play vs. formal instruction as means to learning

[Louis Lieb]

I am a new swim instructor and a swimming pool seems like a good place to do an experiment: unsupervised play versus formal instruction as a way to learn swimming.  Which makes me wonder whether there's been such research in learning other subjects.  

Louis Lieb

loui...@gmail.com

[Ray Luechtefeld]

For some reason I have the sense that you are playing devil’s advocate and attempting to provoke some kind of response.  This may just be me and say nothing about you.

If not, and the question is sincere, I think you are missing the point somewhat.  The main point is self-determination.  If someone wants to learn to swim and asks for individual instruction you don’t withhold it from them.  On the other hand, you also don’t frog march someone to the pool tell them that they will learn to swim, like it or not.  (Or throw them in the pool so that they will either learn or drown trying.)

[Karen Hyams]

I taught private art classes to teens and pre-teens, and would never have done it the way I functioned as a staff person at a Sudbury School. I know my classes were different than many, but people paid for something specific, the kids were there (wanted to be there) to be taught to draw and paint. By me. My classes were always full, I had repeat students, and I had a love-hate relationship with the whole thing. They would have all quit if I'd done unsupervised studio play time.

There is a place for real instruction. People ask for it, pay for it, and show up for it week after week. And I got to see kids develop as artists week by week, which was very gratifying for all of us.

Karen

[Tuur Demeester]

This reminds me, during one of the first weeks after the opening of our school we once had a reporter ask one of our founders how kids were going to learn math: "Are they going to discover the Pythagorean theorem all by themselves?". Our answer (still making me cringe when I think of it) was that kids need math everywhere, when they are sewing for example, and that they'd find it eventually... 

 

On the other hand (and to some extent in support of what Louis Lieb is really getting at): is anyone familiar with the idea of "the impossibility of teaching"? It's sort of like another perspective on the oft-heard argument of Sudbury defenders that "learning is like breathing", that humans "can not not learn". If that is the case, than the only thing one might hope to do as a teacher is to influence the "direction" in which their students learn. 

The idea of the Impossibility of Teaching was first worked out by Augustine of Hippo (6th century AD). Scholar and medievist Peter King wrote an excellent (and very readable) article on this problem: http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/articles/Augustine_on_Teaching.pdf

Augustine, in his "De Magistro" (on the teacher) argues against Plato's Theory of Recollection (that all learning is in fact remembering something already known), as illustrated in the Meno dialogue where Socrates "proves" the theory by teaching a slave boy some math with nothing more than asking questions. Augustine disagreed with Plato, and goes on in his "De Magistro" (on the teacher) to develop his own theory of learning. Augustine's says that the only thing the teacher can do is to point at things. For example, if he wants to teach the name of the color "red", he can point at things that are red. However, he can not "implant" the color red in the mind of his pupils*. But this pointing-technique is not actually teaching:  

When a sign is given to me, it can teach me nothing if it finds me ignorant of the thing of which it is the sign—but if I’m not ignorant, what do I learn through the sign? 

Peter King paraphrases: 

I cannot know that a sign is a sign unless I know what it signifies—but then I learn nothing from the sign; my knowledge of its significate is presupposed in its being a sign in the first place. More exactly, I can only know that something is a sign if I know that it signifies, but I only know it as a sign—it can “teach me”—if I know what it signifies. Hence teaching by means of signs is impossible. 

Augustine restates the problem: 

Most of all I’m trying to persuade you, if I’ll be able to, that we don’t learn anything by these signs called words. As I have stated, we learn the meaning of a word—that is, we learn the signification hidden in the sound—once the thing signified is itself known, rather than our perceiving it by means of such signification. 

 

Peter King states the challenge: 

Take stock. In The Teacher Augustine has given us an extended argument that teaching is impossible. Since knowing something is an inner episode of awareness—specifically, comprehension of what has been proposed and then an internal test to see whether it is true—knowledge just isn’t the sort of thing that can be transferred between persons. Of course, Augustine does not argue this way; to do so would be to beg the question against Wittgenstein. Nor need we accept (or even explore!) Augustine’s theory of illumination to take the important point from his discussion, namely that learning (and so teaching) pose a deep and puzzling philosophical problem—one that the contemporary tradition does not often recognize. 

