6 ms·

Make School a Democracy

47 points by credo 12y ago

politician 12y ago
"Poor children in developing nations often drop out after a year or two because their families don’t see the relevance of the education they’re getting. These youngsters are more likely to stay in school than their counterparts in conventional schools." Reaffirming that success in school is largely due to parental support -- including approval of the methods. It seems that these children are being provided education packaged in such a way that their presumably under-educated parents will accept in order to maximize parental involvement which maximizes positive outcomes -- a fantastic application of creative eduction: teach the parents and the children. I wonder if children attending schools where the majority of their classmates' parents have an education at the 90th percentile have the best outcomes. That's the promise of private schools for the children of the ultra-wealthy, right?
- badsock 12y ago
  The thing I don't like about the parental support argument is that I don't see it offering any avenues for improvement. I have a hard time believing that these massive multi-billion dollar organizations full of trained professionals apparently can't have any impact on outcomes because it's pre-determined before the students step into the classroom.
  - sukilot 12y ago
    Imagine trying to transport an incredibly fine and delicate crystal ball from Earth to Jupiter. You don't need to spend billions of dollars to create the crystal, you need to spend billions of dollars to not smash it. School may be similar for a child's intellectual development.
  - sopooneo 12y ago
    There are various studies that show inner-city kids do much better when they attend various full time summer education programs. I have a strong feeling the benefit is not what these programs provide, but what they prevent: time spent in dysfunctional neighborhoods and households. This is just a thought on why multi-billion dollar organizations might run into decreasing marginal return on education dollars spent to help the children uneducated families.
  - saraid216 12y ago
    > The thing I don't like about the parental support argument is that I don't see it offering any avenues for improvement. It actually does. Namely, you need to improve parental situations in order to improve the child's situation. A better societal support structure for the parents means that their kids will do better in school, because the parents will have the time, space, and motivation to provide the necessary support. It's something of a circular argument (which is not exactly rare in societal problems like this), and it may arguably be non-optimal, but it's a valid avenue for improvement.
miles 12y ago
For a school that has been operating as a real democracy since the 1960's, check out Sudbury Valley: http://www.sudval.com/01_abou_05.html http://www.sudval.com/01_abou_05.html
- nevinera 12y ago
  There are dozens of 'democratic schools' (many of which do self-describe as 'sudbury' schools) operating - http://sudburyschoolofatlanta.org/ http://sudburyschoolofatlanta.org/ is the one near me.
AndrewKemendo 12y ago
Every decade or so someone comes along and makes a "new kind of school" based around the concept of self-directed, community supported learning [1] and thinks it's new. Montessori[2] wrote the book on this approach, has been around a long time and has been rigorously studied in practice. This is not a novel concept. What we need to be doing is getting away from the hierarchical institutional model for governance which drives most schools into being either pre-jail or pre-industry subsidized holding pens for children while adults go do "real work." Making schooling "democratic" while the rest of a nation remains un-democratic is like pissing in the ocean. [1]Summerhill, Waldorf etc... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education
- saraid216 12y ago
  > Making schooling "democratic" while the rest of a nation remains un-democratic is like pissing in the ocean. Not a bad idea, because it does no actual harm, and at the very least, relieves pressure on your bladder?
  - MarkPNeyer 12y ago
    pissing in the ocean is wonderful. the sense of community, your body leaving you to rejoin the great beyond. the barrier between self and other is always murky - and taking a piss in the ocean brings that murkiness right up to the front of your awareness. 10/10
- DavidSJ 12y ago
  Summerhill and Montessori are worlds apart. At Montessori, you're supposed to like what you do. At Summerhill (and Sudbury schools), you do what you like.
  - 21echoes 12y ago
    > At Montessori, you're supposed to like what you do. At Summerhill (and Sudbury schools), you do what you like. False. Montessori is: there are a number of age-appropriate exercises scattered around the classroom. Every day you come into school and play with which ever ones you want, in whatever order you want. Source: I went to Montessori, and my mother taught Montessori.
briandear 12y ago
Of course in China and Korea, schools are run like dictatorships and the students there outperform most of the world. The type of school isn't the issue, it's the involvement of the parents. Try this self governing concept at some inner city school where being "smart" is considered "acting white." The problem with schools is sometimes structural, but nearly always cultural. Look at achievement levels of first gen Asian American student whose parents often arrived in the U.S. not speaking a word of English and with just the clothes on their back. Also compare DC schools that spend almost $30k per year per student and yet DC schools aren't even in the same universe as Sidwell Friends where tuition is $35k per year. How is Sidwell able to be an ultra elite school providing top notch education while DC schools spend just $5k less and are models of failure? My point is that money and new styles of doing things doesn't compensate for disengaged parents and certain cultures that don't value education as highly.
