Alan Klein (Alan@klein.net)
Wed, 4 Apr 2001 19:56:22 -0400
My experience bears Marko out on this point. In 1978, when I was in Ann
Arbor teaching in a 2nd through 6th grade, multi-graded program, a School
Board member proposed that all multi-graded classrooms be outlawed. We were
constantly bombarded with requests (demands) for "hard data" to back up our
program. During the debate an older School Board member said the following:
"I remember going to a one-room schoolhouse in Ann Arbor when I was growing
up. When I was in 4th grade we heard what the 5th graders were doing. When I
was in 5th grade we got the full curriculum. When I was in 6th grade we
heard some of what the 5th graders were doing and were able to review it. As
a result, when my classmates and I got to the consolidated Junior High
school in 7th grade, we were much farther ahead than our colleagues from
other elementary schools."
He then paused. His next words were (and, as Dave Barry says, I am not
making this up), "I am in favor of single graded classrooms." I promptly
fell off my chair!
Other teachers in our school would come by our rooms for various reasons. On
one memorable occasion, one of them had to step over several bodies of kids
who were lying on the floor reading, in order to find me. I was sitting on
the floor with a second grader on my lap, listening to the kid read
something he had written to me. The other teacher promptly went to the
principal (a supporter of ours...fortunately!) She said, "No one can learn
in that environment!" We had just done a mid year assessment of basic skills
and I had just prepared a report comparing the mid-year results with the
pre-assessment we had done in September. His response to her was, "Well, I
have evidence to the contrary." This caused her to back off, but, to the
point of this discussion, did not make her even close to a supporter.
It was not data she wanted, nor did the School Board member listen even to
his own data. Rather, each wanted reassurance that a model of education that
was so foreign to what they assumed to be true could not possibly be valid.
~Alan Klein
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marko Koskinen" <marko@vapaus.net>
> The problem with numbers is that they really don't tell anything
> important about Sudbury Model schools. People who have hard time
> believing in the model have equally hard time with it even if they saw
> the data. This is because it totally wrecks all that they are made to
> believe in. Such an enormous change in thinking cannot happen without
> effort and the effort needed is for them to think and usually people who
> don't believe in Sudbury Model are also taught not to think for
> themselves. They believe in authorities, but if the authority tells them
> to think themselves, they are in deep trouble and usually rather try to
> avoid such trouble...
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