And this is his conclusion, in my mind very thought provoking: 

Since knowledge is a matter of an individual grasp dof reasons why something should be so, and such reasons have to explain the content of what is known, it follows that knowledge is not per se transmitted from a teacher to a student. Rather, a teacher proposes reasons to a student, who either sees how they work (and thereby accepts them), takes them by authority, or neither. In the first case there is knowledge; in the second belief; in the third ignorance. But for our purposes the important point is that in the first case, the student’s acceptance of the reasons is a process internal to the student—and, in the end, mysterious: the teacher may provide the occasion for learning but cannot do more. And this is enough to argue that the problem of learning is a deep and perplexing philosophical puzzle. For if the teacher doesn’t cause the student to understand—and it’s clear that the teacher cannot literally cause the student to understand, since otherwise everyone in the classroom would get it, or nobody would—then what is it that takes place? What is learning, if not a mysterious inner episode of awareness? 

And I think this is the moral of the story, that if one really wants to teach something, one has to make sure that the student can see how the idea "works" or "makes sense"—and that when this is not the case, there is not only "less learning" going on, but that the reverse is actually the case: one is teaching ignorance! This means that teaching has to happen within a meaningful context. And that, to me, is the question what bugs me: what is a meaningful context? Do ideas become meaningful when a teacher is passioned about his subject and not simply is "teaching the programme"? Do the students have to be interested and "see" how they can use that what the teacher is talking about? Does all knowledge have to be immediately useful? What about ideas that are "show" their meaning only after a long time of study? I'm playing the devil's advocate of course, but these questions actually have been on my mind for a while now—I've been challenged by a friend who is following a teacher-training programme :-)

I'm interested in people's thoughts on these questions. 

@ Louis Lieb: I'm sorry if I changed the subject. I may had better started a new thread... 

Greetings, 

Tuur 

P.S. Sorry for the sloppyness. Didn't have much time. 

Also interesting is the 13th century comment on Augustine's De Magistro by Thomas Aquinas. This is what Aquinas has to say: 

To the eleventh we should say that the student's ideas are the primary foundation on which is built all the knowledge gained through teaching. The student's own lights are the immediate builder, while the teacher's are the middle builder. For the teacher presents signs of the knowable things, from which the student's mind takes ideas in order to consider them. Thus the teacher's words or writings end up being like the subject of study, since the student takes ideas from both. The difference is that the teacher's words are a more direct way of generating knowledge than the experience of the subject since they are signs of the ideas themselves. here is the complete translation, with the original Latin besides: http://www4.desales.edu/~philtheo/loughlin/ATP/De_Magistro/De_Magistro_11_1.html

Thomas Aquinas: De Magistro 

http://www4.desales.edu/~philtheo/loughlin/ATP/De_Magistro/De_Magistro_11_1.html

*This goes against the grain of the positivistic ideas of many famous educators. One of the first in this tradition (and he may have inspired many others) is John Amos Comenius (now revered as one of the founders of modern pedagogy). This is what he writes in his famous "Great Didactic": 

The art of printing involves certain materials and processes. The materials consist of the paper, the type, the ink, and the press. The processes consist of the preparation of the paper, the setting up and inking of the type, the correction of the proof, and the impression and drying of the copies. All this must be carried out in accordance with certain definite rules, the observance of which ensure a successful result. 

 

 In didachography the same elements are present. Instead of paper, we have pupils whose minds have to be impressed with the symbols of knowledge. Instead of type, we have the class-books and the rest of the apparatus devised to facilitate the operation of teaching. The ink is replaced by the voice of the master, since this it is that conveys information from the books to the mind of the listener; while the press is school-discipline, which keeps the pupils up to their work and compels them to learn. (Comenius, 1910, p.289) 

[Michael Sappir]

Tuur, I think your point is valid and relevant -- but only when taken for what it is, a philosophical observation.

In other words, clearly, formal, frontal, "traditional" teaching does work...to a point. This is actually a key point for people trying to understand Sudbury schooling... I would never deny that people learn something in the classroom - it's just how and when that happens that is often misunderstood.

Like the King conclusion you quoted, Tuur, I think learning does happen through being taught, but only as a result of a process internal to the student. A teacher can stand before a classroom and talk endlessly; nobody will learn anything if they aren't listening. But a student who, for whatever reason, wants to listen and get their head around the ideas the teacher is trying to convey, will certainly learn something, and the teacher will certainly deserve credit for it.

