
The anarchic experimental schools of the 1970s - wldlyinaccurate
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29518319
======
japhyr
One change I'd like to see in education is a wider use of competency-based
education. In this approach, students earn their credit when they have
mastered the material for a course, not just at the end of a semester.

This approach can be made to work for high-performing students, and low-
performing students. Master the material in a course in half the traditional
time? Earn your credit then. Need another month to master the material? Take
that time, and earn your credit when you're competent in the material.

Most of us know the adage that "work expands to fill the time we are given to
accomplish it". This is perhaps nowhere more true than in school. Take the
time component out of learning assessment, and let people progress at their
own pace. Most students are capable of working much more efficiently than they
do, but there's no incentive to do so. In fact, there's a disincentive for
most people; if you finish early, the teacher will probably just give you more
work. Some good teachers motivate strong students to finish early so they can
move on to more interesting work; I've heard far more stories of teachers who
respond to early completion by just offering more of the same work.

If you're curious about this, a good place to start reading is on the
Competency Works site:

[http://www.competencyworks.org/resources/recommended-
reading...](http://www.competencyworks.org/resources/recommended-reading/)

~~~
jtheory
How is competency evaluated, though?

This whole approach relies on testing of some kind that can _reliably_ measure
competency in a subject area that also needs to be well-defined.

If we _had_ that -- if the material that all students should learn could
actually be built into the "correct" curriculum, and tests could be made that
would measure if the student had mastered each level -- then that would be
great.

Students could learn in class, or sensibly test out of entire grades at a
time. Teachers could be paid (or fired) based on how well their students
mastered the curriculum, and school's funding could be dependent on their
students hitting certain percentages.

Unfortunately that underlying foundation isn't real; defining that curriculum
means cutting up knowledge into odd shapes that don't match well to useful
practical knowledge, or how most people learn. Being good at passing
standardized tests mostly identifies students with good test-taking skills.
Teachers who will be evaluated based on this sole, shitty measure at the end
of the year are obliged to spend their time training students for the test,
and have to cut out the field trips, explorations, experiments -- basically,
all of the things that make inspiring teachers inspiring is no longer
considered valuable.

Citations required, to be sure (I don't have the spare time to dig around now)
-- but some of this is common sense.

If you set up a rewards system, you have to be really smart about what,
exactly, you're rewarding.

The most valuable educational experiences are not generally found in drilling
for a standardized test, I think; so setting up a system where that's the only
thing rewarded is going to be unhelpful.

~~~
kazagistar
Whatever system is selected would measure competency at least as well as the
current one, and almost certainly better. We already need to measure
competence, we just mix that measurement with "an ability to learn at a
specific rate". If you want to go faster or slower, you either have to self
educate or fail and retry, respectively.

The modern educational system is already pushing the idea of a reverse
classroom, where lectures are on your own time, and homework and questions are
done in the classroom. Desynchronizing the exact progress through the material
is much simpler in this sort of environment. (Of course, it is important not
to totally screw those people who rely on the structure and rigour of a formal
schedule, or the cooperation of classmates; it is easy to focus too much on
averages and ignore outliers).

Personally, I prefer to on binges (spend 30+ hours in a few days on a single
subject, then don't touch the subject for a few weeks). However, the
educational system specifically discourages this, insisting that you you have
deadlines, learn extensively within specific well-defined subjects, discuss
things as a team, attend each lecture, and so on. If you fail to follow this
structure, you fail, if you follow, you pass. If you cram for tests at the
exact right time, you even get a good evaluation. It evaluates your ability to
fit the system with high accuracy, and your competence with mediocre accuracy.
Removing the unnecessary part of that would have to increase the overall
accuracy, right?

------
ars
Why do they always make these experimental child-driven schools for the "bad"
children? The truants, and the misbehaved.

Why not try it for the "best" children? Those who have a real desire and
ability to learn, but don't necessarily fit in in a regular school.

Provide classes, and let the child decide which to go to.

