But what about math?

Probably one of the big questions with “Free Schooling” people have is, “what about math?”  How could a child or teen “pick” math, right? Don’t we have to force 80-90% of kids to take math instruction? Who in their right mind would choose math if they could choose not to, right?

Wrong. The real “who in their right mind” for most of us should be phrased “who would choose to learn math as we teach it in today’s schools?”  Not me. I hated math. I learned it – I can understand statistics and probability and algebra and geometry – or at least that which stayed with me after the final exam back in the 80s and 90s when I took formal math classes. Unless you’re a math teacher (Hi M.G. and M.T.!), you probably don’t remember most of what you learned.  But what you USE you know well.

So that isn’t the point, right? Don’t engineers need higher mathematics skills? YES. OF COURSE THEY DO. But what if you are not going to become an engineer? Do you need to sit through several years of formal education “just in case”?  OR…. what if you have learned all your life that every new skill is something that you can acquire.  I used a business term recently to describe it to the head of the Circle School:

JUST IN TIME EDUCATION

About this Blog…

I’m Chris Champion – a public school educator. After a lot of thought, a lot of research and a lot of prayer – my wife and I decided that the “teacher has all the information if you would just sit still and learn it” model that most public schools use is flawed, broken even.

A decade ago I came across The Circle School. It’s a small private school in Harrisburg that follows the Sudbury Model. I didn’t have a daughter then – in fact at that point in my life I wasn’t going to have kids. So my interest at that time was from the perspective of an educator. Their philosophies piqued my interest. I wanted to work there.

They can explain it better than I can:  http://circleschool.org/about/integral-education/integral-education

Integral education recognizes that each child’s developmental path is unique, and embraces multiple intelligences — cognitive, moral, creative, logical, and kinesthetic, to name a few. In addition to such traditional methods as rote memorization, and modern methods such as guided discovery, integral education includes new methods of teaching and learning. Notable innovations include:

• Integrated curriculum. Self-selected and self-directed “whole” activities, rather than subjects isolated for out-of-context study, leading to high motivation and retention of learning.
• Multiple lines of development. Children freely seek and find stimulation along multiple self-selected lines of development—cognitive, moral, ego, logical/mathematical, spatial, empathy, musical, time sense, etc.
• Near-stage transmission. Age-mixing and free society foster high-efficiency exchanges between cultural partners at slightly different stages of growth. Both partners gain.
• Self-balanced development. Self-direction in a broad range of activities and social possibilities appears to facilitate development that is balanced across lines.
• Functional apprenticeship. A novice and an adept pair up. The novice gains knowledge, skill, and pleasure. The adept deepens mastery, gains a worthy colleague, and rises in social standing and self-esteem.
• Meta-message learning. The system is the message, conveying values of democracy, individual initiative, free enterprise, free society, and personal responsibility.

Integral schools value the personal autonomy of each individual, and serve as a place where children can develop as, and practice being, independent and effective members of society. The methods of traditional and modern education are available to students, as are new methods, and methods of learning that have previously existed primarily outside of school environments. In integral education, school is life, and alignment between school and family, school and society, and even within school, is improved.

Starting in the Fall, my daughter will attend the Circle School. I hope to use this blog as a reflection, a travelogue and perhaps validation that while the rest of the world looks at us quizzically, our daughter is growing to love learning more than she ever could have anywhere else.