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So You Want to Come to a Democratic Learning
Community
by Arnold Greenberg
Former Director, Liberty School
Over the years I have had to explain
Liberty School to many prospective students and
parents who, for various reasons, were exploring
changing schools. So I thought I would share
what a typical introductory interview looks like
as a way of explaining my views on Democratic
Education and how it is expressed at Liberty.
I always ask students why they are considering
changing schools and the answers are generally
the same – “I’m bored,” or “I can’t learn the
way they teach,” or “I’m just a number,” or the
parents say, “He’s been diagnosed with ADD.”
It’s interesting to note it’s only boys who come
with that label. I usually respond that what is
called “attention deficit disorder” I call
“attention priority disorder.”
I tell my visitors about a student who left his
other school to come to Liberty and when I asked
him why he was changing, he said something I’ll
never forget. He said, “They don’t realize how
valuable my time is.”
I then ask the young person, “So what are you
interested in? What would you like to learn if
there were no state requirements or anything
like that? What are you passionate about?”
Most of the time, the boy or girl can’t answer
that question and looks at me and at the parent,
shrugs and says, “I don’t know.” I nod at the
familiar response – a symptom of what has been
taken from this person by school. Occasionally,
I meet a young person who rattles off topics
they’re interested in – music, computers,
writing, art, mythology, cars, science, animals,
and I say, “Good, at Liberty you can study
anything you want, anything you’re passionate
about.”
They hear me but really don’t know how to
respond. “Does that scare you?” I ask after a
period of silence.
“Okay, let me explain what we’re about. We call
ourselves a Democratic Learning Community and
all three words are important. By democratic I
mean two things. We’re a democracy – students
have a real voice in running the school. All
proposals are voted on at All School meetings.
We want students to feel ownership. In fact, we
believe the real curriculum of the school is
the school. So we operate as a democracy. A
lot of learning takes place not just in classes
but actually in various governing committees
that help run the school – Community Council,
Curriculum Committee, Admissions Committee,
Computer Tech Committee and Student Board
Representative Committee.
In addition to being a democracy with each
person having a voice, we call our philosophical
approach “democratic education.” By democratic
education we mean – you are in charge of your
education. Your mind and spirit belong to you
and not to the state and not to the school and
not to your parents. Your mind is yours and it’s
unique. No two people interpret or process
information in the same way. We each bring our
own knowing and experiences to the table.” It’s
true that in science and mathematics there are
facts and answers, but what those facts and
answers mean to the student may vary. There is
always a degree of subjectivity that we may
never know about, even though we use the same
words.
Our emphasis is on “how to learn” rather than
“what to learn.” With so much information in the
world to be learned, it is arbitrary what we
think you should know. Our goal is to provide
you with the skills to be a “life long learner.”
And equally important, to become “self-directed”
and not “teacher directed.” We want you to be
the driver of your car with your hands on the
wheel, going where you want to go. Ideally, when
students feel listened to, they are willing to
listen to teacher suggestions and a real give
and take happens – a sharing and partnership
emerges.
I often add that being in charge is not always
easy and quote a cartoon I once saw that is
meant to be a criticism of this approach to
educating. In the cartoon a little girl goes up
to the teacher and says, “Do I really have to do
what I want to today?”
Our response is, “Yes – you have to do what you
want to today and everyday. It’s your life. Here
are some possible options, but you have to
choose.”
Regarding the word “learning” in the context of
“learning community,” this is what I say – we
are serious about rigorous learning. We want our
students to be engaged and not just “hanging
out.” We have a group of passionate teachers who
are here to teach or facilitate learning. We are
not a summer camp or a social welfare agency or
a therapeutic center. We have an Admissions
Committee made up of students and teachers who
are committed to making sure we have students
who will meet our criteria of “mutual benefit.”
That means, the student is benefiting from being
here and is benefiting the community by actively
pursuing an education – not just using Liberty
because they need to be in some school.
In our second year, students came up with the
policy that applicants get admitted for a
two-month trial period before they actually get
accepted. At the student’s two-month hearing
with the Admissions Committee we attempt to
determine whether or not the criterion of
“mutual benefit” is being met. Most of the time
it is, but each year at least one student is not
accepted – either for being too disruptive, that
is, interfering with the rights of others to
learn, not going to classes they’ve signed up
for, a lackadaisical attitude, being frequently
late, absent, unprepared, not caring. We say to
that person, “Come back when you’re ready to be
a student.”
My observation is that schools that do not
maintain expectations for engaged learning, end
up with a lot of students hanging out but not
doing much and affecting the energy of the
school. In those circumstances the good students
leave and the good teachers leave. So, we have
decided to be a “serious learning community” and
do the best we can to maintain that tone.
The third word, “community,” is equally
important. It is easy to call
yourself a community and another thing to
actually be one. In a healthy community there is
genuine concern and caring for the school and
for each other. We have no outside custodian who
comes in to clean the school. The students clean
every day. For many years, each Advisory was
responsible for an area of the school. Now an
Advisory of eight to 12 students is responsible
to clean the school for a week and it rotates
throughout the year. At All School Meetings one
of the agenda items is always “Recognitions”
where we recognize a student, teacher, parent or
group who did something that deserves
recognition and our applause. The important
thing is having a sense of belonging to a place
that means something to you – a place that is
both relaxed and rigorous. So many visitors have
said they feel the excitement and happiness as
soon as they arrive and that it doesn’t feel
like other schools.
I go on to explain that we have an “open campus”
– that students make their own schedules and
only have to be here when they have classes or
other commitments. The open campus is actually
an important part of the curriculum and actually
the best preparation for college and for life.
