It ain't paradise.

Here are a few things that I don't like about HVSS:

There is no defined eating space. They have a big kitchen but half of it is given over to a pool table. That's what democracy gets you-a pool table in a kitchen! Actually I don't know how it wound up there. There is also a mobile work table that kids eat at but it is too tall for the little kids, if they don't get a stool they stand on a folding chair and eat. Or they eat underneath it. There is also a large conference table in the lounge that is used for different purposes, I don't know if eating is one of them. There is something to be said for defined eating spaces and mealtimes. It makes the meal more pleasant if you share it with someone and I think gathering to eat is one of the great human social experiences. If I was on staff there I would eat lunch at the same place and at the same time every day and invite people to join me until there was an unwritten lunchtime because you find out a lot of interesting things about people when you eat with them.

The cursing. I have to check the handbook but I don't know if there is an actual rule prohibiting foul language but I think there should be. We are having a real problem with Des and Amelia right now because the teenagers curse and they think they should be able to as well. Contrary to what the user might think, profanity waters down a message, it doesn't strengthen it. Your listener becomes so focused on the epithet that they stop listening to what you are saying. It also opens you up to judgement and criticism if you can't use self control or imagination and need to resort to cursing. I understand when you curse because you are angry or stub your toe its the everyday use as adjectives that I object to.
Raymond had a funny take on why its ok for adults to curse and not children. Since adults have the stress and pressure of going to work and maintaining a home and raising their kids, cursing is an outlet for all of that buildup, a waste product. He referred to it as the "poop of adult life". Well, the way he explained it was funny.

I guess I think they should give the little kids more of a hand but maybe they do and I don't know. Or maybe that is a conflict that I have with the philosophy itself. I am still a mom so its hard for me to watch my kids or kids the same age as my kids struggle.

Hmm, this isn't as long a list as I thought it would be. Not bad.

What does it mean to live in a democracy?

What does it mean to live in a democracy? I started to write more about little kids being suspended because on the face of it it seems so harsh, and so early in the year. However the situation has to be examined in context. This happens less and less in our culture because television does not lend itself to a nuanced examination of issues. The teaser might be "Kindergarteners kicked out of school" and people will form an opinion before even hearing the two minute treatment that it might get on the news. That doesn't help anybody. Unfortunately this way of thinking or rather, not thinking is seeping up through every level of our society. We are all dumbing down. We use brand names as a shorthand for description. I've heard people, adults, who describe themselves in terms of the brands they identify with. Not their religion or ethnic heritage but where they shop. And politics is not immune to this phenomenon. I'm surprised the Clinton's haven't tried to trademark their name. "Clinton-a brand of governing you can trust! New and improved with 2 X chromosomes, that's twice as many as last time!"

Oh dear I think that was a rant. Let me get back on topic.

Democracy. Let's compare Sudbury to a typical public school. Sudbury is a true democracy where all members have a say in how their community is run. Everyone is expected to work together to maintain it and to abide by its rules. The children are trusted and given the responsibility of making decisions about their school in a meaningful way. Power is shared.

Our public schools are authoritarian dictatorships. A system where a few people at the top are telling everybody else what to do and controlling every aspect of their members lives, while they are a part of that system, is a dictatorship. It doesn't matter how pretty they make it or how fun it seems, that's what it is. Children are not trusted to make good decisions. Power is concentrated in the hands of a few people.

Now let's look at discipline against the background of these two systems.
When a child enrolls at Sudbury they sign a contract that says I want to go to school here and I agree to abide by the rules. Children entering public school usually go because their parents tell them to. At Sudbury everyone is expected to follow the same rules and to aid in their enforcement. At public school students learn the rules and follow them and if they break them and get caught they get punished by a teacher or other authority figure. When you get written up at Sudbury you have to answer to the staff and the students.

