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Democratic schools - 小朋友们的“理想”学校？ [复制链接]

patrickzhu

水晶靴族

发表于 2010-7-30 15:00 |显示全部楼层

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澳洲有一些这样类型的小学叫做Democratic schools，学生们在那里学什么如何学可以讨价还价，小朋友自己决定要学什么和怎样学。。。在那里，学生们再也不需要对Year 5的时候乘法口诀表只会到5而担心了，因为你可以不要学这个没用的东东。。。
孩子自己就是老板，不是老师和校长，因为这个学校根本没有校长。。。
令人惊讶的是这些学校也声称符合州教学大纲。。。

这所学校的老师说，这个学校教育的核心价值就是“玩”。（At the heart of democratic education is play; the valuing of play as the work of children）

看上去应该对现代倡导爱心教育一切以孩子为本的家长会很有吸引力，你会送自己的孩子去哪里吗？

Where all are equal

July 29, 2010 - 1:59AM

At Currambena Primary School in Lane Cove, children choose what they want to learn, wear plain clothes instead of uniforms and call teachers by their first names. They have an equal say with staff and parents on how the school is run and receive individual assessments instead of competing against friends in exams. Oh, and there's no principal.

These unusual features stem from the school's belief in democratic education. Its vision is to create a place where imagination and creativity are prized above memorisation.

To Cecelia Bradley, a teacher with 30 years' experience and the president of the Australasian Association for Progressive and Alternative Education, democratic education happens when children and adults become "co-learners" and help make decisions for their community together.

"At the heart of democratic education is play; the valuing of play as the work of children," Bradley says.

"Interaction between all ages is encouraged and valued. The balance between individual rights and communal responsibility is lived and learnt."

Bradley believes democratic schooling encourages student engagement.

"A person has to know that you care before they care what you know, " she says.

For parents seeking an alternative to mainstream schooling, Currambena Primary and Preschool is one of about 10 democratic options in Australia. Others include Kinma Primary and Preschool in Terrey Hills and Hurstbridge Learning Co-op in Victoria.

The co-ordinator of the International Democratic Education Network, David Gribble, says there are about 70 democratic schools around the world.

Democratic schools in Australia need to follow the curriculum of their state educational boards but the syllabus is typically broad and open to interpretation.

Opponents claim children cannot direct their own learning because they do not hold the depth of experience of adults.

"But what makes someone more experienced or knowledgeable as soon as they turn a specific age, such as 18?" asks a registered psychologist, Dr Adrienne Huber, who has founded alternative schools in Western Australia and Brazil.

Karen Brien, who sends her seven-year-old son to Currambena and formerly taught in state, private and Catholic schools, applauds the way children's passions inform the curriculum.

"I love that the children can negotiate how and what they learn and that there is no sense of panic if a child does not know their times table by a prescribed age," she says.

"Here, teachers recognise children's capacity for leadership, as opposed to their potential. A teacher would speak to a three-year-old as respectfully as they would speak to a parent. When this becomes normal, you really notice its absence in the wider world."

The democratic process at Currambena involves the full school community – students, staff and parents are invited to a formal school meeting, every Friday morning, which is presided over by the students.

The children open the meeting, work through an agenda, call for order, present speakers, ask for votes, make decisions and determine the consequences for anyone who has broken the rules.

"Children often make very passionate speeches in these meetings," Brien says.

After their meeting, students choose what they want to learn for the rest of the day. Music, maths, gardening, basketball or explaining early reptilian activity to other students – the choice is theirs.

Currambena was established in 1969 by a group of passionate and frustrated education academics from Macquarie University. The group envisioned a school run by a council of parents and teachers rather than an autocratic principal.

They were inspired by one of the oldest alternative schools in the world, Summerhill, which opened in Germany in 1921 as a backlash against the way children were disciplined in the Victorian era.

Currambena shows that education has come a long way since then.

"When I tell my children that you're not allowed to take your shoes off at most other schools, they are shocked and they ask, 'But how can you climb the trees properly?' " says a former student at Currambena, Jessica Kimber, whose two children now attend the school.

Anne Ridgway is the principal at Blacktown Youth College, an alternative high school in Sydney's western suburbs that helps disadvantaged teenagers. Unlike Currambena, many of its students come from troubled backgrounds but similarly the college supports democracy in the classroom.

"When you allow some rules to be bent, some latitude . . . you're more likely to gain some co-operation," Ridgway says.

Each week the college holds a communication session between students and teachers, called "What's up my nose?", and a harassment committee is represented by six students and one teacher. Issues that come up for discussion include who gets to participate in weekly privileges, such as go-kart racing, and how to resolve bullying.

"A lot of the kids have difficult home lives. We try to give support for learning without lots of rules," Ridgway says.

Huber supports the holistic vision of democratic education.

"Teachers focus on their students as people who are creating their whole lives," she says. "The children are their own boss, not the teachers the boss of the children."

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/national/e ... 20100729-10x6z.html