Negatives

[Ruti Regan]

What do you consider to be the worst thing about the Sudbury model?

~Woty

[Carmel Boss]

What a dumb and negative question.

~Woty

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[Alan Klein]

I read the question quite differently. I read it as an attempt to get us all to look critically at our creations. In my work we call it a "paradoxical intervention". Often useful in critical thinking.

~Alan Klein

[Frederick W. Schueler]

On 2/17/2011 10:50 PM, Alan Klein wrote:
> I read the question quite differently. I read it as an attempt to get us
> all to look critically at our creations. In my work we call it a
> "paradoxical intervention". Often useful in critical thinking.

* from our experience in trying to start a SVS-model school in Ottawa,
the worst thing is that parents don't understand the model, and that
what we'd call freedom and democracy is so foreign to the current
culture of authoritarian control, that those who need it don't avail
themselves of it.

...but of course we've never actually been part of an operational SVS
school,

fred.
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[Mydlack, Daniel J.]

Speaking from experience, I think certainly one of the poorer aspects of Sudbury schools is their vulnerability to staff manipulation of students. It's a little-known aspect (except to those who have been insiders) how undemocratic, almost machiavellian, fellow staff, cofounders, even advisors from other school can perform all in the name of a greater good. I think parents suspect this, even sense it, though they are uniformly brow-beaten and shouted down at every turn.

But I don't suggest that a 'purer' form of democracy is called for. Perhaps a more honest accounting of the real forces at play and the compromises necessary in founding, growing, and maintaining such a complex organism.

Certainly it requires a special devotion and faith in the early stage for enthusiasts (god bless them) but there is something beyond simply drinking the koolaid.
________________________________________
From: discuss-su...@googlegroups.com [discuss-su...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Frederick W. Schueler [bck...@istar.ca]
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 10:57 PM
To: discuss-su...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [DSM] Negatives

[Ruti Regan]

On 2/17/11 10:46 PM, Carmel Boss wrote:
> What a dumb and negative question.

Of course it's a negative question. That's why the subject line is
"negatives". Everything has its drawbacks, and this isn't an advocacy
list, it's a discussion list.

I don't think it's a dumb question though. I think that people involved
in almost any organization have answers to that for the organization
they're involved with--either things they disagree with on principle or
think are implemented poorly in practice.

For instance, Scott Grey thinks that the Sudbury Valley School ought not
to issue diplomas.

I'm aware of very strong advantages to the Sudbury model (both in theory
and in practice); I'm curious what people see as the weak points because
I very rarely see them discussed by people who have any significant
grasp of the model. And I'm sure they exist, just on general principles
(not because I dislike the Sudbury model, I in fact like it a lot, but
nothing is perfect.)

~Woty

[Ruti Regan]

On 2/17/11 10:57 PM, Frederick W. Schueler wrote:
> On 2/17/2011 10:50 PM, Alan Klein wrote:
>> I read the question quite differently. I read it as an attempt to get us
>> all to look critically at our creations. In my work we call it a
>> "paradoxical intervention". Often useful in critical thinking.
>
> * from our experience in trying to start a SVS-model school in Ottawa,
> the worst thing is that parents don't understand the model, and that
> what we'd call freedom and democracy is so foreign to the current
> culture of authoritarian control, that those who need it don't avail
> themselves of it.
>
> ...but of course we've never actually been part of an operational SVS
> school,
>
> fred.

Yes, being this far outside mainstream culture is really difficult,
especially before reaching critical mass of people who are on board with
those values. I've found that when I describe the sudbury model most
people think it's basically like progressive schools and that students
must not *really* be making significant decisions and that adults must
*really* be controlling the environment, the learning, and the rules.

I think that's also one of the most valuable things the model provides
and a primary advantage over unschooling, though--having access to other
kids who have control over their own lives is really important.

~Woty

[Jaime Pinto]

I don't think it's either dumb or negative. Self evaluation is a valuable thing, and nothing is.perfect. How can we improve if selfcritizism is considered "dumb" and "negative"?

[Isabella O'Connell]

The worst thing about the Subury Model is the people who have nothing
to do with the Sudbury model. Most people aren't familiar with Sudbury
schools and of that most don't care to understand it, so people will
tell me' I'm not learning anything and it's a do-nothing school, and
there's no way to convince them otherwise because they don't want to
think otherwise. So probably the worst part about Sudbry schools is
people who look down on them for whatever reason.

On Thursday, February 17, 2011, Ruti Regan <woty...@gmail.com> wrote:
> What do you consider to be the worst thing about the Sudbury model?
>
> ~Woty
>

[Jessica Haugsjaa]

As an SVS parent, I have never been brow-beaten or shouted down. Quite the contrary. I have felt my opinions and concerns to be respected and listened to. So I guess that means I "drink the kool-aid". That kind of talk, though, is not productive and does nothing to improve school/parent relations, which is indeed the biggest negative of the model. People just don't get it. However, that is not a problem of the model itself, but of the society it finds itself in.

Jess Haugsjaa

--- On Thu, 2/17/11, Mydlack, Daniel J. <dmyd...@towson.edu> wrote:

[Ruti Regan]

On 2/17/11 11:16 PM, Mydlack, Daniel J. wrote:
> Speaking from experience, I think certainly one of the poorer aspects of Sudbury schools is their vulnerability to staff manipulation of students. It's a little-known aspect (except to those who have been insiders) how undemocratic, almost machiavellian, fellow staff, cofounders, even advisors from other school can perform all in the name of a greater good. I think parents suspect this, even sense it, though they are uniformly brow-beaten and shouted down at every turn.
>
> But I don't suggest that a 'purer' form of democracy is called for. Perhaps a more honest accounting of the real forces at play and the compromises necessary in founding, growing, and maintaining such a complex organism.
>
> Certainly it requires a special devotion and faith in the early stage for enthusiasts (god bless them) but there is something beyond simply drinking the koolaid.
>

What kind of manipulation are you talking about?

~Woty

[Tom Hall]

On Thursday, February 17, 2011 10:57:19 PM UTC-5, Frederick W. Schueler wrote:

* from our experience in trying to start a SVS-model school in Ottawa,
the worst thing is that parents don't understand the model, and that
what we'd call freedom and democracy is so foreign to the current
culture of authoritarian control, that those who need it don't avail
themselves of it.

fred.

Which dovetails nicely with my observation, which is a cycle of (presumption of) parental hostility/ignorance, and the subsequent lack of parental involvement in  the school, or in the development of the model itself (except for parents that are also staff).

Parents don't understand (or are presumed to not understand) the model, which causes staff to exclude them from involvement, which leads to further lack of understanding, which leads to further exclusion... an interesting cycle. It does have the beneift of partly protecting the school and students from interference due to parental authoritarianism,  but I think that protection could be creatively achieved in a more inclusive manner, which would have the benefit of making the SVS society less insular, and potentially create more opportunities for the students, staff, and parents.

[Tom Hall]

Sorry - I should have said "which causes students and staff to exclude them..."

[Ruti Regan]

> As an SVS parent, I have never been brow-beaten or shouted down. Quite the contrary. I have felt my opinions and concerns to be respected and listened to. So I guess that means I "drink the kool-aid". That kind of talk, though, is not productive and does nothing to improve school/parent relations, which is indeed the biggest negative of the model. People just don't get it. However, that is not a problem of the model itself, but of the society it finds itself in.
>
> Jess Haugsjaa
>

Jess,

What do you see as the problem with parent-school relationships? That's
not something I've ever thought about.

~Woty

[Tom Hall]

Or at least, control over their lives while they are at school... which points again to why the parent-school relationship is so touchy...

[Ruti Regan]

> The worst thing about the Subury Model is the people who have nothing
> to do with the Sudbury model. Most people aren't familiar with Sudbury
> schools and of that most don't care to understand it, so people will
> tell me' I'm not learning anything and it's a do-nothing school, and
> there's no way to convince them otherwise because they don't want to
> think otherwise. So probably the worst part about Sudbry schools is
> people who look down on them for whatever reason.
>

Yes, that's a really big problem and I suspect it's the biggest and most
difficult.

I think one reason it's such a hard problem is that it causes cultural
distortions within schools. They're all under constant attack and live
with substantial fear of being closed down; this makes criticism and
innovation harder than they ought to be.

SVS and the other schools ought not to be causes, and mostly aren't, but
to some extent have to be because of the degree to which the surrounding
culture opposes them. That's very unfortunate.

~Woty

[Ruti Regan]

What do you think the benefits would be of greater parental involvement in the school?

~Woty

[Ruti Regan]

On 2/18/11 9:37 AM, Tom Hall wrote:

Yes, being this far outside mainstream culture is really difficult, especially before reaching critical mass of people who are on board with those values. I've found that when I describe the sudbury model most people think it's basically like progressive schools and that students must not *really* be making significant decisions and that adults must *really* be controlling the environment, the learning, and the rules.

I think that's also one of the most valuable things the model provides and a primary advantage over unschooling, though--having access to other kids who have control over their own lives is really important.

~Woty

Or at least, control over their lives while they are at school... which points again to why the parent-school relationship is so touchy...

Yes, especially since it's hard to communicate the values underlying the Sudbury model since every possible word used to describe it is in common use as doublespeak when almost anyone else talks about education of children.

So it's very easily possible and not at all uncommon for people to send their kids to a democratic school without having any idea what they're getting themselves into.

~Woty

[Ruti Regan]

On 2/18/11 9:01 AM, Tom Hall wrote:
>

> Which dovetails nicely with my observation, which is a cycle of
> (presumption of) parental hostility/ignorance, and the subsequent lack
> of parental involvement in the school, or in the development of the
> model itself (except for parents that are also staff).
>
> Parents don't understand (or are presumed to not understand) the
> model, which causes staff to exclude them from involvement, which
> leads to further lack of understanding, which leads to further
> exclusion... an interesting cycle. It does have the beneift of partly
> protecting the school and students from interference due to parental
> authoritarianism, but I think that protection could be creatively
> achieved in a more inclusive manner, which would have the benefit of
> making the SVS society less insular, and potentially create more
> opportunities for the students, staff, and parents.

Is this primarily driven by staff? I thought it was a school meeting
policy that was important to the students as well.

~Woty

[Tom Hall]

Is this primarily driven by staff? I thought it was a school meeting policy that was important to the students as well.

~Woty

I did correct this in a subsequent post, and you are, of course, right.  Just the simple fact that I would write it that way, and then have to correct it, shows that even though I am well versed in the principles and details of the model (and parent from an equally radical model),  I still have a number of cultural biases around "education" that I have to watch for and correct, and it is exactly these unconscious biases that are one of the sources of  parent/school conflict.

It may also have something to do with the fact that all of my contact with the school itself is through the staff.

[Ruti Regan]

Why doesn't contact with your kid count as contact with the school itself? Because of the different relationships involved?

~Woty

[Tom Hall]

I think there are obvious benefits to greater parental understanding of the the Sudbury Model, and some mechanism to nurture this understanding would be very useful, but the model does not currently have any such mechanism.  This does not mean greater involvement in the actual day to day operations of the school.

Parents are also a potential resource, a potential source of knowledge and expertise in a variety of subjects, and use of that resource could make hands on learning opportunities available to students in a variety of subjects and fields of endeavor.  The problem is how to make this resource known and available, and how to utilize it without compromising the student's autonomy (which again leads back to education of the parents in the model and how it works, not just theoretically, but in actual interaction).

[Daniel Greenberg]

I think that members of this list should be aware that the person who posted this considered himself to be the object of an unfair decision by the School Meeting of the school at which he worked, and ascribed that decision to "undemocratic, almost machiavellian, fellow staff, cofounders, even advisors from other school can perform all in the name of a greater good."  As to his claim that, in his school, parents "are uniformly brow-beaten and shouted down at every turn", I assume that the parents can speak for themselves.

Dan Greenberg

From: Mydlack, Daniel J. <dmyd...@towson.edu>
Date: Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 11:16 PM
Subject: RE: [DSM] Negatives
To: "discuss-su...@googlegroups.com" <discuss-su...@googlegroups.com>

--
-- Scott David Gray
http://www.unseelie.org/

[Tom Hall]

Yes.  My child is a part of the school, but his status as an SVS student is not a primary part of our relationship, nor do I think it should be.  He represents himself, and his own interests at the school (and in that way he is theoretically as representative of the school as any staff member), but I don't feel that I should expect him to represent the school to me.  I expect him to represent himself to me (and what he chooses to share about what he does at school is only a part).

[Eli M. Roth]

Invalidating the views of someone who is speaking by suggesting bias, is one of the Machiavellian techniques I, as a parent, encountered.  So, I will speak for myself and say that I agree with the person who posted.  I was called names by staff to students prior to important votes and my professional reputation was defamed by the founders of a Sudbury school.  I was particularly subjected to inappropriate treatment when I met with other parents to discuss the school outside the presence of overbearing staff who manipulated all parent gatherings at the school, by "facilitating" those meetings and setting the agenda without input from the parents themselves.

