1 post tagged “anarchism”

Pre_School

The amount of top-down management needed to successfully develop students into "well-adjusted" citizens has always been up for debate.  One school of thought sees the school as a direct molder and shaper of young minds.  Students are taught to obey rules, respond to commands, and work in a structured setting.  To varying degrees, these schools issue orders in a trickle-down manner: some sort of education board creates a curriculum, superintendents implement these standards to districts, principals enforce the standards in individual schools, and the teacher is the agent in the classroom who relays the information to the student.  In his focus paper "The Free School Alternative to Public School" Ward Schaefer explores a model of education on the other side of the spectrum.  The student-centered school returns power to the hands of the students, placing special emphasis on individualism, freedom, and creativity.  While this approach is not a cure-all-- the most succesful schools merge both approaches-- I am personally sympathetic to the more student centered school.  I spent my formative years in a Montessori school and my own views on education were heavily shaped by that experience.

The free school is philosophically rooted in the Spanish Anarchist tradition, and, as Ward notes in his paper, also finds its American roots in the counterculture movement of the late sixties and early seventies.  Allowing students to have input on the curriculum and procedures, the structure of the free school is directed from the bottom and works its way upward.  In this way, these schools have a supremely optimistic view in the potential of children.   Rather than serve as authoritative administrators, the teachers work collectively with the students helping them achieve their own potential at their own pace. 

All free schools do not fit this free-flowing ideal.  Some free schools, especially those in low income, predominately non-white neighborhoods, are structured like more traditional schools.  Where schools in more well-to-do white neighborhoods are free to explore the more extreme ends of unstructured learning, free schools that serve critical needs neighborhoods must demonstrate to parents and students that they are a better alternative to the local public schools.  Critics of the free school model note that the freedom that these institutions strive to nurture cannot be created in an imagined intellectual sanctuary.  The larger world--neighborhoods, home life, popular culture--all play a vital role in a child's development.  The freedom of the free school, like many of the freedoms in our country, is dependent on class and cultural privilege.

Despite the inadequacies, there is a certain soft spot in my heart for student centered education.  I spent kindergarten through fourth grade in a Montessori school.  A lot of the passion that I have towards learning and education today stems from the casual hands-off style learning that occurred in that school.  The level of independence I was granted in Montessori made my transition to more structured learning environments somewhat difficult (I still naturally resist structure to this day), but I really appreciate the intrapersonal relationship I developed with learning.  Somewhere, I feel like I got a blog about it up my sleeve...