The Montessori approach has some similarities to what you propose, and is probably about as close as you can get in current American education. Not outdoors or all-boys, but otherwise it's structured largely as you propose, with time divided between direct instruction in academic subjects and free-form exploration. Kids are free to roam the classroom and pick up whatever educational materials catch their curiosity: maps, books, geometric and mathematical materials, puzzles, and lots of other good stuff.
I attended a Montessori preschool and kindergarten, in the early 1980s. I'd wholeheartedly recommend it. (There's no formal definition or central authority, so schools and approaches will vary, but mine was excellent.) The open environment of creativity really helped my early intellectual development. I was reading everything, had most of the countries on the globe memorized, and knew squares and cubes up to 10 all by about age five, all thanks to the ready accessibility of all that stuff according to my own interests rather than being forced and tested all the time.
Yeah, the more I read about this stuff as well as our excellent public education system, the more I realize I will strongly consider putting my son into Montessori schools.
The Montessori approach has some similarities to what you propose, and is probably about as close as you can get in current American education. Not outdoors or all-boys, but otherwise it's structured largely as you propose, with time divided between direct instruction in academic subjects and free-form exploration. Kids are free to roam the classroom and pick up whatever educational materials catch their curiosity: maps, books, geometric and mathematical materials, puzzles, and lots of other good stuff.
I attended a Montessori preschool and kindergarten, in the early 1980s. I'd wholeheartedly recommend it. (There's no formal definition or central authority, so schools and approaches will vary, but mine was excellent.) The open environment of creativity really helped my early intellectual development. I was reading everything, had most of the countries on the globe memorized, and knew squares and cubes up to 10 all by about age five, all thanks to the ready accessibility of all that stuff according to my own interests rather than being forced and tested all the time.