Some examples of things I think might be disadvantages
Ruti Regan
granted based on a student successfully defending the thesis that they
are ready to enter the adult community. I think this is a bad idea,
partly because it's overly invasive and partly because it's not really a
reasonable qualification. People enter adult life by what they do, not
by someone else saying they're reading. I think if any qualifications
can be defended, it's subject specific qualifications (and I think the
reasons Sudbury model schools shouldn't offer these are obvious.)
2) Kids are expected to get bored, spend a lot of time being bored, and
get used to figuring out how to solve that without adult help. I can see
how that's in some sense empowering, but I'm not sure that it's entirely
a good thing.
3) Young students in Sudbury model schools don't have access to a broad
range of classes offered by people who both teach well and respect their
humanity. (Granted, students in conventional schools *also* don't have
this.)
4) There's a price to be payed for doing something that most people
outside your immediate circle are hostile to. That's not something
Sudbury model schools can do much about, but as others have said, it is
a serious drawback. (I think it's worth it. But it's there.)
~Woty
Mike Sadofsky
> 1) Many Sudbury model schools offer high-school diplomas that are
> granted based on a student successfully defending the thesis that they
> are ready to enter the adult community. I think this is a bad idea,
> partly because it's overly invasive and partly because it's not really
> a reasonable qualification. People enter adult life by what they do,
> not by someone else saying they're reading. I think if any
> qualifications can be defended, it's subject specific qualifications
> (and I think the reasons Sudbury model schools shouldn't offer these
> are obvious.)
and, I suspect, similarly debated at other Sudbury model schools. The
conclusion seems to be that many students and parents want a diploma
opportunity, such that the absence of it would seriously impact the
school's enrollment level and thereby introduce other disadvantages such
as peer opportunities and budgetary impacts. The result has been
successive attempts over the years to evolve a diploma process that is
least intrusive and maximally effective. My guess is that SVS will
continue to struggle with this issue.
>
> 2) Kids are expected to get bored, spend a lot of time being bored,
> and get used to figuring out how to solve that without adult help. I
> can see how that's in some sense empowering, but I'm not sure that
> it's entirely a good thing.
periods of boredom and lack of obvious interest, but many kids find
themselves fully occupied day after day, week after week, month after
month, year after year, throughout their tenure at SVS. Kids at SVS
manage to acquire a set of skills and knowledge that enables them to
hold their own in a search for employment or higher education. So I
don't accept that " Kids are expected to get bored, spend a lot of time
being bored,"
What I do hear, over and over again, about SVS kids who move on into
"the adult community" is that they are sought over as employees because
of their ability to focus on the job at hand and to consider their tasks
in the context of their organizations mission and objectives.
Similarly, I hear from SVS kids who pursue further formal education,
that they are aghast at the inability of their classmates (with high SAT
scores) from prestigious private academies and very expensive suburban
public schools to learn material without focused guidance from an
instructor. While SVS kids pursue classes to learn a topic, the latter
group want to be told "what will be on the exam?" It's a marked
contrast and one that I've been hearing repetitively for 30 plus years.
>
> 3) Young students in Sudbury model schools don't have access to a
> broad range of classes offered by people who both teach well and
> respect their humanity. (Granted, students in conventional schools
> *also* don't have this.)
that don't exist in conventional school environments. And they are NOT
subject to six or more years of arithmetic drill to learn a few weeks of
mathematical principles. Yes, there are some Sudbury model schools that
have miniscule populations. I worry about that too, but I don't know
what to do about it that isn't already being done with the resources
available. Would those schools and the kids who attend them be better
off without those schools? I don't think so. The answer is to not
abandon them, but to support them and help them grow.
>
> 4) There's a price to be payed for doing something that most people
> outside your immediate circle are hostile to. That's not something
> Sudbury model schools can do much about, but as others have said, it
> is a serious drawback. (I think it's worth it. But it's there.)
that's still part of the "mainstream."
>
> ~Woty
>
So what might I see as "disadvantages?"
The constant struggle for sufficient funds to operate the school; for
new students to grow the population and to replace those who move away
or graduate; and for suitable candidates for staff who recognize the
entrepreneurial nature of each small school (SVS included) and can
appropriately contribute.
For some students there may be occasional limitations in finding peers
with common interest, but this can occur anywhere.
