people in the public know how they work or how to interpret the results. This fact does not justify withholding that information from the public though. Our schools are PUBLIC--funded entirely by taxpayers who have EVERY RIGHT to know, by some measure, whether or not schools are doing their jobs. Like it or not, those schools, in under-funded, impoverished areas, are generally NOT educating their students as well as schools in the rich suburbs. Is that the schools or teacher's fault? Not entirely, no. Should we withhold funds from these schools? ABSOLUTELY not. But we MUST have an OBJECTIVE way to identify these schools and track their progress at improving the education of their students. It is not realistic to think that a school district can present 12,000 private portfolios with subjective teacher comments to the public for such evidence. **You said "valuable time is wasted when a teacher requires a student to memorize a spelling list or their multiplication tables." I challenge you to think of it from a different perspective: "Valuable time IS wasted if a student does not have his multiplication table or grade-level spelling memorized." I could give you easily a hundred examples to back up this idea but I'll give you just one: my 5th grade son, who is in a classroom where the teacher lets her students move as fast or as slow as they are comfortable going in math, just finished the 7th grade math book in a very short amount of time. There is NO WAY he could have done that if he had to stop and add up what 7 x 6 was every time he want to figure out how much interest he was going to make on his investment. NOT knowing multiplication tables would slow ANYONE down in their ability to learn and investigate more complex mathematical problems. ***One of the most important lessons I have learned (as an ex extemely opinionated environmentalist tree-hugger) in my life is that if you truly want to be an effective instrument of change, you will NEVER be able to do it with an extreme goal or opinion. Unfortunately, the world rarely, if ever, goes from point A to point C without mucking through point B along the way. I heard a lot of the same hooey as you from my wonderful professors when I was in college too. Part of their job is to turn out passionate teachers. But remember, for many of them, it has been awhile since they were in an elementary school for any significant amount of time. The truth is usually somewhere in the middle. For instance, someone has led you to believe that Howard Gardner?s ideas, while brilliant, are radical. I can think of no teacher that I know who is not very aware of his ideas and research. I hear teachers ALL THE TIME talking about designing classrooms and lessons that will address 'multiple intelligences' and different learning styles. While the public schools are in need of MUCH improvement, they do not , in any way as far as I can tell, resemble the schools that you are describing, which is one reason the people on this board are having a hard time embracing your ideas. Finally, I want to point out to you that your assertion that the people on this board "have blind faith in the traditional" methods of education or in our school system, is insulting. I am sure that you probably didn't mean it to sound that way, but it seems obvious to me that the very fact that they are here discussing issues and problems that they are dealing with in their children's schools is an indication that they are anything but ?blindly faithful?. On a more positive note, I will end by saying that your passion is admirable and I am sure that in the end you will be a wonderful teacher. Have a great day.

OP What a nice place to call home! I can't wait to see the shutters when you get them placed. I love shutters! flyleft We live in the greatest neighborhood anyone could ask for. You can actually see a home in the first (right side at roof line) and third pictures (again right side). From our window vantage we can see the brown house but not the other because our garage blocks it. All lots surrounding us are built out. There will be no more homes right here. That's because the mountains behind in both the first and second photos are actually federal land (no building allowed). And, the mountain you see in the third photo is a state park, (again no building). It took a long time to get this lot but I think we are extremely blessed and I pinch myself daily....can you tell I love my home/area/neighbors! LOL hooisergirl This is a picture I took last year of our east view from the upstairs gameroom. Not sure if this is the view picture you are talking about. And it's not a real good picture of the view. This was taken in early morning (to early for summer smog) during our SoCal fires. Seemed like all of SoCal was on fire then and there was a layer of smoke everywhere. :(

Hi, I'm not sure if folks are still active on this thread but wanted to reach out. We are looking at building this plan with some modifications here in the Charlotte, NC area and wanted to see if others had build this plan in the area and discuss some things with you. The prices we are getting to build it are vastly different (between $400K-$600K. We are looking to expand the basement bay windows out to align with the top and to make some of the basement into liveable space (ie: moving closets behind the bathrooms to make each bedroom like a suite. We custom built a Don Gardner plan 10 years ago with all brick, HW floors, Granite, etc for $110 a sq foot, I've heard prices have gone up but not really sure how much. Would love to walk the house as well if someone within 100 miles is building one now. I truly appreciate your help and any input you can provide. Thanks, Meredith P.

Actually, I think this master would layout fairly well with the bed against the bathroom wall this wall appears to be about 12'-6", so even with a king bed, you could have 30-36" nightstands. A dresser can go next to the patio door and there is room still for a chest of drawers between the closet and room entrance. This plan's greatest challenge is that the great room is designed less for living and more for walking through to get to other places and showcasing architecture. You will be challenged to come up with a furniture layout that functions well without cutting off one of those traffic patterns or looking awkward from either the foyer or the kitchen. You could make the plan a little better by deleting the pair of french doors and widening the screen porch so a single patio door can be inserted at the end of the kitchen counter. Also if you plan to regularly eat at the kitchen island as opposed to the dining room, I would get the stove off of it and against the back wall. You don't want to be sitting there while grease is being splashed up, and with either the stovetop or the sink you don't really want any messes from the cooking process to be right there as you eat either.