Ben delivered a book report on Frances Yates's The Art of Memory.
Members practiced the list they learned last month. Most people remembered most or all of the list.
The book turned out to be less exciting that we had hoped. Yates was primarily interested in the transmission of particular Greek and Roman texts on memorization through the ages. We had hoped to find more information on the practice of the arts of memory. There was some tantalizing information about the use of the arts in Medieval Occult circles and new forms of knowledge/power being created by the architectural construction of mnemonic knowledge, but not much.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
RERC research on memory (August 2009)
Malcolm and Ben hosted a workshop on the topic of Memory in which we memorized a list of 32 unrelated words. From the first meeting of RERC we wanted to look at alternative and historical educational practices and thought that memory might provide a good example of a skill and technique we no longer learn or even use.
Malcolm presented a method described in Frances Yates's classic on the topic, The Art of Memory, called the architecture of memory. It is described as the preferred technique of orators in the Greek Polis and Roman Senate, at a time when speeches were a central component of public and political life. The method requires that a person memorize the layout of a building and is able to visualize walking through it's rooms. In each room the person defines specific places where the signs or symbols of the object or idea that was to be remembered could be placed. Once the objects or ideas were placed in their rooms the person merely had to walk through the rooms to find the objects that had been placed there.
The members of RERC who chose to use this technique mostly used their childhood homes or another building that was intimately familiar to them.
Ben presented a method described as a linking mechanism that used visualization to combine two works in a single memory, instead of remembering each word individually. For example, instead of remembering bee and New York separately you would visualize a bee flying down 5th Avenue.
As it turned out, both methods depended heavily on the visual sense. According to Yates and other scholars, it is the most powerful sense and thus is most effective for the purpose of memorization.
Most of us were able to remember the list after several hours of conversation and even months later we could recall large sections of it.
Malcolm presented a method described in Frances Yates's classic on the topic, The Art of Memory, called the architecture of memory. It is described as the preferred technique of orators in the Greek Polis and Roman Senate, at a time when speeches were a central component of public and political life. The method requires that a person memorize the layout of a building and is able to visualize walking through it's rooms. In each room the person defines specific places where the signs or symbols of the object or idea that was to be remembered could be placed. Once the objects or ideas were placed in their rooms the person merely had to walk through the rooms to find the objects that had been placed there.
The members of RERC who chose to use this technique mostly used their childhood homes or another building that was intimately familiar to them.
Ben presented a method described as a linking mechanism that used visualization to combine two works in a single memory, instead of remembering each word individually. For example, instead of remembering bee and New York separately you would visualize a bee flying down 5th Avenue.
As it turned out, both methods depended heavily on the visual sense. According to Yates and other scholars, it is the most powerful sense and thus is most effective for the purpose of memorization.
Most of us were able to remember the list after several hours of conversation and even months later we could recall large sections of it.
Speaker series: Velvet and Jonah (June 20th 2009)
Velvet and Jonah Schien joined us today.
They are both educators and have unique experience in alternative education.
Velvet is currently hired to teach at the Dufferin Grove Alternative School which is to open in September 2009.
Jonah grew up and taught at The School House, an alternative school run out of his family's home.
We learned a lot. We listened to their stories and discussed the sustainability of alternative schools.
They are both educators and have unique experience in alternative education.
Velvet is currently hired to teach at the Dufferin Grove Alternative School which is to open in September 2009.
Jonah grew up and taught at The School House, an alternative school run out of his family's home.
We learned a lot. We listened to their stories and discussed the sustainability of alternative schools.
RERC bbq at David's rich friends' pad (May 17th 2009)
We met. We socialized. Too much beer and sunshine to discuss anything linear.
The Edible Schoolyard and Fransico Ferrer's Escuela Moderna (April 26th 2009)
Monique on the Edible Schoolyard and Gabe on Francisco Ferrer.
I. The Edible Schoolyard
The Edible Schoolyard is an interactive garden and kitchen classroom that was founded at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, California in 1995 by the chef and food activist Alice Waters. Edible Schoolyard programs also operate at Samuel J. Green and Arthur Ashe Charter Schools in New Orleans (since 2006); at Monte del Sol Charter School, Santa Fe, New Mexico (since 2007); at Greensboro Children’s Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina; at the Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco (Willie Mays Clubhouse at Hunters Point) in San Francisco, California; and a new Edible Schoolyard is under construction at P.S. 216 in Brooklyn (due to open in Fall 2010).
