After our conversation in class today about the grading system at New Trier and how it is apparently contrary to the mission statement, i was intrigued to find out if there were any schools that had a drastically different approach to education which does help the students become intrinsically motivated to learn. After a quick search, i found an article about New Country School in Henderson, Minnesota that has no classes, no walls, and no teachers. The basic idea of the school is that the students work on projects that are designed to fulfill state requirements for education, but other than a deadline, there is almost no input from teachers. The students will work how they want, some on their own, some in groups, but all with the freedom to do as they will. If they get tired of working on one project, they can switch to math, or reading whenever they want. These projects will eventually be presented to the rest of the school and staff when they are due. According to the article, the students enjoy the relaxed environment, and even though they don't have teachers breathing down their necks to make sure they work, the school performs well above the state average on standardized tests, and 90% of the students go on to college when they are done.
This system would hardly work for New Trier, seeing as New Country has 124 students, and New Trier is closer to 5,000, but it is an interesting approach to education. This way, all the students get to study what they are interested in and want to study, while still meeting state requirements. While New Trier couldn't do this to the same scale, i think that we could definately look at this school and take some of their ideas.
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3 comments:
I really like the like of "independent learning, with guides" that is basis of the school mentioned in the article. It provides a very atypical out look on learning in igh school. Although this is a radically different approach than is given off at the surface of New Trier's educational sturcure, it can be incooperated into the New Trier ciriculum through certain programs that are offered such as Senior Project. The only issue with Senior project is that it is diffucult to do from some high level students becuse you still have to come to school for your AP courses. Is this implying that New Trier still values these mainly extrinsically motavated college credit courses more than the more intrinsically motavated indepent study that senior project allows?
I definately think this shows that New Trier values the AP courses more than senior project; however, I don't see how students can expect to get credit for classes they aren't going to. While senior project seems like it would be a good experience, I think we need something like senior project earlier in our high school careers because by the end of senior year, it's too late to become intrinsicly motivated. I think that just by offering AP classes, high schools are extrinsically motivating students. Rather than signing up for a class just because it's a higher level of learning, the vast majority of kids take APs because they look good for colleges and can even count for college credit. What would happen if New Trier stopped offering AP classes?
That article was really interesting. To think of spending your day like that is truly amazing. This idea from reading the blog seemed too idealistic, to give students such freedom felt unnatural and I expected that most students would not work as hard in such an open environment. However, the article swayed me otherwise. A strict environment isn't for everyone, and this seems to work for those who go there. I do not think I could work in such an environment, I would most likely get distracted. But for those who attend the school, it's pragmatic execution seems to be working ideally, and the idea of no bell does sound appealing. =] Nice find!
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