Your child is not attending a feel good, anything goes institution. Instead, we are a school built around a philosophy and movement that has its roots in the nineteenth century. John Dewey and fellow educational philosophers and academics saw the purpose of education as preparing students to be active participants in civic life, engaged in and informed about the world, and contributing strong and creative thinking to their communities and own lives. They were, and I am, dead serious about this educational approach.
The adults at Parker have the teaching degrees and expertise and do not surrender control to the kids to do whatever they want. We absolutely create certain non-negotiable structures for our students' academic days--the skills and content we teach. But whereas in more "traditional" schools, teachers are literally and figuratively at the center of things, dispensing information and making all the decisions, a Parker classroom revels in making the space to hear your children's ideas and opinions. That's what is different from many parents' and grandparents' educations. It's different from the way I was educated. And, boy, should I have been educated at Parker.
At the core of a Parker teacher's mindset and our community, is that we support our students' autonomy and trust in your child's ability to mull over and handle decisions that directly affect his/her academic work and social life. At Parker, the moves we make and leadership we show is directed towards sharing power and decisions with our students. Not to make things easy for us and the kids. Oh, no.
In "traditional" schools, children are taking in the teacher's ideas and thoughts and are expected to reiterate them. But instead of restating teacher ideas, at Parker we ask our students to construct their own understandings of their studies, make decisions about how to act on their understanding, and communicate their ideas to us. Making sense of a concept and finding your own way to work that concept--that's far more challenging.
As social beings, children need to talk things out and share explorations with friends. We are not in rows. We share supplies. We collaborate. And work alone. I adjust as necessary to meet your child's unique needs. Our students explore ideas with the teacher as the guide, and then are expected to take on the responsibility for the "doing," completing assignments with care and beauty and their own original voice. When something goes wrong either academically or socially, the work we do is to have children reflect on their decisions and see it all in a continuum of choices they can and should make. A constant dialogue in my classroom as kids go about completing the work is "where is the bar?" and "is this work above or below that bar?" I know. But more importantly, each kid knows. And are sent back and challenged to do more.
The adults at Parker have the teaching degrees and expertise and do not surrender control to the kids to do whatever they want. We absolutely create certain non-negotiable structures for our students' academic days--the skills and content we teach. But whereas in more "traditional" schools, teachers are literally and figuratively at the center of things, dispensing information and making all the decisions, a Parker classroom revels in making the space to hear your children's ideas and opinions. That's what is different from many parents' and grandparents' educations. It's different from the way I was educated. And, boy, should I have been educated at Parker.
At the core of a Parker teacher's mindset and our community, is that we support our students' autonomy and trust in your child's ability to mull over and handle decisions that directly affect his/her academic work and social life. At Parker, the moves we make and leadership we show is directed towards sharing power and decisions with our students. Not to make things easy for us and the kids. Oh, no.
In "traditional" schools, children are taking in the teacher's ideas and thoughts and are expected to reiterate them. But instead of restating teacher ideas, at Parker we ask our students to construct their own understandings of their studies, make decisions about how to act on their understanding, and communicate their ideas to us. Making sense of a concept and finding your own way to work that concept--that's far more challenging.
As social beings, children need to talk things out and share explorations with friends. We are not in rows. We share supplies. We collaborate. And work alone. I adjust as necessary to meet your child's unique needs. Our students explore ideas with the teacher as the guide, and then are expected to take on the responsibility for the "doing," completing assignments with care and beauty and their own original voice. When something goes wrong either academically or socially, the work we do is to have children reflect on their decisions and see it all in a continuum of choices they can and should make. A constant dialogue in my classroom as kids go about completing the work is "where is the bar?" and "is this work above or below that bar?" I know. But more importantly, each kid knows. And are sent back and challenged to do more.
In other words, the child in a Parker classroom is not acted upon, but is instead participating with us. All with a community spirit that empowers students.
So, how does a teacher go about "doing" this kind of education?
As stated earlier, I have the overarching objectives, but the children help to create the path we will take on our educational journey. I am consciously and regularly establishing opportunities for my students to fully participate in their own education and our community life.
Two recent examples that have signaled to my students that their voices and opinions matter, and that they have the power to decide:
- We established our classroom rules together. It would be much easier for me to just establish classroom rules and announce them to my students. But they would absolutely lack meaning and purpose for them. Our process involved a two-day brainstorming session and a third day spent confirming (through votes) that we had gotten it right. We launched by talking together about how we want to live in the room, what we all need to learn our best, and how we can all feel most comfortable with each other. The kids worked in pairs and small groups to articulate their expectations of themselves and each other. We noticed patterns and groupings and together, the kids helped me to organize them into categories. As the facilitator of this process, I drafted statements that matched the categories. I then presented the drafts and asked for feedback. The kids offered suggestions until we were ready to take a vote on each rule to be sure everyone was bought in and in agreement. Throughout this entire discussion, I brought the foundations of our country's democracy into the process and talked them through how writing laws (which I used to do in my previous life in the State Legislature) starts with a draft. And that in a democracy, citizens have the power to weigh in and let lawmakers know if the proposed laws are important to them. Investing time in this process at the start of the year sets the tone for the whole year.
- On Friday, we will celebrate Robert C. Parker Day with an Assembly. It's a busy week, with the Hudson River trip the day before, and of course it is tempting to just decide for the group what we are going to do. Instead, I presented two ideas and asked for input from the kids. I asked the kids if they all needed to do the same kind of project or if it would be okay if we had more than one way to present. And then facilitated their discussion. What ended up happening was the magic of working at Parker. The kids had very definite preferences for what they wanted to do and we ended up having about 3/4 of the class deciding to work in small groups on posters while the other 1/4 decided to create some writing. With the writers, at first I thought I'd have the writers all work in the same genre and then asked myself, "why?" Among my writers, I have poets and one person who decided she would write a brief story. What came out of this was total enthusiasm and ownership over what they will present. And it will be their moment.
http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/progressive-education/
So what's the outcome of this approach? Children whose natural curiosity has been celebrated. Children who want to come to school. Children who feel heard. Children who learn to take initiative. Children who are motivated to express their own ideas. Children who have experience thinking and sharing with others. In other words, an active and engaged Parker citizenry.
