Taking the Measure of Democratic Education and Rockaway College Concept Against Lynn Stoddard’s New Paradigm for Formal Learning, Educating for Human Greatness

(Note:  This paper has been divided into three parts so readers are unburdened with having to sit with it for the time it would take to read the entire piece, that is, unless the reader wishes.  This blog entry is the third of three.)

Lynn Stoddard in his Educating for Human Greatness, http://www.efhg.org/, advocates for a paradigm shift in education, from valuing student uniformity to valuing student differences, from standardization of teaching, learning and outcomes to developing students’ unique talents, gifts, interests and abilities, from teachers’ direct instruction ­of basic skills and subject matter disciplines as ends in and of themselves to teachers using their knowledge and creativity to organize and arrange experiences for students to nurture curiosity and to draw forth student interests and engagement, from student achievement being in the mastery of a core of essential knowledge to the growth in seven major qualities/powers of greatness: Identity, Inquiry, Interaction, Initiative, Imagination, Intuition and Integrity.  To ascertain if any system has so shifted requires it to be placed against these standards.  To this point it has been demonstrated (as related the last two blog entries) both Democratic Education and its expression in the Rockaway College Concept have met the Educating for Human Greatness standards considered including the qualities/powers of Identity, Inquiry, Interaction and Initiative.  This entry will look at Imagination, Intuition and Integrity.

Democratic Education (see http://www.democratic.co.il/en/ and http://www.yaacovhecht.com/) may be defined as formal study controlled by the learner where the individual takes full responsibility for his and for her own course of learning and as schooling controlled by the learning community collectively where the school body as a whole takes responsibility for governing itself through The Democratic Process. 

Rockaway College (detailed on this blog in consecutive entries starting on 2/16/12, ending on 3/19/12, including an overview of design on 3/17/12 and an annotated index to entries on 3/19/12) is conceived to utilize the learner-decision-centeredness and school community self-governance of Democratic Education in the service of the Twice-Exceptional, also know as the Gifted and Talented Learning Disabled.  The school represents an integrated progression in social, emotional and cognitive development from pre-school though early college established in two major units:  Rockaway College School-containing the early childhood and the primary education programs; and Rockaway College-holding a personal growth intake for a secondary education, the secondary education program and a liberal arts early college program. Graduates of the early college having gone through the College’s secondary education would earn both a high school diploma and an Associate of Arts degree. 

Imagination

“Summerhill might be defined as a school in which play is of the greatest importance…

I am not thinking of play in terms of athletic fields and organized games; I am thinking of play in terms of fantasy.” (Neill, 1960, p. 62)  Democratic Education is grounded in deep Imagination-the power of creativity in its many forms.  It transmits this to children and cultivates this in children through play.  Free, self-organized, unstructured imaginative play, yes, ensures young children acquire the self-regulatory skills needed to succeeding in school, academically and socially, but it as well stretches child creativity “to infinity and beyond!”  And play does much more as Holt explains: “In their efforts to organize and understand the world around them, children use fantasy and play in at least two ways.  First, they use it to test reality, to do what adults do with mathematical models and computers, i.e., ask the question ‘What would happen if…’?   Children’s models of reality are of course very crude; they have little experience.  But in their fantasy play and games they stick as close as they can to reality rules as they understand them...Children also try to use fantasy to make sense out of reality, make a mental model of reality that works.  Because they have so little experience, this is hard to do…little children can’t wait until they have all the…information and experience they need to make a coherent and sensible model of reality.   They have to make some kind of sense of it right now.  Their fantasy grows out of reality, connects to reality, reaches out to further reality.” (Hold, 1984, pp 248-251)

Play in Democratic Education is let loose to roam the worlds of conventional academic matter as well as all that intrinsic to the toys, games and pleasure activities.  Again Holt: “Children need…school-time for ‘Messing About’ with reading-before they start trying to learn to read, to make the connections between letters and sounds.  They need time to build up in their minds, without hurry, without pressure, a sense of what words look like, before they start trying to memorize particular words.  In the same way, they need time for ‘Messing About’ with numbers and numerals, before they start-if they ever should start-trying to memorize addition facts and multiplication tables.  They need to know how big 76 is, or 134, or 35,000, or a million.  They need to see, again without hurry or pressure, how numbers change and grow and relate to each other.  They need to build up a mental model of the territory before they start trying to talk about it.  We teachers like to thing that we can transplant our own mental models into the minds of children by means of explanations.  It can’t be done.” (Holt, 1984, pp. 221-222)

In the end, Democratic Education through play in its many forms and functions develops child creativity in its many forms and functions.  And Rockaway College follows Democratic Education in its play.  Rockaway College School children would engage in whatever free, self-organized, unstructured imaginative play the environment supports for as long as they wish.  The Venture School of Rockaway College creates play in the outdoors, camping, hiking, backpacking, canoeing, rafting, skiing, biking, etc.   Lower School students would be ‘Messing About’ with the ideas, the notions, the concepts, of the learned world which would find fine intellectual play in the Upper School.

