Little Lake Free School

I haven't looked through this site completely, but I think it has some good thoughts from the small part I did glance at.

Thoughts on a Dewey school: student background edition

An "aha" moment getting at the thing I've been trying to pin down during our conversations -- what has us talking about disadvantaged/underprivileged students and boarding schools? Where is the emphasis on environmental factors coming from? What is it we're feeling the need to control for and/or eliminate entirely from students' lives 24/7?

In Experience and Education, John Dewey writes:

"I am not romantic enough about the young to suppose that every pupil will respond or that any child of normally strong impulses will respond on every occasion. There are likely to be some who, when they come to school, are already victims of injurious conditions outside of the school and who have become so passive and unduly docile that they fail to contribute. There will be others who, because of previous experience, are bumptious and unruly and perhaps downright rebellious."

Dewey goes on to say that neither the traditional "battle of wills" method of bringing non-participating students into participation, nor the straight out exclusion of these students from the school, are solutions to these kinds of student situations. He also goes on to discuss the need for sufficiently thoughtful planning on the part of the school, so as to make room for and have resources to deal with such students.

But the assumption I'm hearing is that students start out wanting ever so much to learn and participate democratically and prepare ahead and strike the optimal balance of respect for authority and confidence in their individual positions. This I tend to agree with, but only within the context of students' developmental levels. There is likelihood of student disengagement, rebelliousness, passivity, and poor previous experience no matter where students come from in the socioeconomic spectrum. These things are part human variant, part developmental stage (like separation from authority in high school or devotion to black & white thinking and social group definition in middle school), and part -- not all - environment.

In our next conversation, or one of the next anyway, I'd like to chat more with the group about how, if at all, we would like to continue exploring the implications of targeting specifically disadvantaged student populations for any school endeavor. Ditto the boarding school. There's quite a bit students lose when they are removed from their home environment into one created by, and consisting solely of, their school environment. The kind of students we start talking about when we talk about the benefits of a boarding school will need much more infrastructural support than just a caring set of teachers and a dorm dad.

(Just having an anti-Stand and Deliver backlash moment, and wondering if we can talk about who we want to be as educators without creating straw orphans to save by the sheer power of our great teaching and school administration in the process.)

Have at it with me in the comments?

Mission Statements

What is our mission statement for this project?


Phil & Tess: We aim to found a school where the culture promotes a democratic, participatory lifestyle by utilizing inquiry-based pedagogy, an open-source curriculum and cultivating a community cohesion without enforcing uniformity. We seek to write a grant which will allow for research and development of all the various aspects of founding the school (administration, human relations, staffing, budget, tuition costs, IT integration, etc).


Rachel: (posted Exeter's MS, which is as follows): The founder of Phillips Exeter Academy defined its mission more than two centuries ago. "Above all," John Phillips stated, "it is expected that the attention of instructors to the disposition of the minds and morals of the youth under their charge will exceed every other care; well considering that though goodness without knowledge is weak and feeble, yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous, and that both united form the noblest character, and lay the surest foundation of usefulness to mankind."

Exeter today continues the commitment to unite knowledge and goodness. It seeks students who combine proven academic ability, intellectual curiosity, and tenacity with decency and good character. At the Academy, exacting inquiry and thoughtful discourse foster the life of the mind, instruction and activity promote fitness and health, and the daily interactions of a residential school nurture integrity, empathy, and kindness. Because learning and growth at Exeter arise from each individual's engagement with others, the richness of education here requires diversity in all its dimensions; students and faculty value the differences they bring to the community they share.The challenges that students meet at Exeter and the support they receive have a common purpose: to stimulate their development as individuals and as members of society. Exeter seeks to graduate young people whose creativity and independence of thought sustain their continuing inquiry and reflection, whose interest in others and the world around them surpasses their self-concern, and whose passion for learning impels them beyond what they already know.-1991

Answering the question: "What student group might be best served by the focus of this school project? What's a more coherent and concise way to talk about what we're doing here? Two sentences tops." [This may also be posted elsewhere later.]

Jess: We aim to find a solution to educating the future (i.e. minors) that accounts for abilities, disabilities, sensibilities, rationalities, and human respect. Our goal is to provide this education with a focus on developing core skills in executive function, logical reasoning, health consciousness, and a general sense of community and social responsibility at a developmentally appropriate for the child.

Phil: I would like to add environmental awareness to the principles to ensure they have an ecosystem to grow into.