The underlying premise that parental involvement in the lives of our children is contrary to their freedom is a bias I cannot tolerate.  It would be easier to educate the parents about the model by involving them and addressing inappropriate actions on their part, than by excluding them.  These are the greatest weaknesses I see in how the model is being enacted.

Elizabeth

[Tom Hall]

On Friday, February 18, 2011 11:24:04 AM UTC-5, Eli wrote:

Invalidating the views of someone who is speaking by suggesting bias, is one of the Machiavellian techniques I, as a parent, encountered. ...(snip)...

The underlying premise that parental involvement in the lives of our children is contrary to their freedom is a bias I cannot tolerate.  It would be easier to educate the parents about the model by involving them and addressing inappropriate actions on their part, than by excluding them.  These are the greatest weaknesses I see in how the model is being enacted.

Elizabeth

I'm fascinated by ideas and discussion about Sudbury Model Schools, and how they might be improved, even if that means bringing up negatives.
But I would hate to see this discussion degenerate into a litany of who was done wrong by who. 
I' d love it if we could focus on ideas and their implementation (or lack of), rather than personal stories (please?).

The sad fact is, for the vast majority of children parental involvement in their lives IS very often contrary to their freedom.
But I do agree that assuming this is true of any individual parent is not necessarily useful.
The question is: Is this assumption a part of most Sudbury Model Schools, either officially or unofficially.
Does this assumption work or not work to the student's benefit? To the School's benefit?
and if it doesn't work, what might work better...

[Daniel Greenberg]

As someone who has had a rather close involvement with the model, I can say (with some confidence in the accuracy of what I am about to write) that there is no "(presumption of) parental hostility/ignorance" on the part of the school at all.  On the contrary, the a priori presumption is that any parent courageous enough to bring their child to a school so far out of the mainstream must start from a point of at least some knowledge and little or no hostility; otherwise, why come in the first place?

That said, the statement that a "subsequent lack of parental involvement in  the school" follows from this cannot be so, since the absence of a valid premise invalidates the claim that the next statement follows from it.  More important, however, is an understanding of the claim that there is a lack of parent involvement in the school.

This revolves around the meaning of the word "involvement", which actually can have two very different connotations.  One of these is a matter of making parents feel that their concerns are listened to, and arranging a significant number of occasions at which parents can be at the school and mingle with (and talk to) staff, students, other parents, and alumni.  In that sense, the model has an outstanding record.  For example, Sudbury Valley has evening coffees, open houses, performances, talks, and a grand spring picnic, to which these groups are invited, and at which as many parents as wish to be involved in the school can and do appear.  In addition, there is a long and searching intake interview that, among other things, invites parents to address their concerns to the school whenever they arise.  I know of no other kind of school, other than parent co-ops, which offers so many opportunities for this kind of parental involvement.

There is another meaning to "involvement" - one which the school indeed does not simply welcome: parental presence in the daily life of the school, as mentors, teachers, guides, and in general as participants in the lives of the students.  In this regard, it has always been the case that the School Meeting, and the School Meeting alone, decides what outsiders are welcome on a regular basis at the school, and those decisions are made solely on the basis of the School Meeting's assessment of the school's need for a particular person's presence.  The need can be based on student interest, or on some function necessary for the school's viability as an institution, or on any other criterion the School Meeting applies.  But the desire of a parent to be "involved" in the life of the school only comes into play when the parent is invited by the School Meeting.  Parental offerings to contribute something they see as worthy for the school community, which occur frequently, are not solicited, and their rejection is an expression of the fundamental educational philosophy of the school, not of some innate hostility towards parents.  The school does not seek to create opportunities for students; the essence of the school is that the students seek their own unique ways to create opportunities for themselves, with the school offering support when asked to.

Dan Greenberg

--

[Scott David Gray]

The staff at the Sudbury school where I work presume that each
parent's relationship with her/his own children is healthy and good.
'Tis true that, tragically, once in a long while, one sees a case to
the contrary. But we, rightly, presume that the parents mean nothing
but the best for their own (and other) children.

That said, there is not a place for parents in the day-to-day life of
a Sudbury school. This would be true even if every parent were
"perfect." Sudbury schools work to the extent that the children can
make it *their* place. Ownership is key.

I've written elsewhere:

>  In just about every culture without schools, children
> naturally by about age 4-6 start seeking each other out in
> order to spend time with other kids unsupervised by adults.
> And even when those kids do spend time with adults, they
> rarely spend it with their parents.
>
>  I think that there is wisdom in this, for both the parents
> and the children. By leaving the child to own her/his own
> day _away_ from the parents (the most important people in
> her/his life), the child can develop a richer relationship
> with her/his parents.

Showing trust in your child's ability to manage his/her own time when
away from you is a gift; a vote of confidence. It means that when you
are welcomed (as parents very often are, at our school, for various
Assembly events and for short casual visits at the end of the day when
picking up their children), you are welcomed as a guest into a place
that belongs to the members of the day-to-day community (the students
and staff).

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 11:50 AM, Tom Hall <tomhallf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The sad fact is, for the vast majority of children parental involvement in their lives IS very often contrary to their freedom.
> But I do agree that assuming this is true of any individual parent is not necessarily useful.
> The question is: Is this assumption a part of most Sudbury Model Schools, either officially or unofficially.
> Does this assumption work or not work to the student's benefit? To the School's benefit?
> and if it doesn't work, what might work better...

--
-- Scott David Gray
http://www.sudval.org/

[Tom Hall]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for responding!  As one of the founders of the model, author of many books on the subject, and staff since it's inception, I would think that your viewpoint on this is fairly representative of Sudbury Model Schools in general, which gives us an excellent basis for discussion!

I have not personally experienced any hostility from staff or students, and I don't feel uncomfortable about my relationship with students, staff, or the school, but it is interesting to me that your view of this relationship seems different from the view of many parents I have encountered in my brief time there.  I wonder why this might be so, and what (if anything) could be done.

When I read through the archives of the assembly mailing list, I also notice a cycle of discussion which occurs several times over the years, in which parents search for some way to be more involved, try a few things, and then give up.  In this short discussion alone, several people have mentioned the relationship of parents and school to be a negative.  So I think it is an interesting and ongoing point of discussion, that has not yet been resolved (and possibly may never be, given the society the school exists within).

As you say, there are many ways to be involved, and the first sense that you speak of is the one that I think could most easily be addressed, without potentially compromising the current philosophy of the school. 

In the short time I have been involved with SVS (about 6 months), I have invited to 4 events at the school.  I feel welcome to come and talk to any staff at any time. So there is obviously no lack of opportunity for this kind of involvement.  But I have observed that there is a feeling among many parents of not being welcome and not being involved, and it is that feeling that needs to be addressed - which is why I deliberately used the word "nurture" in my original post.  It is an interesting, but important distinction, but there has to be a way to help parents FEEL more engaged and involved.  Perhaps there are other Sudbury Model Schools that might have a suggestion about this?

The second sense of involvement is more fascinating to me, and more complex, because it involves the core principles of the school itself.  I believe that parents can effectively function within the school itself, because (correct me if I'm wrong)  most school founders and original staff are themselves parents. Perhaps that was considered to be a negative aspect of the original school, one that caused problems that have now been corrected, but it was not such a negative as to prevent the model from working or the students flourishing.  I'd love to hear further comment on this, or perhaps a citation to where you have already written about it?

But this is the part (as you probably already know!) that I need help in understanding

"Parental offerings to contribute something they see as worthy for the school community, which occur frequently, are not solicited, and their rejection is an expression of the fundamental educational philosophy of the school, not of some innate hostility towards parents.  The school does not seek to create opportunities for students; the essence of the school is that the students seek their own unique ways to create opportunities for themselves, with the school offering support when asked to."

I understand that there is no hostility involved in a philosophical rejection, but why should parental offerings to contribute not be solicited, valued and used? Why not have an easily referenced listing of any offerings that are available to students?  A simple, easy to access database of potential opportunities? Isn't there a difference between creating opportunities themselves and creating awareness that such opportunities are available?  How is that any different than the awareness created by having a musical instrument available, or a book, or a dance studio, or a potting wheel, or a pile of rocks, or a pond, or...

- Tom

[Tom Hall]

So a key component of the way the school functions is the fact that the students are able to create a place of their own, without parental involvement.
This is true no matter what kind of relationship the parent has with their children, (and contains no judgement about that relationship), but is viewed as a natural and healthy part of human development.

[Mike South]

Everything you say here about using a parent as a resource without compromising the student's autonomy is also true about using the staff as resources.  I think it needs pointing out, though, that there is one crucial difference--students elect staff, and they can fire them.  This is not true of parents.  Even if actual firing of staff rarely happens, the fact that the relationship is structured that way represents a very fundamental difference.  (I suspect this is one reason why you hear parents who are staff talk about it how it interferes with the model for their kids.)  

This, itself, is not prejudice against parents.  It is an objective, unarguable difference.  Staff have relationship X, parents have relationship Y.  X is not equal to Y.  But it could easily be perceived as prejudice against or mistrust of them.  "What?  Staff can be around the kids all day and possibly suggest activities or organize field trips and parents cant??? Don't you TRUST us??".  That's a completely natural reaction.  And even when you explain it--"Hey, the kids and fire me, but they can't fire you"--well, that's also likely not to go over well, even though it's true.  Because the parent then has to think "why would they want to fire me?".  And it's not about that--it's about what SDG said, just spending time away from the most important people in your life and figuring out who _you_ are, etc.

Also, there is the fact that rules generally speaking have to apply to everyone even though one individual  might be an exception to the reason for the rule.  You may have one parent that has structured their relationship with their child in such a way that they would not be a negative presence on campus.  It's unlikely for that to be the norm, and the experience of the school likely hasn't found it to be the norm (I think most schools have no parents on campus, not sure if they start that way or use the experience of SVS to guide and put that in in the beginning or what.  I also think one school doesn't have that rule and does fine, so individual results may vary.), so in some cases a parent might be prevented from being on campus when it would in fact be better for that specific person to be there.  It's impossible to achieve perfection, and a parent like that would need to understand that it just won't work to make an exception for them.

Add to that this--the parents who would be the worst problem (by which I mean overly pushy) on campus are self-selected to be the (among the) most interested in being there.  Think about that.  I can see people having a "no parents on campus" rule laid down in their bootstrap rules specifically to avoid this kind of problem (and then later having to have the kids vote their parents off campus in a later school meeting if it did become a problem).

In an ideal world the school meeting would just do that--hey, this is a problem, vote to have a rule to correct it. In the real world, you're saying "vote your Mom off the island".  It's possible that's too much to expect, even if the student agrees that it's the best thing (hell, even if the parent agrees its the best thing it might still be hard).

mike

[Tom Hall]

Mike,

I love this explanation- it lays it out pretty clearly.
 X don't equal Y, and I can easily see the advantage of simply avoiding the possibility having to vote Mom (or Dad) off campus!

I think this may merit further discussion:

"And even when you explain it--"Hey, the kids and fire me, but they can't fire you"--well, that's also likely not to go over well, even though it's true.  Because the parent then has to think "why would they want to fire me?".  And it's not about that--it's about what SDG said, just spending time away from the most important people in your life and figuring out who _you_ are, etc."

So how do you explain it so parents can understand it as a simple equation, supporting a natural and healthy independence, and don't feel that they are left out and not trusted?  Is there a way to do it? Is there a way to create some other kind of support network that will do it?  What have schools tried and what has worked for them?

[Carmel Boss]

Hi Woty,

I apologize for my reactive response to your question and to anyone else
whose buttons I may have pushed. I was reacting to the fact that there is
already so much negativity in the world today and in that moment I was just
tired of hearing it.
And I love the Sudbury model so why would I want to hear negativity about
it.

Peace,
Carmel

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-su...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:discuss-su...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ruti Regan
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 5:23 PM
To: discuss-su...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [DSM] Negatives

What do you consider to be the worst thing about the Sudbury model?

~Woty

--

[Karen Hyams]

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 10:44 AM, Tom Hall <tomhallf...@gmail.com> wrote:

Mike,

So how do you explain it so parents can understand it as a simple equation, supporting a natural and healthy independence, and don't feel that they are left out and not trusted?  Is there a way to do it? Is there a way to create some other kind of support network that will do it?  What have schools tried and what has worked for them?

It almost feels as if there is willful misunderstanding here. As Daniel stated, explaining things to parents is done exhaustively, both in the long admissions interview and at any time thereafter, as the family requests.  All of this talk about excluding parents from the school takes the parents' feelings into account more than they should be, in some ways. Yes, parents and other adults need to understand a pretty difficult paradigm in order to support it. But being upset about not being able to spend time at your child's school is mostly about having your own emotional needs met, not about what is best for your child or her fellow students.

As for it being too difficult for a child to vote to rescind a parent's volunteer status, I don't see it. Lots of votes occur where a key person doesn't participate. Even so, kids don't seem to have too much trouble voting for something that is in their best interests.

At Clearwater, where I am a parent, we have some great parent-to-parent support tools. There is a discussion list that can work well, although sometimes it can promote misunderstanding and fuel controversy. We also have parent-organized events that take place both on and off campus, and are designed to function without staff (although they are welcome and often one or two staff members will attend things). This is in addition to staff being available for conferences or phone calls to help us through a rough patch.