I'll stop here.
Mike Sadofsky
(not a staff member, but among the SVS founders and still a member of
the SVS Assembly)
Jessica Haugsjaa
3) Young students in Sudbury model schools don't have
> access to a broad range of classes offered by people who
> both teach well and respect their humanity. (Granted,
> students in conventional schools *also* don't have this.)
I don't really want my young student to have access to classes, unless he wants them, and I can assure you that at 6, he doesn't. I've seen what even "good" classes do to kids this age, and I'm not a fan. Well-packaged coercion is coercion nonetheless.
Jess Haugsjaa
--- On Mon, 2/21/11, Ruti Regan <woty...@gmail.com> wrote:
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Ruti Regan
> On 2/21/11 12:41 PM, Ruti Regan wrote:
>> 1) Many Sudbury model schools offer high-school diplomas that are
>> granted based on a student successfully defending the thesis that
>> they are ready to enter the adult community. I think this is a bad
>> idea, partly because it's overly invasive and partly because it's not
>> really a reasonable qualification. People enter adult life by what
>> they do, not by someone else saying they're reading. I think if any
>> qualifications can be defended, it's subject specific qualifications
>> (and I think the reasons Sudbury model schools shouldn't offer these
>> are obvious.)
> This issue has been debated many times within the SVS specific
> community and, I suspect, similarly debated at other Sudbury model
> schools. The conclusion seems to be that many students and parents
> want a diploma opportunity, such that the absence of it would
> seriously impact the school's enrollment level and thereby introduce
> other disadvantages such as peer opportunities and budgetary impacts.
> The result has been successive attempts over the years to evolve a
> diploma process that is least intrusive and maximally effective. My
> guess is that SVS will continue to struggle with this issue.
I imagine so as well. It's a very complicated question.
~Woty
Ruti Regan
3) Young students in Sudbury model schools don't have> access to a broad range of classes offered by people who > both teach well and respect their humanity. (Granted, > students in conventional schools *also* don't have this.)I don't really want my young student to have access to classes, unless he wants them, and I can assure you that at 6, he doesn't. I've seen what even "good" classes do to kids this age, and I'm not a fan. Well-packaged coercion is coercion nonetheless.
I don't think that's an inherent attribute of classes, though, since I've experienced non-coercive classes as an adult that were very valuable. I think that good classes for children who are still young enough that their parents can make them do things basically don't exist. (Which is a reason that good classes are the exception rather than the rule even in universities.)
And I also think that it's probably indeed very unusual for a six year old to have any interest whatsover in a class, but I don't think it would be as unusual for 10 year olds if any existed that were good and actually non-coercive (as opposed to syrupy fake non-coercion.)
~Woty
Jessica Haugsjaa
| I guess we just have to agree to disagree. I don't think classes are ever really a good idea for young children because I am very skeptical that they would have chosen to be there. I, too, have taken valuable classes as an adult. But I wanted to be there and had chosen the topic after years of honing my personal interests. Also, the phrase "one man's trash in another man's treasure" occurs to me with regard to this whole "negatives" discussion. As I and others have touched on, this is entirely too subjective. How can you ever really sort it out? Every time somebody brings something up as a positive or negative, someone else writes to say that they felt the opposite. I don't think it is engaging in a love-fest to state that the model is sound and that different people are going to perceive different negatives. If we tried to "fix" all these negatives in order to accommodate everyone, what would be left of the model? Tweeking things such as the diploma process or the hiring of staff seems fine, but doesn't change the fundamental model. So I guess my question is, what is the concrete benefit of trying to figure out the worst things about the model? Worst to whom? Where is the consensus? You just can't please all the people all time. |
Jess Haugsjaa --- On Mon, 2/21/11, Ruti Regan <woty...@gmail.com> wrote: |
|
|
David Schneider-Joseph
> On 2/21/11 12:41 PM, Ruti Regan wrote:
>
>> 2) Kids are expected to get bored, spend a lot of time being bored, and get used to figuring out how to solve that without adult help. I can see how that's in some sense empowering, but I'm not sure that it's entirely a good thing.
