My Opinion on 5 Works about Education, Teaching, and Learning - Volume 11

In this article we get to see the philosophical foundations of a unique democratic school, a practical approach to modern homeschooling, the education of blacks during slavery, the failure of a genius, and a disagreement with a hero.

'A Place to Grow: The Culture of Sudbury Valley School' by Daniel Greenberg 2016

Greenberg was a physics professor at Columbia University. In 1965 he had the idea for a new type of school. In 1968 he founded Sudbury on a democratic model of education, and wrote many books on that experience from the 1973 to 2018. This is one of his later books.

I like that he opens the book talking about where American culture comes from, and then how the education system was modified to provide workers for a newly industrialized society. He talks about how words are used to communicate culture, and how cultures are invaded by other cultures that adapt their wording. Intellectually it's an impressive understanding of the philosophical concepts and processes that shape human societies. He makes the point of how the United States transformed from a libertarian culture at it's founding to an authoritarian culture, and he makes the case that it will transform back. A hopeful and optimistic belief.

The basic idea of the school is that it is a community in the same way a town is, specifically a New England town. Therefore, all of the students of all ages should have voting rights on the laws of the school, there should be elected officials as representatives, and all of the other processes of a broadly democratic republic with a participatory government. Greenberg makes the case that this school can only really succeed in the culture of the United States, which is why this school model usually fails in other countries. He says that Sudbury is an American cultural immersion school based on the Declaration of Independence which is based on Judeo-Christian values. He also connects it with ancient Greek philosophy.

This philosophical, historical, and cultural insight from Greenberg is fascinating, and even though it's fairly short it has some of the most depth of any educational books I've read.

Greenberg lays out his frameworks starting with, "The Simple Proposition that Underlies Sudbury Valley: Children Are People". He asks why schools exist and says, "The answer for our culture is that schools are an environment in which children grow up to be effective adults." He then makes the case that adults in western society have six characteristics: "(1) Adults are self-motivated self-starters. (2) Adults are responsible. (3) Adults have judgment. (4) Adults know how to learn. (5) Adults are problem solvers. (6) Adults are social." He adds to this that the goal of education should be life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Greenberg says that the heart of any community is the judicial process of justice, and that the heart of Sudbury Valley School is their Judicial Committee. He explains how and why judicial systems work. And yes students serve on the committee. This idea of the kids voting on the rules, budget, and hiring of staff at the school, as well as having a student-run court system, reminds me a lot of Korczak's orphanage in Poland, although I've found no reference that Greenberg knew about Korczak, so maybe two very similar systems arose independently.

The school's first catalog lists nine key features of the school: "1. Learning through self-motivation and self-regulation. 2. Equal status to all pursuits. 3. Evaluation through self-criticism. 4. Teaching based on interest. 5. Spontaneous formation of learning groups centered on common interests. 6. All can learn and all can teach. [equal status] 7. Parents are directly involved in the education of their children. [stakeholders] 8. All members of the school community participate in regulating the school’s activities. [stakeholders, again] 9. The school is an integral part of the community. [openness]".

What a unique system. From this book I learned several things: that this idea seems to have occurred independently at least twice, that you can start with a cultural foundation and build an education system to match, that that education system will only work in that culture, that it's an idea that almost certainly won't become a norm anywhere, that unique systems can exist but the demand is small and particular, and that Greenberg is intellectually impressive.

'Collaborative Homeschooling: A manifesto for a 21st Century Education After COVID-19' by Matt Beaudreau 2020

At the time that Beaudreau wrote this he was running an Acton Academy he founded in California. Later he founded he own series of microschools called Apogee.

Beaudreau was a public school teacher for several years before realizing there had to be something better, then he was a teacher at a private school. Having seen traditional schools not work well in both the low and high social classes, and not wanting to send his own kids to such schools, he founded his own after being impressed with a visit to an Acton Academy.

Over half of the book covers common concerns and objections parents have about homeschooling and addresses them. The second half of the book gets into more specifics about education. There are several things I like.