- jsnk 12y ago
  US ranks number 1 among OECD nations in annual expenditure per student by educational institutions, and yet they produce one of the least educated students in OECD nations. Why is this the case? If funding is the problem as "experts" say it is, why is it that countries that spend fractions of what US spends yield better students? It seems like you are right. It's just another year, another scheme to ask for more money in education.
  - bsder 12y ago
    > and yet they produce one of the least educated students in OECD nations. Why is this the case? If funding is the problem as "experts" say it is, why is it that countries that spend fractions of what US spends yield better students? No problem. Start "tracking" like many of those countries. Flunk a test at age 12 and no college for you. Easy. Now we don't have to bother with all those "useless" students. Hope your kid passes.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    Politics, lack of trust in teachers and standarized tests, which tend to average-out everyone - i.e. they bring everyone up to a mediocre level, at the cost of eliminating those actually good at something.
aaron695 12y ago
> A 1992 World Bank evaluation of Colombia’s schools concluded that poor youngsters educated this way — learning by doing, rather than being endlessly drilled for national exams — generally outperformed their better-off peers in traditional schools. Given learning by 'doing' is known to be worse I wonder if they have hit some sort of local maxima.
- sukilot 12y ago
  Citation?
- atallcostsky 12y ago
  "Given learning by 'doing' is known to be worse I wonder if they have hit some sort of local maxima." I'm curious - would you be able to expand on this? I find that I prefer learning by doing projects, building, etc as opposed to reading/problem sets/etc. Has there been research to compare the two approaches?
  - aaron695 12y ago
    I tend to think learning by doings main issue is it wastes time. If as an adult you don't have a lot to learn doing is fun so why not. But if you want to train hard, back to boring. There's different research out there, basically the doing side was introduced without research hence the scramble to work out the better method. I think it is compounded by the fact experimental schools often do better, since they are putting in effort. A known performance enhancer. http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/08/21/math-wars-rote-memorization-plays-crucial-role-in-teaching-students-how-to-solve-complex-calculations-study-says/ http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/08/21/math-wars-rote-memor... -> http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v17/n9/abs/nn.3788.html http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v17/n9/abs/nn.3788.html
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
Guthur 12y ago
This sounds more like a cooperative than democracy. Democracy: A system of government in which power is vested in the people, who rule either directly or through freely elected representatives. Cooperative: 1. working or acting together willingly for a common purpose or benefit. 2. demonstrating a willingness to cooperate :
- saraid216 12y ago
  1) You copied the wrong definition for cooperative. It's "a farm, business, or other organization that is owned and run jointly by its members, who share the profits or benefits." 2) The article mentions John Dewey, but doesn't really get into who he is. I strongly recommend reading his book, "Democracy and Education". As a taste: "A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. The extension in space of the number of individuals who participate in an interest so that each has to refer his own action to that of others, and to consider the action of others to give point and direction to his own, is equivalent to the breaking down of those barriers of class, race, and national territory which kept men from perceiving the full import of their activity." http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=DewDemo.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=7&division=div1 http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=DewDemo....
  - Guthur 12y ago
    I left the farm/business one out intentionally because I thought it might bring some confusion. I still stand by my point; cooperative is a much less ambiguous term for this, and I think what John Dewey describes is one as well. Words are important and taken on face value people may extrapolate that it's the government type, democracy, that will bring better education. When in my opinion it's a cooperative environment, peer review, meaningful engagement and a sense of ownership. Edit: For me a democratic schooling would be voting for the teacher you would like to have; which will be the popularity contest most such competitions devolve to.
    - saraid216 12y ago
ygmelnikova 12y ago
"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." - Winston Churchill
- chimeracoder 12y ago
  For what it's worth, that's not actually Churchill, though it's frequently attributed to him[0]. Nevertheless, it's an appropriate remark. [0] https://richardlangworth.com/democracy https://richardlangworth.com/democracy
- harperlee 12y ago
  "Democracy is an abuse of statistics." - Jorge Luis Borges
- saraid216 12y ago
  You're really surprised a legitimate aristocrat said that?