(all content below compiled from the Edible Schoolyard website: http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/)
The mission of the Edible Schoolyard is to create and sustain an organic garden and landscape that is wholly integrated into the school’s curriculum, culture and food program. Teachers and dedicated garden staff work together to link garden experiences with students’ core subject lessons (science, social studies, language, and math) for integrated experiential learning. ESY involves students in all aspects of farming the garden and preparing, serving and eating food as a means of awakening their senses and encouraging awareness and appreciation of the transformative values of nourishment, community and stewardship of the land. Sample lesson plans are available on the ESY website.
The Edible Schoolyard provides services to the wider community, including summer training programs, teacher institutes and seasonal events and celebrations.
Guiding Principles
The following principles guide the Edible Schoolyard program:
*Participatory: Classes in the kitchen and garden model sustainable practices and engage children in hands-on lessons that connect food, health and the environment.
* Integrated: The program is woven into the academic curriculum, linking to studies in history, math, science and the humanities.
* Shared: ESY creates opportunities for children to share a family-style meal together with teachers and adult volunteers.
* Delicious: The ESY serves only food that is local, organic, seasonal and tasty.
* Beautiful: Our program environment is designed to inspire personal and social responsibility, and to serve as a model for other schools.
Objectives
Students who participate in the Edible Schoolyard program learn about the connection between their everyday food choices and the health of the community, the environment, and themselves. These lessons foster sound nutritional practice, responsible food choices, and environmental stewardship.
Students learn about:
Cycles, seasonality, and change; Sustainability; Connectedness to land, school, and community; Environmental and personal impact of food choices; Wellness through knowledge of healthy choices; The place of beauty, innovation, experimentation and observation in their education.
Some of the things growing at the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley:
tea beds, a herb garden, shitake, oyster and portobello mushrooms, Seville oranges, kiwis, winter squash, thirteen varieties of heirloom shelling beans, wheat, barley, corn, amaranth, quinoa, millet, flax, olives, apples, mache, arugula, mustards, kale, bok choi, carrots, turnips, beets, garlic, fava beans, potatoes, plums, ground cherries, blackcurrants, hazelnuts, figs, raspberries, edible bamboo, hibiscus, jasmine, passionflower, chayote, corn, blackberries, gourds, tomatoes, onions, leeks, peppers, broccoli, collard greens, pears, asparagus, loquat, chives, mulberries, grapes, cape gooseberries, peas.
Funding for the Edible Schoolyard programs comes from the Chez Panisse Foundation (started by Alice Waters in 1997), whose advisory board includes master foragers, sustainable agriculture pioneers, public education activists, sociologists, event planners, former senators as well as Mikhail Baryshnikov, Wendell Berry, Eleanor Coppola, Frances Moore Lappé, Bette Midler and Michael Pollan, amongst others. The 2007 operating budget for the Foundation was around $1,300,000.
A few of the things we discussed at our RERC meeting were:
- If the model for Edible Schoolyards depends heavily on outside support, how can projects inspired by its programming be implemented in other cash-starved districts where individuals may not have the “connections” of the Foundation’s influential Board and Advisors?
- What are the implications of private foundations funding such innovative programs in public schools?
- Who is doing similar things independently or on a smaller scale? What’s happening in Canada?
- We were surprised that there were few mentions of the arts on the pages of the Edible Schoolyard and thought that linking the garden/kitchen programming with visual, performing and language arts curriculums would be both obvious and amazing
For further reading, visit:
http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/
http://www.esynola.org/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/dining/20edible.html
II. Francisco Ferrer and the Modern Schools movement.
Francisco Ferrer's Escuela Moderna, founded in 1901 in Barcelona, was a "school of emancipation" that aimed to combine popular education and social activism. It was at once a school for children, an adult education centre, a radical publication house, and a center for revolutionary activity. While the first Escuela Moderna only lasted a few short years, hundreds of other schools were built on this model, in Spain and around the world.
