The Brooklyn Free School

I was driving home from the library this afternoon and was excited to see that I was just in time to listen to This American Life on NPR. Today, host Ira Glass was doing a show entitled, Kid Politics, which posed the following questions:

"What if, say, the U.S.-led invasion of Grenada in 1983 had been decided, not by Ronald Reagan, but by a bunch of middle-schoolers? And what if every rule at your high school had been determined, not by teachers and administrators, but entirely by teenagers?"

Ira was bringing us a show about kids stepping into the world of decision-making usually populated by grown-ups. And the real question was, could kids do it better than adults?

All the sections were interesting, as they usually are, but the last section really got me thinking. Act 3 featured The Brooklyn Free School in Brooklyn, NY. This school functions as a small democracy for its students and staff. All decisions made within school walls are done so by committee. And not just a committee of administrators. Every student, from 5 through 18, has a vote, and those votes count just as much as the votes of the adults. In fact, at the time of the show, students outnumbered teachers 3 to 1, so really, the students were pretty much in charge of all decisions made. Additionally, students are not made to take any particular classes, given homework, or sent home with report cards like in traditional schools. Students learn what they want, when they want, and they monitor their own progress.

So, you might ask yourself, what kind of mass pandemonium goes on in this school every day? One would think that kids would be hanging off the rafters, playing video games non-stop, and generally failing to learn anything valuable for their futures. Apparently though, you would be wrong.

The children set rules for themselves through seemingly constant small and large group meetings, are offered non-compulsory classes by the school's teachers, do assignments and research that they want to do, and, from what the school says, typically flourish in the democratic environ.

The school's founder, Alan P. Berger, modeled BFS after the Summerhill school in England, the Sudbury School in Massachusetts, and The Albany Free School in Albany, NY. Berger believes that if children are not forced into learning things that are meaningless to them they will find those things that are meaningful and will be excited to learn them. He states that, "In a free school environment, students do significantly more exploration of a greater variety of topics and subjects than they would ever be exposed to at a traditional school." He and the other staff find that students are motivated, excited, and ready to learn. Yes, they watch movies and play video games during school hours, but because they are free to learn things that they're interested in they actually do learn on a comparable level to students in traditional schools.

The school's website states, under the FAQ, "Is there evidence that this approach to education works?" that:

"The research done by Sudbury Valley demonstrates overwhelmingly positive evidence of personal growth of former students, as documented in numerous, lengthy testimonials. Students who have experienced democratic free education for any significant period of time clearly articulate how invaluable this educational experience has been to them in the pursuit of an occupation, higher education, or other life choices, providing strong evidence that this approach works."

It's definitely an interesting concept. And it makes me wonder...How would I have done in a school like this?