No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down • Hacker News Board

Re: No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down

#251

Post by monkeycantype » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 8:45 AM UTC

GuiA wrote: post #67

bbayles wrote: post #13

My partner became involved in Montessori a few years ago, and I've been really impressed with how it works. If you don't know much about Montessori, here is my "in a nutshell" version: It's a method of schooling usually associated with preschool and elementary education. There are mixed age groups (e.g. 3 to 6) in classrooms. There is at least one adult who gives one-on-one lessons on how to work with "materials." Th…

Alternate pedagogies (Montessori, Waldorf, etc.) seem to work quite well for early childhood education, but I'm very skeptical of them for middle school, and especially high school (what Montessori defines as "3rd stage"). The reason for this is that extremely few people I've met who went to such high schools came out of them with levels in science/math that could be reasonably qualified as decent (and often borderli…

I think you're right, the issue is not that alternative schools can't teach science, it's that often they don't. I have friends who had an alternative education that got almost no maths and science education, but I know of other schools where this is not the case.

My kids go to fitzroy community school, an alternative school that is science friendly (years 0 to 6) http://www.fcs.vic.edu.au/links.php

previous parents from the school started an alternative high school (years 7 to 12) http://www.alia.vic.edu.au/about.php that has a strong maths science programme.

Both schools are very successful, and I think the key aspect is that they have managed to create a culture where the kids accept that they will have to do things that are tough, like run laps around the oval in the rain or grind their way through maths problems to achieve what they want, but this happens in an emotionally supportive environment.

The kids seem to work harder physically and mentally than kids at any primary (elementary) school I've seen in this country, but they also really look after each other.

Re: No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down

#252

Post by tremon » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 11:41 AM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #217

I don't understand the 'no timetable' part. In my experience kids will do nothing if no deadline is presented. How do schools avoid some kids diddling away the semester? Or is it just OK for some kids to fail?

"No timetable" probably means "no set hours to work on subject X". For me (Montessori-educated), that meant the week assignments for each group were written on the blackboard (like "do 3 reading exercises, two writing assignments, two math assignments and one geography"). We could choose to do these assignments alone or with others, at any time we wanted.

The only "timetable" we had was the set hours for doing swimming, music and sports with the whole class (and of course the school opening, closing and break times).

Re: No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down

#253

Post by tremon » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 11:48 AM UTC

socialist_coder wrote: post #118

pinaceae wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

9bn people - and all of them will be entrepreneurs. there is a world outside of HN and there a lot of folks can barely finish high school.

You are operating under the assumption that only exceptional children can learn motivation, self direction, and a genuine interest in learning. That is not true. As our society outsources more and more jobs to robots, those displaced workers need to be able to do more than just blindly follow directions. They don't have to start companies, but they do need to be able to think critically and have skills that are not r…

It is true in a way, if you reverse the causality: children that learn motivation, self direction and interest building are better equipped to be (or become) exceptional.

Re: No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down

#254

Post by jostylr » Fri, Jul 08, 2016, 11:49 AM UTC

mk89 wrote: post #201

jostylr wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at Arts&Ideas Sudbury School in Baltimore, 8 years old at this point. I have been with them for two years. There is no veto. There is simply discussing the issue and revisiting it if necessary. While it is always possible that a disastrous decision will be made, anecdotally, it seems to be exceedingly rare. Students want the school to succeed. They want to be safe and respected. When you start from those place…

I have been always curious to know the outcome: how do they become when they are 25-30 yrs old? Do they perform exceedingly better than other students? Are they more brilliant? Or ... smarter? I am also curious about something I hope you can answer. I guess (big assumption!) that most of these pupils share similar backgrounds, like families with good/high education, high income, etc. How would it work if we put these…

Just saw this. For the older, look at http://www.sudval.org/05_alumni.html#03

I think the basic answer is that they seek out a challenging and satisfying life. They can get along with people and are generally more emotionally stable.

At Arts&Ideas as well as the Philly Free School, we are working to support those who have low incomes. We have one student who was even homeless for a time this past year. We have parents who have been recently bankrupted, unemployed, etc. We also have some well off parents as well.

For the most part, it is hard to spot the kids that have different backgrounds. Everyone is accepting of others. Sometimes students from challenging backgrounds get stressed out about the insecurity at home and the students around show them compassion and acceptance which goes a long way towards eliminating the stress.

I have never witnessed anyone try to overpower the democracy. It is possible in theory, but it just doesn't seem to happen nor do we have a group of outcasts. Occasionally, someone will dislike something about our system and try to change it in a way that the community would not want. It gets voted down. But by letting the disgruntled have a voice, their disgruntlement seems to dissipate.

There was a time when a group wanted to get a gym bar. They outnumbered everyone else in the room, but through discussion, it was made clear to them that they had to think this through a lot more. They did, came back later, and got it in a way that the community was comfortable with. They did not try to overrule with their numbers.

It can be hard to understand, but when one is in a culture of cooperation instead of competition, winning at the expense of others is not a path often traveled.

There is a lot of reading one can do from Sudbury Valley School. For the low income experience, you can see if Philly Free School has anything. Urban Sudbury Schools are still pretty new so there just isn't too much out there yet about it.