Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that there’s a world beyond the Public Classroom. The Sudbury Valley School is a model that most people find incredibly unrealistic.
Sudbury Valley School • Online Library. Anxious Parents
Why Sudbury Valley School Doesnt Work for Everyone:
Real Learning Disabilities
From A Clearer View, by Daniel GreenbergDuring our founding years, we thought that people would flock to the school. We thought we would be mobbed and wed be turning people away at the door. We expected a cast of thousands. Who wouldnt want happy kids? More to the point, what kids wouldnt do everything in their power to gain their freedom? We expected, even if the parents werent willing, that the kids would be knocking down the walls, making their parents lives miserable. “Send us to Sudbury Valley, or well go on a hunger strike.” We were very quickly disabused, and instead we underwent a long struggle to survive, to grow, to gain acceptance.
For a better idea of what this is, see the trailer for Voices from the New American Schoolhouse on YouTube and check out their website.
While we’re on the subject of scope in distance education and exploring the idea of “learner-centeredness” this idea of students running the schoolhouse is an interesting one. If we consider the computer and internet as a kind of “brain lever” that individuals can use to augment, manage, and track their own learning, what do we need to teach people about how that process might work?
Think about that for a second from the perspective of reading. We teach kids to read — starting with the basic phonemic encoding of language through sentence structure and into thematic and social symbology. We do this so they can use the skill of reading to learn as they grow older. Rephrased, that becomes the old educational saying “Learn to read until the fourth grade and then read to learn.”
What does it look like if we need to teach people, not just how to read, but how to use this brain-lever to aid in meta-cognitive (and even cognitive) tasks?
Does this change what we think of as the scope of distance ed?
September 13th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
The video demonstrated a very different type of concept then what the “norm” is accustom to. I would have to say that I would have problems sending my own children to this type of educational environment on a regular basis. I do believe that children need structure because when they become adults and have families and jobs, you are going to have a structured environment and decisions will be made for you and you will be required to follow rules and regulations. I understand that the children need to be part of the decision making process but I don’t think they need to “be” the decision making process.
I understand that education needs change but I am not quite ready for this type of change
This type of environment reminds me of the “hippy days” which I love and somewhat still live there but you must also be a “yuppy” to survive in society and pay your bills!