The difference between what I'm saying and what traditional schooling assumes is simply that I say the student can get taught, as an act undertaken by the student (consciously or not), whereas traditional schooling assumes the student has to be taught by means of a teacher. In both cases, the basic concept of a knowledgeable person standing before a group of less knowledgeable people, resulting in increased understanding, is affirmed.

I believe that the key to what makes traditional schooling seem like it kind of works is that it creates incentives for students to pay a bit of attention and later demonstrate (in testing) that they have learned something. Even then, this only happens through the student's own agency and can't be "done to them" -- although coercion means making it more difficult to choose not to learn. And in rare cases, a student in a traditional school will be accidentally trapped in a class they find highly interesting and end up not only learning a lot but retaining it.

Of course, it's funny to compare single, selected frontal classes with the full program of traditional schooling... At Sudbury Jerusalem I attended a total of two classes in four years and never felt that was too little (now I have over 20 hours of class a week at university, and don't always feel it's too much -- only that the rest of my time is too little). Sudbury schools are based on the idea that a person learns all the time and that no specific activity is necessary to cause that learning to take place. This also means that even frontal classes are valid -- but like all other activities, only when the student chooses them out of their own keen interest and motivation.

Louis, I have to agree with the general sentiment that it's unfair not to teach people who come to you for lessons. They likely won't be too thrilled about it. And by trying to convey your knowledge and skill, the students who really want to learn really will learn, you can be sure of that. Still, as always, those who don't really want to be there won't get much out of it, whether you teach or not. For what it's worth (two cents?), that how I see things.

m

[Erin Bush]

Michael,

I really like the way you describe the ways that learning happens in
traditional schools versus Sudbury schools--it's very clear and easy
to understand without being simplistic.

Thanks,

Erin

[dlo...@gmail.com]

I think Louis, you are right thinking your class might me a good place
to experiment with different types of teaching.

I think one of the problems with some of us passionate about the
Sudbury model is that we forget that it is a philosophy and technique
just as much as Waldorf or Montessori or holistic models.

I would say that swimming class is a good place to allow some non
direct teaching. Balance is always the key. The process still needs to
be thought out.

Since there is a product or skill that you are selling and your
students are buying, IE
the basics or becoming a swimmer, you need to provide that. Right?

Since swimming is a sport or a skill, teaching or modeling the skills
needed to swim, seem appropriate.

how you do that should and could be up to the make up of the class,
the skill level of the students, and the
outcome that you want to achieve etc.

Then how you go about that is up to you.

I like the idea of always thinking about what you want to
teach the student and why and then figuring out how your going to
assess that.

Did you do your job, did the student learn what you
hoped, if not what technique might you use next time. I think if you
try to follow this frame of mind, the the framework or philosophy will
figure it self out. There is not one right way, because students and
teacher both are different and have varied strengths and weakness.

Just my two cents.

I just finished my first residency at Goddard College and they made a
us trust the process the whole way though. It was painful and
wonderful and scary and amazing....

> louisl...@gmail.com

[David Rovner]

Deci, E.L., & Ryan, R. M. (2002). The paradox of achievement: The harder you
push, the worse it gets. In, Improving academic achievement: impact of
psychological factors on education, J. Aronson (Ed.).]

~ David

[Erik Haugsjaa]

Louis,

You might enjoy reading the essay "A Moment of Insight" by Hanna
Greenberg
from "The Sudbury Valley School Experience"
The topic being cross-country skiing, not swimming.
http://books.google.com/books?id=-UMqvLEcH0wC&lpg=PA73&dq=sudbury%20valley%20experiment&client=firefox-a&pg=PA100

Speaking personally...

Our 4.5 year old seems to have enjoyed a few weeks of casual "swim
lessons"
while at various day camps this summer. But mostly he seems to
enjoy playing/swimming at the beach at the local lake... preferably
with lots of other kids around. But we already knew he loves
swimming
from years of playing at local beaches, so a camp with swimming was
certainly of interest to him!

Just yesterday (not at camp) his "jumping off the dock into the deep
end without
a PDF" inspired a neighbor's kiddo to do the same for the first time.
Of course,
where did our kiddo get this idea? Watching about a million other
kids
do the same, time after time. And were they unsupervised?... well,
not
exactly... parents watching and ready to grab a drowning kid if
necessary
of course! :-)

Now... I surely learned a lot in swim lessons as a kid, and in college
when taking
long-distance swim classes taught by members of the university swim
team.
There are endless intracacies of technique that were very fun to
learn...