Give exams, but don't record the grade - just give it to the child so they
know how they are doing.

~~~
untog
Mostly because the existing system works out pretty well for the "best"
children. True, they might not be taxed to their full extent, but they will
still be top of their class and progress to university.

And, not to sound too cynical about it, the parents of the "best" children
tend to be very involved in their children's education, and might resist an
experiment.

~~~
jtheory
I went through school always near the top, academically, but I wouldn't say I
was well-served by the school system. My wife had much the same experience,
though rather worse than mine; she very clearly remembers loving doing math
with her older brothers when she was small, but schooling managed to replace
that with almost a phobia of anything that looks like math.

Now we have small children, and they're obsessed with reading/writing,
numbers, and creative play just like we were as kids -- so they're far ahead
of their age group, generally -- but we've kept them out of school so far.
We're trying to figure out a path for them through the available educational
options, and we're strongly inclined towards more experimental approaches.

~~~
tormeh
International schools are good, I hear. I mean, they're conventional, but they
usually attract smarter student/parents. International baccalaureate is more
high school, but I wish I had taken it.

~~~
jtheory
Thanks for mentioning that -- we're familiar with the international
baccalaureate; my wife went to the United World College in New Mexico.

It was completely different from her educational experience before that (not
unstructured, but still... much more open-minded about education, and smart
about guiding students to think about their place in the world) and the
experience had a huge positive effect on her life; we are in touch (and in
some cases, close friends) with a startling high percentage of her classmates
there, and we've met up with (and often been hosted by) UWC classmates in
Austria, Netherlands, India, Australia, France, Malaysia, and various parts of
the US (and probably some other places I'm forgetting at the moment...). And
despite being quite a diverse group, they're generally pretty interesting
people to talk to.

I didn't even know such options existed when I was in HS; and probably would
have thought it wasn't for me, at that age. But looking back now, I wish I'd
gone as well.

------
fennecfoxen
"Odd thing it is—the word ‘experiment’ is unpopular, but not the word
‘experimental.’ You mustn’t experiment on children; but offer the dear little
kiddies free education in an experimental school ... and it’s all correct!"

\-- C. S. Lewis, _That Hideous Strength_ , 1945

------
kingkawn
A few weeks ago I painted a mural with the students at the Albany Free School
in upstate NY. The school was founded in the late 60s, with a setup that is
similar to what is described in this article.

I found that the students interacted with me and the project in the way I'd
expect confident adults to do. They had a self-possession that I have almost
never experienced in children, and rarely find in adults. A curriculum
primarily centered around freedom had given them the opportunity to learn to
listen to and trust their own internal narrative.

After spending a number of days working with them I was convinced that all
people, children and adults, need freedom of choice in their lives. Not
because of the products that come out of it, but because of the people that
emerge from it.

------
farber
In "The Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (1974), there is an interesting
discussion about the idea that removing university grades would provide a
better education.

"[A student at a grade-less school would] be a free man. He wouldnt need a lot
of discipline to shape him up. In fact, if the instructors were slacking on
the job he would be likely to shape them up by asking rude questions. He'd be
there to learn something, would be paying to learn something and theyd better
come up with it.

Motivation of this sort, once it catches hold, is a ferocious force, and in
the gradeless, degreeless institution where our student would find himself, he
wouldnt stop with rote engineering information."

~~~
ars
Isn't this basically what auditing classes does? It's often free as well.

~~~
frobozz
Yes, but at the potential expense of grade-bearing classes, and because grades
seem to be important, grade-bearing classes tend to take a higher priority
than interesting non-grade bearing ones.

At university, I audited several modules, and there were many that I wanted to
attend, but couldn't, either due to timetabling clashes with the classes I was
supposed to attend, or because the process for attending classes in
disciplines entirely unrelated to my subject was prohibitive.

When the workload expected of me grew too great, I reduced my participation or
dropped out of my audited classes.

