John Holt and Milicent Shinn

Have started reading How Children Learn. It is essential reading. Check out this quote:

“[Education is] the game of trying to find out how the world works...I’m afraid this is not what most people understand by the word “education”. They understand it as being made to go to a place called school, and there being made to learn something they don’t much want to learn, under the threat that bad things will be done to them if they don’t. Needless to say, most people don’t much like this game, and stop playing as soon as they can.”

He himself quotes Milicent Shinn the first woman to receive a doctorate from the University of California in 1898. She documented the day by day development of her neice and had it published in a psychology journal.
Here she talks about research in children's psychology but to me it eerily mirrors our education system today:

“There is one question I have been asked a thousand times about baby biography: “Doesn’t it do the children some harm? Doesn’t it make them nervous? Doesn’t it make them self-conscious?” At first this seemed to me an odd misapprehension- as if people supposed observing children meant doing something to them. But I have no doubt it could be so foolishly managed as to harm the child. There are thousands of parents who tell anecdotes about their children before their faces every day, and if the parent turns child student [or educational researcher] it is hard to say what he may not do in the way of dissecting a child’s mind openly, questioning the little one about himself, and experimenting with his thoughts and feelings. But such observing is as worthless scientifically as it is bad for the child: the whole value of an observation is gone as soon as the phenomena observed lose simplicity and spontaneity. It should be unnecessary to say that no competent observer tampers with the child in any way...” -Millicent Shinn

Bill Ayers in the TES

Check out ex-Weathermen 'terrorist' Bill Ayers' great article on 'Democracy and Education' at:

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6010583

There is also his blog http://billayers.org/

The Experiences of Venetia Giles

I hope she doesn't mind, but a conversation with Venetia Giles I had recently threw two new schools into my searchlight.

The first is the one she attended- Atlantic College. It's very international, but extraordinarily expensive to attend as well (she said £34,000pa). However a reasonable proportion of pupils are paid for by bursaries from companies. She was paid for by Travis Perkins the builders' merchant!

The other one was the Edinburgh Steiner School which she visited and said was wonderful. It is apparently very different from the Staverton one which is interesting as I had kind of assumed they were all quite similar. Both are worth a visit for anyone who hasn't experienced such a thing before. I will try to get in contact with Venetia and get her comments.

Democracy and Education

As it was the starting point for me I shall start with the school I attended: Sands School.

Sands is one of three democratic schools in the coutry. The other two being Park School in Dartington and Summerhill School in Suffolk. By democratic we mean the rules of the school are selected and voted on and amended by either the whole school itself (direct democracy) or by elected representatives (indirect democracy). All three schools mentioned run the former system. If I have missed any schools out it is due to ignorance.

When you tell someone that Sands is a 'democratic school' the two words are so alien to each other in their minds that they literally cannot image what you mean. I then tell them that it is exactly what it says it is: a school run by all the members of the school who each have an equal vote on all issues.

More details about Sands school are available from the school itself (they are very approachable) and this isn't the place for an essay on it.
I encourage you to visit the school (all are made very welcome) and to find out more about it if you have ever considered contemporary education in the UK and thought: 'Is this it?'