I like all you're writing about--and I wonder: how much have you considered the Montessori approach? Because so many of the principles you outline--direct instruction, freedom & autonomy, radical individualization--are so aligned with Montessori approaches. My kids attended Montessori through elementary school, and when done well (not all are!) it offers just that, and works well for a wide range of kids. (One of mine is conscientious and approval motivated; the other one is very independent, strong-willed, and has dyslexia.)
Came here to say this! As a parent of two very different children who both attended Montessori through 5th or 6th grade AND a Montessori Teacher AND Montessori Teacher Educator, much of this made me wonder the same thing. Many folks will see one non-example and think that is what a Montessori school is (why wouldn't they?).
Sadly, the Montessori label is not regulated, so any school can claim to be Montessori even if they don't even have the materials on their shelves or adhere to the philosophy or methods. While schools can pay to get certified by AMS, it's expensive and time consuming and expires every few years - which leads to many tiny Montessori schools opting not to bother even though they might be one of the best examples of Montessori learning environments.
> respect students’ time by generally trying to teach them whatever it is they want to learn in the most effective manner
But what do you do when students need to learn what they don't want to learn?
As a teacher, one of my greatest challenges is motivating students to care about things that they don't already care about. You touch on this point when you mention "Oakland Strict," but a whole post on this point would be a great sequel to this post.
> You might have heard instead (if like me you follow elite private schools in the Bay Area) that students should instead learn through discovery, with projects that help deeply appreciate the reason behind a concept rather than merely teaching the concepts.
As an adult who sometimes attempts to learn things, this would never be how I would want to do so. Am I missing something basic for why this might be a good idea? (To be fair, usually when I want to learn something, I have some experience for why the thing would be good, and maybe some background knowledge of what sorts of things tend to work in various domains)
Kids need a job. They need parents. They need some structure (some kids need more than others). They need some fun toys. They need things that enable them to pursue their interests. They need socialization with adults in order to learn what those interests might be. They need siblings (ideally). They need to learn to read, and they need a lot of books to choose from. They need (in my opinion) parents who talk to them, listen to them, and who treat them like the adults they are going to become.
What they don't need is to be ghettoized with almost exclusively kids their own age; they don't need to be institutionalized and spend the best part of their day with strange adults who pretend to be their parents and are not actually that intelligent; they don't need fake exercises in compliance and lessons in ignorance. They don't need public school.
Thanks for really boiling it down to the essentials: individualized instruction with a focus on mastery and trying to cultivate the kids' interests. Everything beyond that is a bonus, and often difficult to execute well, as you discuss.
I'm curious how you pitch Oakland Strict to the kids.
I remember reading an article about Sudbury Valley democratic school (essentially what you have recreated) that talked about how kids chose lessons that were very direct instruction/traditional.
A warning for you in scaling up; their outcomes for kids are pretty dreadful. It is a boarding school though, so I assume that also factors in.
Academic achievement, not sure about long term employment. I actually completely got the name of the school wrong - the one I was actually thinking of was Summerhill school: https://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/learning/
I think the philosophy probably works extremely well in a very small school environment, but seems harder to scale. I would send my kids to a 10-30 pupil microschool with a democratic philosophy, but not a larger school. Famously, CS Lewis' The Silver Chair opens with two children who are deeply unhappy at their progressive/democratic school.
Almost everything fails to scale but it makes sense to me that democratic microschools particularly fail to scale. We do track academic achievement and all the kids who have been here for 1+ years are 99th percentile, but of course you should always assume it's selection with that kind of thing.
I think that's what makes it so hard to take what works in test environments for education and scale it up for mainstream schools. Any small school with a unique philosophy and a passionate founder is going to have amazing kids and amazing performance. I'm very jealous of the kids going to your school and it sounds fantastic, no shade on your considerable achievements!
But if it seems likely that "democratic microschools particularly fail to scale," and if Jessumsica is right that your own school is a democratic microschool, why do you want to scale up? You mention a reason why: your students would benefit from more students to play with. Is your thinking that you'll get this benefit from scaling up, even if your school becomes worse in other respects?
By 'fail to scale' I mostly mean that efforts to open a new branch don't work; I think slowly increasing enrollment at the existing school usually works fine. It's possible to offer a greater variety of classes and activities with more students, not just more socialization, though I do think the socialization is important.