With the removal of grades (and compulsory modules) entirely, I might have
dropped some of my graded modules in favour of others.

------
teddyh
This is about the UK. There is apparently something like it in the US:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_Valley_School](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_Valley_School)

~~~
ljosa
Last year, we visited and considered the Subbury Valley School in Framingham,
Massachusetts (the original one). A friend's daughter goes there. What we
learned is that there has been a shift in philosophy over the years. There
used to be a role for adults as facilitators: they suggested activities that
they thought the children would like and benefit from, and they helped bring
them about. These days, there is a deep distrust of any idea coming from an
adult. Even a suggestion is seen as compulsion. When children show interest in
academic pursuits, it is often assumed that the parents have set them up to
it. That is also seen as compulsion, and the activity is discouraged. As a
result, the school is full of art and music, but the chemistry lab that was
once there is gone, and the library is stale.

Instead, we ended up sending our daughter to Macomber Center for Self-Directed
Learning, also in Framingham. It was started a couple of years ago as a
response to what had happened at Sudbury Valley, and has kept the active role
of the adults.

~~~
fiatjaf
Thank you for this comment, it probably changed my life.

~~~
ljosa
Well, thanks—but how? You're close to 5000 miles away, right?

------
hoggle
Is it freedom when I can't make an informed decision on what to do with my
life?

Is it freedom when I inherit the values of those who teach me, making them the
foundation of my (sub-conscious) thinking?

~~~
calibraxis
This is just a news article, with no real details. If we investigate the
relevant lit, we might see explorations and experiments regarding what levels
of guidance assist children best.

As for pedagogy, a good one can support children in thinking for themselves,
with the support of teachers who no doubt think differently than the child.

Clearly better than the craven child abuse (caning) that normal school
administrators believed in.

------
someone77
Summerhill: a Radical Approach to Child Rearing is an awesome book and
explains how a free school works and why. The Summerhill school has been
around for decades and is successful, and probably inspired all of the schools
discussed in the article (the book was published in 1960). It optimizes for
pyschology --- not pedagogy. This is why it is free: freedom but not license,
which to Americans, would be better stated as: an environment without
submission and without domination (so, as opposed to an anarchic school,
teachers are not submitting to arbitrary demands of children). A healthy
degree of assertion develops in this environment. I've seen Sudbury graduates
describe this type of school as a generator of entrepreneurs --- they start
businesses afterwards and become successful (although from the Summerhill
point of view, success is having a happy and flourishing life). I've found
many papers across the years, while researching this topic, that, added
together, support the idea that learning is affective and pyschology should be
an organizing principle of the school.

~~~
jrochkind1
Yes, the article discusses and describes Summerhill, and mentions that it
inspired the school that's the main focus of the first part of the article:

> There is really just one genuine free school left. Summerhill is a boarding
> school in Suffolk that inspired Ord to set up Scotland Road.

------
jtbigwoo
We weren't quite as experimental, but my high school was built around an
"open" plan where there were no walls between classrooms (except the noisy or
smelly classes like wood shop or chemistry.) Classes would have a designated
space to bunch their desks around the teacher's desk and a free-standing
chalkboard. The system was supposed to allow students to overhear lectures
from neighboring classes and teachers to team up or answer questions for each
other.

It was a fairly miserable failure. Unless your teacher was really loud it was
too hard to hear lectures. It was too hard to concentrate during tests and too
easy for one disruptive class to ruin six other classes. (On a minor note,
most teachers really hated only having one chalkboard instead of a whole
wall.) By the time I got there (twenty years after the school opened), there
were temporary walls everywhere and the school had mostly switched back to a
traditional layout.

------
BenderrTheRobot
Based on the terms and phrases used, I might consider using another term to
describe these experimental schools instead of anarchic.

------
robotkilla
Off topic, but did anyone else notice that the BBC's video player's audio
control goes to eleven?

~~~
kazagistar
I mean, if you are making an arbitrary numeric scale, might as well make it
rock.