I like the idea of quests: "At Acton Placer, where I teach, we give children a broad exposure to as many things as possible. But as they pursue these things, we begin to see patterns of interest and behavior, and we’re able to identify what they’re most passionate about and talented at.

These different topic exposures are called “quests.” Unlike a traditional academic course, a quest is a 5-6 week hands-on, real-world-based, collaborative project, with a goal and public exhibition of the results at the end, but without a clear roadmap on how to get there. (The kids must create the roadmap, and that the main point!)"

The first project of the year is to create a social contract for the group: "Contracts are what takes the emotion out of the studio when talking about rules and violations of the rules. Instead of being harsh, emotion-laden chastisements when kids don’t follow the rules, Values Contracts allow for objectivity in these discussions. They facilitate direct, adult conversations centered around specific behaviors that go against the learning environment they want to maintain."

I like the attitude of the heroes journey: "The idea of a Hero’s Journey is that each of us is the central character--the hero--in our own movie that we are writing, directing and acting in!   Because--by definition--a movie hero doesn’t know exactly what will happen next in the story, what’s crucial for the character, is to actually focus on--you guessed it! --character traits!"

At the end of the book Beaudreau goes over the basic options of alternatives to traditional government or private schools. You can do solo homeschooling, informal collaborative homeschooling as a group of parents (sometimes called homeschool pods), or formal homeschooling with professional teachers (more commonly called microschools).

This statement aligns well with me, "I believe that a child’s curriculum should be based on what that child cares about." Although it misses key stakeholders as part of the negotiation. This book helped me realize how my background led me to approach education from a different perspective. In a traditional school the teacher decides what is being learned, and usually it's actually the government deciding. In an Acton Academy, Waldorf schools, Reggio schools, Sudbury schools, Korczak's orphanage, and Tolstoy's school focus shifts to what the students are interested in, and it ends up being a stronger or weaker mix of student and teacher decision. In both cases the parent's decision is largely to enroll or not enroll. There's more or less parent engagement in all of the systems, but not as a key piece, the alternatives see negotiation among the peer group of students as the alternative to the traditional model.

Coming from a political organization I thought, "Who are the primary stakeholders?" And, coming from private tutoring, the answer is only student, teacher, and parent. Sometimes the parents are the same as the other systems, they just choose to enroll or not enroll. But I also had instances where parents wanted only one subject area to be worked on. They were very specific. I had instances where the parents and student disagreed strongly on what to study, and I negotiated between them. So, I thought, "It would be useful to turn that into a formal process." Much better than the normal method of students and parents just disagreeing on what to study by yelling at each other at home. You can even use it as an opportunity to structure the learning framework with the academic skills of research and writing, as well as the classical skill of rhetoric, while also developing the skills and knowledge that the student and parents want to focus on. Now you have a formal process balancing the student, teacher, and parents as stakeholders that develops skills and knowledge during periods of agreement and disagreement. It's a beautiful idea, even if it is self-praise.

'The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861' by Carter Godwin Woodson 1915

We are lucky that Woodson wrote a couple of good books on education, which give us a view into a world that would be otherwise hard to see and we would have to guess at. What was education and learning like for blacks during slavery? That's an interesting question. I've been able to get a limited view from memoirs and autobiographies like Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Keckley, and Josiah Henson, but Woodson gives us the wider perspective.

Take a guess at who first worked to educate blacks, and why. "The first real educators to take up the work of enlightening American Negroes were clergymen interested in the propagation of the gospel among the heathen of the new world."

Now take a guess at which Christian denomination did so first. "The first settlers of the American colonies to offer Negroes the same educational and religious privileges they provided for persons of their own race, were the Quakers."

How fascinating. Woodson does note two other groups that sometimes helped. "The early advocates of the education of Negroes were of three classes: first, masters who desired to increase the economic efficiency of their labor supply; second, sympathetic persons who wished to help the oppressed; and third, zealous missionaries who, believing that the message of divine love came equally to all, taught slaves the English language that they might learn the principles of the Christian religion."