I like all you're writing about--and I wonder: how much have you considered the Montessori approach? Because so many of the principles you outline--direct instruction, freedom & autonomy, radical individualization--are so aligned with Montessori approaches. My kids attended Montessori through elementary school, and when done well (not all are!) it offers just that, and works well for a wide range of kids. (One of mine is conscientious and approval motivated; the other one is very independent, strong-willed, and has dyslexia.)
Came here to say this! As a parent of two very different children who both attended Montessori through 5th or 6th grade AND a Montessori Teacher AND Montessori Teacher Educator, much of this made me wonder the same thing. Many folks will see one non-example and think that is what a Montessori school is (why wouldn't they?).
Sadly, the Montessori label is not regulated, so any school can claim to be Montessori even if they don't even have the materials on their shelves or adhere to the philosophy or methods. While schools can pay to get certified by AMS, it's expensive and time consuming and expires every few years - which leads to many tiny Montessori schools opting not to bother even though they might be one of the best examples of Montessori learning environments.
> respect students’ time by generally trying to teach them whatever it is they want to learn in the most effective manner
But what do you do when students need to learn what they don't want to learn?
As a teacher, one of my greatest challenges is motivating students to care about things that they don't already care about. You touch on this point when you mention "Oakland Strict," but a whole post on this point would be a great sequel to this post.
> You might have heard instead (if like me you follow elite private schools in the Bay Area) that students should instead learn through discovery, with projects that help deeply appreciate the reason behind a concept rather than merely teaching the concepts.
As an adult who sometimes attempts to learn things, this would never be how I would want to do so. Am I missing something basic for why this might be a good idea? (To be fair, usually when I want to learn something, I have some experience for why the thing would be good, and maybe some background knowledge of what sorts of things tend to work in various domains)
Kids need a job. They need parents. They need some structure (some kids need more than others). They need some fun toys. They need things that enable them to pursue their interests. They need socialization with adults in order to learn what those interests might be. They need siblings (ideally). They need to learn to read, and they need a lot of books to choose from. They need (in my opinion) parents who talk to them, listen to them, and who treat them like the adults they are going to become.
What they don't need is to be ghettoized with almost exclusively kids their own age; they don't need to be institutionalized and spend the best part of their day with strange adults who pretend to be their parents and are not actually that intelligent; they don't need fake exercises in compliance and lessons in ignorance. They don't need public school.
Thanks for really boiling it down to the essentials: individualized instruction with a focus on mastery and trying to cultivate the kids' interests. Everything beyond that is a bonus, and often difficult to execute well, as you discuss.
I'm curious how you pitch Oakland Strict to the kids.
I remember reading an article about Sudbury Valley democratic school (essentially what you have recreated) that talked about how kids chose lessons that were very direct instruction/traditional.
A warning for you in scaling up; their outcomes for kids are pretty dreadful. It is a boarding school though, so I assume that also factors in.
What sorts of outcomes are you thinking of? Academic achievement? Transfer of skills to a more traditional environment?
Academic achievement, not sure about long term employment. I actually completely got the name of the school wrong - the one I was actually thinking of was Summerhill school: https://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/learning/
I think the philosophy probably works extremely well in a very small school environment, but seems harder to scale. I would send my kids to a 10-30 pupil microschool with a democratic philosophy, but not a larger school. Famously, CS Lewis' The Silver Chair opens with two children who are deeply unhappy at their progressive/democratic school.
Almost everything fails to scale but it makes sense to me that democratic microschools particularly fail to scale. We do track academic achievement and all the kids who have been here for 1+ years are 99th percentile, but of course you should always assume it's selection with that kind of thing.
I think that's what makes it so hard to take what works in test environments for education and scale it up for mainstream schools. Any small school with a unique philosophy and a passionate founder is going to have amazing kids and amazing performance. I'm very jealous of the kids going to your school and it sounds fantastic, no shade on your considerable achievements!
But if it seems likely that "democratic microschools particularly fail to scale," and if Jessumsica is right that your own school is a democratic microschool, why do you want to scale up? You mention a reason why: your students would benefit from more students to play with. Is your thinking that you'll get this benefit from scaling up, even if your school becomes worse in other respects?
By 'fail to scale' I mostly mean that efforts to open a new branch don't work; I think slowly increasing enrollment at the existing school usually works fine. It's possible to offer a greater variety of classes and activities with more students, not just more socialization, though I do think the socialization is important.