Blog Archives

If Everything Matters...

3/27/2015

There's a saying in web design. "If everything's important, then nothing's important." We use it to mean that the most important elements on a page need to stand out. Place too many elements on the page and none of them stand out.

Education seems to take an opposite approach. In traditional schools, everything matters. You have to be good at language and you have to be good at math and you have to be good at science and you have to be good at history and you have to be good at literature. If you don't excel at all of them at once, there must be something wrong with you.

But that thinking dilutes concentration. If everything matters, then nothing matters.

Not so here. Sudbury schools give students plenty of time to go into depth with one or two subjects. It alone matters. They can master it, then they can move on to something else that's important. Less clutter, better impact.

Sean Vivier, MLSS Staff

0 Comments

Alfie Kohn

3/19/2015

1 Comment

The writings of Alfie Kohn helped convince me to join the Sudbury movement. Which is a bit ironic, given that Alfie Kohn doesn’t agree with the Sudbury model.

So, given that, what are the points of commonality? Kohn wrote Punished By Rewards, a book that details how punishments and rewards reduce the likelihood that someone will pursue something once those constraints are removed, and how schools thereby make students avoid learning when they can. He also wrote The Homework Myth, which aggregates all the studies that disprove the supposed effectiveness of homework. He’s also been paramount in criticisms of standardized testing and believes students should have more say in the classroom.

And yet Kohn still thinks teachers should take charge. There shouldn’t be standardized assessments, but there should be imposed assessments. And teachers should still decide what children learn. Notably, while he offers studies and other proof for his other opinions, he offers none for these. These he takes on faith.

Kohn knows centralized authority weakens education, yet he’s still willing to keep a vestige of it. It’s common enough for revolutionaries to turn around and demand control with power in their own hands. It becomes quite frustrating to see so many people demand greater freedom and respect for our kids, but who balk at the logical conclusion.

Yet here we remain, we who distrust power over others so much we don’t even want it for ourselves. And we’ll be here as more and more people realize this is the only proper way for someone who believes in freedom in our children's education.

Sean Vivier, MLSS Staff

1 Comment

How I Came to Love JC

3/13/2015

0 Comments

I didn’t always love JC (the Judicial Committee). It was something I put up with because it was part of the larger whole that I loved. I’d come to Mountain Laurel for the freedom and the chance to treat students like human beings who deserve my respect, not to get people in trouble. So I sat there because they needed me, but I tried to solve every problem without JC if possible.

Intellectually, I knew we needed it. People are not angels. We are capable of wronging other people. So without a set of rules and means to enforce them, kids would be free to hurt anyone they wanted. Adults, too, for that matter. So, I accepted it. I just didn’t embrace it.

Slowly but surely, that feeling changed. The first time I used JC, it was over purposeful flatulence in my face. The student who did it had to leave me alone for awhile as a consequence. It’s sad that it had to come to that point, but after that I held JC dear in my heart, not just my head.

Now I use JC all the time. To warn students who feel they have a right to harass me. To report messes. I’ve even written myself up for accidental breakage.

So, for those who doubt JC, know that I’ve been there. But also know that it’s exactly what our schools need.

Sean Vivier, MLSS Staff

0 Comments

Notes

3/10/2015

0 Comments

I recently ran into a former student from my days as a high school Spanish teacher. She told me she'd never taken notes, because I didn't check to make sure they took notes. This was after speaking to me in fluent Spanish. I told her I didn't care if she had the knowledge on paper. I cared if she had the knowledge in her head.

Walk into a public school classroom and you'll see everyone furiously taking notes. You might get the impression that these notes are important, perhaps even vital to the educational process. So much so that teachers will often assign part of a student's grade based on the notes they've taken rather than demonstration of their mastery of the subject.

And so notetaking has come to be associated with the necessities of education. Then, when people with this association in their minds walk into a Sudbury school, they see no notes of any kind. How can this be a serious school, they wonder, without notetaking?

The human mind doesn't need notes to learn. Someone who is interested in a subject they've chosen will simply remember without need for aids. Notetaking comes into play in an environment where it's taken for granted that the students will be bored and disengaged. Notes are required in traditional classes because the teacher expects that the students won't remember anything she said! That's why they need it on paper, so they can find it there rather than their minds, and perhaps cram it all into their brains for 24 hours for the next test.

That's not learning. Notetaking is a sign of educational inefficiency. There's no reason to place it on a pedestal. If you want to see real learning, you should be happy to see a school without notes.

Sean Vivier, MLSS Staff

0 Comments

No Control

3/4/2015

0 Comments

There is a common refrain in compulsory schools: that a teacher may know their content area, but they have “no control” over the kids. After this, the hearer is meant to twist their lips and shake their head. Nobody ever seems to reply: of course they have no control over the kids. The kids have their own forebrains and make their own decisions. The kids always have control over themselves. Nobody ever has control over anybody else.

Yet the assumption saturates the entire institution. Students will often demand why a teacher doesn’t make them do something in their best interest. The reply should be, of course: if you know it’s in your best interest, why didn’t you make yourself do it?

This is a terrible way to raise our children, under the belief that other people have control over them and they have no responsibility for their actions. At Sudbury schools, we recognize that we have no control, and thus the students embrace their own. And the irresponsibility and chronic behavior problems evaporate.

Sean Vivier, MLSS Staff

0 Comments

If Everything Matters...

Alfie Kohn

How I Came to Love JC

Notes

No Control

Author

Archives

Categories