But I loved swimming already!

What I HATED AND REFUSED TO DO were the "on-deck" warm-up exercises
(back
when I was 4 years old at the lessons at our neighbor's pool.)

Erik

> louisl...@gmail.com

[Louis Lieb]

On the role of the teacher, it seems to me that "teacher" is a heavily laden archetype in our culture, which is downplayed in the Sudbury model - even to the point of eliminating the name altogether.  

Which makes me speculate further about the functions of a teacher: in learning and teaching a physical skill like athletics or many art forms, the teacher can play a role somewhat similar to that of a video camera, giving the student a form of visual feedback, which is both an aide to the student's kinesthetic awareness, as well as help in comparing what he is doing to the norm.  Ie, the teacher says: "here's what you're doing, and here's what you're supposed to be doing."  

The role of the teacher is often highly interactive, especially when he's teaching one on one.  

I often think that, "well, I can learn something from a book, and don't need a course (or teacher)."  But a book is a "frozen teacher" - not so very different from a teacher, really. Just a different medium of communication. Though a book lacks the interactive feature that an ideal teacher-student relationship would include. Computer technology has introduced other interactive forms of learning - for example, a computer program that gives math exercises based on how the student did on the last set of exercises.  

In addition, a teacher often conveys his personality. The personal element can be very important, especially to the young, and may go a long way towards explaining why the archetype "teacher" is so important in our culture.  

One area I'm exploring now is teacher as playmate.  If I share my interests with students, it can involve a lot of play.  I enjoy sharing, and if the other party is also interested, then it becomes play for both of us. 

Other functions of a teacher?  

Note: when I talk I talk about "our culture", I am talking about the US, but I think much the same could be said about Europe and even more so Asia.  

Lou

Louis Lieb

loui...@gmail.com

[David Rovner]

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Rovner" <rov...@netvision.net.il>
To: <discuss-su...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 11:18 AM
Subject: Fw: [DSM] "The paradox of achievement: The harder you push, the
worse it gets."


>
>
> Deci, E.L., & Ryan, R. M. (2002). The paradox of achievement: The harder
> you push, the worse it gets. In, Improving academic achievement: impact of
> psychological factors on education, J. Aronson (Ed.).

> http://books.google.com/books?id=0bEOmHiVzDgC&pg=PA61&lpg=PA61&dq=Deci+Ryan+The+paradox+of+achievement:+The+harder+you+push,+the+worse+it+gets+Aronson&source=bl&ots=bF95BFc-LF&sig=EOJgjgofZAm-wMzkS_kV5GllJ6g&hl=en&ei=PlMsSt22Dc3Dsgaap7SeDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1

[dlo...@gmail.com]

Right on. Not sure if you have read Ron Miller's What are schools
for?:Holistic education in American culture. Great great book.

here a quote from one of the pioneers of holistic teaching.

Joeseph Neef says of his role of teacher "friend, and guide, their
school fellow, play fellow and messmate"

I think there is the a role for the teacher is society....every
cultures has them, every cultures I would say has different ideas of
what they can or should be....but I would say we can learn alone, but
we don't live in a singular world we live in a world of community and
connection....and above any thing that is taught we are building
connections and community.

Do you journal about your teaching/or playing?

if so...love to read....

my blog is http://adventuresinlearningeducation.blog.com

david

> ...
>
> read more »

[David Rovner]

If you want to learn from a teacher, nobody will prevent you to do that.

~ David

The blog you were looking for,
http://adventuresinlearningeducation.blog.com/ doesn't exist but you can
create it now!

----- Original Message -----
From: <dlo...@gmail.com>
To: "Discuss Sudbury Model" <discuss-su...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 7:14 PM
Subject: [DSM] Re: play vs. formal instruction as means to learning

[David Rovner]

"........But learning is a process you do, not a process that is done to
you! That is true of everyone. It's basic......."
http://www.sudval.com/05_underlyingideas.html#09

~ David

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Rovner" <rov...@netvision.net.il>
To: <discuss-su...@googlegroups.com>

[dlo...@gmail.com]

www.adventuresinlearningeducation.blogspot.com

sorry for this type.