One thing that having parent volunteers at school does is create a heavier adult presence. I think that it is important for students to be free to mess up without adult witnesses, which is really hard in a small school.

Fundamental misunderstandings about the model can cause schools to fail, which is, in my opinion, the biggest negative aspect of Sudbury model education.

Karen

--
Vegetarian recipes, meal plans and cooking tips:
http://thedailygrindchopandfry.com

[Mimsy Sadofsky]

I will admit it: when I read "drink the Kool-aid" with regard to a Sudbury school, my blood boils!  If ever a type of schooling encouraged, by its total being, people to make their own decisions, it is this one.  In the modern world, it is really an anomaly.  I do hope we don't see that unfortunate phrase again.

But more than that, I want to object.  Sudbury Valley does not simply invite parents to events, talk to them pretty much whenever they wish, even though occasionally an appointment is necessary, in order to try to help them do something for their children which is extraordinarily difficult in our society -- allow the kids to grow up to fit the new century -- but we also publish, on an ongoing basis, a great deal of material, much of it aimed right straight at parents or parents-to-be.  For instance, our Journal is always full of articles that help people understand the model, if they wish to read them.  We just added down-loadable books to our bookstore to make understanding the model cheaper and easier for people.  We are constantly working to upgrade the offerings on our web page to do the same and adding material every month.  So I feel that a lot of energy, by a lot of people goes into helping people understand the model.

The dirty underside of that effort on our parts is that many people don't want to understand -- they just want to send their kids to a place where the kids may be happier than they were before.  They don't want to read about it or do the heavy lifting involved in figuring out why it works.  That is their privilege, but it does not negate our efforts to make the model accessible and clear.

And there is one more thing.  The tuition in every Sudbury school that I know of is basically rock-bottom.  No matter where you live, if you consider what the per-pupil expenditures are in your public schools (taking into account the ones that don't appear in public, like  insurance, for a "small" one), let alone what tuition is in other private schools, you will see that each Sudbury school is running on a shoestring budget.  It is a school for the kids.  For the tuition money, the students are allowed to work on their education at SVS.  It is not a school for the whole family.  If it were, besides being of a very different nature, it would be a lot more expensive.  (And have a lot fewer teens!)

Mimsy

[Diane Ballou]

One thing I have noticed after staffing in a Sudbury School for 14 years is that everyone in the community (whether you are a student, staff or parent) is constantly asked by the intrinsic nature of the beast to grow as a person.  With personal growth, comes difficult challenges and conflict.  This is not easy stuff!   But this Model offers the healthiest platform I’ve seen to allow the free discourse and organic feedback needed for this difficult challenge of personal growth.  We are never done!!  The model puts ownership for all learning in the lap of each individual.  Students rarely have anyone or anything else to blame but themselves.  They are constantly looking inward, learning to own their part in the conflict or challenge.  I have been inspired by these students to do the same for myself!!!

 

Diane

[Tom Hall]

Which is why it's great there is a forum like this where people who
actually understand the model and work in Sudbury Schools are willing
to discuss and correct fundamental misunderstandings in such detail
and with such patience (including those I brought up today)!

Thanks for the discussion,
Tom

[evf...@aol.com]

I am a parent who has two daughters who attend Diablo Valley School in Concord. I first enrolled the older of the two ten years ago. What I realized once I enrolled them and began reading Sudbury literature and literature from psychologists and scientists about how people learn, that this seemed a better way for my daughter to become an effective adult in a democratic society.

One great gift the  Sudbury model  gives the students that attend is the knowledge that it is a model. Public schools never describe themselves this way. If you ask any public school student why their school is structured the way it is, they would probably draw a blank.

My daughters know why their school is structured the way it is. They understand that this is an educational model not something etched in stone they have no choice about. I feel like when I enrolled my daughters ten years ago I stopped drinking the Koo -Aid I had swallowed all my life about how children become effective adults. 

Evelyn Hardesty

Diablo Valley School Parent

[Mike South]

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Ruti Regan <woty...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

What do you think the benefits would be of greater parental involvement in the school?

Related question--isn't there one of the larger schools that does not restrict parents from campus?  Is there anyone from that school on the list?  If so, do you have any insight or even just guesses as to why it works for you?  What do the parents do when they're there?

I have heard there was one, but never heard anything on it from that school directly, archive searches aren't turning anything up (or I might be doing a bad job of searching).

mike

 

~Woty

[evf...@aol.com]

Our school has had parent discussion nights. We would have a topics that were different aspects of the model like "The Value of Play" or " The Role of Staff " . This did deepen my understanding of my model. There were times there was conflict. Several years ago a group of students wanted a high speed connection there was real debate about whether that was an essential like heat and water or the responsibility of the computer corporation to finance. 

Evelyn 

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Hall <tomhallf...@gmail.com>
To: discuss-sudbury-model <discuss-su...@googlegroups.com>

Which is why it's great there is a forum like this where people who  
actually understand the model and work in Sudbury Schools are willing  
to discuss and  correct fundamental misunderstandings in such detail  
and with such patience (including those I brought up today)!

Thanks for the discussion,
Tom


On Feb 18, 2011, at 5:58 PM, Karen Hyams wrote:

> Fundamental misunderstandings about the model can cause schools to  
> fail, which is, in my opinion, the biggest negative aspect of  
> Sudbury model education.
>
> Karen


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[Jim Whiteford]

Thanks to everyone for their comments in these threads - even the more bitter ones, in the sense that they bring about a sharper, clearer, stronger picture of many of the great aspects of the Sudbury model. 

I want to share with you a couple of related experiences, that I hope may shed a little light on the issues of parental involvement with the education of their children, and Machiavellian power play, because they come from a different perspective.

When I lived in London, I attended a theatre school that was not only not mainstream, it took pride in being anti-mainstream. I enrolled age 20, having dropped out of a course at London University in English and Drama. I wanted to work as an actor, and after considering the alternatives I believed without a doubt that this school would provide me with the most knowledge and skill of any of the schools around. I enrolled onto a 2 year acting course, transferred onto a 3 year directing course, which played out to 4 years all told (I skip the details). I returned there to teach soon after my graduation, and so long as the late founder and Principal of the school was involved with it, I was probably the most frequently employed-by-the-school graduate, both as a teacher and director. As a freelancer, I also taught outside of the school - over many years and in many different settings, and I taught the material I was familiar with and had been taught myself. 

Here’s the thing. As the primary business of the school was to teach acting, and the Principal had developed his own acting system which had its roots in his Russian training, a great deal of study was devoted to theoretical and practical understanding of daily life. Someone in the field once said, “if you want to know how to act, look at how you live” - I paraphrase lazily. And as nothing at the school was considered more important than to prepare oneself for the chosen profession, nothing was off limits. This led to many students questioning a lot of behaviours that most of us take for granted, and re-aligning themselves towards these processes with a new set of values, often not shared by the mainstream. Also, students brought into question many of their real-life relationships, and the role they played in your character as a whole. Well, it wasn’t long before the school was accused of being a cult - a friction between people “on the outside” as opposed to those “on the inside”. And very often, with or without this cult label - which was an understandable but flawed opinion - parents of students would want to be more involved. I’m talking here about mature students. In some cases parents paid the tuition, but that was not the clincher: the fact was that many parents, even when their children had grown up and chosen to pursue a profession, and a rigorous training path towards success in that profession, were reluctant to release influence over their children. This is really what I’m getting at and I hope that you excuse the lengthy background. 

We are all aware of the extent to which our parents, benignly or otherwise, consciously or otherwise, influence us, even way past the age at which one might consider it “naturally useful”. I believe this is the force that is at play in generating parents’ discomfort with the model, a sort of inbuilt protectiveness combined with a societal fear that, when it comes down to it, maybe our kids won’t really need us any more. 

In another situation, I worked for a while in a small trade union in the UK. The members were, by virtue of their profession, independent and strong-willed. Whereas the intention and broad structure of the organisation was democratic, the actual practice was more of a hybrid, English-style democracy where those who had been around longest wielded most power. This of course bred resentment amongst those few members who actually wanted to exercise their democratic influence, and created a degree of Machiavellian struggles. As Dan wrote in his 2005 article The Core Ideas of the Sudbury Model, democracy and politics are hard - even in the West where we have "stable democracies", it took a long time to get there, and they're still far from perfect. The constant struggle between individual and group is very complex. What I’m trying to highlight here is that these problems arise in other circumstances, and are at least as emblematic of radical models and democratic structures generally, as they are pertinent to the Sudbury model itself. 

I think what Tom is driving at is whether the discomfort or alienation experienced by some parents is systematic of the model, and if so, what can be done to be rid of that?  “I understand that there is no hostility involved in a philosophical rejection, but why should parental offerings to contribute not be solicited, valued and used?" Why would they want to contribute - because they think kids should be doing something they’re not? Because they have lots of spare time on their hands? Because being with their kids at morning and evening and weekends and holidays is not enough? Because they feel the school is a poorer environment without their offering? Or because they believe that sharing their offering will contribute to a greater benefit for the community? Even if this latter, it still goes against the grain of the model, that students themselves initiate their learning. "Why not have an easily referenced listing of any offerings that are available to students?  A simple, easy to access database of potential opportunities?" In my experience these lists are rarely simple to maintain; what is on offer changes often, for a myriad of reasons - no longer the time, no longer the will, no longer the means, to name a few. Every time something changes it means more administration. So even aside from the philosophical difficulties, it's not practical. The school’s administrative resources could be put to better use, in my opinion. "Isn't there a difference between creating opportunities themselves and creating awareness that such opportunities are available?" Yes there is, but why would you want to create awareness unless you doubt the potential and ability of the recipient? "How is that any different than the awareness created by having a musical instrument available, or a book, or a dance studio, or a potting wheel, or a pile of rocks, or a pond, or…" Awareness of the features and utilities of a school comes about through a natural interaction with the environment, which has in turn evolved through the school’s history and culture. There is a huge difference between something evolving, and something being imposed, even if the imposition is “meant well”.   As Mimsy says, there has been an enormous amount written about the model, in theory and practice, over many years. A particular piece that springs to mind in relation to parents offering things is The Kind and The Real - it illustrates how similar yet different interpretations of the model can be, even if you read the literature.  

I love Mike’s post about video games, but I’m not sure I agree with “There is plenty of time to figure out what you need to make yourself happy.” I mean, in a Sudbury school there is, but normally kids are deprived of this time - everything is scheduled for them from the minute they wake till the minute they sleep, and the result is often that after the first 16 years or so they have no clue what they need to make them happy, and spend many tough years that follow working that out, and quite often in a mentally or emotionally handicapped state.  

In conclusion I’d like to say how it’s almost absurd that parents at large do not seem too worried about forcing their kids to go to “normal” schools, about fighting with them to get their homework done, about seeing their natural enthusiasm and independence dwindle, or seeing them trained into being small-mindedly competitive in the way the school system encourages; and yet a number of those parents that seek an alternative to this slow death of the spirit in turn worry that their children may become too independent, or that their own influence may become insignificant. Thanks to all of you who help to perpetuate childrens‘ autonomy; it is a rare opportunity indeed.       

[Mike South]

On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 12:39 PM, <evf...@aol.com> wrote:

Our school has had parent discussion nights. We would have a topics that were different aspects of the model like "The Value of Play" or " The Role of Staff " . This did deepen my understanding of my model. There were times there was conflict. Several years ago a group of students wanted a high speed connection there was real debate about whether that was an essential like heat and water or the responsibility of the computer corporation to finance. 

I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I think I would rather bring water in a bottle and use a portable toilet than not have internet access :).

"Sure, you can have heat and water but I'm gonna starve YOUR BRAIN!  BWAH HAH HAH!"  There would be a little man in my head saying that.

yeah, I realize I need help...I'm sure I can find it on the internet somewhere.

mike 

[Frederick W. Schueler]

On 2/19/2011 1:32 PM, Jim Whiteford rephrased:
>
> "...why should parental offerings

> to contribute not be solicited, valued and used?"

* I'll suggest a model for this: that in interactions with the School,
the students represent their families, and the parents agree to
subordinate themselves to their children in interactions with the
School, so that if the parents are to do something "for" the School,
this is done because their children have, on their own initiative,
suggested it at the School, and elicited enough support among others
that the School invites the parents to do whatever it is.

This subordination of parents to children should be easy, at least,
among Christian families, who worship a God who acts only through his
children...

[mzwoggles]

There is one question that inevitably comes up when I tell someone
about SVS that I simply do not have a good answer to: "how are kids
exposed to topics and ideas of a broad range of subjects?" (sometimes
another way of expressing "I had to take algebra, everybody should
have to suffer through it!") The real 'negative' I see here is the
issue of broad scope. I think this must be an issue in the smaller
schools that don't have critical mass of students to provide a wide
range of interests and perspectives. I think this also fuels part of
the frustration of parents who are turned aside from contributing
because they feel they have an expertise that they would
enthusiastically share.