However, the EfHG quality/power of Imagination holds another component which Rockaway College Concept incorporates-the use of the all arts to nurture all forms of imagination and creativity.  Actually, the school broadens the notion of “arts” to encompass the full range of human expression and maintains that all forms of human expression are of equal weight.  “But intelligence is a slippery customer;” Susanne Langer points out, “if one door is closed to it, it finds, or even breaks, another entrance to the world.  If one symbolism is inadequate, it seizes another; there is no eternal decree of its means and methods.” (Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key:  A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art, 3ird Edition, Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 1970, p 86)

Rockaway College equalizes all forms of human expression giving weight to only those forms which the individual student’s neurology supports.  For example, the primary school program would develop in each child competencies in receiving, processing and communicating written, oral and graphic information, through as many neurologically compatible channels as each child is capable.  The Methods and Final Product of a Lower School student’s inquiry project would be left to each student according to his/her neurologically appropriate means of receiving, processing and communicating information.  He and she could choose to undertake and present an academic paper or a science experiment, or create a drawing, a painting, a sculpture, a video, an audio recording, or stage a one act play, an epic poem, a poetry reading, a musical performance, or write a poem, a piece of music, an essay or a short story.  The Upper School while in fact weighting reading, active listening and engaged conversation as keys to receiving and processing information of the learned world, would give no weight to any single method of the report of learning.  Upper School students would be as free to do as their Lower School colleagues in the report of learning through neurologically appropriate means.  

Intuition

If nothing else, Democratic Education is about correcting the conventionally structured ignorance of and accounting for the affective side of life, about cultivating the Educating for Human Greatness quality/power of Intuition.  Neill states, “To sum up, my contention is that [psychologically] unfree education results in life that cannot be lived fully.  Such an education almost entirely ignores the emotions of life; and because these emotions are dynamic, their lack of opportunity for expression must and does result in cheapness and ugliness and hatefulness…If the emotions are permitted to be really free, the intellect will look after itself.” (Neill, 1960, p. 100)   Further, “If a child is free to approve of himself, he will not usually be hateful.  He will not see any fun in trying to have an adult lose his temper [or to make another child unhappy, for that matter].” (Neill, 1960, p. l9)  More, “How much people can learn at any moment depends on how they feel at that moment about the task and their ability to do the task.  (And I might add how they generally feel about themselves, whether they feel empowered or powerless, competent or stupid.)  When we feel powerful and competent, we leap at difficult tasks.  The difficulty does not discourage us…When people are down, it’s useless to push them or urge them on; that just frightens and discourages them more.” (Holt, 1984, pp. 50-51)  Indeed, Democratic Education is about Intuition.

The EfHG quality/power of Intuition is divided into two dimensions:  the power of the heart to sense truth and the power of the child to develop emotional intelligence.  Rockaway College realizes both.  A child builds sensitivity to the truth only if he/she first feels the truth of who he and she really is; Rockaway College cultivates this first cause through developing self-awareness, self-esteem and self-advocacy in the individual child’s way of knowing.  A child builds emotional intelligence only if his/her psycho-dynamic is as free of destructive impulses as possible allowing self-awareness, self-esteem and self-advocacy to develop; Rockaway College cultivates a well adjusted psycho-dynamic through deep mentoring relationships and a beneficial peer affiliation.

Self-Awareness in a child’s own way of knowing is brought about by developing the inner quality of Mindfulness.  Mindfulness, a meta-cognitive property of mind, is a by-product of the child’s self-observation of the consequences of the strategies employed to work through situations.  In formal learning, mindfulness is consequent to the self-analysis of the results knowledge engagement occurs.

As Holt suggests, “Children’s first hunches about anything are extremely faint and tentative, the merest wisps of intuition that a certain thing may be so.  Each time children test one of these faint hunches and have it confirmed by experience, the hunch becomes a bit stronger.  What we might call a 5 percent hunch becomes a 10 percent, the 10 percent a 20, and so, slowly, all the way to the point where they will say with conviction that they know that such and such is true…” (Holt, 1984, p 138)   Children continuously and unconsciously survey the consequences of their hunch testing, noticing regularities and patterns from the noise.  They begin to ask questions, to make deliberate experiments, sharpening their own awareness of the interplay of action, environment and results.