Ferrer drew on the rich 18th and 19th-century tradition of free schools, which hoped to liberate education from religious dogmatism and political domination. Free schools promoted secular knowledge and the cause of science, as well as knowledge of society and history. Freedom in education also meant freedom from the authority of the teacher, and a shift from rote learning to self-directed study. As William Godwin wrote, capturing this enlightened educational philosophy: "No creature in human form will be expected to learn anything but because he desires it and has some conception of its utility and value."
Ferrer's Escuela Moderna combined this student-directed philosophy with a radical political program aimed at the emancipation of Spanish workers, who had few educational opportunities outside church-run schools. The school eliminated rewards and punishments, and made no effort to enforce classroom discipline. Practical knowledge was valued over book-learning, and teachers organized visits to factories, laboratories, museums and parks, as well as to the surrounding hills and seashore. The worker-parents of the young students were encouraged to attend lectures at the school, and the school's publishing house commissioned textbooks from some of the finest scientific minds of Europe.
Classrooms were not segregated by sex — a particularly scandalous move in the eyes of church and state authorities.
Teachers at the Escuela Moderna may have let the students' interests guide their learning, but they promoted specific social values: liberty, equality, social justice, brotherhood, anti-militarism and sympathy with the downtrodden and oppressed. The school saw itself (in the words of historian Paul Avrich) as both "an instrument of self-development and a lever of social regeneration." Ferrer and his radical teachers thought they were creating a new, more equal society in embryo. In their eyes, the school was both an enclave of freedom and a vehicle for social transformation.
The Spanish government naturally saw the Escuela Moderna as a hotbed of sedition, and closed the school in 1906. Ferrer himself was executed on a trumped-up charge a few years later.
The Escuela Moderna gave birth to the International League for the Rational Education of Children, founded in 1908 before Ferrer's death. A journal, L'École Renové, was also started to spread Ferrer's libertarian ideas. "Modern Schools" inspired by the Escuela Moderna began to spring up across Spain, Europe, and the Americas. Often tied to anarchist values and movements, these schools have inspired and engaged radical educators for more than a hundred years.
At RERC's meeting on April 26th, we discussed Ferrer's legacy, and wondered whether we still shared some of his assumptions and convictions about human nature, education, philosophy and politics. We also wondered: "What does it mean to educate children to be free in an unfree society?"
For more information on the Modern School Movement, check out:
Paul Avrich, The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States.
http://www.akpress.org/2004/items/modernschoolmovement
I. The Edible Schoolyard
The Edible Schoolyard is an interactive garden and kitchen classroom that was founded at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, California in 1995 by the chef and food activist Alice Waters. Edible Schoolyard programs also operate at Samuel J. Green and Arthur Ashe Charter Schools in New Orleans (since 2006); at Monte del Sol Charter School, Santa Fe, New Mexico (since 2007); at Greensboro Children’s Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina; at the Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco (Willie Mays Clubhouse at Hunters Point) in San Francisco, California; and a new Edible Schoolyard is under construction at P.S. 216 in Brooklyn (due to open in Fall 2010).(all content below compiled from the Edible Schoolyard website: http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/)
The Edible Schoolyard provides services to the wider community, including summer training programs, teacher institutes and seasonal events and celebrations.
Guiding Principles
The following principles guide the Edible Schoolyard program:
*Participatory: Classes in the kitchen and garden model sustainable practices and engage children in hands-on lessons that connect food, health and the environment.
* Integrated: The program is woven into the academic curriculum, linking to studies in history, math, science and the humanities.
* Shared: ESY creates opportunities for children to share a family-style meal together with teachers and adult volunteers.
* Delicious: The ESY serves only food that is local, organic, seasonal and tasty.
* Beautiful: Our program environment is designed to inspire personal and social responsibility, and to serve as a model for other schools.
Objectives
Students who participate in the Edible Schoolyard program learn about the connection between their everyday food choices and the health of the community, the environment, and themselves. These lessons foster sound nutritional practice, responsible food choices, and environmental stewardship.
Students learn about:
Cycles, seasonality, and change; Sustainability; Connectedness to land, school, and community; Environmental and personal impact of food choices; Wellness through knowledge of healthy choices; The place of beauty, innovation, experimentation and observation in their education.
