This is the second in a series of articles addressing NCCL parents' questions
and concerns. Like the first, this installment concerns issues raised at a
recent curriculum meeting held for parents of students in the oldest two homerooms
A second group of issues raised at the meeting
was loosely categorize as "discipline". Here again, it would seem that there
is an evolution of concerns as kids grow older. While it is easy to believe
that a five, six, or seven year old should find learning to be a fun, stress
free, natural process of exploring interesting ideas in a cooperative setting,
it becomes difficult to maintain a similar conviction regarding the education
of older children. Perhaps they need the competition, pressure, and demands
of a more "rigorous" setting to motivate them. Perhaps the joy of learning
needs to be replaced, or at least reinforced, by the fear of bad grades. Perhaps
kids who are as relaxed about learning as NCCL kids are can not possibly be
working hard enough to compete in the larger world. Perhaps by pursuing topics
that the group finds interesting, NCCL classes are neglecting topics which
are vital to their future lives. These doubts and fears churn in the stomachs
of many NCCL parents, often in spite of our best efforts to hold fast to the
principles that attracted us to NCCL in the first place.
Voicing these concerns can be embarrassing.
As I reread the previous paragraph, the suggestion that parents who have chosen
NCCL for their children could possibly wish that their children were being
forced to learn through threats and competition seems ludicrous. Nevertheless,
I will resist the temptation to delete the evidence out of existence, because
it seems to me that many of us do harbor those fears and need help addressing
them. Likewise, the fear that NCCL's flexible, child-centered curriculum will
in some way result in students who lack a foundation of basic background knowledge
is one many people seem unable to shake.
I remember one of my favorite high school teachers
once told us that the long term retention rate for material learned during
school was something like ten percent. In other words, as adults we remember
about one tenth (maybe less?) of the stuff we successfully parroted back as
students. The interesting question is, which 10% do we remember? What makes
some facts and ideas stick with us for a lifetime while the rest just washes
away?
Certainly some things, like addition or the
ability to read, stick with us because we used them over and over, year after
year. Others stick with us because we learned theme in a unique setting, like
a field trip, or because they become associated with something interesting,
like a particularly funny joke the teacher told about it. Most of us remember
things better when we have participated in choosing and exploring them. And
then there are the things that amazed or surprised us, or which made us feel
particularly proud when we figured them out for ourselves. Sound familiar?
These are exactly the kinds of learning experiences NCCL teachers seek to
provide routinely. They believe it is pointless to pursue a topic of study
simply because other junior high students in the state are studying it. Those
other students aren't going to remember most of it anyway, so why does it
matter what they learn?
Likewise, the things we remember long term
are little effected by behaviors like reviewing material for an end of the
year exam. Material that has utility and relevance to the work of later years
will come up again naturally to be re-examined and reused in a new context.
For the rest, if a student has found information to be engaging and relevant,
he will remember. If not, he will still have profited from the process of
reading, researching, discussing and writing about it.
As the article reprints* provided at the curriculum
meeting attest, studying for a grade, or under some other form of coercion,
produces only the shallowest type of learning. Students who work hard in order
to reproduce stock responses and get good grades do not necessarily emerge
well educated in the sense that NCCL seeks to educate. Instead, at NCCL, debate,
discussion, research, analysis, synthesis, and application of ideas rule the
day. If students at NCCL end up with less to show for their efforts on paper,
it is hoped and believed that they have much more to show in their heads.