There is a difference in behavior when people feel invested in the process, when they feel that they have a say. And when they feel like they will be listened to. It's huge. Look at our own society. A complaint by African Americans is that there are two sets of rules, one for whites and one for everyone else. Now, I'm not going to explore the validity of that argument right now but I will say that historically, people of color have not a large formal role in the shaping of our country and its laws, so is it any wonder that they might still have an Us vs. Them mentality? Taking it back to the public schools, for some kids doing the wrong thing becomes more of a risk-reward calculation than a consideration of the merits of the act itself and this comes about because they have fewer options for reaching their goals.

At Sudbury, if you don't like something you can try to change it. It might not work but people will listen to your ideas and debate the merits of it. If you break the rules you have to answer to the community.

Back to the five year olds. These kids had been written up numerous times for not doing their cleaning jobs and I think some other rowdy behavior, I think the general complaint was that they didn't respect the school. They aren't mean, they weren't bullying anyone or lighting fires or anything like that so my instinct is to say "Give them a break, they're still little." But they are not so little to take advantage of the freedom that Sudbury affords them so maybe a one day suspension after repeated write ups is not so harsh. They are saying "hey, if you like it here so much, respect the customs and rules that make this place possible. Contribute to its upkeep." Maybe they won't fully understand the why of it all right now but it may help them get into the habit of being a responsible member of a community.

So, what does all of this have to do with living in a democracy again (I remember the words of a social studies teacher :"It is not a true democracy, it is a representative republic!")? The whole idea of a democracy is that people can govern themselves but that is not what is being taught in the public schools. They are not being taught to make their own decisions,or to experiment with different ways of doing things to find out what works best. Often times questioning the status quo earns you the label of trouble maker (just like questioning the school budget earns one the label of "anti-education"). Sending my kids to Sudbury has made me realize that democracy is messy and groups can definitely make mistakes but you have to trust people and people have to trust themselves to make it work.

Sudbury's AARP

It looks like the 5 year olds are making their mark. Desmond and a friend made a motion to allow fort building indoors(it passed) and when a subsequent motion to ban fort building from the quiet areas was made, it failed. A staff member told me she had to go tell them that the vote was happening though. Amelia said she was going to make a motion to allow eating in the playroom.

Of the 45 or so students at Sudbury at least 10 are 7 and under. They can attend the school meeting, where the business of running the school takes place, serve on JC and pretty much take on as much responsibility as they want. However, they are also held to the same standards as everyone else. Two 5 year olds have already been suspended this year.

A digression-There are two forms of suspension at Sudbury definite and indefinite. And while it carries a tremendous amount of weight, I don't think it has the same lasting social stigma as it might in a public school. It's also done for different reasons and more quickly. Defined suspensions(lasting a couple of days or less) seem to be for specific incidents(I think one was for overturning a table and shouting at someone,remember my information comes from Amelia so it could've been for a completely different reason that I will find out about three months from now) or repeated similar offenses(the two five year olds really hate to do their cleaning jobs and may have been breaking some other rules). Indefinite suspensions(and I only know of one this year so far) have to do more with patterns of behavior especially if it is abusive to other members of the community and if it involves breaking major rules. Basically what they say is-you can't be here if you act this way, if you can change, you can come back. When they are ready to come back, they have to explain themselves and ask to be let back in and it gets voted on. Can you imagine how hard that must be?

So where was I? Oh yes, two five year olds have been suspended. I do wonder if they take age into account as they go through disciplinary procedures. Des has had two dollars in fines for not signing in and out. He got one warning and after that he was fined. The mom in me sees her little guy and thinks he should have gotten a few more chances because at this age they forget all kinds of stuff. The other part of me thinks, well, the earlier he gets into the habit the better it will be in the long run. I don't know. Sometimes I think they don't get the little ones into JC fast enough. Usually write ups are addressed the next day and I think for little kids, when that much time has elapsed its almost like it didn't happen. I don't know if they still associate the punishment with the infraction. They seem to take an "if you say so" attitude. I don't know, the staff probably sees more progress day to day but it would be interesting to do a study of recidivism among the different age groups.

Lighten up Francis!

