Oh, absolutely. A lot of waste is built into the system. Dealing with disabled kids will always require more money, but lots of public schools (especially in other countries) are able to do well by their disabled students, while spending less than the average.
Some are.
That’s a good question, especially in regards to the state. But as far as crazy parents go, they should continue to be free to force the conventional style of education on their kids. Democratic schools, like the learning that takes place in them, would have to be purely voluntary, similar to magnet schools, maybe.
Yes, indeed. This is, perhaps, the most radical response, in that this puts the power in the hand of the student, which, for many students, is exactly where it belongs. For those students, some professional teachers would be partners, advisors, counselors, and learning enablers. For the students and families who prefer a more conventional style of education, the teachers would play more of a leading role.
I think you’re absolutely right about the power structure. And we won’t be able to experiment with learning the way we should until the power in education is taken away from politicians, lobbyists, and bureaucrats.
I detest strongly ruled frameworks and think I would have thrived in a school such as this. That said, whilst I feel that much (not all) of my schooling before age 18 was a waste of time (I’m atheist/agnostic, and attended various Orthodox Jewish schools) and a thoroughly unpleasant experience, it did teach me how to pretend to conform to standard social norms in order to fit in. I’m curious whether that is a skill one can learn from a non-normal institution? Unfortunately, I think it is an important one.
That’s a good question. I think different people require different amounts of “practice” to learn that skill. The graduates of democratic schools seem to have moved on to a variety of careers and lifestyles, so I wonder if it’s too terribly different from conventional school, in that regard.
Also, I have to wonder, what if more people couldn’t or wouldn’t pretend to conform to social norms that made no sense to them or had any meaning in their lives? Could be interesting!
Plus the fact that many important classes aren’t necessarily “fun”. I didn’t like math in grade school, and given a choice, I probably would have skipped that. And gym class too, because I’m not very athletic. Neither of which would have ultimately been a good idea – I wouldn’t have been able to pursue a career in science without math and I probably would be in even worse physical shape than I am without forced gym class. There’s a reason why parents say “You can’t have a cookie unless you eat your vegetables” – typical children would just eat cookies.
I’d have loved to opt out of dance and music classes. All I got out of those was embarrassed (better than the music teacher, I guess, since he ended up in prison for sexually abusing female pupils some years later).
Choosing not to learn something when someone else says you have to learn it doesn’t necessarily mean choosing to never learn that thing. Lots of kids who were in democratic schools or other self-directed learning programs skipped math (and/or reading and/or writing) when they were grade-school age. Then, as they got older, when they were interested, they learned it. Some chose to learn only the basic, everyday stuff, and others moved on to trig and calculus. Self-directed learners generally learn as much as they need for the lives they choose for themselves.
And that’s actually true for kids who went to conventional schools, as well. The stuff that was never interesting might be temporarily memorized for a test or two, but after school is over, most of it is forgotten, because it’s never used.
There are definitely lots of kids who respond better to conventional education, and it sounds like you were one of them, which is great. But there are lots and lots of kids who are miserable in school (even in the best schools), some learning mostly to hate education, some dropping out for good.
Having the kind of personality which doesn’t respond well to coerced education is not a character flaw. It’s merely a difference. The kids who are born with personalities which don’t respond well to the conventional education model deserve the opportunity to have a positive learning experience just as much as the other kids.
Also, saying “you can do whatever you want!” isn’t all that we do at democratic schools, any more than saying “do this now!” is all that teachers do in traditional schools.
Most people that I know who have had really positive experiences in school remember certain specific teachers who they felt connected to who inspired them to become passionate about learning something. One of the things that’s really great about democratic-type schools is that they promote a more human style of relationship between students and teachers. I know my students really well, know a lot about their interests and hopes and anxieties. I also know how they feel about me, which for many of them is positive and looking-up-to-ish. Given this friendly and collegial relationship, I can generally have positive experiences around suggesting to kids that I think they might get something out of looking into a particular subject area, or taking a class on offer.
Our major interest is in not allowing kids to define themselves in negative ways as “bad at writing” or “not a math person” – our secondary interest is making sure that they have some basic framework of thinking and learning skills that will help them acquire skills when they want/need them. And our tertiary interest is that we promote a space and culture that values learning and knowledge and accomplishing things and being awesome.
tl;dr – just because we don’t mandate that all kids take math class at specific times, this doesn’t mean we don’t encourage them to do so when we think it’d be a good idea (which is really a lot of the time, given how supremely great knowing math is.)
This is huge. One of my biggest pet peeves in conventional educational theory is a tendency to over-emphasize individual strengths; the implied corollary is that it is OK to be “bad” at something if you are “good” at something else. The extreme case is a heavily gendered “boys are good at math, girls are good at art” perspective, but weaker forms are just as pernicious and damaging.
I get what you’re saying with this point, but wouldn’t we all benefit with less conformity overall (I suspect you agree with this)? Part of my problem with public schools overall is that they are intended to create a sense of internalized discipline in children. Foucault talked about this in his book Discipline and Punish and I think he addresses it in his works on sexuality and medicine, too. He also argues that we’ve all internalized these norms, so they no longer need to be enforced by the state or church.
Historically speaking, I’d argue its the people who have not conformed and confronted society about its very real failures who have gotten the most done… that being said, I do get what you mean,and I think for a lot of us, it creates a very uncomfortable disconnect in our minds. We know HOW we’re supposed to be, but maybe we’re not fully uncomfortable with that. Maybe its because we haven’t fully internalized “normal” patterns of behavior?
Personal experience. I outright suck when it comes to blind memorizing. At high school, when I realized my career is in tech (and so I chose a trade one instead of a more generic “humanities” kind, bleh), I decided that it is perfectly ethical to cheat on things that can be easily found in an encyclopedia and focused instead (including spending the time saved on unproductive memorizing of what I’d forget in days to months anyway) on understanding of things like physics and chemistry (you won’t so easily forget what you understand, and the bare facts were easy to look up even before Uncle Google), which was why I chose the school. I did not chose it for the crap like history or literature, and was pretty open about it.
I never regretted this kind of resource allocation since.
yep, I’ll happily agree that less conformity is more enjoyable (with exceptions for things that have immediate impact on safety, such as hygiene or vaccination).
Not only that, but I want to argue that non-conformity is good for society as well. Let’s take civil rights for example… the classic civil rights movement (King, etc) rested on the non-conformity to white supremacy… much like the women’s rights movement rested on non-conformity to patriarchy. I think many of us agree that their non-conformity proved good for society as a whole…
And I totally agree about Boing Boing! I love all the happy mutants here!