Some of the things growing at the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley:
tea beds, a herb garden, shitake, oyster and portobello mushrooms, Seville oranges, kiwis, winter squash, thirteen varieties of heirloom shelling beans, wheat, barley, corn, amaranth, quinoa, millet, flax, olives, apples, mache, arugula, mustards, kale, bok choi, carrots, turnips, beets, garlic, fava beans, potatoes, plums, ground cherries, blackcurrants, hazelnuts, figs, raspberries, edible bamboo, hibiscus, jasmine, passionflower, chayote, corn, blackberries, gourds, tomatoes, onions, leeks, peppers, broccoli, collard greens, pears, asparagus, loquat, chives, mulberries, grapes, cape gooseberries, peas.
Funding for the Edible Schoolyard programs comes from the Chez Panisse Foundation (started by Alice Waters in 1997), whose advisory board includes master foragers, sustainable agriculture pioneers, public education activists, sociologists, event planners, former senators as well as Mikhail Baryshnikov, Wendell Berry, Eleanor Coppola, Frances Moore Lappé, Bette Midler and Michael Pollan, amongst others. The 2007 operating budget for the Foundation was around $1,300,000.
A few of the things we discussed at our RERC meeting were:
- If the model for Edible Schoolyards depends heavily on outside support, how can projects inspired by its programming be implemented in other cash-starved districts where individuals may not have the “connections” of the Foundation’s influential Board and Advisors?
- What are the implications of private foundations funding such innovative programs in public schools?
- Who is doing similar things independently or on a smaller scale? What’s happening in Canada?
- We were surprised that there were few mentions of the arts on the pages of the Edible Schoolyard and thought that linking the garden/kitchen programming with visual, performing and language arts curriculums would be both obvious and amazing
For further reading, visit:
http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/
http://www.esynola.org/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/dining/20edible.html
II. Francisco Ferrer and the Modern Schools movement.
Francisco Ferrer's Escuela Moderna, founded in 1901 in Barcelona, was a "school of emancipation" that aimed to combine popular education and social activism. It was at once a school for children, an adult education centre, a radical publication house, and a center for revolutionary activity. While the first Escuela Moderna only lasted a few short years, hundreds of other schools were built on this model, in Spain and around the world.Ferrer drew on the rich 18th and 19th-century tradition of free schools, which hoped to liberate education from religious dogmatism and political domination. Free schools promoted secular knowledge and the cause of science, as well as knowledge of society and history. Freedom in education also meant freedom from the authority of the teacher, and a shift from rote learning to self-directed study. As William Godwin wrote, capturing this enlightened educational philosophy: "No creature in human form will be expected to learn anything but because he desires it and has some conception of its utility and value."
Ferrer's Escuela Moderna combined this student-directed philosophy with a radical political program aimed at the emancipation of Spanish workers, who had few educational opportunities outside church-run schools. The school eliminated rewards and punishments, and made no effort to enforce classroom discipline. Practical knowledge was valued over book-learning, and teachers organized visits to factories, laboratories, museums and parks, as well as to the surrounding hills and seashore. The worker-parents of the young students were encouraged to attend lectures at the school, and the school's publishing house commissioned textbooks from some of the finest scientific minds of Europe.
Classrooms were not segregated by sex — a particularly scandalous move in the eyes of church and state authorities.
Teachers at the Escuela Moderna may have let the students' interests guide their learning, but they promoted specific social values: liberty, equality, social justice, brotherhood, anti-militarism and sympathy with the downtrodden and oppressed. The school saw itself (in the words of historian Paul Avrich) as both "an instrument of self-development and a lever of social regeneration." Ferrer and his radical teachers thought they were creating a new, more equal society in embryo. In their eyes, the school was both an enclave of freedom and a vehicle for social transformation.
The Spanish government naturally saw the Escuela Moderna as a hotbed of sedition, and closed the school in 1906. Ferrer himself was executed on a trumped-up charge a few years later.