When I reread my post from yesterday I realized that I was starting to sound a bit hysterical. Its kind of silly to think that I'm the only person in the world who can disseminate information to my children. It isn't even something I believe. The staff is there to answer their questions or to help them find the answers. And from what I've seen of them they seem like smart approachable people.

It is hard to totally trust children because sometimes they do stupid stuff and don't make the best decisions. I take my responsibilities as a parent very seriously and one of those responsibilities is that my children are not ignorant dopes who can't tell you how many senators New York has or identify their own country on a map.

I just want to raise an army of eggheads to rule the world!! (cue maniacal laughter)

Crisis of Faith

I've been reading Cultural Literacy by E.D. Hirsch. Terrific book. The main point of it is that background knowledge is key to reading and communicating with each other. It's what you bring to the table and really facilitates comprehension. It's what makes an inside joke "inside". His point is that people can not just be taught reading skills, you need literature and history and a sort of working knowledge of a bunch of different topics to be able to read well. Let's use our country's history as an example- Do you have to have read the complete federalist papers, no but should you know what they are and who wrote them and what their significance is? Yeah. Do you need to know about every battle fought in the Civil War? No. Should you know what a civil war is, that we had one and have an idea of when it occurred and who the major players were? Definitely.

My worry is that as much as I love HVSS and think that the kids are thriving there, will the inevitable gaps in their knowledge hinder them? I compare the Sudbury experience to me homeschooling them. If I were to homeschool them I would definitely have a plan and a curriculum. I wouldn't be rigid about when and how they had to learn it but I would have definite objectives in mind. At Sudbury the idea is to trust that the child will learn what they need to know. I'm not there yet.

At the same time, I am still their mom. I'm the answer girl for a lot of people. Except my dad(it's actually a family rule that we are not allowed on the same team for trivia games). So, living with me is going to expose them to a lot of stuff that they might not even hear about in regular school. Oof I know that sounds like I'm bragging but, well, I like to know things, its my hobby. The joke in our house when they ask me a question is "Do you want the long answer or the short answer?" because I am happy to expound...on anything. :) I'm also often admonished by Desmond to "please use some words that I understand" because I don't dumb down when I'm talking to kids. Unless they ask me to.

I've also thought of just tutoring them outside of school in whatever areas I think are essential. To sort of cover my bases. But is that violating the spirit of Sudbury or defeating the purpose of sending them to this type of school in the first place?

I think I'm falling prey to the "Just what the hell do they do all day there anyway?" syndrome.

Age mixing

The ages of the students at HVSS range from 5-18. Like anything else, there are pros and cons to this.

I like that they are mixing with kids of different ages because it means they are coming across people with more varied perspectives on a daily basis and it is truer to real life. I don't hang out with a bunch of 36 year olds every day and I never saw the benefit of grouping kids strictly by age or ability. I was in a lot of honors classes in school but sometimes that just meant that we were doing the material of a grade ahead of us and it wasn't necessarily more challenging. Also you don't learn patience or tolerance or get practice at explaining yourself. When the spartans arranged their fighting units they believed in using both "the reed and the staff", they paired the weaker fighters with the better warriors. It prevented over confidence and everybody would work to the benefit of the whole group rather than competing with each other.

People ask me if I worry about my kids being around 18 year olds(they always focus on that...like it isn't age 5 thru 18 just kids age 5 or 18). My answer is I probably worry less than if they were going to a traditional school and here's why-
1)There is very little privacy or expectation of privacy at the school. People are always poking their heads into rooms, walking around, and checking things out. In a traditional school setting there are very defined times and places where people, including the adults, are expected to be and thus there are plenty of empty places to hide.

2)JC works. It really does, so if you pick on someone they are going to write you up and they are going to be listened to and it's going to be other students who do the listening. Even if you are a staff member or a big kid. In a traditional school its a he said/she said situation with an adult in charge. The defined power structure can be used as a weapon. It is a lot easier to fool a teacher than it is to fool the other kids. There is more room to threaten(nobody will believe you, the other kids will hate you) or be dismissive(don't be such a tattletale, don't be so sensitive).