On Aug 2, 4:59 am, David Rovner <rovn...@netvision.net.il> wrote:
> "........But learning is a process you do, not a process that is done to
> you! That is true of everyone. It's basic......."http://www.sudval.com/05_underlyingideas.html#09
>
> ~ David
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Rovner" <rovn...@netvision.net.il>
> To: <discuss-su...@googlegroups.com>
> Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2009 8:21 PM
> Subject: [DSM] Re: play vs. formal instruction as means to learning
>
> If you want to learn from a teacher, nobody will prevent you to do that.
>
> ~ David
>

> The blog you were looking for,http://adventuresinlearningeducation.blog.com/doesn't exist but you can

> create it now!
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <dlo...@gmail.com>
> To: "Discuss Sudbury Model" <discuss-su...@googlegroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 7:14 PM
> Subject: [DSM] Re: play vs. formal instruction as means to learning
>
> Right on. Not sure if you have read Ron Miller's What are schools
> for?:Holistic education in American culture. Great great book.
>
> here a quote from one of the pioneers of holistic teaching.
>
> Joeseph Neef says of his role of teacher "friend, and guide, their
> school fellow, play fellow and messmate"
>
> I think there is the a role for the teacher is society....every
> cultures has them, every cultures I would say has different ideas of
> what they can or should be....but I would say we can learn alone, but
> we don't live in a singular world we live in a world of community and
> connection....and above any thing that is taught we are building
> connections and community.
>
> Do you journal about your teaching/or playing?
>
> if so...love to read....
>

> my blog ishttp://adventuresinlearningeducation.blog.com

> > > long time of study? I'm playing the...
>
> read more »

[Joseph Moore]

When we talk about teachers, I think we tend to think more of a classroom teacher rather than, say, a piano teacher. A piano teacher helps someone willing to practice by showing them how to do things and correcting errors – for about a half hour a week. THEN the student goes off and (if they really want to learn) practices for many times the half hour. So an intense interaction of teacher and student is followed by a period of time for the student to work out what it is she is learning.  

 

Colleges and universities, as well as trade schools, generally follow this pattern – a relatively small amount of time with the teacher, and a relatively large amount of time to work things through – to study or practice. This approach demonstrably works in many cases – people do learn how to play the piano or become brain surgeons or auto mechanics this way.

 

In a typical classroom, the pattern is inside out in several ways – there’s hours and hours of instruction (or at least attendance) followed by a fraction of that amount of time for the student to work on what they’re trying to learn. The student, in a wonderfully self-fulfilling way, is assumed not to be trustworthy enough to learn on her own, or at least not much – they must spend the bulk of their learning time with a teacher present. Parents are expected to stand in loco teacher over homework.

 

Teachers are invaluable for many important kinds of learning. They are superfluous for many other important kinds of learning. Most of the time when teachers are needed, for technically complex types of learning, the piano teacher model is probably much better, both more effective and more respectful.

 

Joseph

 

 

 

[Karen Hyams]

Thank you, Joseph. Sometimes I think the discussion here gets a little dogmatic, and anti- traditional teaching. There are situations where people cannot teach themselves or learn alone, and we do ourselves a disservice by dismissing a modality that has served many people well.

One example I always think of is the critique in art studio classes. They are sometimes punishing exercises that almost no one goes to willingly at first, mostly peer to peer critiques of the work that is being done in class. Who wants to see their work picked apart so relentlessly that they might end up crying? But without the ability to do that, you may never see your own work with the kind of honesty you need to get better. And people who work in vacuums can be very thin-skinned, and then stagnate. This is not an example of the traditional model of a teacher lecturing in front of a class, but it is an established teaching practice, and it is not initiated by the students. And it is not play.

(And for the record, I did not do crits with teens.)

Karen

[Louis Lieb]

Eons ago (before the PC and internet revolution) I was learning some basic computer skills -- how to use the SAS statistical software to read a large financial database on a mainframe computer.  I found a mentor at my employing agency who could help a bit, answer some questions, etc.  That seems like the typical kind of *teacher* in a workplace setting.  Later I noticed that the agency was offering computer courses of various sorts.  But if the right way to learn something is in connection with some practical use of it, then the courses could never be well-aimed to their goal and, in my opinion, were largely useless. It was a logistical problem - the course could never be organized and offered exactly when an individual needed it.  And it would have to be organized around his particular objective.  For example, I never learned more than 10% of SAS.  I only learned the parts that I needed to meet my goal. If someone had told me "here's a course where you will learn the other 90%, it would have put me to sleep." 