>
> Every kid doesn't get obviously bored. Oh sure, there may be brief periods of boredom and lack of obvious interest, but many kids find themselves fully occupied day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, throughout their tenure at SVS. Kids at SVS manage to acquire a set of skills and knowledge that enables them to hold their own in a search for employment or higher education. So I don't accept that " Kids are expected to get bored, spend a lot of time being bored,"
>
> What I do hear, over and over again, about SVS kids who move on into "the adult community" is that they are sought over as employees because of their ability to focus on the job at hand and to consider their tasks in the context of their organizations mission and objectives. Similarly, I hear from SVS kids who pursue further formal education, that they are aghast at the inability of their classmates (with high SAT scores) from prestigious private academies and very expensive suburban public schools to learn material without focused guidance from an instructor. While SVS kids pursue classes to learn a topic, the latter group want to be told "what will be on the exam?" It's a marked contrast and one that I've been hearing repetitively for 30 plus years.
As a student at Sudbury Valley, I saw how new ideas -- games, discussion topics, occasionally organized classes -- would light and spread like fire, run their course, and then be replaced by some new interesting thing. Who knows how any one of these is first discovered? Maybe by a student's own creativity, or maybe via contact with outside people or media (SVS is not a closed community). There was rarely if ever an inspiration shortage during times of boredom.
Contrast this with the traditional, regimented school where every 40 minutes the bell rings and it's off to the next class whether you're interested at that moment or not -- like Soviet-style production quotas disconnected from market demand; how uninspired and static a world these places are!
Boredom does happen at Sudbury Valley, of course. As I see it, boredom is like any other unpleasant feeling: an *indicator* of a problem, not a problem itself. Boredom tells us when it's time to figure out something new to do! We should no more wish away our ability to bore than to feel pain. And there is indeed great value, as you point out, in figuring out how to solve this (or any other) problem for oneself -- to be able to put the whole world and your place in it in context, and decide what to do next.
But.
Sometimes people want help solving their problems, and *up to a degree* this is healthy. Just as a student may wish for help in learning to play the piano, a student may wish for help in solving the problem of boredom, and may go to others -- friends, fellow students, and/or staff members -- to request this help. Now, this request of a staff member is fraught with difficulties that most on this list will recognize immediately: there is a danger that what is really going on is that this student is used to getting direction from adults and lacks the will to take responsibility for his or her own life; and that the staff member's ideas may -- perhaps inadvertently -- come with a certain amount of implied authority.
So there is cause for wariness. But I'm not sure this means that these requests should never be heeded, anymore than a request to learn math should always be unmet even though here too there is often legitimate cause for wariness.
I staffed for some years at the much smaller Mountain Laurel Sudbury School. The small size has its advantages, among them a more intimate, family-like atmosphere. But the downside is that fires often fail to catch due to a dearth of "combustible material". One day a kid was particularly bored, making this fact known to anyone who would listen. It was clear that he wanted some external ideas. Maybe in a larger school there simply would have been so much going on that it wouldn't have been an issue; he would have found something without anyone explicitly helping him.
But I'll admit it: I broke a Sudbury school taboo and suggested a board game he might like to play. He did, and before long, with only the spark of this one suggestion, this game for some time caught on, as others observed and became interested. In that particular situation, the suggestion could just as easily have come from another student, but it happened to come from me, a staff member. It is this taboo which I think Woty may have been referring to when she said that kids are expected to solve the problem of boredom without adult help.
David
Mike South
I guess we just have to agree to disagree. I don't think classes are ever really a good idea for young children because I am very skeptical that they would have chosen to be there. I, too, have taken valuable classes as an adult. But I wanted to be there and had chosen the topic after years of honing my personal interests.
Also, the phrase "one man's trash in another man's treasure" occurs to me with regard to this whole "negatives" discussion. As I and others have touched on, this is entirely too subjective. How can you ever really sort it out? Every time somebody brings something up as a positive or negative, someone else writes to say that they felt the opposite. I don't think it is engaging in a love-fest to state that the model is sound and that different people are going to perceive different negatives. If we tried to "fix" all these negatives in order to accommodate everyone, what would be left of the model? Tweeking things such as the diploma process or the hiring of staff seems fine, but doesn't change the fundamental model. So I guess my question is, what is the concrete benefit of trying to figure out the worst things about the model? Worst to whom? Where is the consensus? You just can't please all the people all time.
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.