But to enable a full acceptance of truth in the self, children’s meta-cognitive abilities are required to move from the unconscious to a conscious awareness.  Bringing self-observations from the inner sanctum to a conscious level is undertaken through the continuous actions of play and the constant conversation with other children and adults within informal situations, not in classroom “discussion” where children tend to be guarded.  Conscious understanding develops in continuous play as the multiple experiential, immediate needs of social interaction or of individual engagement with play objects unfold processes, applications and results and as children take particular notice of it all.  Conscious understanding in constant conversation develops when the child ready to reveal to others what has been uncovered makes connections among processes, applications and results as the child internally composes his and her speech.   And, Rockaway College provides an abundance of play and informal conversation opportunities at every schooling level as has been indicated earlier.

Self-Esteem and self-advocacy in a child’s own way of knowing are brought about by developing the inner quality of Empowerment. Empowerment, a motivational predisposition of a power-felt psycho-dynamic, is a consequence of a positive developing self-esteem/self-advocacy dynamic.  Self-Esteem is about the deepest affective definition of self along the worthy-worthless spectrum which is the foundation of the ultimate survival sense continuums of hopefilled to despair, of actualization to suicide.  These self-judgments precondition self-efficacy. 

Using the Holt formulation on emotional predisposition predicting learning effectiveness cited earlier and extending it, the following can be said:  When we feel powerful, that is, when we judge ourselves worthy and hopefilled, we feel highly self-effective, and, thus, we leap at tasks, difficult and simple; and working through a heightened sense of self-efficacy, observing the positive consequences we feel our hope and our worthiness validated, which in turn generates a greater confidence in our abilities. And with greater confidence in our abilities we seek engagement. All knowledge engagement in Rockaway College is structured to empower children at every schooling level.

Mindfulness and Empowerment, emerge to their most potent in children when they are a consistent response to the learning environment, rather than through compliance demanded of children by the adults in the rooms.  A schooling structure where Mindfulness and Empowerment emerge within each youngster as a constant environmental reaction to being within it is one allowing the growth of children in their own way and in their own time, one premised on redressing the full range of individual need, that is, in a Democratic Education system and in a Democratic Education school such as Rockaway College.

While each child in every category of student struggles with myriad adverse impulses, the Twice-Exceptional in their struggles of light speed brain processing against asynchronous social-emotional, cognitive and physical develop tend to possess uniquely severe tensions among internal and external expectations creating a variety of psychological impediments to living well, generally, and schooling success, particularly.  In other words, the way they engage the world develops deep conflicts within their psycho-dynamic requiring direct attention for them to grow to be well-adjusted and successful in which ever way they are comfortable.  Rockaway College at every schooling level surrounds its Twice-Exceptional students with a highly psychologically attentive environment of counseling and of affinity grouping.

Direct attention to the child’s psycho-dynamic is through individual student-staff counseling.  Every student at each schooling level in Rockaway College is to have a staff mentor, trained in counseling the school’s student population, for as long as the youngster is attending the school.  If necessary, mental health professional counseling would be available.  Therapeutic conversations between student and mentor are undertaken processing the experiences of the youngster’s interactions with other youngsters and within the rules and the roles the environment structure to adjust psycho-dynamic construction toward healthy self-concepts, situationally appropriate behavior and empowered self-direction.  These conversations continue through every stage of development as each child grows through the school’s culture to maturity.

There needs to be a range of difference enough in the youngsters in the school setting to provide a number of possible ways of learning and of being open to experimentation to the Twice-Exceptional and thus a variety of competency models from which to be like; at the same time there needs to be a population similar enough for these neuro-diverse youngsters to have positive identification with other youngsters, to feel accepted, confirming the legitimacy of personal identity, developing positive self-concepts, preventing the development of maladaptive coping mechanisms and forming solid foundations for the prevention of possible future social and emotional problems.  The broadest range of “other” children providing a number of possible ways of learning and of being while lowering the possibility of perceived difference by the schooling system and everyone in it, and, thus, to as much as possible prevent the different from being targets for bullying, disrespect and exclusion is represented by the full spectrum of gifted and talented, from the conventional who are comfortable in complying with customary schooling demands, to the unconventional who are just made crazy because they are truly other in their knowledge needs and, of course the Twice-Exceptional themselves.  And, Rockaway College establishes an affinity environment composed solely from the spectrum of gifted and talented.