My own experience as a parent of a teen at SVS: in spite of having a
wonderful relationship with my daughter, it has been an exercise in
self inspection to fully, unconditionally trust her to do what she
needs to do. I'm not sure how long it would have taken if she was
younger. If I ever doubted I would be summarily voted off the campus,
all doubts were erased when her voice was heard on the new SVS video
extolling the campus as "our own space to do what we want to do". Bye
Mom!!

[Alan Klein]

This is not related to this thread, but I can't think of any group of people who would resonate more with something I heard recently, so I am sharing it here:

Today I was watching a film about Michael Jordan's career. He credits much of his success to the fact that he didn't really get into basketball training until late in high school. He said he now encourages parents and kids to, "Play early; learn late."

Not necessarily how we might phrase it, since we know that plenty of learning comes with the early playing, but I think the sentiment is the same.

~Alan Klein

[Isabella O'Connell]

I don't worry at all about not being exposed to a broad range of
topics. I've gotten a lot of questions/comments regarding the size of
SVS. It's kind of funny, because as far a Sudbury schools go, SVS is
actually big, but when you put it next to, say, a a public high school
it's easy to call Subdury Valley tiny so you might think that would be
a negative. Non-Sudbury kids often ask me' how I can stand to be
around so few kids my age. The answer is this: 1) I don't feel 'my
age' is limited to kids born in the same year, and the people I
interact with is in no way limited to kids my own age and 2) the fact
that the community seems a lot more diverse by nature due to the fact
that members pursue their natural interests and share their ideas
without any real pressure to conform, so one Sudbury kid seems to
provide the personality of many more traditional school students.
It's true that more than once I've heard a little kid who's fighting
with their friends groaning that they'd like more little girls to play
with, or a teenager complain that SVS could use some more potential
boyfriends/girlfriends, but I've never seen population as a serious
issue socially or culturally.
As far as parental involvement in the school, i can understand
why it might be hard to let go of control of your kids every school
day but as one of those kids I can say I don't want parents anywhere
near school. God forbid my own parents. Gosh no. Parents hanging
around would make me' a whole lot less comfortable doing a lot of the
things I do and saying the things I say. School for me' is my place,
and home is lovely and all but it's the family's place. School is the
world I can jump into and feel free to take risks of all kinds, and
create a self that is not neccesarily the one my family see. Parents,
in my experience, tend to have some sort of idea of what's best for
their kids and that's not necessarily an idea the kids agree with. I
think if a parent does have an expertise they want to introduce to
their kids I dont see why that can't be done outside of school.

[Rebecca Howarth]

That's common amongst world-class athletes. One example is figure skater Johnny Weir, who learned relatively late. He taught himself to do jumps he had seen on television broadcasts of the Olympics, first on roller skates in his parents' basement, and then on ice skates in a frozen cornfield behind his house. He did not come into contact with any formalized training until later.

I recently heard an interview with him in which he said that, as a child, he "wanted to be an expert in something." A period of intense experimentation that takes place outside of the purview of the "rule makers" of a field is important to developing any kind of original knowledge.

His interest in skating lead to an interest in Russian culture, so he taught himself Russian. This relates to the myth that if you don't learn a language young, you won't learn it.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

---

From: Alan Klein <Al...@Klein.net>

Sender: discuss-su...@googlegroups.com

Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 19:54:54 -0500

To: <discuss-su...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: discuss-su...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: [DSM] Negatives

[Ruti Regan]

On 2/18/11 11:50 AM, Tom Hall wrote:
> The sad fact is, for the vast majority of children parental
> involvement in their lives IS very often contrary to their freedom.
> But I do agree that assuming this is true of any individual parent is
> not necessarily useful.
> The question is: Is this assumption a part of most Sudbury Model
> Schools, either officially or unofficially.
> Does this assumption work or not work to the student's benefit? To the
> School's benefit?
> and if it doesn't work, what might work better...

It's not just a matter of whether parents are properly able to support
their children's freedom.

It's also that there's a certain kind of autonomy that is only possible
to have if you have a kind of privacy that isn't really possible if
you're constantly supervised -- I think it is impossible for kids at
home to not be under a significant degree of supervision, even if it's
extremely respectful and by people who value their freedom highly.

Sudbury model schools aren't a substitute for families, and they're not
in opposition to parental involvement in a child's life (after all, at
the end of the day the kids go home), but they do provide unsupervised
space and that is very valuable.

~Woty

[Ruti Regan]

On 2/18/11 1:10 PM, Tom Hall wrote:
> I understand that there is no hostility involved in a philosophical
> rejection, but why should parental offerings to contribute not be
> solicited, valued and used? Why not have an easily referenced listing
> of any offerings that are available to students? A simple, easy to
> access database of potential opportunities? Isn't there a difference
> between creating opportunities themselves and creating awareness that
> such opportunities are available? How is that any different than the
> awareness created by having a musical instrument available, or a book,
> or a dance studio, or a potting wheel, or a pile of rocks, or a pond,
> or...

A musical instrument isn't watching you.

~Woty

[Ruti Regan]

On 2/18/11 1:31 PM, Mike South wrote:
> Everything you say here about using a parent as a resource without
> compromising the student's autonomy is also true about using the staff
> as resources. I think it needs pointing out, though, that there is
> one crucial difference--students elect staff, and they can fire them.
> This is not true of parents. Even if actual firing of staff rarely
> happens, the fact that the relationship is structured that way
> represents a very fundamental difference. (I suspect this is one
> reason why you hear parents who are staff talk about it how it
> interferes with the model for their kids.)
>
> This, itself, is not prejudice against parents. It is an objective,
> unarguable difference. Staff have relationship X, parents have
> relationship Y. X is not equal to Y. But it could easily be
> perceived as prejudice against or mistrust of them. "What? Staff can
> be around the kids all day and possibly suggest activities or organize
> field trips and parents cant??? Don't you TRUST us??". That's a
> completely natural reaction. And even when you explain it--"Hey, the
> kids and fire me, but they can't fire you"--well, that's also likely
> not to go over well, even though it's true. Because the parent then
> has to think "why would they want to fire me?". And it's not about
> that--it's about what SDG said, just spending time away from the most
> important people in your life and figuring out who _you_ are, etc.

Also, it is extremely difficult to find staff who are capable of doing
the job, and many schools find after electing staff *who have gone
through a rigorous hiring process* that they don't understand what their
role is, are incapable of doing the job, and cause problems by trying to
direct student activities.

I'd think this would be even more true of parent volunteers who *aren't*
rigorously selected.

And also, I don't think it's ideal for parents to be staff at the same
school their kids go to, but it's not easily avoidable given the rarity
of schools that respect children's autonomy. It's not as big of a
problem as it could be with staff, though, both because they are elected
and because having some parents on staff doesn't add all that many
parents into the community. If there were a *lot* of parents though,
including people who don't really understand what it means to respect
autonomy without actively supervising, it would cause bigger
distortions. A school that's based partly on lack of supervision needs a
certain critical mass to make that culture possible, and presence of a
lot of outside people who are used to supervising some members of the
community would necessarily be disruptive to that.

There are other models that offer valuable things which have greater
parent involvement, like homeschooling co-ops, but they work very
differently from a Sudbury model school and there are things they can't
offer.

~Woty

[Ruti Regan]

On 2/18/11 5:31 PM, Carmel Boss wrote:
> Hi Woty,
>
> I apologize for my reactive response to your question and to anyone else
> whose buttons I may have pushed. I was reacting to the fact that there is
> already so much negativity in the world today and in that moment I was just
> tired of hearing it.
> And I love the Sudbury model so why would I want to hear negativity about
> it.
>
> Peace,
> Carmel
>

I think my opinion of the Sudbury model is readily apparent from the
archives of this list.

I'm not interested in bashing. I think the Sudbury model in general and
SVS in particular are important. I also think that, just from general
principles, they must have disadvantages and I rarely see them discussed
by people who are substantially familiar with and respectful of the model.

I wanted to see what people would say, and to learn more things about
how it works, and what could be better. My intent is in no way destructive.

~Woty

[Naomi Bennett]

As a graduate of SVS, who would very much like to give back to the community that had such a strong influence in my upbringing, and a teacher myself, I have thought about this idea of a listing of outside resources that might be available from alumni (or parents) to the students.  Now, reading this question, I think I understand why this is a bad idea.  I will try to explain it in a way that makes sense.

 

Having a school filled with resources, books, musical instruments, computers, video game systems, etc, is different than a list of outside people who are willing to come in and share their skills.  For one thing, the majority of those items are brought to the school at the express interest of the students.

 

But having outside people come into SVS is different.  It happened plenty while I was there ('83-'96) and I'm sure still happens.  But it wasn't like normal SVS 'learning.'  If an outside person came in it was because of a persistant interest and dedication to the subject by a group of students who sought out further learning.  Typically, what I can remember, it resulted in formal classes (advanced spanish, martial arts, piano, driver's ed., etc) that were not the norm for the SVS style. 

 

Though I am very familiar with the SVS model, and I work as a specialist teacher now, I cannot see a way that I would be able to go into a SVS school to teach, or even share, my specialty without having a structured class environment.  Which is fine, as long as the students ask for it.

 

Now, the difference between having the staff as resources, and having a list of resources that 'outside' people can offer, is that the staff NEVER advertise their knowledge.  Not to say they don't talk about what they know or like - like everyone at SVS we got into numerous discussions covering the broadest range of topics.  For me, that is how I knew: a) who had what knowledge, and to what extent, and b) what people's interests were - and that goes for staff and students (though admittedly, staff often had a deaper knowledge of subjects and were most often the ones I would go to for further learning).  But the important fact is that teaching, or learning, was never pushed - At All!

 

If there had been a list of what outside resources were available from parents, alumni, etc, it would have felt, to me, like pushing.  I think it is great that people want to offer their services and share their knowledge, and I share that desire (this is why I am a specialist teacher and not a staff at SVS) but even that offering is too much for SVS.  What the staff do is NOT offering their knowledge in a teaching way, they offer themselves as unique human beings who interact with the students as equals - and I can say that is a precious and valuable thing!  They hang out with the students, they share in their lives, without judgement as to what should and shouldn't be learned.  Yes, they respond to direct inquiries about further learning, but honestly, it is the discussions I had with fellow students and staff as equals that I learned the most.

 

Naomi

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[Ruti Regan]

On 2/18/11 9:03 PM, Mimsy Sadofsky wrote:
>
> And there is one more thing. The tuition in every Sudbury school that
> I know of is basically rock-bottom. No matter where you live, if you
> consider what the per-pupil expenditures are in your public schools
> (taking into account the ones that don't appear in public, like
> insurance, for a "small" one), let alone what tuition is in other
> private schools, you will see that each Sudbury school is running on a
> shoestring budget. It is a school for the kids. For the tuition
> money, the students are allowed to work on their education at SVS. It
> is not a school for the whole family. If it were, besides being of a
> very different nature, it would be a lot more expensive. (And have a
> lot fewer teens!)

I think it's unfortunate that in our culture as it exists now, schools
that respect children enough not to interfere with their freedom all
have to be extremely cheap in order to be economically viable.

I think they'd be better places if it were otherwise and some schools
could be expensive, and school meeting could buy expensive things.

~Woty

[Ruti Regan]

On 2/18/11 9:03 PM, Mimsy Sadofsky wrote:

> The dirty underside of that effort on our parts is that many people
> don't want to understand -- they just want to send their kids to a
> place where the kids may be happier than they were before. They don't
> want to read about it or do the heavy lifting involved in figuring out
> why it works. That is their privilege, but it does not negate our
> efforts to make the model accessible and clear.
>

I think that people with this complaint are not saying that they wish
someone would do more to explain the model to them. They want something
else. I'm not entirely sure what it is -- I'd like to hear about it.

And I think that although most people who disagree with the model
seriously misunderstand it (willfully or otherwise), it is possible to
understand the model but think that some things about it are mistaken or
implemented poorly. Somehow I never hear from anyone in that category,
though I'm sure they must exist. If some of them are on this list, I'd
like to hear what they have to say.

~Woty

[Ruti Regan]

On 2/19/11 1:32 PM, Jim Whiteford wrote:

Because being with their kids at morning and evening and weekends and holidays is not enough? Because they feel the school is a poorer environment without their offering? Or because they believe that sharing their offering will contribute to a greater benefit for the community? Even if this latter, it still goes against the grain of the model, that students themselves initiate their learning. "Why not have an easily referenced listing of any offerings that are available to students?� A simple, easy to access database of potential opportunities?" In my experience these lists are rarely simple to maintain; what is on offer changes often, for a myriad of reasons - no longer the time, no longer the will, no longer the means, to name a few. Every time something changes it means more administration. So even aside from the philosophical difficulties, it's not practical. The school�s administrative resources could be put to better use, in my�opinion.

I was involved in a school that made a directory of things students and staff were available to teach -- it took a lot of time, it became outdated quickly, and I don't think anyone ever actually used it.

