Which of these two options would you choose for your child?
Option 1: Your child is competent in all school subjects, passes graduation requirements. Knows the dates of Lincoln's administration. Knows how to write a geometry proof. Writes a damn convincing 5-paragraph essay. Your child will only retain most of this information for a short time, but long enough to get into a good college.
Option 2: Your child lacks some specific content knowledge, but is a self-directed, motivated, thoughtful learner. S/he can read well and easily participate in sincere debates and conversations. Your child is mature, and views learning as a pleasure and a choice, not as a chore. S/he also easily gains acceptance to a good college.
Essentially, the question is this: Is it more important that your child be a good student or a good person? My opinion, in the words of a non-traditional student: "Attitude is more important than substantive learning in every way. The substantive things are trivial to acquire."*
The more I think about traditional schools, the more I'm convinced they are a waste of everyone's time. They can't even argue that they complete their most basic goal: instruction in academic content. The show "Are You Smarter than a 5th grader?" doesn't prove that adults are stupid, rather it shows how fleeting and irrelevant most of the things we "learn" in school are.
I say this as someone who is a highly trained educator with a long history of working in both public and private schools. In high school, I worked as a playground supervisor and a classroom aide. I spent over a year substitute teaching to decide whether or not to get credentialed. After getting my certificate, I worked for 5 years in private schools and completed a Master's degree in Education.
I have been reading a lot about the Sudbury Valley School which is basically a school with no curriculum. Students decide for themselves how to spend their days. They decide what, when, and how they will learn. They play a lot. They have massive amounts of freedom compared to their traditional school counterparts.
The primary objection to this type of schooling is that the students won't learn anything, they'll simply play all day. I would counter that while students seem to learn a lot in traditional schools, the content they study is largely forgotten. What students DO learn in traditional schools is how to sit down, be quiet, and follow directions. They learn that learning is not fun.
I have a nagging doubt in my mind about my indictment of traditional schools, and it is that despite their flaws, they have managed to produce thoughtful people who value learning. They produced me. And my husband. My friends Emily and Tracy. And dozens of others. They can't be all bad.
However, on walks around my neighborhood, I've seen school projects put out in the trash or recycle bin and I'm reminded of how pointless all of those activities usually are. In 6th grade, I had to stick a lightbulb on top of an empty bottle, cover it with a nylon stocking, and turn it into a pioneer-style doll for a project based on some book I don't even remember. What the hell was the point of that? I only remember it now because I was so traumatized by how horribly it turned out. Wouldn't the hours I spent working on that (and fretting over it) been better spent doing almost anything else? Perhaps playing?
I'm undecided on this issue. One some days, I decide that the only solution is for me to open a Sudbury-type school so that my own children will be able to attend one. When that idea is too scary, I decide they'll just have to go to public school, like everyone else, and they'll turn out fine. I think it will be harder to me to deal with all the nonsense (idiotic projects, mindless homework) than for them. Perhaps the real solution is somewhere in the middle: work for change in the public school system. My jury is still out.
If you are interested in this topic, please check out the Freedom to Learn blog, by psychologist Peter Gray. He is a parent of a Sudbury school student and has a lot to say about the importance of play and this model of education.
*Legacy of Trust, p.331.
---
8 comments:
Interesting. Yes, I feel the solution is in the middle (as I feel most solutions are). Kids need to be able to work toward their own potential, and nontraditional settings and approaches are vital in reaching ALL kids. But typically the only places you find nontraditional settings are in private schools, and those can be prohibitively expensive to those who need it most. Or charter schools, which are often politically opposed.
It just so happens my husband works for (and helped found) an alternative school - a nontraditional public school, if you will. They call it a virtual charter school. It probably doesn't address all the things you brought up in this post (for example, because it's public, there are still tests), but it's good to see that there are starting to be alternatives out there. Check it out, if you're interested in the topic:
http://connectionsacademy.com/
(Uh, disclaimer: I'm proud of my husband's company and of what he does. If I sound a little advertisment-ish, I don't mean to. I am not in any way getting any reimbursement for going around pimping his school on blogs that happen to make a post about education. Just so we're clear.)
Why do you assume the child in #2 "lacks some specific content?" Chances are the #2 child will have learned at retained a great deal of "specific content" that child #1 may not have gained. of course the converse may also be true.
I know Sudbury Valley School. I know many young people who have been through the school (and others modeled on it) and they overwhelmingly have learned and retained a great deal of "specific content." But the most significant thing I find in these young people is that when they move on to college or jobs or self employment is that they know why they are taking these steps. They have a fundamental understanding of themselves, and their goals in education or employment. They are effective and self directed people.
Their professors and/or employers are surprised to find them so self directed and dedicated to their purposes.
