Tag: Open Houses

Open House Do’s and Don’ts

Posted on | by Sam

It’s that time of year again: when parents across the country — but particularly parents in major American cities — prepare to schedule a flurry of open houses in a frantic search for the best school for their child.

It happened to me a year ago; between January and March I visited more than 20 schools in search of the best place for my 3-year-old. Even though I’ve been working in schools my whole adult life, it was a daunting, disorienting experience. I can only imagine what it feels like for parents who haven’t stepped foot in a school since their own high school graduation.

To help ease the anxiety of my fellow parents, here are a few essential rules of the road: three questions to ask, and three things to look for.


Questions to Ask

  1. What is your definition of success — and how do you know if you’re reaching it?
  2. What aspect of your school are you most proud of — and where do you need the most work?
  3. What’s the general profile of your faculty — and how long do they stay?

Each of these questions is designed to drill down on how well a school understands what it does — and why it does it. Surprisingly, many schools haven’t thought about this as much as they should. They may have some generalized notion of success in terms of test scores or general statements about a child’s development. They are likely to know what they do well. They have to know how many of their teachers come and go each year. But if they can’t speak really clearly and specifically about what success will look like for your child — and do so in ways that go beyond just academics  – and if they can’t identify quickly where they still need work (because all schools, even the best ones, have room for improvement), you have good reason to wonder if they really have a plan worth investing in.

As examples of schools that have taken the time to figure it out, check out Mission Hill, the Blue School, or MC2 — three schools with clearly defined visions of individual- and whole-school success, and three schools with explicit lists of the sorts of skills and habits they want their students to master. Simply put, these schools know where they’re going — and how they’ll get there. Your child’s school should, too.

Things to Look For

  1. Hallways & Classrooms
  2. Playgrounds & Playspaces
  3. Safety & Security

If you visit a school during school hours, peek in the classrooms. Do students look engaged and energetic, or withdrawn and bored? Are the hallways filled with student work — and if so, does the work reflect a real range of skill-levels and ideas, or does it all look the same? Good schools know how to get kids involved — by making the learning as hands-on and relevant as possible — and they recognize and celebrate the uniqueness of each child.

Good schools also have good playspaces for children — or at least a good plan to get them there, if, like many urban charter schools, they do not yet inhabit a building with its own playground. Ideally, your child’s daily opportunities for physical activity and play are frequent and easily accessed. And if they have to travel offsite, be sure to find out the path to the playground, and how long it will take to get a small herd of children there and back every day.

And finally, good schools take the safety and security of your children seriously. Is it easy or difficult to walk into the school without being stopped or questioned by any adult? Does the school have protocols in place in the event of an emergency? And most importantly, does the school’s commitment to safety and security not interfere with the child’s sense of wonder and curiosity? Children should expect maximum security, but that doesn’t mean they should be expected to learn in environments that feel like maximum security prisons. A good school knows the difference.

The best and worst feature of modern K-12 schooling is that there are more choices to weigh and sift through. But the good news is that, as with the schools themselves, the clearer we the parents are on what we want in a school — and why we want it — the more likely we are to find a match in the marketplace.

Good luck!

 

Should Schools be More or Less Democratic?

Posted on | by Sam | 5 Comments on Should Schools be More or Less Democratic?

Like most parents of a young child, I’m trying to decide which environment will be the best for my son when he enters a public school for the first time next fall. At nearly every open house my wife and I attend, cheerful administrators and educators tout the advantage of being a “participatory” school, and of “giving children the opportunity to learn and work in groups.” Send your child here, they tell us, and he’ll acquire a core set of democratic skills – from working collaboratively to acting empathetically – that will help him successfully negotiate our increasingly interconnected global community.

Sounds great, I say – until I open my Sunday New York Times and read a cover story warning against the rise of a new type of groupthink. “Most of us now work in teams,” writes author Susan Cain, “in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in. But there’s a problem with this view. Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption.”

Whom should we trust? Have we overvalued democratic skills like collaboration and shared decision-making to our own detriment? And, in the end, should our schools be more or less democratic?

The answer, of course, depends on which values and behaviors we associate with that word – democratic. And the reality is that too often, too many of us – from local educators to federal policymakers – define it in a way that limits our collective capacity to understand what a healthy, high-functioning learning community really looks like, and requires.

In many schools, “democracy” is a subject students study in social studies, or via a special add-on program, or, if your school still has such a thing, in civics class. It’s something schools and districts seek separate grant money to support. And it’s something that, in the end, you learn about – whether it’s the three branches of government or the legislative process or the twenty-seven Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Call it “Democracy via Content.”

In other schools, the word stands for something very different – a philosophy of human interaction that guides how adult decisions are made and how students interact with each other. In these places, what matters most is how the classroom itself is structured (or unstructured), and the messiness of the approach becomes the central message about what it all means. Call it “Democracy via Process.”

Problems arise whenever we overvalue either approach. In an environment where democracy is seen solely as a subject, children memorize their rights but never practice them. And in a classroom where democracy is seen primarily as a process, children sit in circles or work in teams – regardless of whether or not those methods are helping them learn more effectively.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan underscored this point at a recent White House forum. “The goals of traditional civic education – to increase civic knowledge, voter participation, and volunteerism– are all still fundamental,” he asserted. “But the new generation of civic learning puts students at the center. It includes both learning and practice — not just rote memorization of names, dates, and processes.” Harvard’s Tony Wagner agrees, noting that there is a “happy convergence between the skills most needed in the global knowledge economy and those most needed to keep our democracy safe and vibrant.”

In a healthy school, educators know which skills – from collaboration to self-direction – their students must develop to be successful as adults, and which combination of content and processes will get them there. Some days, that might mean working in groups; other days, it might mean listening to an old-fashioned lecture. And every day, it means school leaders are aware of the paradoxical human impulse at the center of any democratic society – a point Ms. Cain makes in her Times article. “Most humans have two contradictory impulses,” she writes. “We love and need one another, yet we crave privacy and autonomy.”

A democratic learning environment honors both needs. That’s why from now on, the first thing I’ll ask at the open house is if the school understands which specific skills it wants to cultivate in its students, and why. I’ll ask which processes the teachers will use to engage kids in their own learning, and why. And when I find a school with clear answers and a clear plan for developing both “choice and voice,” I’ll know where to send my son.