3)Spending time with people and getting to know them fosters empathy and respect for who they are.

Is it possible that some burgeoning pedophile ends up going to school there or getting on staff? Well of course there is but that really can happen anywhere. Life is not without risks. I think the way sudbury is set up actually makes it safer though. Not totally 100% safe but reasonably so.

The main con that I have observed so far is my children's crash course in profanity. In one week I have had to explain ass, bitch, shit and freakin'. It's not like I've never used an expletive in front of my kids but this was getting to be a bit much so I mentioned something to a staff member.

One concrete example of how well age mixing can work: Last week dodgeball was all the rage. Des and Amelia were loving it! And everyone was playing together- 17 year olds, 10 year olds and the little kids. This, in a time when public schools are banning the game and games like tag because they get too competitive and mean spirited, was a joy to watch.

Play day

Tuesdays are play day at Sudbury. Playday is when kids 2-5 come to school with their parents and play for a couple of hours. Cady and Finn and I go so I can spy on Des and Amelia. No, I jest.

Playday is actually not true to the sudbury experience because there is some structure to it. You can't let three year olds run around unsupervised and then hold them responsible for the havoc they would create. I'd love to see them try to call Cady to JC for something that happened 15 minutes ago, much less the day before. It is a nice way to get them acquainted with the school though and the older kids are so great with them.

It's hard for me because I do want to spy on D and A but I don't want them to act differently just because I'm there. The first time they kept asking my permission to do things and I had to kep reminding them that I was not there in any official mommy capacity. Today when they wanted me to spend time with them away from the playday group I had to keep reminding them that I was there with Cady and she isn't a student there. I also got suckered into buying junk for Des because he was restricted to the lounge and had eaten all of his lunch by 11:30 and I felt bad for him.

I think of them as my little electrons. You can't tell the position and velocity of an electron at the same time so when you fix one you theoretically change the outcome of the other. I want to see what life is like for Des and Amelia at Sudbury but my very presence as an observer changes their behavior. There's something wrong with this analogy but hopefully you understand what I'm saying.

How the hell do people blog every single day?

Law and Order:HVSS

Sudbury has its own justice system, run by the Judicial Committee or JC for short. As I may have said before, I'm too lazy to check previous posts, anybody can write anybody else up for breaking the rules. Staff can write up students, the students can write up staff or eachother. I believe everybody is expected to serve on JC at some point, even the five year olds.

When you are brought up before JC you have the option of pleading guilty or not guilty. If you plead not guilty they have a trial.

Amelia loves, I mean really loves, JC. Everyday she reports on how many JC's she'll be a part of the following day. Who she wrote up, why she was written up, if she was just a witness. She also lets me know about other people's cases and fines they have had to pay. Ray was worried that she was going to get a reputation for being a tattletale or I don't know, rat?, or just someone who is a pain in the ass but I don't think it works that way. I suspect that the kids like having a central place to work their problems out. Especially because the rules are the same for the staff and the students. It makes it a more legitimate process.

Conflict came home the first time Amelia wrote Des up. She didn't single him out, it was part of a larger girls vs. boys complaint and Des wasn't mad at her but he got upset when she started to tell me because he didn't want me to know about it. They concocted a story, they basically told me what happened but left Des out of it, and when they were done I said "Are you telling me the whole story ?" Amelia immediately said no and Des got upset again. I guessed out loud that he had been involved but I told him that I wasn't going to do anything about it. I said "Des, Sudbury has a very good way of handling these things and I will leave it up to them. You can tell me or not tell me what goes on at school but you can't lie to me about it." We also talked about how if they wanted to talk about each other getting in trouble at school that was fine as long as they weren't coming to me for justice.

It's working out pretty well. They tell me when they get written up and what the consequence was. If they want, we talk about where they went wrong or how they could avoid the situation next time. This is probably good practice for the teenage years. I'm trying to train myself to listen and keep my comments neutral unless they ask for my opinion but it is soooo hard sometimes!