~Woty

[Ruti Regan]

On 2/19/11 7:56 PM, Isabella O'Connell wrote:
> I don't worry at all about not being exposed to a broad range of
> topics. I've gotten a lot of questions/comments regarding the size of
> SVS. It's kind of funny, because as far a Sudbury schools go, SVS is
> actually big, but when you put it next to, say, a a public high school
> it's easy to call Subdury Valley tiny so you might think that would be
> a negative

Some of the other schools are a *lot* smaller than SVS is. I know of a
school with six students, for instance. That makes it a lot harder.

~Woty

[Amanda Phillips]

In a thread that began with a request for genuine and honest self-criticism, only a few people offered thoughts on negative aspects of the model, and the thread devolved into a love-fest -- the opposite of what the original poster asked.

 

^^This^^ is the biggest negative.

 

And one who offered criticism was subject to ad hominem -- because he was a staff member who disagreed with something that happened to him, does that mean his observations are invalid? Everyone on this list will have some sort of bias or unique perspective (especially the founders who have every incentive to defend the model) -- does that mean their observations are also invalid?

 

Amanda

[Daniel Greenberg]

This is not, in fact, what happened.  If you re-read my post, you will see that it was not even remotely an "ad-hominem" attack on anyone.  It was a statement of a priori bias that a reader unfamiliar with the situation would be unaware of.  It is an accepted aspect of factual reporting that when news media report something that involves the parent company that owns their station, they always preface the report with the information that the outfit being discussed is the parent company of the station.  It is the courteous thing to do.

Suppose a losing candidate in a political election involved himself in a web-based discussion of democracy, and talked in an inflammatory way about the machiavellian nature of democracy, where the public is manipulated, etc., etc.  That person would, of course, be entitled to his opinion.  But it would be a service to the readers subjected to his bitter criticism to note that he recently lost an election - and that it was not an election that was designated as illegal or fraudulent by any outside observer.

Internal conflicts within a school, or any community, often generate bitterness (sometimes on both sides of the outcome).  The parties, in a free society, are entitled to express their views, and vent their anger.  This is certainly the case in Sudbury schools which, as institutions, foster the most open discussion of issues and personalities of any educational institution I have ever encountered or read about.  And it is certainly the case at Sudbury Valley School, where I have worked since its founding.  I too, like all of us, have been involved in intense disputes, sometimes filled with anger and bitterness.  But if someone who held an opposite view to mine accused me of machiavellian manipulation and other such actions, or if I myself had accused my opponents of that sort of underhanded behavior, while we would be within our rights to express our views, it would be only proper for someone to point out that the person posting those views had been on the losing side of an issue that had been decided according to the accepted democratic procedures of the school, and that those procedures had not been challenged as improperly or illegally employed.

This is what I wrote: "I think that members of this list should be aware that the person who posted this considered himself to be the object of an unfair decision by the School Meeting of the school at which he worked, and ascribed that decision to "undemocratic, almost machiavellian, fellow staff, cofounders, even advisors from other school can perform all in the name of a greater good."  As to his claim that, in his school, parents "are uniformly brow-beaten and shouted down at every turn", I assume that the parents can speak for themselves."

That, and no more.  There was no disrespect to his opinion, no invalidation of it, nor any personal attack whatsoever on the person who wrote it.  It was written to inform the readers on this list.

Daniel Greenberg

[Amanda Phillips]

It's an attempt to link the validity of his observation to some personal circumstance. Does anyone who has ever had a negative experience with a school get his observations and thoughts automatically discounted? If so, no one can ever offer a valid criticism of the school. And following the same logic, all of our criticisms of traditional schools should be discounted.

[Mimsy Sadofsky]

Well, Sudbury schools do have very low tuition, but there is a reason for that: we want to attract kids from across as broad an economic spectrum as possible.  So far our School Meeting's members have always figured out how to get the expensive things they need; not an indoor gym, which would be nice, but more modest things like fabulous musical and recording equipment.  

I think everyone would prefer to have the broadest possible economic spectrum than to have the gym!  Anyway, most private schools do not use their tuition money to build gyms -- those are more likely to be arranged for through having people in the position of raising money non-stop.  That is to say, adults devoting themselves to that end.  At a Sudbury school, it would not be easy to find anyone who would spend big amounts of their time in fund-raising.

Mimsy

[Jim Whiteford]

One of the criticisms I've come across is that in an environment where the School Meeting is so central to how things operate, there is a bias in favour of those students who are more politically astute, erudite, or have more "social capital" - typically middle class kids of middle class "professional" parents. That some kids who lack these qualities, or the linguistic skills to effectively get across their point of view, are thereby disadvantaged and the system is in fact not then as free and fair as it is purported to be.

I remember reading in the literature an anecdote of one of the students, who effectively and eloquently touched on this problem, in describing some students' resistance to the School Meeting and the feeling that whatever they had to say wouldn't really count, because others always win anyway - I'm paraphrasing again, forgive me but I've been leafing through the books all morning and can't for the life of me find the source (looking forward to electronically searchable eBooks!) If I remember correctly, the student who summarised the problem was one who had spent a lot of time attending School Meetings, and learning how the process worked. 

There are several reasonable responses to this criticism. But I wonder if anyone would consider any formal or systematic processes beneficial to the model? For example: in the way that everyone has to serve at least once on the JC, should everyone have to argue for or against a certain issue at School Meeting? Do people involved in schools feel that this criticism has any foundation in practice, and if so what procedures are in place to mitigate it?   

~Woty

[Daniel Greenberg]

Why is giving the backstory an act of being "automatically discounted"?  Where is the logic in that?  Suppose someone comes out and says that from their personal experience, some particular political policy is manipulative, destructive, and machiavellian in its intent?  Would it be an act of "automatic discounting" to simply point out that the person involved was a political activist in an organization devoted to opposing that policy?  On the contrary, pointing out the personal interest that the speaker has in what he is basing on his personal experience is, in fact, adding to the discourse, not distracting from it.  It is considered altogether proper and appropriate in the political discourse engaged in by virtually everyone in this country, and in every democracy.  There is no shame, or discounting, when pointing out that a particular person testifying from personal experience for a specific political goal is a member of a political party pursuing that goal.  That backstory does not invalidate or discount the testimony; it sets it in context.  

[Jim Whiteford]

I think part of the problem here was that the comment was designed to be inflamatory. It's no use putting it down to semantics - "drinking the Kool-aid" according to Wikipedia "suggests that one has mindlessly adopted the dogma of a group or leader without fully understanding the ramifications or implications"; whereas "leap of faith", as a suggested alternative interpretation of its meaning, refers to an almost universally positive, or at least hopeful, experience. In addition, the comment was aimed very generally at Sudbury schools, and so by implication became an inflamatory criticism of the model. To then describe comments of reasoned defence against this criticism, and other negatives, as a love-fest, is somewhat wide of the mark. Valid criticism is a good thing, but it normally doesn't take the shape of inflamatory generalisations. 

For my part, I'm not suggesting that in some circumstances those involved in running a Sudbury school might not employ devious tactics in order to support their own agenda (as I'm sure students may also do from time to time). However, the question is really how much is down to the integrity and personal circumstances of those involved, and how much is systematic of the model? I point out that these problems occur in other arenas, too.

[Mike South]

On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 10:38 PM, Ruti Regan <woty...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 2/18/11 9:03 PM, Mimsy Sadofsky wrote:

The dirty underside of that effort on our parts is that many people don't want to understand -- they just want to send their kids to a place where the kids may be happier than they were before.  They don't want to read about it or do the heavy lifting involved in figuring out why it works.  That is their privilege, but it does not negate our efforts to make the model accessible and clear.

I think that people with this complaint are not saying that they wish someone would do more to explain the model to them. They want something else. I'm not entirely sure what it is -- I'd like to hear about it.

I think what the parents that "want something else" want might be a structure built jointly by children and adults where the adults interact respectfully and non-coercively with the children and the children naturally and without compulsion are drinking from the deep well of life experience and collected knowledge that the adults have to offer.  This is, indeed, "something else", if one accepts the "treehouse" model as an accurate description of a Sudbury school.

Most of us who went through public or other traditional schools remember one or two teacher-subject combinations that we would gladly have attended voluntarily.  I had a history teacher, for example, that had read extensive primary source material (e.g. journals and letters from the time) and told riveting tales about the human stories underlying historical events.  I still get chills thinking of that.  I would gladly now go and sit in a lecture if she were giving it--it was electrifying and every bit as good as the best documentary.  It enriched my life and changed my view of the world I live in and had nothing to do with her as a person-of-authority but a person-of-knowledge-and-passion.

I think people are picturing a place, still devoid of coercion, but, let's say, like a commune  where school doesn't exist and life is just life. People are working and living and whatever right there (rather than the adults driving off to some industrial center where they live their "work lives" and come home to their "home lives").  Someone is an actor, they are doing rehearsals and set building and whatever in a theater.  Musicians are doing their thing formally in a studio and informally in the commons on Friday nights.  There's an archeological dig on site (hey, I'm dreaming, right?).  The kids would be completely free to go off and build their secret treehouses, but all of what is going on in "adult" life would be around them (although I suspect that you wouldn't, eventually, even think of there being "adult" life, because there would be kids in all of those places, the ones that found that particular thing interesting and wanted to participate at whatever level they could at that point).  You could learn how to weave by apprenticing with a weaver, do it as long as you were interested, drop it when you found it was just a passing fancy.

I think it's arguable that "treehouse/secret club plus access to all these people who have developed passions and interests into something they can make a living doing" is better than "just treehouse/secret club" because it has options that the other doesn't (directly) have, and that could be what parents see as missing.  As evidence, look at suggestions like the "resource book"--this could be seen as an attempt to simulate the natural exposure people would get if the world were actually happening around them instead of being sequestered off in the industrial center.

I would also say that I think there is a disconnect between understanding "the model" as referring to a governance and management mechanism vs what gets built with that mechanism (in fact during this discussion "model" has been used in that second sense at least once rather explicitly).

If you think of a Sudbury model school as "a thing created and physically owned by the Assembly, managed by the School Meeting, whose rules are enforced by a Judiciary Committee", that doesn't necessarily imply that it will create a community where it is forbidden to post classes and parents are not allowed on campus.  Personally I consider that emergent rather than essential.

In our discussions we definitely went the rounds over this kind of question, with two distinct camps.  One said "start it and let it go" and one said "start it with policies as much like modern day SVS as possible and let it go".  There are at least two completely valid, in my opinion, reasons to be in the second camp

(a) we're just starting out, we have no idea of the pitfalls and whatnot that we might be stumbling into, some of which could threaten our very existence, so let's trust the collected wisdom of 40 years of running a school and give ourselves a leg up and increase our chances of survival

(b) we like what SVS is, that's what we want to make here, let's be as much like it as possible (this can kind of include (a), but it's a different basis, although just as valid reasoning)

For the "start it and let it go" camp, the reasoning is something like this:

(1) We have no idea if what the SVS school meeting and assembly have come up with over 40 years is the same thing that will meet the needs of our community.  Let's let it develop on its own and see what happens.

(2) For specific "big questions" like "parents on campus" or "offering classes", it seems disingenuous not to acknowledge that at one point SVS _did_ allow staff to post classes, for example.  How do we know that that's not a developmental stage that is a natural part of the growth of a school?  I other words, how do we know that advocates of the other camp aren't saying, in effect, "we want a butterfly, let's skip the yucky larval stage".  The parents on campus question I considered particularly problematic as some people seemed dead set on that being "part of the model" and yet there was this perfectly successful school that didn't have that rule.  [As I've covered in another thread, or another part of this one, I think I understand the whole issue better now, although I would still be very interested to hear about the exception, why it works, etc]

(2a) We were painfully aware that we were going to start out with _maybe_ six kids, and that SVS had over a hundred.  If you just look at kid<->kid interactions, that's 15 possible connections in our case and 4,950 in theirs.  What if we needed things like parents and classes to "jumpstart the culture" (I know you cringe at this idea--think of it as one kid who gets his dad to help him build a tree house and then once it's there other kids are attracted naturally and the dad can bow out), make it something potential students could believe would be interesting enough to spend the day there?  What if that prevented us from attracting other students which in turn threatened our survival?

[Ruti Regan]

On 2/20/11 11:08 AM, Mimsy Sadofsky wrote:
> Well, Sudbury schools do have very low tuition, but there is a reason
> for that: we want to attract kids from across as broad an economic
> spectrum as possible.

This could also be arranged by having sliding scale tuition based on income.

> So far our School Meeting's members have always figured out how to get
> the expensive things they need; not an indoor gym, which would be
> nice, but more modest things like fabulous musical and recording
> equipment.
> I think everyone would prefer to have the broadest possible economic
> spectrum than to have the gym!

Why?

> Anyway, most private schools do not use their tuition money to build
> gyms -- those are more likely to be arranged for through having people
> in the position of raising money non-stop. That is to say, adults
> devoting themselves to that end. At a Sudbury school, it would not be
> easy to find anyone who would spend big amounts of their time in
> fund-raising.

I can see how outside adult volunteers raising money for particular
projects would cause problems, but why would it be impossible or
undesirable to have a fund-raising clerk?

