Monday, March 23, 2009

Hilarious follow up to the anecdotal evidence

So I got to have a conversation with my friend's cousin about his cousins. Turns out that they did live on a commune but ended up going to a well known progressive boarding school. I googled it and checked out their website. Now I don't know what the cost was 30 years ago but right now it's 40,000 a year for boarders and 27,000 for day students. But they are "committed to socioeconomic diversity" and in fact even full paying students are subsidized because tuition only covers 75% of of their expenses. That would make me feel so much better knowing that my 40,000 was a bargain!

The school does have many similarities to Sudbury in that it encourages the students to participate in the running of the school but doesn't seem to take it as far as Sudbury does. However they must do two independent classes of their own design and attend regular classes and have grades and all of that. This phrase I found somewhat chilling "Life at_______ is structured such that students spend almost every waking hour involved in learning of one kind or another." Really? Every waking hour?

I'll have to own up and tell my friend that these success stories are the product of a more conventional type of education than she thought. I'm just too honest.

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