We have no bells. Students have to learn to
manage their time. I add that nowhere else in
the world do bells ring – except in schools,
factories and prisons.
Parents always ask, “But will my child be ready
for college if you don’t give grades?” I explain
that we are structured like a college with
college-like expectations to participate in
discussions, present papers or projects. We give
thorough written evaluations and students write
self-evaluations that give students and colleges
much more information than a grade or a number.
I emphasize again that our structure teaches
students to manage their time – something most
high schools do not do.
I go on to mention that we do nothing to prepare
students for the state tests in 11th grade and
our students always score among the highest in
the state. The important thing to remember
though is that the tests do not measure the most
important things being learned at the school –
how to think, how to learn, how to find, use and
present information and, equally important,
learning who they are, what they believe in,
what they want and don’t want – a sense of self.
One of the major differences between our
approach to learning and the way more
traditional schools operate is based on our
understanding of how people actually learn. The
traditional approach emphasizes memorizing
information that is presented to the student by
a teacher, usually in a lecture or through a
textbook. Students are then expected to
demonstrate what they have learned by
reproducing it on a test. In contrast, our
classes are “discussion based” with an emphasis
on demonstrating understanding through dialogue
with each other, reflective journals, research
papers or projects which are presented to the
other students and teacher. Students are sharing
information, sharing ideas and interpretations,
discovering meaning and “constructing” their
knowledge through their learning experiences.
Several years ago we received a five-year
$400,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation that was administered in Maine
through the Great Maine Schools Project (GMSP).
Bill Gates had said, “The American High School
is obsolete,” and the goal of granting this
money to ten schools in Maine was to “reinvent
the American High School.” Their research
indicated that 3500 students dropped out of
school every day. The request for proposals
wanted new innovative ideas that would provide
“a personalized education,” have students feel
connected to their communities, have strong
advisories, and enable students to be prepared
for college without remediation. I didn’t think
we would get the grant because we were already
doing much of what they said they wanted schools
to be in five years. But we were told that they
were looking for Liberty to show the way.
After the first year, we realized that we were
not on the same page in a number of critical
areas. Within a year or so, the emphasis of GMSP
shifted and became primarily “everyone college
ready without remediation,” and the most
important aspect became a rigorous “core
curriculum” that included four years of science
and math. At our end of the year evaluations
with GMSP, we stated that we believed students
should take time off between high school and
college, if they chose, and that a prescribed
core curriculum was in contradiction to their
previously touted goal of a “personalized
curriculum.” We believed that students are in
charge of their education and should determine
their own goals. We were criticized for not
encouraging students to go right on to college.
We were also criticized for not having
sequential continuity in our courses, that
teachers were offering a wide array of courses
based on teachers’ interests and that we were
all “rugged individualists” going off in our own
directions with no coherent curriculum.
We defended our approach as process oriented,
emphasizing how to think not what to think. The
content of the courses was important more as a
“means” to our emphasis on how to learn not
what to learn. We assumed that students
would learn both the content and skills better
if they had a choice of courses. Our funding
from the Gates grant was discontinued after
three years. As a faculty, we saw the grant as a
mixed blessing. We benefited from being able to
purchase a bus, get media equipment,
professional theater lights, but we did not want
to compromise our philosophy and that ultimately
caused us to lose the grant.
I now describe to the prospective student a new
initiative we’ve recently introduced called
Project Based Learning – that after ten years,
we were “reinventing ourselves.” For years we
had been looking for a way to open up the
schedule and give students more uninterrupted
time to pursue self-initiated projects. We found
our school day was still fragmented around
periods and subject matter disciplines. Students
now have their own workstations with a computer.
It’s like a tiny office where they can keep
their things and work. We use an internet-based
system called Project Foundry where students can
write project proposals to their advisor, and
negotiate and send a daily journal of progress.
Advisors can respond and keep track of each
student’s work.
Project Based Learning is even more liberating
than our previous
approach because students can actually study
anything they want and be in constant contact
with their advisor. Another dimension of Project
Based is Problem Based Learning in which
students either individually or collaboratively
work on a problem that does not have an easy
solution. It can be a social, environmental,
science or other problem and is different than a
project. A project generally has a definite goal
– write a paper, design a web-site, build a
model, make a poster. But a problem is much more
open ended and demands analysis of the roots of
a problem and various strategies of how to
approach the issues as part of coming up with
solutions. I’m hoping that we continue to move
in the direction of Problem Based Learning.
I add that our implementation of Project Based
Learning has not been as successful as we had
hoped and that it may have been too radical a
departure from how we operated in the past and
that students miss the exciting courses we
offered. Some big mistakes were made in this
shift. The whole process is being evaluated and
ultimately, I believe with the strong student
voice we have here, we will find a way that
works for us.
Regarding our structure, we are often described
as “unstructured” when in reality we are very
structured but in a way that allows maximum
freedom. We’re structured more like a college
and in fact refer to ourselves as “a college for
high school students.” In addition to being
structured like a college, we are also
structured more like the 21st Century workplace
where people work on projects or problems either
individually or collaboratively, participate in
various seminars, or take foundation classes in
mathematics, science, and foreign language. The
structure is actually a more internal structure
where students and teachers are agreeing when to
meet and are managing their own time.
That’s pretty much all I have to say. Most
parents say, “Why wasn’t this school around when
I was a student?”
The students usually say, “I never thought a
school could be like this.”
I nod and ask, “So do you want to apply?” And
that’s it.
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