In today's era, there would doubtless be another way of learning it online, etc. 

Lou

Louis Lieb

loui...@gmail.com

[Woty]

On Jul 31, 2009, at 12:14, dlo...@gmail.com wrote:

>
> Right on. Not sure if you have read Ron Miller's What are schools
> for?:Holistic education in American culture. Great great book.
>
> here a quote from one of the pioneers of holistic teaching.
>
> Joeseph Neef says of his role of teacher "friend, and guide, their
> school fellow, play fellow and messmate"

Friendship is mutual and voluntary. People are friends when they
decide they want to be, and in a healthy friendship people connect as
equals. A relationship in which one person tries to be a holistic life
guide for the other is not friendship, however gentle and respectful
they try to be.

What happens in Joseph Neef's scheme of things if the student doesn't
want that teacher as a friend, and doesn't find that teacher's
guidance relevant?

~Woty

[Karen Hyams]

Yeah, that sentence gave me the creeps. It sounds like a great way to make the "teacher" feel good about herself, regardless of how the child is feeling.

[Rebecca Howarth]

Woty, I couldn't have said it any better.

[Tuur Demeester]

Dear Michael,

Thanks for your thoughtful response. I certainly agree that the issue of coercion is a fundamental one. But nonetheless I do seriously doubt whether education is really just "in the heart of the listener, not in the voice of the teacher" (as that Fairhaven student once put it). 

Maybe this is the reason why I'm at skeptical of the educational philosophy that is defended, possibly not by the student I just mentioned, but certainly by quite a few adherents of the sudbury model, that education is "in" and ought to "come entirely from" the child. To me, this idea seems to run completely counter to the idea behind education. Taken to its ultimate consequence, it basically says that children can eduate themselves. Is that really possible? Let's take Mowgli as an example, from Kipling's Jungle Book. In the story, Balou, Bageera, and the other animals are all depicted as humans: talking, asking questions, making arguments and coming to agreements. This would of course not have been the case had Mowgli been a real feral child, brought up only by his own capacities, with or without the beasts of the forest. In that case, he would have turned out becoming (or rather, remaining) a beast. Nothing we would call "educated" would apply to him. Sure, he would know some things, such as how to find eatible ants or how to kill a wild boar, but our Mowgli would not likely know anything about the humane, peaceful and reasonable way in which man can live together (something an old fashioned person would call "civilization"). In fact, without someone else to reflect upon himself, Mowgli would have even unlikely developed even an awareness of self. And lacking a sense of self, he would then also lack any kind of responsability. One literally wouldn't be able to reason with him.* 

So there is a role for "educators" in education, I'm sure you agree. But what should it be? Back in the old days, during the peak of Roman and Greek culture, there were, next to the nurturing role of parents (and the nurse or "nutritor"), two quite well defined institutions related to the rearing of the child to manhood. A first was that of the paedagogus. The paedagogus was a slave whose task it was to serve the parents by assisting and disciplining the child: following him through the streets, carrying his belongings, and making sure he didn't get into trouble. This quote from 4th century Rome illustrates the idea: 

"A paedagogus is assigned to the young so that the rowdiness of youth might be restrained and their hearts prone to sin be held in check ... by the fear of punishment. (Jerome, Commentary on Paul's Letter to the Galatians 2.3.24)

Very different from the paedagogus was the (often travelling) teacher, called sophist in Greece, orator in Rome, and later magister in the medieval tradition. Plato's grudge against the sophists have given them a bad reputation, but it is (I believe) no coincidence that Greece was ridden with them exactly at the intellectual peak of Ancient Greek civilisation. In fact, Socrates has often been called "the greatest of the sophists". These learned men gained an enthousiastic following among parents, and the youth themselves, through their skills in argumentation and the wisdom they gained by discussing and thinking about that what is common in all things, rather than merely strolling along with the colloquial habits, troubles and gossips. Whatever wage they earned was provided solely for their advanced skills and knowledge. And there (I think) lied the difference: where the paedagogus was, perhaps irrespectfully put, the nanny or babysit of the children, the sophists, orators and magisters were their actual educators (let's call them Teachers with a big T), introducing them, rather than to the paternalistical tune of "this is how we do things over here", to the laws governing the world and the universe. 

