Michaela Haas for Reasons to be Cheerful

No teachers and no curriculum: Is this the school of the future?

Walking into Brightworks could be a shock for helicopter parents — there are no rows of desks, no hallway passes and no bells to jolt students from one class to the next, Reasons to be Cheerful reports. Instead, the K-12 school is alive with invention, autonomy and what founder Gever Tulley calls “the energy of a big multi-generational family household.” In a quiet pocket of San Francisco’s Presidio, just a short walk from the Golden Gate Bridge, a sandy beach and a winding forest creek, the three school buildings buzz with purpose and possibility.

The topic this semester is space. In the basement workshops, student Reza proudly shows off a Mars habitat model; another is designi

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