47 points by credo 12y ago

"Poor children in developing nations often drop out after a year or two because their families don’t see the relevance of the education they’re getting. These youngsters are more likely to stay in school than their counterparts in conventional schools." Reaffirming that success in school is largely due to parental support -- including approval of the methods. It seems that these children are being provided education packaged in such a way that their presumably under-educated parents will accept in order to maximize parental involvement which maximizes positive outcomes -- a fantastic application of creative eduction: teach the parents and the children. I wonder if children attending schools where the majority of their classmates' parents have an education at the 90th percentile have the best outcomes. That's the promise of private schools for the children of the ultra-wealthy, right?

badsock 12y ago
The thing I don't like about the parental support argument is that I don't see it offering any avenues for improvement. I have a hard time believing that these massive multi-billion dollar organizations full of trained professionals apparently can't have any impact on outcomes because it's pre-determined before the students step into the classroom.
- sukilot 12y ago
  Imagine trying to transport an incredibly fine and delicate crystal ball from Earth to Jupiter. You don't need to spend billions of dollars to create the crystal, you need to spend billions of dollars to not smash it. School may be similar for a child's intellectual development.
- sopooneo 12y ago
  There are various studies that show inner-city kids do much better when they attend various full time summer education programs. I have a strong feeling the benefit is not what these programs provide, but what they prevent: time spent in dysfunctional neighborhoods and households. This is just a thought on why multi-billion dollar organizations might run into decreasing marginal return on education dollars spent to help the children uneducated families.
- saraid216 12y ago
  > The thing I don't like about the parental support argument is that I don't see it offering any avenues for improvement. It actually does. Namely, you need to improve parental situations in order to improve the child's situation. A better societal support structure for the parents means that their kids will do better in school, because the parents will have the time, space, and motivation to provide the necessary support. It's something of a circular argument (which is not exactly rare in societal problems like this), and it may arguably be non-optimal, but it's a valid avenue for improvement.

miles 12y ago

For a school that has been operating as a real democracy since the 1960's, check out Sudbury Valley: http://www.sudval.com/01_abou_05.html http://www.sudval.com/01_abou_05.html

nevinera 12y ago
There are dozens of 'democratic schools' (many of which do self-describe as 'sudbury' schools) operating - http://sudburyschoolofatlanta.org/ http://sudburyschoolofatlanta.org/ is the one near me.

AndrewKemendo 12y ago

Every decade or so someone comes along and makes a "new kind of school" based around the concept of self-directed, community supported learning [1] and thinks it's new. Montessori[2] wrote the book on this approach, has been around a long time and has been rigorously studied in practice. This is not a novel concept. What we need to be doing is getting away from the hierarchical institutional model for governance which drives most schools into being either pre-jail or pre-industry subsidized holding pens for children while adults go do "real work." Making schooling "democratic" while the rest of a nation remains un-democratic is like pissing in the ocean. [1]Summerhill, Waldorf etc... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education

saraid216 12y ago
> Making schooling "democratic" while the rest of a nation remains un-democratic is like pissing in the ocean. Not a bad idea, because it does no actual harm, and at the very least, relieves pressure on your bladder?
- MarkPNeyer 12y ago
  pissing in the ocean is wonderful. the sense of community, your body leaving you to rejoin the great beyond. the barrier between self and other is always murky - and taking a piss in the ocean brings that murkiness right up to the front of your awareness. 10/10
DavidSJ 12y ago
Summerhill and Montessori are worlds apart. At Montessori, you're supposed to like what you do. At Summerhill (and Sudbury schools), you do what you like.
- 21echoes 12y ago
  > At Montessori, you're supposed to like what you do. At Summerhill (and Sudbury schools), you do what you like. False. Montessori is: there are a number of age-appropriate exercises scattered around the classroom. Every day you come into school and play with which ever ones you want, in whatever order you want. Source: I went to Montessori, and my mother taught Montessori.

briandear 12y ago

Of course in China and Korea, schools are run like dictatorships and the students there outperform most of the world. The type of school isn't the issue, it's the involvement of the parents. Try this self governing concept at some inner city school where being "smart" is considered "acting white." The problem with schools is sometimes structural, but nearly always cultural. Look at achievement levels of first gen Asian American student whose parents often arrived in the U.S. not speaking a word of English and with just the clothes on their back. Also compare DC schools that spend almost $30k per year per student and yet DC schools aren't even in the same universe as Sidwell Friends where tuition is $35k per year. How is Sidwell able to be an ultra elite school providing top notch education while DC schools spend just $5k less and are models of failure? My point is that money and new styles of doing things doesn't compensate for disengaged parents and certain cultures that don't value education as highly.