~Woty

[Karen Hyams]

I've never been in a situation that has more "formal or systemic processes" than a Sudbury school. Maybe if I'd ever work for a large corporation that wouldn't be true. But the actual systems are very deliberate and fair. I think rigging things so that the less articulate or persuasive SM members have a better shot at getting their way would be, in the end, unfair to everyone. SM members learn many things while figuring out how to influence things. And it only takes one more skilled ally to help you prevail in a vote. As a staff member, I often helped students, usually the younger ones, navigate the intricacies of School Meeting.

I don't remember reading the article you reference, but I don't remember popularity ever being a factor in a vote. I do remember lots of unsuccessful motions, some brought by me, and watching unhappy kids living with the disappointment of not getting their way. It never occurred to me that we should figure out a way to rescue them from feeling that way.

Karen

On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 3:56 AM, Jim Whiteford <jw4...@gmail.com> wrote:

There are several reasonable responses to this criticism. But I wonder if anyone would consider any formal or systematic processes beneficial to the model? For example: in the way that everyone has to serve at least once on the JC, should everyone have to argue for or against a certain issue at School Meeting? Do people involved in schools feel that this criticism has any foundation in practice, and if so what procedures are in place to mitigate it?  

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[Karen Hyams]

Many of us put our context in our posts as a matter of course (eliminating the need for others to do it for us). When it matters, I always try to make it clear that I am responding as a parent or as a former staff member.

Karen

On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 9:22 AM, Daniel Greenberg <danny...@gmail.com> wrote:

Why is giving the backstory an act of being "automatically discounted"?  Where is the logic in that?  Suppose someone comes out and says that from their personal experience, some particular political policy is manipulative, destructive, and machiavellian in its intent?  Would it be an act of "automatic discounting" to simply point out that the person involved was a political activist in an organization devoted to opposing that policy?  On the contrary, pointing out the personal interest that the speaker has in what he is basing on his personal experience is, in fact, adding to the discourse, not distracting from it.  It is considered altogether proper and appropriate in the political discourse engaged in by virtually everyone in this country, and in every democracy.  There is no shame, or discounting, when pointing out that a particular person testifying from personal experience for a specific political goal is a member of a political party pursuing that goal.  That backstory does not invalidate or discount the testimony; it sets it in context. 

[Mike South]

This (to me anyway) is the difference between the naturalist making a claim about a butterfly and the butterfly explaining it to you in person (incensed though the naturalist may be that you didn't take their word for it).

When I look at that, I see zero hostility, even in the "God forbid my own parents" phrase, which could offend some parents I guess.  To me, this is painting a picture of a tree house that a bunch of kids went off and built in the woods with scavenged lumber.  You climb up there one time and one of the kids' dads is there and wants to "hang out".  Awwwwkward.  Even if everyone gets along with that dad in other settings...it's just kind of an invasion of their space (and by "kind of" I think I mean "really").

If it were an actual tree house I think most people would get it right off--the seclusion of the location, the obvious and visible results of the action of building, the cultural kid-ness of what a tree house is.

To an outside observer, the Sudbury school doesn't have any of these qualities in an obvious way. It's not physically secluded, in the sense that the parents take their kids there every day [note: I realize that the seclusion _is_ there--it's created by the absence of any adults except those that the students hire to be there--what I'm saying is that it's non-obvious]; the 'results of building' are what the day is like, what activities are happening, what relationships have been formed--i.e. experiential things rather than "physically built" things; the cultural picture of a school we grew up with is an entity created for kids by adults where adults are playing hugely leading roles [i.e., even though a parent may want to be involved in a way that has nothing to do with the coerciveness of schools, there is no cultural cue here to tell them that this isn't the place for adults to be].

 mike

[Mike South]

Can you give examples?  Like what would you get and how would it enhance the experience?

mike

[Ruti Regan]

On 2/20/11 6:38 PM, Mike South wrote:

I think it's unfortunate that in our culture as it exists now, schools that respect children enough not to interfere with their freedom all have to be extremely cheap in order to be economically viable.

I think they'd be better places if it were otherwise and some schools could be expensive, and school meeting could buy expensive things.

Can you give examples?  Like what would you get and how would it enhance the experience?

mike

--

Any number of cool things can be purchased with money.

Examples:

Chemicals and chemical hoods for doing experiments (how many environments are there where kids have access to this without having to do awful fake experiments out of lab manuals?).

More and better computers. (How many Sudbury model schools have computers that can handle serious art or serious gaming?)

More and better books, including expensive text books.

More staff. I think the benefits of that are obvious.

Horses. (A lot of kids like horses. The reason schools don't have them isn't that kids aren't interested, it's that they're expensive.)

Industrial cooking equipment.

Climbing equipment that is both fun and safer than a giant tree.

More stuff that little kids like, such as giant building blocks and giant legos.

Etc.

Not that schools without these things are bad places, but having extremely limited resources isn't a virtue.

~Woty

[Mydlack, Daniel J.]

Great to hear you all weigh in on this. Thanks for posting. There's a broad range of Democratic schooling represented here, the past, the present and the future, and this is a rich discussion.

Regarding Kool-aide, we're about 30 years out from Jim Jones and among folks who use the phrase it's lost much of its horror and now is a mild jibe. I employ it lovingly and knowingly as one who is among seasoned friends and old-timers.

I suppose it's to be expected to see ranks close and wagons circle; we Sudbury folks can practice a sort of democratic essentialism as a convenience --  I know I have. It's pretty simple, school meeting has rendered its decision, so there. Anybody with a gripe is just crying sour grapes. 

But it all comes around eventually. Perhaps it's worth discussing how complicated democracies are, especially those that endeavor to mature. Certainly those that attempt to embrace adults and children, school and community.

We can look at some of the world's long-standing democracies and see increasingly complex systems of checks and balances, systems of appeals and redress. Lawyers and judiciaries. Private and public agents. Local, regional and national incarnations.

Sudbury School Meetings are pulled by such a complex mix that involves at one time or another employment law, personal careers and reputations, marital disputes, professional collusion, grudges, greed and more. 

The simple democracy offers staff and founders the opportunity to cut corners, tip scales, shift focus and all the other things that get done in the real world practice of keeping a school afloat. It's okay until the train jumps the tracks. Sit down with a lawyer and explain such a system and connect it to current employment law including due process. 

It's a terrible dilemma. A fledgling school can carry out a pattern of gross negligence simply due to ignorance and the only legal recourse offers a pyrrhic victory folding the school in a blink.

So I think it's a very rich area for discussion and beneficial for those coming up to speed as well as those seeking to innovate.

[Jessica Haugsjaa]

I'm a bit confused by this whole discussion because it seems that people are forgetting such a simple, fundamental thing: Sudbury Schools are inherently imperfect because they are human endeavors, and all human endeavors are imperfect.  Just because I think it is the best model for my children does not mean I think it is perfect.  I tell people who are looking for a happy-slappy utopia for their children where everyone just runs around barefoot in the sunshine and grows healthy veggies all day to look elsewhere.  Different families are going to be sensitive to different "negatives":  too much screen time, not broad enough exposure, manipulation by staff/older students (perceived or real), etc., etc.  So, while I agree that criticism can be useful and lead to growth and improvement, I sometimes grow tired of it because it seems people are asking for utopia.  Oh, a place with no conflict or self-interest, and lots of yummy toys and brain-stimulating activities, and space for the parents to be involved, and available to absolutely anyone, and while we're at it, a place that will raise my child up into the perfect well-rounded adult I want him to be.  My personal mantra that I share ad nauseum with anyone who will listen is "schools do not raise children, families do".  As an SVS parent, it is my responsibility to learn what I can and involve myself as I can, not the school's.  I am grateful to everyone for their interesting thoughts and ideas.  Now I leave it to the kids. As to the problems of School Meeting, has anyone been to open town meeting in their town?  I've said this before, but I repeat it because it is just so darn instructive.  Imperfect democracy at work. Jess Haugsjaa --- On Sun, 2/20/11, Mike South <mso...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Jim Whiteford]

Thanks Karen. I wasn't suggesting finding a way of rescuing people from disappointment - rather if there was anything in practice which might faciltiate participation in the School Meeting for those that, for whatever reason, did not have that particular proficiency. I realise it's an awkward question, in the sense that, apart from anything else, the ideal and, at least on a local level, the practice of direct democracy is the reality with which our societies function. I mean, if you want to change the way your local council votes, turn up and argue your case; there are no mechanisms in society at large for ensuring that everyone has equal prowess before the meeting is declared open. Anyway, it's a negative that I've heard raised more than a few times. 

I did find the article I mentioned - Two Realities of Empowerment from the SVS Journal, http://www.sudval.org/05_onepersononevote.html#01. I guess the kind of thing I had in mind was what was attempted once at SVS with the Freedman's Bureau,which apparently didn't accomplish very much. 

[Erica Pierce]

Isabella,

Thank you so much for sharing your views with the group. As a parent who is fairly new to SVS, I am still learning about how everything 'works' and have found this discussion both fascinating and educating. In the midst of all this discussion there is one question that I keep wondering: "what do the students think about the issues that have been raised?". The majority of people who have responded have been adults, and while I am glad to have been able to hear all of the various perspectives, it seems that without the students' voices the discussion is not complete. As majority 'shareholders' in the Sudbury model, I think it a very important piece.

Again, thank you Isabella for your response. I appreciate it!

Erica Pierce

> On Saturday, February 19, 2011, mzwoggles <mzwh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> There is one question that inevitably comes up when I tell someone
>> about SVS that I simply do not have a good answer to: "how are kids
>> exposed to topics and ideas of a broad range of subjects?" (sometimes
>> another way of expressing "I had to take algebra, everybody should
>> have to suffer through it!") The real 'negative' I see here is the
>> issue of broad scope. I think this must be an issue in the smaller
>> schools that don't have critical mass of students to provide a wide
>> range of interests and perspectives. I think this also fuels part of
>> the frustration of parents who are turned aside from contributing
>> because they feel they have an expertise that they would
>> enthusiastically share.
>>
>> My own experience as a parent of a teen at SVS: in spite of having a
>> wonderful relationship with my daughter, it has been an exercise in
>> self inspection to fully, unconditionally trust her to do what she
>> needs to do. I'm not sure how long it would have taken if she was
>> younger. If I ever doubted I would be summarily voted off the campus,
>> all doubts were erased when her voice was heard on the new SVS video
>> extolling the campus as "our own space to do what we want to do". Bye
>> Mom!!
>>
>>
>>
>> On Feb 17, 8:23 pm, Ruti Regan <wotyf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> What do you consider to be the worst thing about the Sudbury model?
>>>
>>> ~Woty
>>

[Erik Haugsjaa]

I recall reading in "Free at Last" that there was (still is?) a Source
Corporation at SVS which has just such a list of outside resources.
Maybe someone could comment on whether this is still the case at
various Sudbury schools. Seems reasonable that the school office
would keep a list of regularly used piano teachers and such. Also,
at SVS, any School Meeting member can subscribe to the Assembly email
list (since the Assembly includes the SM members right?) so presumably
if an enrollee was looking for a parent out there who could help them
or advise with XYZ then they could put out an email request.

Erik

[Ruti Regan]

On 2/21/11 10:34 AM, Jessica Haugsjaa wrote:
> I'm a bit confused by this whole discussion because it seems that
> people are forgetting such a simple, fundamental thing: Sudbury
> Schools are inherently imperfect because they are human endeavors, and
> all human endeavors are imperfect. Just because I think it is the
> best model for my children does not mean I think it is perfect.

I agree with this. Nothing is perfect. I started the conversation
because I already know what's good about the Sudbury model -- I know far
less about what's bad about it (except that many schools offer
high-school diplomas and I agree with Scott that this is a bad idea),
and I wanted to see what other people think.

My intention is not to bash, but this is in fact this *discuss* Sudbury
model list, not the *advocate* Sudbury model list. I think seeking out
the disadvantages is legitimately on topic.

> I tell people who are looking for a happy-slappy utopia for their
> children where everyone just runs around barefoot in the sunshine and
> grows healthy veggies all day to look elsewhere. Different families
> are going to be sensitive to different "negatives": too much screen
> time, not broad enough exposure, manipulation by staff/older students
> (perceived or real), etc., etc.

Well, yes, different people dislike different things about the model --
what I'm looking for is things that really *are* bad, not things that
are commonly *perceived* as bad. A lot of things that people often think
are bad are in fact good (like not making students go to class or meet
with adult advisers about their learning.) I'm very glad that lack of
parental involvement and screen time have been defended numerous times
on this list, because I think those are both *good* things about the model.

> So, while I agree that criticism can be useful and lead to growth
> and improvement, I sometimes grow tired of it because it seems people
> are asking for utopia.

I'm not asking for utopia. Nothing is perfect. I just want to know what
is bad about the Sudbury model, and I think asking people who are
familiar with it what they think is a reasonable way to go about finding
out.