Mike
Robyn, wow, I had no idea... and I'm glad you shared the link. Looks like there was or is going to be a "school" (don't know what the right term is!) in San Diego, so you know anything about that? Is connections academy mostly used by homeschoolers? There are so many options for schools its overwhelming. I'm a worrier and over-analyzer, so I'm already stressing over choices that are years away. Will your kids do this program when they are school age?
And Mike, I hope you didn't take my post to be a criticism of the Sudbury model, quite the contrary! I simply meant that unlike a traditional school, a Sudbury school won't try to push any specific content on students. I certainly didn't mean that students aren't learning content, and I appreciate you pointing out that students do learn a great deal.
Yes, I know they are working on some things in California - Marc was just there a few weeks back. And yes, the term would be "school". It is structured in such a way that there are teachers (very active teachers) and even principals. And it's technically public school - there is no tuition.
As far as the demographic this attracts, I wouldn't know how many of them are homeschoolers - I'm sure some, but I think the program is most attractive for people who don't wish to truly homeschool their kids in the most traditional sense, but aren't willing or able to do public or private school. I know there are students who were enrolled because they weren't succeeding in public school - either they were too smart and not being challenged enough, or they were lagging behind and unable to catch up to the rest of the kids.
As for if I'd use this program with my kids, well, I'd certainly consider it... except, despite what their map says, they aren't able to operate a school in Maryland. (The map-indicated activity was a brief pilot program that, for reasons I do not know, is not panning out.) The main reason they're not able to operate in MD in general, though, is because Maryland is a Blue State. If you look at their map, you'll see they're not really operating in any Blue States. Uh, thanks, Democrats. How they can look at this program and not see it as something that *should* be right up their alley, I'm having some difficulty understanding. Think I should send a letter to Obama? ;)
Oh, hey! Thanks for the link! Holla!
I'm a former school teacher and my wife currently teaches. I am convinced from personal experience and from my studies of democratic education that there is no better way to prepare children for the real world than freedom-based education.
These kids:
- learn that they have and are expected to properly wield their political power and responsibilities,
- learn to shoulder 100% of the responsibility to learn what they need to learn to succeed in life,
- retain their natural thirst to learn and master new skills.
- start their own businesses within 10 years of graduation in massively greater numbers than those from compulsion-based schools (ie. this shows they have more confidence and courage).
These kids don't:
- hate learning or school.
- feel like their time is wasted at school.
- don't rebel against school authorities because THEY are part of that authority.
To me, the most revealing thing about freedom-based schools is that it takes transfers from the public schools on average ONE FULL YEAR to take up the responsibility for their own learning! They typically sit around waiting for someone to tell them what to do.
Public school kids are CONDITIONED to be spoon-fed educationally -- trained to believe that THEY THEMSELVES are not responsible for their learning -- the teacher is.
You either have some degree of educational tyranny over the minds of others, or, you give them freedom -- which is the greatest expression of love and respect one individual can give another.
You can't mix any mud with honey and still enjoy the sandwich. No middle ground for me.
I disagree with the assertion that Sudbury "is basically a school with no curriculum." I take a curriculum to be the systematic organization of educational activities. So the test of whether or not a curriculum is present in a particular setting depends on what you count as "educational" and whether those things are “systematically organized.”
What I count as "educational" are experiences that a learner invests their attention in so deeply that they alter their own mind in the process. In this way of thinking about education what makes an experience educational is not some random expert or school board labeling it "educational." An experience becomes educational because a learner engages with it deeply. Education emerges from a particular kind of relationship rather than being a pre-existing feature of an activity.
Sudbury schools are definitely systematically organized to enable students to deeply engage with their experiences. The whole point of the democratic governance that they are famous for is balancing the needs of individuals for freedom to engage with experiences with the needs of the community to maintain peaceful and productive relationships between individuals who are trying to be passionately engaged in their experiences. The school takes responsibility for providing equal access to the commonly held resources and the process of holding each other accountable for the peaceful atmosphere in which individuals can take full advantage of those resources for educational purposes.
So in my estimation Sudbury schools have a curriculum and, given my definition of education, a superior one when compared to traditional classroom schools. You can read in great detail about my ideas about curriculum on my web site.
--
Enjoy,
Don Berg
Site: http://www.teach-kids-attitude-1st.com
Blog: blog.Attitutor.com
Don,
Thank you so much for your comments. As I hope you can tell from my post and comments, in no way did I intend to disparage the Sudbury model. I am a fan and I'm clearly still learning. I appreciate your understanding of curriculum, I think it's closer to my own understanding. I was trying to describe the SVS model in a way that someone only familiar with traditional schools would understand: a school where there is not a systematic body of facts that the staff is trying to drill into the students. Thanks again for your comments and links.
Post a Comment