What seems to have happened throughout history is that, very slowly, the role of the Teacher has been replaced by that of the paedagogus, the result being that education has regressed (and I am exagerating, but I'm afraid not all that much) to the mere disciplining of children. We could enter in a long discussion of why this happened, but I think that would be besides the point of the discussion (so I'll contain myself :-)). The wonderful thing about Sudbury Valley School (I pick this specific school to stay away from the discussion "what/which is a sudbury school?")  is that it has decided to do away with a lot of the coercive and otherwise dehumanising methods that have over the years trickled into the great majority of schools. On top of that, SVS has, in my mind, restored a few traditional insitutions that are essential for any peaceful, just, and prosperous community (and that seems to become increasingly scarce in society at large), namely the rule of law, respect for the freedom of the individual, and a rich and vibrant culture. 

However, I still wonder whether this is enough to speak of it as a place where Education (with an E) takes place. Sure, I don't contest learning is possible. Any place where two people sit together and where one knows more than the other is an opportunity for the exchange of knowledge. But what knowledge will that be? Will it be knowledge about universals or about colloquialisms? Can we really call anyone who teaches anything to anybody a Teacher with a T? I don't actually think so. The classical curriculum, focused on wisdom, logic and the temperate life, was built during a period of over a thousand years. It is this curriculum that students learned to master, some of which in great depth, which gave them the chance, if parents liked and respected him enough, to become a Teacher with a T. This old curriculum was the cornerstone that served as the cornerstone of the Education with an E. 

However, this curriculum, taught in an environment where parents by and large where in charge of the education of their children, has, in a period of some 200 years, almost completely been annihilated from the scene. What children learn today is generally an amalgam of factoids and "practical" knowledge prescribed by government agencies, and then force-taught to them on a mass scale (forgive me the harsh language, but I believe that is the reality). How this does not serve them as human beings is perhaps illustrated by the facts that many of them are less well-mannered and more confused when they leave school than when they enter it. 

Sudbury schools have, as far as I know and have seen, done an amazing job at restoring the honest and orderly way of setting up a community—so that it can again become a place of Education. And with that, I mean an environment wherein the lessons/principles of right, wrong, up and down can be explained in a way that does not conflict with the environment.   (unlike, for example a traditional classroom in which children learn that "everyone has equal rights" ... from a teacher that is not free to speak his mind, in a school system that is privileged and heavily controlled by the government, coming from a curriculum that is mandatorily prescribed).

However, nearly all of us have been raised in institutions where there was very little Education was going on. And if we have been homeschooled, then our parents have most probably been raised in a place like that. This goes for almost the entire population. The consequence of this, logically, is that there are very little Educators left. (There is, however, a wealth of material out there to educate ourselves with :-))  

So now, the question I would like to post here, for your consideration, is whether our schools have enough Educators with an E. I hope I don't offend anyone by the following, but let me rephrase my question a bit more bluntly to make it more clear: if we are serious about our project as an educational one**, should we maybe educate more than babysitting? Teach more than nannying? And, consequently, should we maybe be educating ourselves more in order to be able to provide children with an Education that deserves the E? Are we maybe too much paedagogus, and too little magister? And could this be a reason why the sudbury model hasn't known more popularity—because most parents still want their children to be educated by Teachers, rather than merely be taught good manners by pedagogues? 

A possible objection to what I've just said is that I am trying to impose my own personal agenda on the sudbury model. I always remember the story my friend Maaike told us about the earliest days of the startup in Belgium, when someone joined the group, very enthousiastic about the whole Sudbury philosophy, but then expecting that the children should eat only microbiotical food. I can imagine some of you interpreting this email as a way to impose my own personal interests (say, philosophy classes ;-)) on the sudbury model. However, I am not contesting the model as such (at least, I think not!). Rather, I am just wondering whether we should not commit ourselves to mastering more of the "old curriculum" in order to earn the respect of students, parents and the wider environment as being competent Teachers. 

Best wishes, and thank you for bearing with me, 

Tuur 

    

*This is something that seems to be confirmed over and over again by the so-called "feral children", who have grown up in the wild, often raised by animals. They have very low IQ's and hardly any sense of self (from what I have found). This underdevelopment is called "psychosocial dwarfism". 

