Education IS Democratic Engagement

Famously opposed educators come together:

"Our macro-level differences do not interfere with our mutual respect for each other’s work.
That itself is something we hope our schools can help teach young people.

Our differences helped us consider ways to rethink our ideas and find places where those holding different views might compromise, and perhaps learn to live under one umbrella.

What we hope to model is the idea of democratic engagement, the notion that citizens need to think about and debate their beliefs and values with others who do not necessarily share all of them.

We want the issues connected to schooling to be a matter for discussion among all people who care.

We don’t have it in our power to solve the problems that confront American education—not those that take place within the schoolhouse, much less those that have a direct impact on children’s ability to learn, such as their unequal access to health care, housing, and myriad other life necessities.

But we hope that we have it in our power to provoke the thinking that must precede, accompany, and follow any attempt to reform—perhaps, even better, to transform—our schools."


Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch May 24, 2006 commentary in EDUCATION WEEK


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Words to live by

Play makes children nimble—neurobiologically, mentally, behaviorally—capable of adapting to a rapidly evolving world. That makes it just about the best preparation for life in the 21st century. Psychologists believe that play cajoles people toward their human potential because it preserves all the possibilities nervous systems tend to otherwise prune away...

There's only one graduation requirement and over 95 percent of students meet it. They have to write and present a thesis about how they're prepared to be an adult. It takes time to write, even more time to figure out

...Students have become lute-makers, auto technicians, musicians, equestrian-farmers, dedicated environmentalists. Some have started their own companies at 18. Others take retail or service jobs to get money for travel abroad...They do what they do not by default or by obligation but from a sense of understanding what they're doing and why...
(and) go on to lead deeply satisfying lives. Most are unusually resilient. Almost all feel that they are in control of their destiny.

The alumni study shows that a "spectacularly high number" pursue careers in the arts—music, art, dance, writing, acting. Math, business and education are popular routes, too.

...It may be...that the Sudbury-style schools work so well because they are small...But on a 10-acre estate in Massachusetts, 200 kids are having a hell of a time preparing for the future.


Hara Estroff Marano in "Psychology Today" May/June 2006, sizing up Sudbury Valley School


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