Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Why I chose alt
People end up participating in Alternative schools for many reasons. This thread is for people to recall what first brought their attention to Alternative education, and what attracted them, at the beginning. Many, like me, did not know much about it. I'll have other posts for what you learned, what you loved, etc. soon. Hopefully our recollections from a relatively naive viewpoint will serve as a nice introduction.
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I checked out Alternative schools, in addition to several others, for kindergarten 6 years ago. I had encountered two families over the years with children attending the Alternative school in my neighborhood. I don't know if I would have noticed these schools if not for this word-of-mouth. It doesn't help that the alternative schools have their own list on the district web site, so that you don't find them if you are just looking for "elementary schools." I did not know anything about Alternative education at that time.
ReplyDeleteWhat struck me right away was that this kind of education would prepare one much better for LIFE than the one I had - even though I was blessed with what was probably extremely good quality public education in the 70s. I will highlight two specifics here that I feel I lacked when I entered adulthood: critical thinking and collaborative work.
The second is fairly straightforward. Are there many days in your life that look like days spent at school, doing worksheets and keeping your eyes off your neighbor's paper? I am always meeting with people; people with skills and perspectives that may or may not be like my own. I was always an introvert, and I thought I could succeed working mostly in isolation. Not so! Maybe extroverts come by this naturally, but I could have gained from working in groups as much as they do at my daughter's school - groups of 2, 3, 4, etc., between grade groups, mix and match all over! All those multiple intelligences learning and working together…wow.
To explain critical thinking, I need to step back and tell you how I define traditional vs. progressive education. Traditionally - or at least in the last 200 years, education was the transfer of a body of knowledge. Progressive education is based on the notion that children are natural learners, and all you need to do is get them pointed in the right direction. This definition is the extremes of the spectrum, and most schools fall in between. The point is, I very clearly got the message that "There is an answer, the teacher knows it, and your job is to learn it." Imagine my floundering when I got to graduate school only to be asked to read a paper and decide whether the author REALLY had the answer or whether there were other explanations. I am still struggling with this, even more than collaborative work.
And everyone needs to be a critical thinker! Even if you don't go to graduate school, you are very likely to buy a car, go to a doctor, buy insurance, watch TV, buy a house, VOTE, etc. We all need to look beyond what people are telling us and ASK probing questions to get at the truth. So I like to see kids brainstorming lots of answers rather than taking tests.
As you can see, the choice of school for my daughter was ALL ABOUT ME! No, actually it was a little bit about her too, but that's for another day. I will confess, while we're on the subject of me, that being the parent of a 9-year-old critical thinker can be a bit challenging!
9 years ago, my now 8th grader (!) was getting ready to start Kindergarten in the fall, his brother was at home with Mommy, and I was pregnant with their little sister.
ReplyDeleteI have my BFA in Technical Theatre, and with a hugely artistic family, the arts in education has been important to me - enough so, that when I was introduced to Summit K-12 at the Kindergarten fair I said "This school is for my kids!" Not only did it teach arts in every part of the school, it allowed for all of my children to attend the same school at the same time - and the year my boys had the same teacher was amazingly wonderful in simplifying life for us!
When the school district wrote us and said "Your child has scores that are high enough he could be in Spectrum," we went through the process and received the results back that yes, he could, but not at our school of choice - and that decided it for us. We opted deliberately to keep him and his sibs in Summit K-12 and work with their teachers wherever needed to ensure they were fully challenged. We also decided to forgo any further testing offered, as we couldn't see the option becoming available to us any time in the near future. The opportunities for learning above "grade level" were available to us.
My youngest skipped 1st grade because she combined it with her Kindergarten year in her K-1 classroom. My middle child has worked hard and steadily improved in his struggle with mild dyslexia (runs in my family), and he's shone in his strengths - particularly networking with people.
The K-12 aspect of Summit is one thing that drew me to it, as there is so much of life that we all spend with people of different age groups. Also, having younger students around can be helpful in determining the older students' behaviours. Along with that, it gives the older students the opportunity to mentor the younger students.
