Where we go from here

I've been reading a few things recently:

Turning Learning Right Side Up by Russel L. Ackoff and Daniel Greenberg

Reflections on the Sudbury School Concept edited by Mimsy Sadofsky and Daniel Greenberg

and lots of other stuff too, but those two have been interesting, to say the least.

I heard about the Sudbury Valley School from my sister, as she considered it as an option for my nephew who is apparently doing very well in a public school near their home so I won't get to hear about it from them. Not yet anyway.

So I poked through their website, ordered a couple books, and found that I am not the only person who finds fault in the current system of public education, even in one of its supposedly most successful and "best" school systems.

One of the major concepts of both books is the conflict between democratic society and our major systems of education which are almost exclusively autocratic in nature. The authors in both books often ask the question: How is it possible to help young people to learn to function effectively in a democratic society by training them in an entirely autocratic one for the duration of adolescence?

Good question.

I'd argue that it works very very well, depending on what your goals for that "education" are. Today I was sitting in the classroom with another class where Freshmen were more than willing to send out the troops to quell a rebellion if the lower classes got upset about the concentration of power and wealth in the ruling class. They were giggling about it. "SEND OUT THE PANZERS" one of them yelled. Clearly something is working...

Another post for another time perhaps.

I decided that I'd like to create a more democratic environment within my classroom, but it will be interesting to see how much of that is possible given the constraints of the autocratic system within which all of us function.

The first task, I decided, was to try and figure out exactly what the students in a given class are expected to learn by the end of the year. Getting this information is not difficult, but actually figuring out what is meant by the curriculum writers can be a tad more complicated than you'd expect.

Maybe you'd like to take a shot at interpreting it.

Here are the goals for the English IVH class:

Students will employ sophisticated ideas, specific and illustrative content, precise language, and logical organization as a speaker in forma l and informal settings.

Students will demonstrate responsiveness and engagement while listening in formal and informal settings.

Students will read and evaluate texts for literacy value and personal application through detailed elaboration and extension of ideas, insights, and reflections.

Students will identify, analyze, and evaluate writer’s intent in non-fiction.

Students will make challenging individual reading selections, complete books on their own, and demonstrate through understanding of what they have read, extending beyond the literal to the personal, critical, and/or evaluate.


Students will consistently and independently identify and employ an appropriate writing mode to engage a specific audience, address a specific purpose, and arrive at a product assessed at highest levels of the PA Wr5iting Assessment Holistic Scoring Guide.

Students will consistently and independently apply writing conventions through composition, personal revision, and peer editing/criticism to arrive at a product assessed at highest levels of the PA Writing Assessment Holistic Scoring Guide.

Students will independently choose and thoroughly research a topic of personal significance and synthesize information in order define, verify and present a point of view.