Integrity

Democratic Education is grounded in the ideas of A.S. Neill who grounded his Summerhill in an ethos which EfHG labels as Integrity – the power of honesty and responsibility.  He built the Summerhill community on the honesty of being, “…we set out to make a school in which we should allow children to be themselves….” (Neill, 1960, p.4), and on having children being true to who the child actually is “The function of the child is to live his own life-not the life that his anxious parents think he should live, nor a life according to the purpose of the educator who thinks he knows what is best…” (Neill, 1960, p12) 

His environment’s corner stones are equality, “…the success of Summerhill has been in part because the children feel that they are all treated alike and treated with respect.” (Neill, 1960, p 21), and fairness, “In Summerhill, everyone has equal rights.  No one is allowed to walk on my grand piano and I am not allowed to borrow a boy’s cycle without his permission.  At a General School Meeting the vote of a child of six counts for as much as my vote does” (Neill, 1960, p 9). 

Neill is all about child responsibility, “Children should be allowed almost infinite responsibility…[They should be granted as much responsibility] with due regard for his physical safety.” (Neill, 1960, pp. 152-154)  Indeed, Summerhill children have the responsibility of how to spend their day and on when to engage formal learning, “[In Summerhill] lessons are optional.  Children can go to them or stay away from them…” (Neill, 1960, p 5)  As he witnessed when children given responsibility for their learning turn to formal learning, they will do so with alacrity, “One sees the difference in the matter of lessons.  Every child under freedom plays most of the time for years; but when the time comes, the bright ones will sit down and tackle the work necessary to master subjects covered by government exams.  In little over two years, a boy or girl will cove the work that disciplined children take eight years to cover.” (Neill, 1960, p. 116)

Additionally, under responsibility structured schooling, children own their individual relationships, “As for self-discipline, it is an indefinite thing.  Too often it means a discipline of self that has been instilled by the moral ideas of adults.  True self-discipline does not involve repression or acceptance.  It considers the rights and happiness of others.  It leads the individual to deliberately seek to live at peace with others by conceding something to their point of view.” (Neill, 1960, p. 356)  More, under responsibility structure schooling children own their collective relationships, “In a free school, the children are allowed to do exactly what they like as long as they do not break the social laws which are made by staff and pupils at General School Meetings.” (Neill, 1960, 321)  Indeed, “In Summerhill, a child is not allowed to do as he pleases. His own laws hedge him in on all sides.  He is allowed to do as he pleases only in things that affect him-and only him.  He can play all day if he wants to, because work and study are matters that concern him alone.  But he is not allowed to play a cornet in the schoolroom because his playing would interfere with others.” (Neill, 1960, p. 348) 

Rockaway College fully accepts Neill’s notions on the honesty of being, on having children being true to who the child actually is, on the environment’s corner stones of equality and fairness and on child responsibility.  Conceptionally, the honesty of being and on being true to who the child actually is is vested in the understanding of Twice-Exceptionality as a synthesis of both giftedness/talentedness and cognitive/social-emotional deficit where strength compensates for weakness creating a unique and indivisible learning style and in the acknowledgement that the individual neuro-learning style of each child will emerge as an intrinsic motivation toward different aspects of learning content and skills, establishing quality differentiated outcomes for the different neuro-learning styles.  Structurally, the honesty of being and on being true to who the child actually is is vested in the practice of the Talent Development infused Learning Models of each schooling level.  The corner stones of equality and fairness are vested in the schools Democratic governance structures.  And child responsibility is vested in the school’s self-directed learning where each child, adolescent and young adult takes full responsibility for selecting the what, when and how of their own course of study through their entire stay at Rockaway College.

Summary

Lynn Stoddard set definite standards for all formal learning settings to have demonstrated the paradigm shift to Educating for Human Greatness:  valuing student differences; developing students’ unique talents, gifts, interests and abilities; using teacher knowledge and creativity to organize and arrange experiences for students to nurture curiosity and to draw forth student interests and engagement; and growing students in the seven major qualities/powers of greatness-Identity, Inquiry, Interaction, Initiative, Imagination, Intuition and Integrity.   The purpose of this paper was to ascertain how Democratic Education, generally, and the Rockaway College Concept, specifically, measured up to the Educating for Human Greatness standards.  As has been well demonstrated, both Democratic Education and Rockaway College Concept met and exceeded each standard.  And, thus, both can be seen as exemplars of Educating for Human Greatness.