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I posted this in the MA forum.. but feel it is fitting to this discussion as well.....
As someone who attended private schools, when I go to a public high school I am shocked at how much it reminds me of a jail.
Kids are essentially locked in, the public is locked out, you have to be buzzed in. Its really a terrible situation. My high school was multiple buildings, we were free to go in and out as we pleased.
When I question it, the answer is always about protecting from school shootings. Well, I went to college in downtown Boston and none of our buildings were locked during the academic day. IMO, the real answer represents what is fundamentally wrong with public schools.. if the doors were unlocked, some of the students would leave.
Its time the public schools stop wasting resources on those who don't want to be there. If they want to leave, let them. It would help those who want to be there.
My high school (a prep school, dirty word around here) has an open campus. We didn't have study hall, so if our free period was 1st, we would all come to school when our 1st class was. There were no hall pass'. If we wanted to go to the bathroom, you just got up and left. You could have walked to your car and no one would stop you.
I was more structured than college, and I agree that younger kids need more structure, because if you missed a class without an excuse they hit your final grade with -2 points every time.
The transition to college for me and many of my other prep school friends was very easy.
Because rather than them controlling you with tight structure, they let you learn to control yourself and be responsible.
But you cannot do that in public school. The makeup of the student body is vastly different.
In some schools you'd end up with empty classrooms and gangs of students roaming the halls.
I didn't think the OP meant an open attendance policy, just more flexibility with courses, choice, and a curriculum not subject to state standards that focus on a lot of memorizing instead of big concepts, like college classes. I thought she meant intellectual freedom, and some more freedom in how to spend one's day - like when to study, when to go to the library, the computer lab, etc. - not the freedom to spend it out of school completely. My own grades in high school improved dramatically senior year because we were given the freedom not to attend "study hall" and to either leave campus completely for an hour or to spend it in the senior lounge. I actually got work done in the lounge, whereas I never could accomplish a thing in study hall.
O.k, that makes sense to me. And I can see how many kids would thrive under academic conditions like that.
I believe that at least twenty-five percent of our seventh-graders could handle an open campus-type environment, if the "gangster element" that spoils it for the rest were quickly identified, stigmatized and removed.
Which is unconstitutional and illegal in ever state in America. You conveniently left that part out.
I agree wholeheartedly with the OP. The "open campus" model is done quite successfully by the Sudbury schools. The kids want to be there and they "own" their educations. Kids live up to expectations. If you expect that they need to be basically chained to desks for 7 hours per day in order to learn to read and write, then that becomes the reality. If you expect that kids, like adults, want to learn and be proactive, then that's what happens. In a traditional school model, the smartest and most ambitious kids are absolutely stifled. The middle group of kids is allowed to stagnate, and in the lowest group (behavior-wise, at least), it's considered a good day if most of the kids are kept relatively under control.
The reason many college kids go wild is because they've never been allowed to have autonomy. Imagine if kids learned the "don't blow this off" lesson when they were 10 or 12 years old, instead of 18 or 20. By the time college rolled around, they'd have already figured that out. Actually, many wouldn't bother with college (depending on their career choices obviously!), because they'd recognize that they can learn so much more in real-life applications. (This would not work if someone wanted to be a surgeon, but it would if they wanted to manage a small business or work in computer design.)
How do the schools with an open campus deal with the legal liability that comes from being in loco parentis? What about students who want to drink, take drugs, or have sex at school? The students doing these things are not all thugs or gangsters. Two of our top 10 students were having a tryst in the computer lab after school. They were expelled until their lawyers got them back in school. I still can't look at them without remembering the "act".
How do the schools with an open campus deal with the legal liability that comes from being in loco parentis? What about students who want to drink, take drugs, or have sex at school? The students doing these things are not all thugs or gangsters. Two of our top 10 students were having a tryst in the computer lab after school. They were expelled until their lawyers got them back in school. I still can't look at them without remembering the "act".
How did they deal with them 20 years ago? We were permitted to leave campus during lunch when I was a student at a large public high school in NY.
My kids go to a private school where there is a semi open campus for upper school students (7-12 grade). Only seniors can leave campus during lunch or their independent period, and they can only leave with parental permission. Students who are allowed to leave have an exit pass issued and they must show it to security if they leave.
All upper school students are allowed one independent period per school day where they do not have a scheduled class. During their independent period 7-11th graders are permitted to go anywhere on campus. There are several places where students like to gather (we have nice winter weather). The campus has security and they drive around the campus on gold carts supervising students. The computer lab is supervised. The music rooms are supervised. If students do something wrong they are disciplined.
I do think that you can give kids more freedom than they currently have at most public schools (which is zero) without giving them 100% freedom but public schools are more constrained in what they can allow.
The problem I think you are not seeing is - and forgive me, this is not a criticism - is your kids attend a "private school." Depending on the type of private school, the types of students attending can be selected - or not selected - which, unfortunately, the public schools have very little control over. Your tuition can be spent on a different campus, with adequate and visible security. Not all public schools can afford that. And it would only take one single incident at a public campus for the liability insurers to put a stop to it, as well.
When we went to school 30, 40, 50 years ago, society was different - we were different. We were more mature in some ways (and less physically mature than today's students), and probably more responsible persons. Society has taken much of the personal responsibility away from the students, not allowing them to suffer consequences for bad behavior and learning from it - much as we had to do.