The Escuela Moderna gave birth to the International League for the Rational Education of Children, founded in 1908 before Ferrer's death. A journal, L'École Renové, was also started to spread Ferrer's libertarian ideas. "Modern Schools" inspired by the Escuela Moderna began to spring up across Spain, Europe, and the Americas. Often tied to anarchist values and movements, these schools have inspired and engaged radical educators for more than a hundred years.At RERC's meeting on April 26th, we discussed Ferrer's legacy, and wondered whether we still shared some of his assumptions and convictions about human nature, education, philosophy and politics. We also wondered: "What does it mean to educate children to be free in an unfree society?"
For more information on the Modern School Movement, check out:
Paul Avrich, The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States.
http://www.akpress.org/2004/items/modernschoolmovement
Alternative school presentations continue (April 5th 2009)
We continue with our presentations.
David presented on the Sudbury School and Ben spoke about the Worker's Educational Association Adult Education.
I. Sudbury School
II. Worker's Educational Association Adult Education
David presented on the Sudbury School and Ben spoke about the Worker's Educational Association Adult Education.
I. Sudbury School
II. Worker's Educational Association Adult Education
RERC's speaker series: Tiffany from Evergreen (March 22nd, 2009)
March 22, 2009 David’s House
Attending: Ben, Monique, David, Amber, Malcolm, Gabriel and Deanna
Absent: Nicole
Today:
I. Guest Speaker: Tiffany, who went to Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington
II. Deanna's presentation on Central Park East Secondary School
Today we looked at Central Park East Secondary School in Harlem, New York. This was a small alternative school in the public system that Deborah Meier founded in 1985.
Central Park East Secondary School had a graduation rate of 90% compared to the city average of 55%. Of those graduates, between 85% and 95% went on to post-secondary education.
Central Park East was unique in the public system for a number of reasons, especially for its size, type of assessment and community involvement. Central Park East had 550 students from grade 7 to 12 compared to the New York average of 1000 at that time. The pedagogical approach emphasized group work, critical thinking and teachers did not use standard board curriculum. The staff and administration were against standardized testing. Testing was infrequent and students were assessed on their ability to complete portfolios in 14 different subject areas, with 7 related to compulsory subjects of Math, Science and Technology, History, Literature, Ethics and Social Issues, Media. Community involvement was very important at Central Park East with students working a minimum of 3 hours a week in a wide range of community service activities.
A Hundred Times More Rewarding: Learning by Doing, Not Memorizing
One student's review on the benefits of project-based learning.
by Alexis Carrero
http://www.edutopia.org/hundred-times-more-rewarding
What came to us during our discussion about Central Park East is that this is really a story about the arc of sustainability. How does an alternative school stay true to its vision and remain effective under the pressures of a public system? The Central Park East Secondary School that operates today has strayed far from the practices that led the Clinton Administration to name it as one of the five model urban high schools in 1997.
Meier documented her story and experience at Central Park East Secondary School in The Power of their Ideas: Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem (1995) . Her other books include, Will Standards Save Public Education? (2000); In Schools We Trust: Creating Communities of Learning in an Era of Testing and Standardization (2002); with Ted and Nancy Sizer, Keeping School: Letters to Families from Principals of Two Small Schools (2004); and co-edited with George Wood, Many Children Left Behind (2004), all published by Beacon Press.
Fredrick Wiseman made a documentary about Central Park East Secondary School in 1994 called High School II. It was viewed as "a study in social mobility." This was a follow-up to his 1968 documentary High School that was viewed as "scenes of rigid authoritarianism."
Alternative School Presentations Begin (February 21 2009)
Presentations begin.
Alternative schools of the past have been briefly researched.
Each member has chosen a school of interest. Today Nicole will present Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School, Malcolm will present Black Mountain College and Amber will present Deep Springs.
I. Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School
Nicole's research is based on a visit to this school and information derived from the Toronto Catholic District School Board's website for the school.
This school is unique for the city of Toronto in that students create their own schedules. They choose the classes they want to attend on a daily basis taking complete control of their schedules. They are not "expected" to attend class but are given 2 years to meet their grade level requirements. Discussions arose when members of the collective wondered if students without internal motivators would succeed in this environment.
II. Black Mountain College
March 14, 2009
Black Mountain College, 1933—1956
Presentation emphasized democratic structure of college as a whole as well as in individual classrooms. No legal controls from outside; owned and administered by faculty; student officers participated in meetings and decision making for college.