Interestingly enough early on both advocates against and for slavery were in favor of educating slaves. "Many early advocates of slavery favored the enlightenment of the Africans. That it was an advantage to the Negroes to be brought within the light of the gospel was a common argument in favor of the slave trade."

Educated and intelligent slaves are seen in various places in history such as in ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and the Muslim slave empires.

Later this significantly changed to the opposite with some states passing laws against teaching slaves to read. "If they are to remain in slavery they should be kept in the lowest state of ignorance and degradation, and the nearer you bring them to the condition of brutes the better chance they have to retain their apathy."

As more blacks became free over time and interacted with whites they took on part of the white culture and learned how to learn through imitation. "Negroes learned from their white friends to educate themselves." This is the only real way that education can come about in a people, through organic growth.

The blacks also advocated for public schools. "The persistent struggle of the colored people to have their children educated at public expense shows how resolved they were to be enlightened." This is fascinating because it's pushing to have the government that hates you educate your children. It's amazing that people normally think that will turn out well somehow.

I learned a few surprising things from this book. It shouldn't have surprised me that Christians were the tip of the spear in educating blacks and slaves, but it was a good reminder how the idea of universal salvation and universal human rights is so beneficial to the world. It did surprise me that early slavers also supported education for slaves. I knew about the ancients having educated slaves, but we don't think of black slaves in the US as being educated because I knew about the later laws against reading and education. So the fact that that change took place is an interesting transition. I also know black education comes out poorly in the end, but it was still disappointing after all of that struggle to conclude with giving the minds of the children to the government. What a missed opportunity to develop a separate institution.

'Observations relative to the Intentions of the original Founders of the Academy in Philadelphia' by Benjamin Franklin 1789

Franklin is one of these unique people in history that the more you learn about him the more you learn there is to learn. A runaway fugitive at 17 who retired as a wealthy printer at 42. I know a fair amount about Franklin, and I just recently learned that he co-founded the first hospital in the American colonies, the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia in 1751. He of course helped establish several schools as well.

When Franklin wrote this article he was 83 years old, and helped establish the school a few decades earlier in 1749. He points out that he had helped found a library in 1732 with only English books, and that the school was supposed to be an English school. But, several people interested in helping to fund the school wanted the school to also teach the classic languages of Greek and Latin, and therefore he also founded a Latin school, but put emphasis on the English school.

Over time the trustees of the school had ruined the English school to keep the Latin school. Franklin notes that the English school was just teaching basic reading like the normal house schools of old women and that public speaking had been completely done away with. That this was in violation of the founding of the school and that the current board of trustees had considered this at a meeting and decided to fix it.

Since the trustees had destroyed the English school it didn't bring in enough money to support itself, so they considered shutting it down entirely. Franklin said that they might as well shut down the entire thing and just steal the school property. They essentially stole the money from the English school to support the Latin school anyway. Franklin notes that he has some blame because he didn't pay enough attention to the school because he was doing other things like revolutionizing science, defeating an empire, and founding a new nation.

Franklin was the last living original founder of the school and calls for the Latin and English schools to separate and for the resources to be divided equally. Instead, in 1791 the schools were consolidated together with other schools to form the University of Pennsylvania.

This article helped me realize that even someone as impressive as Franklin can lose to the stupidity, arrogance, greed, and corruption of others. Franklin's original plan for the English school was wonderful, and they ruined it. It's interesting to see how school committees don't seem to work well, then or now. In that way it was a taste of the failures of the public schools of the future.

'Thoughts Upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic' by Benjamin Rush 1786

Rush, like other important American Founding Fathers, did quite a lot in his life. In this article you can see Rush tackling the issues of the time. He states that people should be educated in the country for their first 21 years and not sent to foreign countries, so that they will bond with others and their country. He also notes that in Pennsylvania there are many different European cultures represented and education can help pull them together and make them easier to govern.