jsnk 12y ago
US ranks number 1 among OECD nations in annual expenditure per student by educational institutions, and yet they produce one of the least educated students in OECD nations. Why is this the case? If funding is the problem as "experts" say it is, why is it that countries that spend fractions of what US spends yield better students? It seems like you are right. It's just another year, another scheme to ask for more money in education.
- bsder 12y ago
  > and yet they produce one of the least educated students in OECD nations. Why is this the case? If funding is the problem as "experts" say it is, why is it that countries that spend fractions of what US spends yield better students? No problem. Start "tracking" like many of those countries. Flunk a test at age 12 and no college for you. Easy. Now we don't have to bother with all those "useless" students. Hope your kid passes.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Politics, lack of trust in teachers and standarized tests, which tend to average-out everyone - i.e. they bring everyone up to a mediocre level, at the cost of eliminating those actually good at something.

aaron695 12y ago

> A 1992 World Bank evaluation of Colombia’s schools concluded that poor youngsters educated this way — learning by doing, rather than being endlessly drilled for national exams — generally outperformed their better-off peers in traditional schools. Given learning by 'doing' is known to be worse I wonder if they have hit some sort of local maxima.

sukilot 12y ago
Citation?
atallcostsky 12y ago
"Given learning by 'doing' is known to be worse I wonder if they have hit some sort of local maxima." I'm curious - would you be able to expand on this? I find that I prefer learning by doing projects, building, etc as opposed to reading/problem sets/etc. Has there been research to compare the two approaches?
- aaron695 12y ago
  I tend to think learning by doings main issue is it wastes time. If as an adult you don't have a lot to learn doing is fun so why not. But if you want to train hard, back to boring. There's different research out there, basically the doing side was introduced without research hence the scramble to work out the better method. I think it is compounded by the fact experimental schools often do better, since they are putting in effort. A known performance enhancer. http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/08/21/math-wars-rote-memorization-plays-crucial-role-in-teaching-students-how-to-solve-complex-calculations-study-says/ http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/08/21/math-wars-rote-memor... -> http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v17/n9/abs/nn.3788.html http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v17/n9/abs/nn.3788.html
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

Guthur 12y ago

This sounds more like a cooperative than democracy. Democracy: A system of government in which power is vested in the people, who rule either directly or through freely elected representatives. Cooperative: 1. working or acting together willingly for a common purpose or benefit. 2. demonstrating a willingness to cooperate :

saraid216 12y ago
1) You copied the wrong definition for cooperative. It's "a farm, business, or other organization that is owned and run jointly by its members, who share the profits or benefits." 2) The article mentions John Dewey, but doesn't really get into who he is. I strongly recommend reading his book, "Democracy and Education". As a taste: "A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. The extension in space of the number of individuals who participate in an interest so that each has to refer his own action to that of others, and to consider the action of others to give point and direction to his own, is equivalent to the breaking down of those barriers of class, race, and national territory which kept men from perceiving the full import of their activity." http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=DewDemo.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=7&division=div1 http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=DewDemo....
- Guthur 12y ago
  I left the farm/business one out intentionally because I thought it might bring some confusion. I still stand by my point; cooperative is a much less ambiguous term for this, and I think what John Dewey describes is one as well. Words are important and taken on face value people may extrapolate that it's the government type, democracy, that will bring better education. When in my opinion it's a cooperative environment, peer review, meaningful engagement and a sense of ownership. Edit: For me a democratic schooling would be voting for the teacher you would like to have; which will be the popularity contest most such competitions devolve to.
  - saraid216 12y ago

ygmelnikova 12y ago

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." - Winston Churchill

chimeracoder 12y ago
For what it's worth, that's not actually Churchill, though it's frequently attributed to him[0]. Nevertheless, it's an appropriate remark. [0] https://richardlangworth.com/democracy https://richardlangworth.com/democracy
harperlee 12y ago
"Democracy is an abuse of statistics." - Jorge Luis Borges
saraid216 12y ago
You're really surprised a legitimate aristocrat said that?