~Woty

[William L Richardson]

All,

One possible solution to having parents who show interest in joining in and
being
part of the community is to drop the upper age requirement at Sudbury
schools.
What is being offered at a Sudbury school is a great education that
certainly the vast
majority of "parents" have never had access to. Let them drop their role
as a
"parent", petition and apply as the person they are, pay their tuition,
show up and
be a student. They would learn the model day in and day out, from the
inside, from
the ground up.

Best Regards,
Bill Richardson

[Alan Klein]

I agree with most of what is written below (though I am not sure I see anything wrong with a school issuing a diploma, so long as it is on their own terms.)

I would disagree that there are things that people "perceive" are bad and things that "are" bad. Short of fundamental human rights, perhaps, good and bad are always in the eyes (and values) of the beholder, not in the things or actions themselves.

~Alan

[Ruti Regan]

Do you think it is possible for parents to ever drop their role as
parents in regard to how they relate to their children?

~Woty

[Mimsy Sadofsky]

There is a Source Corporation at SVS.  Its role is to find sources for instruction, internship, etc., that we cannot provide at school.  The burden for asking the Source Corporation, and often for arguing your need -- or desire -- for such instruction, rests firmly on the student.

We do not keep a file . . . exactly.  Lots of people in the school know stuff about parents, etc. 

This fall when we were looking for a potter, we did a lot of leg work, email and telephone work -- maybe several weeks worth, which included serious interviews -- before a parent happened to mention knowing the perfect person!  And she is.  We might have ended up with someone less perfect; the fact that many parents were aware of our search helped.

Mimsy

[Mimsy Sadofsky]

I don't think parents can ever really totally drop their role as parents -- what kid would want them to, really? -- but there can be some compromises; there have to be when parents are staff, or they are unsuccessful.

There was a big community project in England called The Peckham Experiment in the first half of the twentieth century.  It was definitely not a free school, but quite interesting.  I recommend reading about it to anyone interested in such things.
Mimsy

[Ruti Regan]

On 2/21/11 6:32 PM, Mimsy Sadofsky wrote:
> There is a Source Corporation at SVS. Its role is to find sources for
> instruction, internship, etc., that we cannot provide at school. The
> burden for asking the Source Corporation, and often for arguing your
> need -- or desire -- for such instruction, rests firmly on the student.

On what grounds does the Source Corporation make its decisions about
which needs and desires for instructions are sufficient?

~Woty

[Bruce Smith]

I've been wanting to respond to this explosion of threads since it began four days ago, but it seems that every time I get around to writing, there are a dozen or more new messages. Given this dense thicket of ideas and opinions, it's hard to know when and where to jump in, and indeed, whether it's worth anyone's time for me to add one more voice to the conversational din.

The original question was, "What do you consider to be the worst thing about the Sudbury model?" "Worst thing" has since been clarified and elaborated as, among other things, "disadvantages" and "things that are mistaken and implemented poorly." Yet this question still bothers me on some level, because it seems to imply that there are multiple bad things (inconsistencies, liabilities, challenges, weaknesses, etc.) from which we're asked to choose the most bad. (It's even reminiscent of a job interview: "Please describe your greatest weakness.") It suggests there are things about the model that need to be fixed. 

Well, maybe it implies and suggests those things; maybe I'm totally off. Whatever the intent of the original question, it's so general that it can be interpreted in multiple ways (and has been): what's wrong with Sudbury, what's great about it, what problems and issues does it face, and what we who support Sudbury schools might do differently or better. A question this general and provocative is great for sparking discussion, but one that's become so wide-ranging as to be overwhelming.

I suppose all I can do at this point is offer my own perspective, which comes from fourteen years' involvement in Sudbury schools and startup groups, the last twelve as a staff member at Alpine Valley School in Colorado. 

At the risk of being accused of imbibing artificially-flavored fruit drinks, I don't think there's anything wrong with the model itself. It is absolutely in harmony with the way people naturally learn, and the way young people in particular acquire what they need to thrive as adults. Moreover, it is in harmony with such basic democratic values as consent of the governed, the rule of law, and due process. In short, I can't imagine a more respectful, empowering, and effective form of education, and I have seen this impression borne out in countless ways over the past decade-plus.

That said, obviously there are difficulties and challenges faced by those of us—students, parents, staff, and others—who are part of Sudbury schools. I just don't think any of them are endemic to the Sudbury model (with the possible exception of school-parent relations; see below). Most have to do with being on the cultural cutting edge, promoting a new paradigm and all that. Then there's the fact that we have, among our competitors, government schools supported by tax dollars that don't have to charge tuition at the door—including charter schools and other options that offer outward trappings of freedom alongside shallow reassurances of more conventional structures.

Are there things we in Sudbury schools could do better? Absolutely! Another strength of the model is that it invites constant self-examination, a continual search for the best means of realizing our institutional values. No doubt this is enhanced by the entrepreneurial nature of the endeavor. Consequently, those working in and on behalf of Sudbury schools are always thinking about what we're doing and how we might do it more efficiently and effectively. For example, we’ll likely never cease efforts to improve our marketing—as Mimsy said, to make it “more accessible and clear.” 

Truth is, I’ve never been part of anything so systematically open to members' input and to changing what needs changed within the given structure and philosophy. (Related to this is the room for variation and interpretation of the model by each individual Sudbury school.) That last statement is absolutely key. Chores, JC procedures, the diploma process—so many things are regularly tinkered with, but the core aspects of the model cannot be changed without making it a different kind of school. (Of course, what those core aspects are is another thread to follow, for which I strongly recommend Daniel Greenberg's essay "The Tapestry of Themes" as a starting point.)

 

As many have noted, the relationship between parents and the school is an ongoing issue, and understandably so: a great deal of trust is asked of Sudbury parents, even as they are not a direct part of daily life at school (for very good reasons, previously mentioned in this discussion). Yet even while we're susceptible to insider-outsider tension, this need not lead to adversarial relationships. Over the years at Alpine Valley we've worked very hard to cultivate good relations with parents. The past couple years in particular, we've shifted our monthly informal discussion meetings toward an emphasis on supporting everyone involved with the school, even as everyone is encouraged to look for ways to support the school's growth. Many good ideas have come from this forum, and some perspectives shared that I believe wouldn't otherwise have been brought to light.

Others have touched on the dilemmas of small schools such as mine. To this I would add first that it takes surprisingly few people to make for an incredibly vibrant Sudbury school. Also, to echo Mike Sadofsky, I would say that the tradeoffs of having a small Sudbury school far outweigh the disadvantages of not having one at all. Alpine Valley recently hosted a panel discussion with our alumni, and I was pleasantly overwhelmed with the wondrous things those alumni have accomplished in the past ten years. It was humbling and deeply gratifying to see what we have made possible in our own small way.

Of course I am frustrated that we face an uphill battle or, to mix metaphors, that we're constantly swimming against the cultural mainstream. I wish Sudbury schooling in general had a much higher profile. I wish that, as a staff member, I didn't always feel there are ten thousand more things to do than I have time for as I go about daily operations and promotion of the school. I would love to have a multitude of people spreading the Sudbury word (and would welcome a conversation on how to do so more effectively). And I would love for our individual Sudbury schools to find ever better answers to the question of how we can support each other.

Yet after all these years, and despite the challenges and frustrations, I remain convinced that the model itself is sound. I am immensely fortunate to be part of something so consistently amazing, and grateful to everyone who has contributed to making it what it is. If that sounds like a love-fest, so be it: I love these schools!

Bruce

--
Alpine Valley School
Real Learning for Real Life
www.alpinevalleyschool.com
303-271-0525

[Jacqueline Peraza]

I too have been watching the dynamics of this conversation and have hesitated in responding, not being sure I can add much that hasn't been said - or rather asked. In thinking about the question and some of the responses, I do think my perspective can add value. I am a parent of a previous attendee at SVS.

Neither my husband or I ever felt like outsiders at SVS. Of course we paid attention during our initial interview and understood our roles within the setting of the school. Sometimes we wished we could be more involved, or might have disagreed with a situation or two; but we understood the "why nots" of the reasoning - like it or not, that's what we signed up for when we enrolled her.

Candidly, there were few negatives from the perspective of our family; and in essence most of those that were perceived, came from us, as parents (I am using "us" very loosely here). Except I will say having a child attend SVS and then leave for a traditional education is a double edge sword - and that is a HUGE negative. The loudest concerns our daughter ever voiced were in wishing her social circle, with same age peers, was greater. We witnessed a natural flourishing with our daughter while she was enrolled at SVS - in a number of areas. As for classwork, and purely as an example, she never took a class in spelling; she learned organically - via AIM and online chatting and phone texting with her friends. Personally, I found great joy in witnessing this first hand. Having said that, we did worry (needlessly) when she was eventually enrolled in public school that she might test behind grade level. Those fears were unfounded, except in math. And even in that situation, it wasn't understanding and meeting the challenges of concepts that proved difficult, but rather the tedious processes that are insisted on, right down to exactly where to put her name on the paper. It didn't take long and those tedious processes too were mastered. I'm not sure how SVS could have made that any easier, except to expressly offer math classes and to be prepared for the student, such as our own daughter, who needed to be moved ahead in material as quickly as it was mastered. It could very well be that specific need could have been met at SVS, but we'll never know since she never followed through with a single math class she signed up for...it just wasn't a priority in her life at that time.

The area I personally expressed concern over was in relation to science. I believe we were told there were plenty of science books, but our daughter wanted to experience science, not read about it (her words). A chemistry lab would have been wonderful. Apparently, not enough students were interested in a chemistry lab, so there wasn't one. Our daughter, now in her second year of public schooling absolutely loves science LAB (note I did say lab); but not the way it is taught, because there is nothing organic or playful about it. Still, she tells us how much she enjoys being introduced to the scientific disciplines, even though it is very frustrating for her that she can't just stay with 'it' until she's ready to move on.

Here is where we hit the double edge sword. Our daughter experienced, knows and understands the importance of allowing students to learn to their hearts content - that's just not the way it works outside of SVS, or maybe other schools like SVS. SVS may very well be an ideal learning environment, but once outside that model it's almost an assault on dignity and the desire to truly learn, play with concepts, and absorb information. And unless college has changed since I attended I don't see that getting any better.

Geez, how I wish I could expound on the negatives of the traditional education model - but that's not what was asked for, or what this list is for. I'll end by saying if there were a SVS in the city/state we are now, she would be there in a heartbeat. (Negative) Double edged sword or not.

Jackie

[Melissa Bradford]

This is Melissa from Tallgrass Sudbury School in Illinois writing both as a
staff member and as a parent. Not sure if this fits into the discussion,
but here are a few thoughts on being a Sudbury parent.

As a parent myself, I can see that it's only natural that we want to be
involved in our child's experience at a Sudbury school. I don't think I'm
going out on a limb to say that for most of us, our children are the most
important people in our lives, and we enjoy, even crave, being a part of all
aspects of their lives, and especially part of something as hugely important
to them as their school, a school that we as parents have possibly made a
big philosophical leap and/or allocated significant resources for them to
attend. In addition, in today's society, due to all kinds of factors, many
people are only connected to their community through their child's school,
so their child's school community becomes the family's community. And who
wouldn't want to be a part of the wonderful environment that is a Sudbury
school?

As a staff member, I also understand the concerns with parent involvement
such as the ones that have been mentioned here and in other places. It
seems to me that there is no perfect solution to this question right now.
For me, the problem lies in the fact that a Sudbury school is not the same
as a tribe.

Humans have evolved in tribes, and most of us crave a tribal community
because it is in our biological wiring. In today's society most of us are
far from living a tribal life. A Sudbury school comes close to
approximating a hunter-gatherer tribe in many ways (see Peter Gray) but it
has differences as well. In comparision to a hunter-gatherer tribe, there
is some artificiality in a Sudbury school in terms of the lack of presence
of parents.

Here's the problem. In a tribal society, the parents aren't present in the
community specifically *for the purpose of educating their or others'
children*. Their tribal activities have to do with their own purposes,
whether it's hunting, or gathering, or any other activities they undertake
for the survival of their family and tribe. Of course this sometimes
involves the children, naturally, but for the most part, if I understand the
research properly, the parents do their own thing, and the children do their
own thing.

This model doesn't translate well into a modern setting with today's
economic realities. If parents were present at a Sudbury school, their
purpose of being there would not be to do their normal daily activities,
their economic pursuits or family/home management, but specifically to take
part in the education of their children. That completely changes the
dynamic.

Another aspect is that any kind of large adult presence tips the scales in
terms of how many fully successful and capable people are around. One of
the most powerful advantages of a Sudbury school is the age-mixing.
Students spending their days around children a little bit older and a little
bit younger has myriad advantages that have been discussed extensively in
Sudbury literature. One advantage is that children have many models of
people who are either just a little bit better or just a little bit less
skilled at many endeavors. Change the ratio of adults to students, and
suddenly, students are seeing mostly people who are much more capable than
themselves, who have mastered many things, so much so as to almost make
students feel that acquiring new skills are out of reach.