With the school closure this year, we've opted to stay in the same building and be a part of forming the new K-8...environmental science is also important to me. And, while the new school is billed as "Traditional" (at least so far), some alternative thinkers in the beginning of it might go a long way towards helping it grow into a great school.
So much influences (and has influenced) my decisions about the education of my kids - and I am dedicated to remaining active in their education.
OK, now to consider my kid's personality. She is energetic, creative, and a bit intense. She is also shy and sensitive. Although she probably would have succeeded in a traditional program, at least by the criteria of test scores, I was concerned that school could, in my friend's words, "squash her like a grape."
ReplyDeleteSo a program where creativity is not only allowed but is considered an asset seemed right for her. I'm going to stick to my intention of initial impressions here, and not go into all the other ways the program was good for her. I'll just say that I am very happy with my choice.
Just one more thing about choosing a school for your kid. Sometimes I hear "Hey, I turned out OK. What worked for me is good enough for my kid."
ReplyDeleteThis makes me think several things to myself: 1. Whoa, what happened to the American way where we always dreamed of better things for our kids?
2. Why is education exempt from the concept of continuous improvement? We absolutely must have bigger better economies, cars, TVs, computers, but it's OK for education to be static, and merely adequate.
3. Haven't we learned anything about how humans develop and learn over the last few decades? Don't you think these could lead to more effective and more pleasant methods in the classroom? Do you think learning should be a chore?
I strongly believe that continuous improvement is absolutely key in education. I believe individual teachers do this, sometimes stunningly well, over the course of their careers. Alternative schools attempt this more systematically. I would love to see more district-wide support.
Continuous improvement also means you will never be "done." You may approach an ideal, but the larger culture, the society will have changed by then, and the skills needed to succeed will always be changing.
I'm pasting this from Sahila, on the SPS community blog, on math and "letting children enjoy success by developing at their own pace."
ReplyDeleteSahila:
I'm no expert (despite having four kids, three of whom have finished high school and two of whom have post grad quals), but with my children, especially with this youngster (just graduated kindergarten) on whom my life is focused now, I noticed that they learned more about math by thinking about and playing with concepts than through drilling computational fluency...
For example - my bright and theoretically underachieving (my and AS#1's on-purpose strategy - emergent learning) boy knows how to count past one hundred (no big deal, I know).... for fun sometimes, when we go on journeys he sees how far he can count without losing track of the numbers.... he needs help with the jumping from one level to another, sometimes in the tens and sometimes in the 100s.... but he's recognising the pattern and we are starting to play with the concepts contained in those patterns.
We use lots of 'what if' statements... if 9+1=10, what does 1+9=? if 10-1=9, what does 10-9=? and he has got to the point where he recognises that we are working with the same numbers, just changing the order.... he's getting that he doesnt have enough fingers and toes to count on and we sometimes dont have objects to do grouping and he's figured out that he can start at a certain point and carry out the operation, without having to hold all the preceding numbers in his head...
This is all in games and encouraging lateral thinking - nothing formal such as drilling computational fluency... and this ability to see the patterns and recognise the rules and figure out/problem solve how to work with numbers when you dont have physical objects to represent them is what he is taking into other subjects/areas of learning...
My daughters did this much earlier than my sons have done - both boys were 'slow' to get into both language and math exploration - around age 6, whereas the girls began playing with words and numbers from around 2-3. The boys were far more interested in exploring the physical world and building etc... it has been a challenge asking them to switch focus to sit still and learn to read and write and put language and number concepts on paper. AS#1 - a school attuned to all kinds of minds... know what kind of mind you have and work with that... pity much teaching and all standardised testing doesnt reflect this educational best practice.
And, thinking about my child's journey and what his unfoldment means to his entire being, its a total joy and so exciting to watch him explore ideas, follow thoughts, literally watch his face light up when he suddenly and spontaneously 'sees' or 'gets' something, as if its the first time anyone ever 'got' that concept... and I see the confidence and his sense of self-empowerment and ability to manipulate his world grow, as he recognises and accepts and revels in and then flexes his own intellect...
And seeing that be the impetus for further exploration and discovery.... seeing the birth of the love of learning, for learning's sake...
That's what each of our kids deserves and that's what is our duty to enable to happen for them...