Camp Creek Blog

arwen, i will read that link & get back here later today with my thoughts, but in the meantime, another link i read last week about separating out girls and boys in the classroom —

http://joannejacobs.com/2009/03/26/boys-and-girls-together-in-alabama/

b, i agree — 

if it wasn’t somewhat unpleasant, you’re doing it wrong.

and also

i suffered, we all suffered, so you must also suffer.

a, why doesn‘t every 17yo jump out of bed in the morning with a smile, looking forward to going to school? because they have zero control over where they are going and what they are doing? because it has no relationship to what they care about, what they want to know, what they think they need to know? because they aren’t real participants in their world?

i want to share some stuff i have about community schools later — places where kids and adults can come together to teach/learn what they want to know/what they have to share. it’s the same idea as in your book — and btw, i give away my favorites, too, and never get them back — i hate that!

a, absolutely — everyone could homeschool regardless of privilege if we had homeschool charter schools.

i agree with you, amy — i don’t think the system can be *fixed*, i think it needs to be *changed* to something completely different.

i like your analogy but i think it’s even better if you say a tiny little boat rather than a tiny little dam. you can make a little lifeboat with your own school (which i did for 8 yrs) and save X many people — but they never last.

i meant the lifeboats never last — not the people! ha ;^)

gathering up some things on community or free schools to share, i come across this quote by ivan illich (from "deschooling society", 1971) — and think of the oft-recurring question about homeschooled children and their socialization:

“School does offer children an opportunity to escape their homes and meet new friends. But, at the same time, this process indoctrinates children with the idea that they should select their friends from among those with whom they are put together. Providing the young from their earliest age with invitations to meet, evaluate, and seek out others would prepare them for a lifelong interest in seeking new partners for new endeavors.”

in other words, let children develop their social skills more naturally!

“The planning of new educational institutions ought not to begin with the administrative goals of a principal or president, or with the teaching goals of a professional educator, or with the learning goals of any hypothetical class of people. It must not start with the question, ‘What should someone learn?’ but with the question, ‘What kinds of things and people might learners want to be in contact with in order to learn?’” — Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society

“A good educational system should have three purposes: it should provide all who want to learn with access to available resources at any time in their lives; empower all who want to share what they know to find those who want to learn it from them; and, finally, furnish all who want to present an issue to the public with the opportunity to make their challenge known.” — ibid.

“Schools are designed on the assumption that there is a secret to everything in life; that the quality of life depends on knowing that secret; that secrets can be known only in orderly successions; and that only teachers can properly reveal these secrets. An individual with a schooled mind conceives of the world as a pyramid of classified packages accessible only to those who carry the proper tags. New educational institutions would break apart this pyramid. Their purpose must be to facilitate access for the learner: to allow him to look into the windows of the control room or the parliament, if he cannot get in by the door. Moreover, such new institutions should be channels to which the learner would have access without credentials or pedigree — public spaces in which peers and elders outside his immediate horizon would become available.” — ibid.

“Education should be a lifelong enterprise, a process enhanced by an environment that supports to the greatest extent possible the attempt of people to “find themselves” throughout their lives.” — Turning Learning Right-Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track, Russell Ackoff and Daniel Greenberg, 2008

“In the world outside the classroom, examinations are seldom used to determine the competence of a person. We evaluate people by what they can do and how well they can do it, not by such test scores as are currently used to set “standards.” The use of such standards in schools is based on the assumption that children undergo the same developmental process, at the same basic rate, from birth until maturity. The truth is that every child has his or her own highly specific and original way of growing up. To deny this diversity is to deny the very existence of individuality.” — ibid.

“From our discussion it can be seen that the ideal school environment for young people to become educated in should have the following characteristics:

• Learning takes place through self-motivation and self-regulations.

• Equal status is given to all interests.

• The output of learners is judged through self-evaluation, a concept that includes the freedom to seek outside feedback.

• Learning groups form based on common interests.

• No artificial distinction is drawn between learners and teachers.

• All members of the learning community participate fully in regulating its activities.

Such a school is permeated with an atmosphere of comfort, self-confidence, and bustle. Given the freedom to fail without censure, students will often challenge themselves to work hardest on their weaknesses. Although there is no set curriculum, such a school develops in students many valuable tools that prove their usefulness when they reach adulthood. In addition, students at such a school will be well prepared to function as citizens in a democratic society. Undergraduate programs in colleges and universities have become extensions of traditional high schools. All the failings we have attributed to K-12 schools apply equally to these institutions. Colleges appear to be serving the
primary social function of keeping young people out of the workplace for an additional four years and enabling them to continue to exist without the need to participate as full members of the larger adult society.” — ibid.

“Adults who have already pursued a career in one field and want to change to another will turn to these graduate schools for “retraining.” Although lifelong careers will doubtlessly continue to exist, we can expect more and more people to undergo several career changes during their lifetimes. As they do so, graduate schools will have an increasingly diverse age mix among students. Because of the rapid development of new knowledge and the rapid obsolescence of the old, adults past school age increasingly want further education for one or both of two reasons: they either want to increase their work-related competence, or engage in learning for its own sake, as an end in itself.” — ibid.

“Because of a continually increasing life expectancy, there is no longer any upper limit to the age at which a person can participate fully in the intellectual and productive life of the community. For this reason, retired persons should be permitted to attend classes (if they are not filled) at no cost in any publicly-supported university or college. The presence of these older people in undergraduate and graduate classes would enhance the learning possibilities of the usual kind of students. There is no longer any need to retire at a specified age. It is likely that the concept of a “retirement age” will disappear in the human condition—or perhaps, more properly stated, society will welcome the return to an age-old practice of treasuring old age.” — ibid.

http://changethis.com/47.02.TurningLearning

mary leue’s personal story about starting the albany free school in 1970 (it is still open today):

part 1: http://www.spinninglobe.net/histfsml.htm

part 2: http://www.spinninglobe.net/histfreeschool2.htm

“Once people understand the Sudbury philosophy, they often ask "why doesn't everyone send their children to a Sudbury school?" My answer is simply that many parents do not believe or trust that their children are motivated to learn. I cannot count the number of times that a parent has told me, "it sounds great, but my child would just play all day and never learn anything _ she needs to be pushed". Out of politeness, I do not question this belief. In my mind however, my response is, "if your child is not motivated, she would still be lying in her crib, crying for food when she was hungry". The child was motivated enough to learn how to walk, how to eat solid food, how to talk and many, many other skills. It would truly be easier for children to just lie in the crib and cry for food, but they choose to take the harder path of learning to move from babyhood to childhood. Likewise, children will choose to take the difficult and empowering path of moving from childhood to adulthood.”

http://www.lifeteaches.us/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47&Itemid=57