When I reflect on the unschooling group I started while I was between
Sudbury schools, while I experienced the positive side of parents and
children being together so much, I also saw some less desirable effects of
that type of setting. I saw a lot of children who were afraid to try new
things because they couldn't do it right the first time, much more than I
saw when I taught in public school or did our first Sudbury school. When we
created our new Sudbury school and almost all our students were former
homeschoolers, I saw again how long it took many of those children to get
over being afraid to try new things. Of course this is purely anecdotal,
but I feel that this was a result of being around adults more of the time
than around children who are just a little more or less skilled than they
are. (I also saw a lot of children asking their parents to do things that
they would be perfectly capable of doing by themselves and would be doing by
themselves had mom or dad not been around, but that's another issue.)

At our school we are trying more activities and trying to come up with even
more creative ideas to help the parents feel like they are part of the
community. And we'd do a lot more if we could somehow squeeze more than 24
hours into a day! Maybe in the future, our society will evolve to the point
that it returns to a more natural tribal-like community, where parents may
be around, mostly doing their own thing, yet can naturally interact with
their children and other children throughout the day. For now, it seems to
me that the best way to give children a close-to-natural setting that
provides them with the kind of autonomy and age-mixing they thrive in is a
Sudbury environment.

- Melissa

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ruti Regan" <woty...@gmail.com>
To: <discuss-su...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 19, 2011 10:02 PM
Subject: Re: Parental involvement Re: [DSM] Negatives

> On 2/18/11 1:31 PM, Mike South wrote:
>> Everything you say here about using a parent as a resource without
>> compromising the student's autonomy is also true about using the staff as
>> resources. I think it needs pointing out, though, that there is one
>> crucial difference--students elect staff, and they can fire them. This is
>> not true of parents. Even if actual firing of staff rarely happens, the
>> fact that the relationship is structured that way represents a very
>> fundamental difference. (I suspect this is one reason why you hear
>> parents who are staff talk about it how it interferes with the model for
>> their kids.)
>>
>> This, itself, is not prejudice against parents. It is an objective,
>> unarguable difference. Staff have relationship X, parents have
>> relationship Y. X is not equal to Y. But it could easily be perceived
>> as prejudice against or mistrust of them. "What? Staff can be around
>> the kids all day and possibly suggest activities or organize field trips
>> and parents cant??? Don't you TRUST us??". That's a completely natural
>> reaction. And even when you explain it--"Hey, the kids and fire me, but
>> they can't fire you"--well, that's also likely not to go over well, even
>> though it's true. Because the parent then has to think "why would they
>> want to fire me?". And it's not about that--it's about what SDG said,
>> just spending time away from the most important people in your life and
>> figuring out who _you_ are, etc.
>
> Also, it is extremely difficult to find staff who are capable of doing the
> job, and many schools find after electing staff *who have gone through a
> rigorous hiring process* that they don't understand what their role is,
> are incapable of doing the job, and cause problems by trying to direct
> student activities.
>
> I'd think this would be even more true of parent volunteers who *aren't*
> rigorously selected.
>
> And also, I don't think it's ideal for parents to be staff at the same
> school their kids go to, but it's not easily avoidable given the rarity of
> schools that respect children's autonomy. It's not as big of a problem as
> it could be with staff, though, both because they are elected and because
> having some parents on staff doesn't add all that many parents into the
> community. If there were a *lot* of parents though, including people who
> don't really understand what it means to respect autonomy without actively
> supervising, it would cause bigger distortions. A school that's based
> partly on lack of supervision needs a certain critical mass to make that
> culture possible, and presence of a lot of outside people who are used to
> supervising some members of the community would necessarily be disruptive
> to that.
>
> There are other models that offer valuable things which have greater
> parent involvement, like homeschooling co-ops, but they work very
> differently from a Sudbury model school and there are things they can't
> offer.

>
> ~Woty
>
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[Bruce Smith]

I'd like to offer a postscript to my previous post: If I were to summarize the worst thing about the Sudbury model — taking into account my experience and what I've read on this list in recent days — I'd have to say this: it's hard.

It's hard, as a student, being trusted with real freedom and responsibility: to decide for yourself how to spend your time, how to deal with people, figuring out who you are, what you want, and how to obtain those things. It's hard learning to stand up for yourself and advance your point of view regarding the real issues facing your school community. It's hard learning how to disagree and argue and still remain friends. It's hard sorting out what you really want from what you think you want, or what your parents or friends want for you. It's hard wishing you had a larger peer group at school and, in some cases, commuting farther than a lot of people your age.

It's hard, as a parent, to trust your child to obtain what s/he needs at school while giving up the desire to know more of, or participate more in, what goes on there. It's hard to wait, through months or years of what looks like doing nothing, for the growth and maturation you've been led to believe will result if you'll only just let it happen. It can be hard explaining your schooling choice to family and friends, and wrestling with your own doubts and fears about whether your child will turn out all right (harder than it already is, since you're foregoing the feedback of conventional schooling and the safety/comfort of the herd). It's hard, for many families, to scrape together the money to pay tuition year after year.

It's hard, as a staff member, to put together shoestring budgets, to rely on a spouse or family members to make the job financially feasible, or to just do without long-term material security. It's hard when your school struggles to grow, year after year, despite all your best efforts. It's hard knowing there's far more that desperately needs done than time available for doing it. It's hard, the never-ending defense of this model against people, inside the school and out, who don't seem to get it — or who claim to get it, but want to tweak just this or that one "little" part of it, like not interfering with kids' autonomy.

It's hard, in general, to be different, to go against the status quo; to face confusion, skepticism and, occasionally, outright hostility; to constantly struggle to make ends meet, hoping it will someday seem worth all that struggle. Whether it's too hard will naturally depend on an individual's perspective; some have a harder time of it than others. But joyous and vibrant as it is, life at a Sudbury school will always be, on some level, hard — and real. To me, that's a big part of what makes it such an exquisitely beautiful thing. (Not that I'd turn down a million-dollar endowment, mind you... ;)

[melanie noble]

Right On Bruce. Perfectly worded. With all that said, my kids and I miss it everyday.
Thank you,
Melanie Noble aka Fulks (past Sudbury parent, and, for a very brief time, staff member).

--

[Karen Hyams]

I was nodding my head while reading Bruce's list of what is hard, while also seeing the upside of some of those very things. Especially for the kids, some of the hard is what makes it good.

Since this conversation has been a very lengthy discussion of the inherent difficulties of this kind of experience, for everyone, I want to add a positive. We are now at the 'result' end of our 15 year old son's Sudbury education. And while it was occasionally hard (I had an annual freak-out, even though I know better), it's been great seeing him enjoy his life. He has developed unexpected strengths and has an enormous level of commitment to his goals. He's champing at the bit to move on to the next stage of his life, which we are currently trying to figure out. And he values the fact that Clearwater can be part of that while he starts to venture out, since he's young.

I value the huge opportunity I've had to grow as a parent and as a person. Often, personal growth is painful, but I wouldn't take that pain away for anything.

And I can't imagine a job more challenging and rewarding than being a staff member with the exception of being an artist. Neither pay well, sometimes they don't pay at all. I have a huge amount of gratitude for everyone who is on staff at these schools.

Karen

[Mimsy Sadofsky]

I don't think that I mentioned "sufficient".  The Source Corp. will help serious people find what they need -- in or out of school.  

--

[Karen Hyams]

I was nodding my head while reading Bruce's list of what is hard, while also seeing the upside of some of those very things. Especially for the kids, some of the hard is what makes it good.

Since this conversation has been a very lengthy discussion of the inherent difficulties of this kind of experience, for everyone, I want to add a positive. We are now at the 'result' end of our 15 year old son's Sudbury education. And while it was occasionally hard (I had an annual freak-out, even though I know better), it's been great seeing him enjoy his life. He has developed unexpected strengths and has an enormous level of commitment to his goals. He's champing at the bit to move on to the next stage of his life, which we are currently trying to figure out. And he values the fact that Clearwater can be part of that while he starts to venture out, since he's young.

I value the huge opportunity I've had to grow as a parent and as a person. Often, personal growth is painful, but I wouldn't take that pain away for anything.

And I can't imagine a job more challenging and rewarding than being a staff member with the exception of being an artist. Neither pay well, sometimes they don't pay at all. I have a huge amount of gratitude for everyone who are staff at these schools.

Karen

[Jessica Haugsjaa]

Whoops, I should have said "hear, hear!" Learn something new every day!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear
Jess Haugsjaa

--- On Tue, 2/22/11, Jessica Haugsjaa <jhau...@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Jessica Haugsjaa <jhau...@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [DSM] Negatives
To: discuss-su...@googlegroups.com

Date: Tuesday, February 22, 2011, 5:43 PM

Here-here to Karen and Bruce!  Thanks for your thoughts!

--- On Tue, 2/22/11, Karen Hyams <karen...@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Karen Hyams <karen...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [DSM] Negatives
To: discuss-su...@googlegroups.com

Karen

[Jessica Haugsjaa]

Here-here to Karen and Bruce!  Thanks for your thoughts! --- On Tue, 2/22/11, Karen Hyams <karen...@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Karen Hyams <karen...@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [DSM] Negatives To: discuss-su...@googlegroups.com Date: Tuesday, February 22, 2011, 3:51 PM

--

[Bruce Smith]

On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 1:51 PM, Karen Hyams <karen...@gmail.com> wrote:

I was nodding my head while reading Bruce's list of what is hard, while also seeing the upside of some of those very things. Especially for the kids, some of the hard is what makes it good.

Exactly. Occasionally over the years I've explained it something like this: everywhere you go, there are difficulties (trials and tribulations, hoops, obstacles, etc.). At Alpine Valley, as opposed to more conventional settings, we keep the artificial and unnecessary difficulties to a minimum — and allow space and support for those to be addressed. At Sudbury schools, the challenges students run into tend to be those that they need to overcome in order to live fully realized lives.

Not that the Sudbury model is about designing or orchestrating those challenges. They simply come up in the course of what my Circle School colleague Jim Rietmulder termed "a scaled-down version of the real world."

Bruce

[Ruti Regan]

On 2/22/11 4:54 PM, Mimsy Sadofsky wrote:
> I don't think that I mentioned "sufficient". The Source Corp. will
> help serious people find what they need -- in or out of school.

Mimsy,

How does the Source Corporation evaluate who is serious?

~Woty

[Mimsy Sadofsky]

discussion in an open meeting; prior preparation so that they know what they are asking for -- with a group; with staff; or alone for both.

[Samuel Parker]

I worked at a SVS school in Utah, for two years. I think that the biggest problem we faced was gossip between the parents.

The stories/problems became out of hand since the leader (unfortunately it wasn't really "each person one equal vote") was the only one to hear the gossip. It would never be dealt with or discussed openly.

So no one ever heard what was really going on & people would tell different stories to different people.

The only solution to this is to not keep secrets, talk openly about problems. Having a 3rd person present really cuts down gossip.

 This includes being open and honest with the parents. We had a problem parent that would harass the staff members. I always felt that we should be honest with her and tell her she isn't allowed to harass the staff.

Example:

Parent came in screaming that she wanted to pay a lesser amount then the others for summer tuition. She was told that would need to go to School Meeting & the next one wouldn't be until school started in September. She didn't like that answer so she called the schools leader to complain. The leader didn't back the staff member, nor was there ever an open discussion about how to handle it. Instead the parent was given what she wanted without it going to SM.

I think being honest to the parents helps filter out the bad seeds or ones who truly don't believe. If you break your own policies to ease angry parents then you're not being fair to the other parents. If the staff back each other & really follow or get rid of policies then the school grows stronger. Telling that parent she needs to treat the staff with respect I feel is important. Backing each other as staff and supporting each other in the clerk ships that involve parents is crucial. This parent got to the point of demanding a special tuition gradually.

Stephany

 

 

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 7:00 AM, Ruti Regan <woty...@gmail.com> wrote:

The worst thing about the Subury Model is the people who have nothing
to do with the Sudbury model. Most people aren't familiar with Sudbury
schools and of that most don't care to understand it, so people will
tell me' I'm not learning anything and it's a do-nothing school, and
there's no way to convince them otherwise because they don't want to
think otherwise. So probably the worst part about Sudbry schools is
people who look down on them for whatever reason.

Yes, that's a really big problem and I suspect it's the biggest and most difficult.

I think one reason it's such a hard problem is that it causes cultural distortions within schools. They're all under constant attack and live with substantial fear of being closed down; this makes criticism and innovation harder than they ought to be.

SVS and the other schools ought not to be causes, and mostly aren't, but to some extent have to be because of the degree to which the surrounding culture opposes them. That's very unfortunate.

[Karen Hyams]

I agree with the need to be honest with parents, especially in the pre-admission interview, but what the heck is a "leader" in a Sudbury school?

My reason for agreeing with the need for honesty isn't to weed out the bad seeds, though. Honesty helps with retention, it lets parents know staff is there to help them when they need some support, and it can prevent unpleasant surprises.

Karen

On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 12:18 PM, Samuel Parker <mesha...@gmail.com> wrote:

I think being honest to the parents helps filter out the bad seeds or ones who truly don't believe.

 

Stephany