Don't get me wrong. I truly do like the idea of a less rigid, structured learning environment - to a degree. (And this is coming from someone who served in the US Army.) But there will always be those students - or people in general - who do not thrive on this kind of freedom, who do not have the emotional and/or intellectual maturity to make good decisions for themselves. That is why there are certain portions of the population that really thrive in the military. They need to be 'told what to do.' Unfortunately, we have to deal with the whole range of personalities in public schools.
How did they deal with them 20 years ago? We were permitted to leave campus during lunch when I was a student at a large public high school in NY.
My kids go to a private school where there is a semi open campus for upper school students (7-12 grade). Only seniors can leave campus during lunch or their independent period, and they can only leave with parental permission. Students who are allowed to leave have an exit pass issued and they must show it to security if they leave.
All upper school students are allowed one independent period per school day where they do not have a scheduled class. During their independent period 7-11th graders are permitted to go anywhere on campus. There are several places where students like to gather (we have nice winter weather). The campus has security and they drive around the campus on gold carts supervising students. The computer lab is supervised. The music rooms are supervised. If students do something wrong they are disciplined.
this is really interesting to me- my kids go to a public school and sophomores and above can leave school for lunch if they want. All they have to do is enter with their ID cards when they arrive back. All juniors and seniors can leave 1 credit blank on their schedule and are allowed to leave school if they please or just stay and do work in the library. Wednesdays are "extended learning" days- actual classes begin 40 minutes later than the usual time and end 40 minutes early. If a student has missing work or needs to make up a test, a teacher can require they stay for extended learning. Most of the clubs meet during this time as well. If none of those apply to a student, they're free to come in 40 minutes late and leave 40 minutes early.
I've never really given it much thought, but this thread has prompted me to. AFAIK, there's not a whole lot of issues with what my kids' school does. I'm beginning to wonder how that is...
The problem I think you are not seeing is - and forgive me, this is not a criticism - is your kids attend a "private school." Depending on the type of private school, the types of students attending can be selected - or not selected - which, unfortunately, the public schools have very little control over. Your tuition can be spent on a different campus, with adequate and visible security. Not all public schools can afford that. And it would only take one single incident at a public campus for the liability insurers to put a stop to it, as well.
Private schools have insurance issues as well. I understand the difference between public and private.
That is why I stated:
"I do think that you can give kids more freedom than they currently have at most public schools (which is zero) without giving them 100% freedom but public schools are more constrained in what they can allow. "
I like the idea of more freedom on campus. I like the independent period that my kids use to do homework, practice their instruments, etc....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Starman71
When we went to school 30, 40, 50 years ago, society was different - we were different. We were more mature in some ways (and less physically mature than today's students), and probably more responsible persons. Society has taken much of the personal responsibility away from the students, not allowing them to suffer consequences for bad behavior and
learning from it - much as we had to do.
I agree 100% with the statement that I highlighted above. The rigid structured learning environment is part of what took personal responsibility away from students. But the rigid environment is a product of parents reaction when their kids make poor choices.
If you do not let anyone leave the campus then nobody can get in trouble. If you don' t let students have a free period then they cannot get in trouble. Sometimes kids get in trouble. Schools need to allow kids to get in trouble and then impose consequences on them if they do get in trouble. Parents have put an end to kids suffering the consequences of their actions and schools have followed through by not placing kids in the position that they could ever get in trouble. It is cycle that never ends. No one party is 100% responsible.
Of course the issue with that is that the longer you treat a student like a child the longer they will act like a child. In order for students to become adults they have to be allowed to make mistakes, to get in trouble, to not do the right thing and suffer the consequences. But schools are only one part of the cycle. If parents continue to complain when their kids do wrong schools really have no choice but to continue to treat them like little children even into their late teens.
If you do not let anyone leave the campus then nobody can get in trouble. If you don' t let students have a free period then they cannot get in trouble. Sometimes kids get in trouble. Schools need to allow kids to get in trouble and then impose consequences on them if they do get in trouble. Parents have put an end to kids suffering the consequences of their actions and schools have followed through by not placing kids in the position that they could ever get in trouble. It is cycle that never ends. No one party is 100% responsible.
This is so true. But I feel for the administrators at my school that have to put up with the range of "leashes" that 1500 parents put on their children, or the degree at which they "helicopter" around them. I'm nervous as a hen just taking my Academic team to a nearby town for a competition. I know I'd be sweating an open campus, where the kids would have to drive to a nearby restaurant, instead of walk.
I have heard it from a behavioral psychologist that the number one method of learning for teens is trial and error. It shouldn't be any wonder to any parent that their kids do not listen to them. Most of us didn't listen to our parents at least once. But it seems that the most effective way to have them learn a lesson is to suffer from the consequences of a bad decision. If we, the parents, don't immediately rush into make everything alright, but just play a support role, they might learn that mom and dad might be right after all. Same goes for school.
I guess I'm more amenable to an open classroom and a free period, with students staying on campus. It's more of my comfort range.
My high school (a prep school, dirty word around here) has an open campus. We didn't have study hall, so if our free period was 1st, we would all come to school when our 1st class was. There were no hall pass'. If we wanted to go to the bathroom, you just got up and left. You could have walked to your car and no one would stop you.
The problem with this is that if you do not sign out and no one knows where you are, you can be at risk for something happening and then who would know.
We had a junior who was raped when she went to go to a doctor's appointment. She had parked on a side street where there was not a lot of traffic and a man grabbed her, drove her far from campus, raped her and left her in her car. While it might have happened no matter what, at least people would have known quickly that she had not arrived at the doctors appointment if she had signed out. And, when she did not return when she was supposed to, her parents would have been notified. It would not have saved her from the rape, but it might have gotten help to her sooner.
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