Students responsible for their own education. No distinction between curriculum and extracurricular activities; holistic approach; living, eating and sleeping on campus; students took part in labour and farm work, produced food.
Anti-academic, pro-experimentation, initially no grades.
Josef Albers aimed for highly structured, anti-academic classes, with strong experimentation.
Times changed: growth of administrative body; by 1949 students wanted degrees, students were becoming more conservative and wanted more conventional college structure that conformed to college system.
Monetary problems forced closure in 1956.
Discussed major figures: John Andrew Rice, Josef Albers and Charles Olson.
________________________________________________________________________
Black Mountain College : experiment in art
edited by Vincent Katz ; with essays by Martin Brody [et al]. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002.
The Arts at Black Mountain College
Mary Emma Harris. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987.
Black Mountain College: sprouted seeds: an anthology of personal accounts
ed. Mervin Lane. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1990.
Josef Albers: to open eyes: the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College, and Yale.
Frederick A. Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz. London: Phaidon, 2006.
Great archive of scanned documents from Black Mountain College in Drunken Boat (online journal of art and literature): www.drunkenboat.com/db10/03bla/
III. Deep Springs.
Amber presented on Deep Springs, a liberal arts college in California. Here’s a bit of information about Deep Springs. She found it on the school’s website. This image is also from the school's website and shows the upper ranch.
- 26 students maximum, all are male, and everyone gets a full scholarship; 2 years
- school’s campus includes an alfalfa farm and a cattle ranch
- ground rules: no drugs or alcohol, students not allowed to leave campus except for one term out of twelve
- three pillars of the school are academics, labour, and self-governance (“in order to help students prepare themselves for lives of service to humanity”)
- ACADEMICS: small, rigorous, seminar-like classes; the two requisite courses are public speaking and composition; all students must be proficient in oral and written expression
- LABOUR: each student holds a different position per term and puts in approximately 20 hours per week working; labour positions include the butcher, student cook, student librarian, gardener, student cowboy
- SELF-GOVERNANCE: various committees meet to decide on the students who attend the school, what teachers will teach there, and what courses will be taught; “self-governance teaches us the benefits and limitations of a democratic process”; idea of beneficial ownership; students can and do censure, suspend, or expel students from the school
What sticks out to me about Deep Springs is the idea of self-governance (which I like), the isolation of the students from the rest of society; and that it’s all male. I also get the sense that it’s a bit elitist.
A friend of mine attended Deep Springs in the 1990s. After doing some initial research on the website, I called him up and asked him some questions. Here are some of the things he told me:
- he confirmed the elitism I picked up on (he believes you could put anyone in Deep Springs and they would succeed; it has to do with expectations and environment; but that’s definitely not the theory of the school)
- sex was deeply repressed, and there is a lot of debate around co-education (there is this idea that the school would fall apart because people would be too busy and distracted having sex with each other)
- the school holds the theory that labour is educational (but the farm doesn’t turn a profit and the school has a ranch in the middle of the desert, so in a sense it’s busy work)
- the school’s trustees are mostly former students and so are a lot of the big donors to the school; so they have a lot of power over what happens (they might say they’ll pull their money out if the school goes co-ed)
- students are so busy working and studying they don’t have much free time
- what was cool and educational was that students figured out how to do stuff on their own; they’re definitely open to trying anything
- he changed his general life trajectory (he became significantly more ambitious in terms of what he thought he could do in his life); but a lot of people enter with that sense of ambition and elitism
- some of the good stuff about Deep Springs: learning how to problem solve, learning how to think about his relationship to others and to the government, and being able to talk about ideas all the time
- there’s not a lot of diversity within the student body; it’s pretty homogenous; he believes there are some really problematic reasons for that (one reason is that DS is looking for the smartest people and they are the people who have all the educational advantages, and a person who isn’t of that background – if he is in a position to choose between Harvard and Deep Springs – he’ll probably go to Harvard)
- overall, he thinks it was pretty suspect in every dimension, but he did get a lot out of the school
RERC was particularly intrigued by the mode of self-governance and also by the strange boys club/lost boys vibe of Deep Springs. Most or all of us felt that the school should be co-ed. We all liked the idea of student cowboys. We liked some of the theories and practices of the school.
Alternative schools of the past have been briefly researched.
