The Twinkies

I’m a John Taylor Gatto fan. For those of you who don’t read radical educational theorists for fun he is an award winning public school teacher most famous for his work Dumbing Us Down in which he argues that the current model of public schooling is not a failure; it is not designed to turn out free thinking members of a democratic society but rather factory workers who show up on time, do what they are told and don’t question authority. It’s doing that quite well. This set up is, of course, inherently classist because if you can afford it you can BUY your child an education that teaches children to work alone without guidance, to challenge prevailing assumptions, to (gasp) think for themselves. If you can’t, you’re stuck with a public school system that is not all that fond of children who challenge authority.

Home schooling is an option for some. I know that there is a popular conception that home schooled kids are poorly-socialized religious zealots who can spell appoggiatura¹ without batting an eye. However, I’ve had home schooled kids in my classroom and in general they seem mature, self-motivated and respectful without being overawed or intimidated by authority.

I, however, am not cut out to home school. Some people are. Those people tend to murmur things about how you never know what you can do until you try it but I’m fairly confident I’m self-aware enough to know I’d hate home schooling. I miss the adult workplace. I love seeing the kids but being home all day makes me batty to the point that I am creating vague facsimiles of adult work to keep me sane. The idea of trying to do this for another decade is not a happy one. If the mother is miserable I don’t think home schooling can possibly be a positive experience.

So, once I cast aside the idea of home schooling – if one can be said to cast aside an idea one has never really had – I looked at alternative educational structures. There were three biggies: Sudbury, Waldorf and Montessori.

Sudbury schools are democratic schools. Students initiate their own activities with staff acting as facilitators and students participate in the governance of the school. Having gone to a similar school where I did algebra and read Shakespeare in grade 5 I know that children can, and do, gravitate to interesting, difficult work when given a chance. However, the only Sudbury school near us is just starting out and doesn’t have the resources of the original.

I was originally very attracted to the arts-centered education you find in a Waldorf school. However, the number of organized critics of the methodology gave me pause, particularly when I read their concerns, and there isn’t one within an hour of us anyway. Plus, Anthroposophy leaves me cold as does the fact that many Waldorf schools – including the one “near” me – either neglect to mention or gloss over the itsy bitsy issue that their curriculum is rooted in religion.

So that left Montessori. I went to a Montessori school (I changed schools a lot – I’ve experienced many differing theories of education from the student perspective) and recall rather liking it. I like the multi-age classrooms, the emphasis on self-paced learning and the prepared environment. There are a LOT of Montessori schools around us and the one we picked, The Cobb School, is gorgeous. The physical plant is amazing and the whole school is filled with light and every classroom has direct access to the outdoors. When I went for a visit I was blown away; the kids were happy, engaged and working independently. Two five-year-olds introduced themselves to me, asked if I would like some tea, and proceeded to make me some. I was offered a selection of tea bags, they timed an electric kettle, poured the hot water into a little pot and brought me tray with the teapot, a cup, a doily, a spoon a napkin and a small flower. Did I mention they were five? Did I mention how every space was filled with sunshine? I know I’ve mentioned the help with potty training in the toddler room. The kids aren’t allowed to wear clothing with large graphics or writing, eliminating logos and Dora the Explorer. They ask that when you bring in birthday treats you limit yourself to fruit to support the school’s commitment to good nutrition. Finally, the research seems to indicate that Montessori children do very well later in their schooling compared to students in traditional public schools. ² It’s the perfect blend, at least before we actually start, of my quasi-crunchy ways and obsession with education.

You did note that I read educational theorists for fun, right?

Of course, eventually there is high school. On this front I’m a fan of Leon Botstein, president of my alma mater and a man with a flair for a bow tie. He argues for abolishing high school altogether, believing that “teens are as capable as adults in many respects and that they are certainly capable of learning important and interesting things. High school … demeans the young, wastes their time, traps them in the vacuous world of teen culture, turns them off to learning and isolates them from and makes them hostile toward the very people they are about to become: adults.” ³ Fortunately, I don’t have to deal with how to reconcile my feelings about the general uselessness of high school and my own children’s education for a few years.

Well. You asked. I’m a big bore on education. My mother was a teacher. My step-mother was a teacher. My grandmother was a teacher. “Opinionated” doesn’t even begin to describe me on this topic. I haven’t even branched out into No Child Left Behind (dreadful – just dreadful), teacher certification (if you think this ensures quality teachers you are deluding yourself) or grades (oy!).

¹ That would be the winning word from the 2005 Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee. It means “in music, an ornamental note of long or short duration that temporarily displaces, and subsequently resolves into, a main note, usually by stepwise motion.” (source) Of course, you knew that. I had to look it up.

² “On several dimensions, children at a public inner city Montessori school had superior outcomes relative to a sample of Montessori applicants who, because of a random lottery, attended other schools. By the end of kindergarten, the Montessori children performed better on standardized tests of reading and math, engaged in positive interaction on the playground more, and showed advanced social cognition and executive control more. They also showed more concern for fairness and justice. At the end of elementary school, Montessori children wrote more creative essays with more complex sentence structures, selected more positive responses to social dilemmas, and reported feeling more of a sense of community at their school.” (source)

³(source) How do I reconcile feeling that high school should be abolished with being a high school teacher? Though I will do my best to pull my own kids out of the conventional schooling system I also try to work within it to effect change. Gatto spent 30 years within the system before he washed his hands of it entirely. Get back to me in 25 years and I’ll let you know whether I am still mostly on the “work within the system” team or whether I have moved entirely to the “abolish the system and start again” team. Right now I think the latter is unrealistic.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Grumpy Teacher. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.