**I am no longer actively involved in a Sudbury school, but I am still a big supporter of the ideas (or I like to think so :-)). 

[Rebecca Howarth]

Tuur,

As I read your post, the following ideas came to mind:

There seems to be some idea that if the classics aren't "enforced," then
they will be forgotten. I think that if people are given the latitude
they need to investigate and try the areas that they are interested in
(and in my opinion, maybe even designed to do), then they will naturally
encounter the classics of their field.

There are certain ideas or methods that humanity seems to "stumble
across" again and again. When a person with a keen mind focuses the
entirety of her efforts, resources, and skills upon one of these ideas,
the result can be what we would call a "classic." By my own experience,
"Don Quixote" is an example of this. Cervantes aimed the summation of
his mental powers at particular profound concepts or questions that much
of humanity concerns itself with at one time or another.

Let's say a person decides to try her hand at a particular field. We
could use blacksmithing as an example. As the person devotes herself to
this field and travels further down the path to competence and then
excellence in this area, it is likely that she will encounter problems,
ideas, or phenomena that other blacksmiths have encountered previously.
The worthwhile, powerful, time-tested solutions that these other people
have produced may have proved useful to an incredible range of problems
and situations. These solutions may be considered the "classics" of
blacksmithing. They could come in the form of a book, a technique, or
some other configuration. Our new blacksmith, if she is making a
thorough investigation into the field, would be hard pressed NOT to
grapple with these classics at some point or another.

If these classics were introduced to her before she encountered the
situations for which they would clearly be useful, their power may be
blunted or lost altogether. And will everyone be versed in the classics
of blacksmithing? Of course not. They might be interested in other
things, and reach to other classics.

If the classics aren't "enforced," not everyone will be familiar with
every classic. They aren't now. But what's happening now is that we
seem to be aiming at some kind of superficial, cursory knowledge of vast
numbers of classics, which results in little deep knowledge of any one
of them, and which also is contrary to the very nature of these things.
Classics demand the attention of the reader (or artisan, or viewer, or
doer, etc), and can't be grasped in a single sitting, like a television
show. They require the best of us, and do not lend themselves to trite,
short-lived consideration.

Rebecca

[Michael Sappir]

Tuur,
Thanks for your post. You make an interesting point, but I feel you may have missed my one in your response:

Clearly, the sources of knowledge are external to the student. The process of acquiring skills and knowledge, however, is a purely internal one - regardless of the external sources used, and of their attitude towards the student.

I know that you know this, which is why you suggest that those working in an educational environment enrich themselves with the classics in order to make themselves more valuable. But as Rebecca aptly illustrated, the classics are classics for a reason, everyone comes back to them eventually, and they exist in more fields than we normally think about as having them.

Tuur, I think the way Sudbury schools select staff is already an implicit drive towards the quality of person and the quality of education that you call for. Because staff are elected and stand for yearly re-election, the school - in the long run - is selecting for quality and depth. Sure, not every staff member at any given moment may be a font of wisdom and an icon of expertise in their field or fields, but in the long run, that kind of deep quality is exactly what makes a staff member valuable to the school. (Note that being a great "people person" is just as important for a vibrant community as being trained in philosophy, and a health community probably needs experts on both.)

I feel that any conscious effort to maintain a staff that is better trained in the "classics" (even taken in the broadest possible sense, in the manner Rebecca suggests) would, over time, lead to a narrowing of the concept of "good backgrounds". In effect, we would end up gradually reducing the properties demanded or expected from staff to something far less flexible and rooted in convention and tradition (and as such unable to be dynamically adjusted with the times).

At the end of the day, in a system where staff is tested for value on a yearly basis, it is simply superfluous to try to artificially increase their value. The democratic mechanisms for selecting staff take care of improving the quality and value of the human resources in the school, and though the result may not be immediate, it is certainly clear in the more well-established schools that the tendency is there.

Michael

[Karen Hyams]

Tuur,

There was one point I wanted to address. When you say " 'come entirely from' the child" I'm not sure if you are paraphrasing or taking a phrase out of context. A child who directs his own education in a resource rich environment in the midst of a very vibrant culture is in no way analogous to an enfant savage. I am very surprised you've made the comparison.

Are you no longer associated with a school because your school is no more, or because you are no longer in agreement with the ideas behind the model?

Karen