Each member has chosen a school of interest. Today Nicole will present Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School, Malcolm will present Black Mountain College and Amber will present Deep Springs.
I. Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School
Nicole's research is based on a visit to this school and information derived from the Toronto Catholic District School Board's website for the school.
This school is unique for the city of Toronto in that students create their own schedules. They choose the classes they want to attend on a daily basis taking complete control of their schedules. They are not "expected" to attend class but are given 2 years to meet their grade level requirements. Discussions arose when members of the collective wondered if students without internal motivators would succeed in this environment.
II. Black Mountain College
March 14, 2009
Black Mountain College, 1933—1956
Presentation emphasized democratic structure of college as a whole as well as in individual classrooms. No legal controls from outside; owned and administered by faculty; student officers participated in meetings and decision making for college.
Students responsible for their own education. No distinction between curriculum and extracurricular activities; holistic approach; living, eating and sleeping on campus; students took part in labour and farm work, produced food.
Anti-academic, pro-experimentation, initially no grades.
Josef Albers aimed for highly structured, anti-academic classes, with strong experimentation.
Times changed: growth of administrative body; by 1949 students wanted degrees, students were becoming more conservative and wanted more conventional college structure that conformed to college system.
Monetary problems forced closure in 1956.
Discussed major figures: John Andrew Rice, Josef Albers and Charles Olson.
________________________________________________________________________
Black Mountain College : experiment in art
edited by Vincent Katz ; with essays by Martin Brody [et al]. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002.
The Arts at Black Mountain College
Mary Emma Harris. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987.
Black Mountain College: sprouted seeds: an anthology of personal accounts
ed. Mervin Lane. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1990.
Josef Albers: to open eyes: the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College, and Yale.
Frederick A. Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz. London: Phaidon, 2006.
Great archive of scanned documents from Black Mountain College in Drunken Boat (online journal of art and literature): www.drunkenboat.com/db10/03bla/
III. Deep Springs.
Amber presented on Deep Springs, a liberal arts college in California. Here’s a bit of information about Deep Springs. She found it on the school’s website. This image is also from the school's website and shows the upper ranch.
- school’s campus includes an alfalfa farm and a cattle ranch
- ground rules: no drugs or alcohol, students not allowed to leave campus except for one term out of twelve
- three pillars of the school are academics, labour, and self-governance (“in order to help students prepare themselves for lives of service to humanity”)
- ACADEMICS: small, rigorous, seminar-like classes; the two requisite courses are public speaking and composition; all students must be proficient in oral and written expression
- LABOUR: each student holds a different position per term and puts in approximately 20 hours per week working; labour positions include the butcher, student cook, student librarian, gardener, student cowboy
- SELF-GOVERNANCE: various committees meet to decide on the students who attend the school, what teachers will teach there, and what courses will be taught; “self-governance teaches us the benefits and limitations of a democratic process”; idea of beneficial ownership; students can and do censure, suspend, or expel students from the school
What sticks out to me about Deep Springs is the idea of self-governance (which I like), the isolation of the students from the rest of society; and that it’s all male. I also get the sense that it’s a bit elitist.
A friend of mine attended Deep Springs in the 1990s. After doing some initial research on the website, I called him up and asked him some questions. Here are some of the things he told me:
- he confirmed the elitism I picked up on (he believes you could put anyone in Deep Springs and they would succeed; it has to do with expectations and environment; but that’s definitely not the theory of the school)
- sex was deeply repressed, and there is a lot of debate around co-education (there is this idea that the school would fall apart because people would be too busy and distracted having sex with each other)
- the school holds the theory that labour is educational (but the farm doesn’t turn a profit and the school has a ranch in the middle of the desert, so in a sense it’s busy work)
- the school’s trustees are mostly former students and so are a lot of the big donors to the school; so they have a lot of power over what happens (they might say they’ll pull their money out if the school goes co-ed)
- students are so busy working and studying they don’t have much free time
- what was cool and educational was that students figured out how to do stuff on their own; they’re definitely open to trying anything
- he changed his general life trajectory (he became significantly more ambitious in terms of what he thought he could do in his life); but a lot of people enter with that sense of ambition and elitism
- some of the good stuff about Deep Springs: learning how to problem solve, learning how to think about his relationship to others and to the government, and being able to talk about ideas all the time
- there’s not a lot of diversity within the student body; it’s pretty homogenous; he believes there are some really problematic reasons for that (one reason is that DS is looking for the smartest people and they are the people who have all the educational advantages, and a person who isn’t of that background – if he is in a position to choose between Harvard and Deep Springs – he’ll probably go to Harvard)
- overall, he thinks it was pretty suspect in every dimension, but he did get a lot out of the school
RERC was particularly intrigued by the mode of self-governance and also by the strange boys club/lost boys vibe of Deep Springs. Most or all of us felt that the school should be co-ed. We all liked the idea of student cowboys. We liked some of the theories and practices of the school.