I always find it interesting when people talk about the Founding Fathers and religion because both sides usually lie. In reality it's a complex and confusing mess. Some were highly religious like Rush and Washington. Some were weird like Franklin. Some were uncertain like Jefferson. Some were against religion like Paine. Some slightly changed like Adams. It's a real mix. The Founding Fathers disagreed in many ways. Rush gives us a strong perspective of a religious Founding Father.

"I proceed, in the next place, to inquire what mode of education we shall adopt so as to secure to the state all the advantages that are to be derived from the proper instruction of youth; and here I beg leave to remark that the only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in RELIGION. Without this, there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.

Such is my veneration for every religion that reveals the attributes of the Deity, or a future state of rewards and punishments, that I had rather see the opinions of Confucius or Mohammed inculcated upon our youth than see them grow up wholly devoid of a system of religious principles. But the religion I mean to recommend in this place is the religion of JESUS CHRIST." This is interesting because in general schools in the US from grade schools to universities were formed as religious organizations, which contrasts sharply with the modern government schools which are atheist.

Rush is also for the schools producing a useful citizen for the government, and for authoritarian schools.

"Next to the duty which young men owe to their Creator, I wish to see a SUPREME REGARD TO THEIR COUNTRY inculcated upon them. When the Duke of Sully became prime minister to Henry the IVth of France, the first thing he did, he tells us, was to subdue and forget his own heart. The same duty is incumbent upon every citizen of a republic. Our country includes family, friends, and property, and should be preferred to them all. Let our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself, but that he is public property. Let him be taught to love his family, but let him be taught at the same time that he must forsake and even forget them when the welfare of his country requires it."

"In the education of youth, let the authority of our masters be as absolute as possible. The government of schools like the government of private families should be arbitrary, that it may not be severe. By this mode of education, we prepare our youth for the subordination of laws and thereby qualify them for becoming good citizens of the republic. I am satisfied that the most useful citizens have been formed from those youth who have never known or felt their own wills till they were one and twenty years of age, and I have often thought that society owes a great deal of its order and happiness to the deficiencies of parental government being supplied by those habits of obedience and subordination which are contracted at schools."

He advocates against boarding schools. He advocates for reading and writing requirements for voting. He advises preachers not to preach against theaters but to preach to actors. Rush says it's important for students to attend and watch court proceedings. 

For the first 12 years he thinks boys should only learn reading, writing, and arithmetic, with that including modern foreign languages. After that he emphasizes the importance of public speaking, history, and commerce. He says that chemistry is important as advances in science grow, and that everyone should study the art of war and of legislation. He makes the case that the other studies should support these. "Let mathematical learning, therefore, be carefully applied in our colleges to gunnery and fortification, and let philosophy be applied to the history of those compositions which have been made use of for the terrible purposes of destroying human life. These branches of knowledge will be indispensably necessary in our republic, if unfortunately war should continue hereafter to be the unchristian mode of arbitrating disputes between Christian nations."

Rush says that women should be taught the usual subjects, and that in addition a special emphasis should be placed on liberty, government, and patriotism.

Rush advocates for the state government to establish these schools, and to do it soon while the feeling of the revolution is still fresh, because in just seven years time people may forget what they fought for. He also says that it's pointless to train the youth in virtue if Pennsylvania continues to import criminal immigrants.

There's a lot to learn here. I disagree with the basic premise that the government should control the children to make them into citizens and soldiers to be sacrificed when needed for the government. This article helped me see that none of the current arguments in education are new to the United States, they have been raging since the founding of the United States, and will continue.

Conclusion

What a fascinating set of insights by great minds. Greenberg lays out a philosophy and education system that could help refound the US based on the original ideas of the United States. Beaudreau makes a strong case against traditional modern schooling. Woodson gives us a glimpse of education when education seems impossible. Franklin shows how a great plan can be corrupted, and Rush makes a case for education as a government system as the foundation of a society. Most people are so embedded in their time and place that they don't have the perspective of history. They don't have multiple points of view from which to judge the present or the history that has led to the present. How different the world would be if people knew a bit of history.

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