“Everybody is a genius.” in our current system, this is not shown. We became so focused on efficiency we began to “judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree” which is unnatural and bizarre. And because of this, the fish “will live its whole life believing that it is stupid” Let’s be honest with ourselves; this quote is related to school. School does not address students Intelligence, only their efficiency at memorization. However, Sudbury schools do that and more.
Let’s talk about different kinds of intelligence. As it turns out, there are nine different kinds of intelligence. The current system of school’s main focus is only on three out of these nine! That’s only a 33.3%. It focuses on logical-mathematical, linguistic, and a very minor side effect of being in public, interpersonal intelligence. These nine different intelligences were developed by Dr. Howard Gardner--American developmental psychologist, graduated from Harvard College and University, and now teaches at the University. Some people struggle with these three intelligences, but that does not make them dumb by any means. They may excel, and probably do because of the higher odds, at one of the other six that school doesn’t focus on.
Sometimes school goes for extra credit and attempts to tackle a few of the other types, implementing theater, sports, band is a good thing to do and those that do it should be applauded. The problem lies with the very boxed in approach. Students are unable to guide themselves in most cases. This can lead to them to not having a clue as to what to do if they are left to make their own decisions. The teacher is the ruler, they decide how things shall be taught. So the decision making is completely done by the teacher--to build, plan, and create a project model for other students to emulate. It’s as if students are asked to replicate products instead of invent their own. This does not address everyone’s intelligence and therefore interest. People end up falling behind and suddenly the school is making less money because less and less people are passing.
If anyone wants to make a product, he or she must make sure that it is of grade A production--that it is innovative, creative, and have a reason (a why) behind its purpose; that it is the best it can be. School doesn’t do this when implementing the same standardized testing. Which is great, except for the fact that such tests were invented 150 years ago to develop factory workers. And since the world doesn’t revolve around replicating the same product, like it was in the industrial era, it is effectively useless. The world is no longer about standing in a line and doing your part in a factory. We have intelligent people. Now what we need are creative people who are open minded and able to adapt quickly to the new changes in life and technology. The tests have not changed and that is holding us back. But don’t take my word for it. Take Frederick J. Kelly’s word. He invented the multiple choice test back in 1914, tests that are still taken today. These are his words on his test that he now despises.
Schools were blowing up at the time; 200,000 to 1.5 million influx in population, partly because immigrants were swarming into the country. Adding on to that, there was a teacher shortage because of World War I. So schools were filled and there were few teachers. Schools needed a quick way to graduate (“process”) all of them, and thus multiple choice testing was made. He never intended for this idea to cement itself in education. He called it a test intended to measure “low-order thinking”. Once World War I was over, he began to fight for a new way to educate. He argued for changes nearly completely opposite of the test he had created to solve a simple problem. “College is a place to learn how to educate yourself rather than a place in which to be educated,” he said.
And yet, he was too late. The College Entrance Examination board had already taken his idea in and brewed it into the SAT. And schools everyone began using it as the metric for success. We are working with an old system modeled on efficiency, not constant innovation and improvement.
Currently in the Washington State, the Superintendent is suing school districts for using levy money to pay for basic needs because the state doesn’t pay them enough. To send a student to school in an average public school costs $10,615 a year. For Sudbury schools that goes way down to $8,059 for the first student. It goes even lower for the second at $6,045 and if that isn’t low enough for your wallet every student enrolled after the second is only $4,029. The benefits of that are quite obvious as it is, but here’s more.
“Sudbury schools do not have formal evaluations of their students. There are no grades and there are no tests. We believe that the best person to evaluate a student's progress is the student. Students know when they understand a subject or a skill and when they do not. Experience has shown that when a student self-evaluates, they have a much higher standard than when someone is evaluating them. They tend to measure themselves against perfection - not against ‘good enough’. Occasionally a student will ask for outside evaluation from either a staff member or another student. When they do this, they demand an honest critique. They are not interested in being lied to. They are striving for perfection and want to know if they have reached it.” this is a direct quote from Hudson Valley Sudbury school. This will scare many teachers, they read this and think about structure and control. If this wasn’t backed up with amazing graduation rates I would be scared too. But let's get to the numbers.
How many of the students that are taught with this system move on to college? Well the average of Sudbury Valley school of kiddens that move on to higher education is a whopping 87%. Compare that to the abysmal 69.2% of those that move on to college from public schools. The numbers really do speak for themselves, if you were to get a 69.2% in school you would be at a C-, below average. So if we are to continue to vouch for forward thinking we have to get rid of this old, below average, system.
Sudbury schools are a democratic community, meaning that students get to vote on what they want to learn and when. This enables students to focus on their strongest intelligence and interest, allowing them to get incredibly far in their passions.