RERC's first meeting (January 24th 2009)
Eight educators answered Amber's email:
Gabe, Ben, Monique, Deanna, Nicole, David, Malcolm and Amber.
We ate baked goods and sat where we could in Amber & Malcolm's living room. For 2 hours we dreamed about what we could research, discuss and learn about as part of this collective.
We came up with a list of topics that were of interest. Here they are:
Amber
Gabe, Ben, Monique, Deanna, Nicole, David, Malcolm and Amber.
We ate baked goods and sat where we could in Amber & Malcolm's living room. For 2 hours we dreamed about what we could research, discuss and learn about as part of this collective.
We came up with a list of topics that were of interest. Here they are:
Amber
· Sundown School in LA
· Tim Rollands – KOS
· Hollands Valley school
· Setting context for schools
· Galleries and education: “What school teaches you”
David
· Open schools; Sudbury school, Summerhill, De-naturing
· Ivan Illich
Ben
· Social groups and education
· Active process of learning about food systems
· Seniors education
· City as a school (Jane’s walk)
Malcolm
· Black Mountain College
· Literary education
· Memorizing – poetry, theory of, practice
· Knowing vs. searching for knowledge
· Bauhaus – modernist schools
· Deep River
· Evergreen
· Anarchist universities
· Avante-guard poetry
Deanna
· Alternative Schooling
· Debra Meier’s NY school for at-risk youth
· Slow school movement
· Differentiated Instruction
· Sustainability
Monique
· Museums, cultural institutions and their education programs
· Engage Org. in the UK
· Un-schooling/de-schooling
· Alice Water’s edible school in San Fran
· Ecological Education
Nicole
· Memory
· Neuroplasticity, brain training and learning – Norman Doidge
· Alfie Kohn and the “no homework” issue
· Summaries of education related books
Gabe
· Problems with universities
· Reforming the institution
· Antioch Atlantic College in the States
· River School
· School House
· Play in relation to theatre education
· Mind/ body
· Post-secondary reform
· Adult education
Decisions regarding format of future meetings
- · Active
- · Workshop style
- · Sat mornings every 2-3 weeks
- · Speaker series
- · No cats on premises- Micah will sneeze loads
Action items for next time:
Each member will research an alternative school of their choosing. Our hope is to increase our knowledge of the alternative schools that have existed and/or presently exist.
Monique- Edible Schoolyard
Ben- Summerhill School
Nicole- St. Mary’s School (Mary Ward Catholic School)
David- Sudbury Valley or River Schools
Malcolm- Black Mountain College
Gabe- Antioch College of the Atlantic
Deanna- Deborah Meier school in NY
Amber- Sundown School
RERC's beginning (January 2009)
RERC began with an email from Amber:
Hello All,
You have each expressed an interest in the Rad Education Research Collective (RERC). To recap, RERC is an idea to bring together a community of people who are interested in learning more about progressive, alternative, unconventional education practices.
I would like to set a date for the first meeting: Saturday, January 24, 10:30 am - 12:30 pm, at 252 Euclid Avenue. Please let me know if you are available on this day.
At the first meeting we can:
- decide on the frequency and locations of meetings
- make a list of what we want to learn about
- decide on presentation formats
- choose the first set of presentations and presentation dates
You may want to bring:
- pen and paper
- agenda (to make it easier to choose dates then and there)
You may want to prepare ahead of time:
- a list of what you already know and of what you'd like to learn more about (ie. memorization, the Sundown School)
Let's fucking do this!
Amber
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