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South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com No teachers, no homework: Students set own agenda at private school in Davie

By Georgia East, Sun Sentinel

It's about 11 a.m. in the small, sun-drenched building, and 4-year-old Leila Ekendiz has an idea.

It's her classmate Ian's 8th birthday so she wants to make him a birthday card. About five other kids follow her into a room with a closet full of crayons, paper and stickers.

When they finish, some of the kids wander over to the computers while others head for the garden or to the refrigerator. At the Sunset Sudbury School, a new private school in Davie, the 11 students, ages 4 to 9, set their own agendas. Chalkboards, lesson plans and tests simply don't exist.

"In traditional schools there are so many students that kids are not allowed to talk to each other during their school day,'' said staffer Idelma Quintana, whose son attends the school. "Our kids here are learning how to get along with other kids and negotiate conflict.''

As public schools adopt tougher standards and emphasize standardized tests, alternative schools have become more popular.

"The regular public school system and even some private schools tend to operate under the paradigm that kids are lazy and need to be forced to learn,'' said Jerry Mintz, director of the New York-based Alternative Education Resource Organization. "We take a diametrically different approach that starts with the assumption that kids are natural learners.''

Mintz said in the past two decades, the number of home-schoolers nationwide has grown from about 20,000 to about 2 million. He said there are about 12,000 alternative schools, including charter and public alternatives and Montessoris.

Of those, about 200 are "democratic schools," in which students play a big role in decision-making, he said.

There has been a lot of debate, however, about the concept. While some experts say it is needed to keep children motivated and feed their innate curiosity, others have argued that kids who lack motivation can flounder.

The original Sudbury school in Framingham, Mass., opened in 1968 and challenged families to re-think their own ideas about education. There are now 24 such schools in the United States. The only other one in Florida is in Palm Harbor, near Clearwater.

Students don't take any standardized tests — not even FCATs — and they don't get a traditional high school diploma. Despite this, Dionne Ekendiz, one of the Davie school founders, said about 80 percent of Sudbury graduates are accepted into their first choice of college, proving the students are learning.

To get into a college, students can opt to take the entrance exams. But founders say essays and interviews with admissions counselors set their students apart.

Joshua Joseph, 9, recently learned how to make pop-up books. He said he likes that he can spend as much time as he wants playing computer games.

While some may question how the format works with reading and math, "the truth is, that's the easy stuff,'' Ekendiz said. "Our children will need skills like self-understanding, self-motivation and creative problem-solving.''

Sunset Sudbury, on 66th Avenue near Stirling Road, opened in August after about three years of planning. Its founders are parents turned off by traditional public schools.

The school, which hopes to serve K-12, doesn't group students by age range, unlike some Montessoris. Here, kids arrive anytime between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. The school stays open until 3:30 p.m., but parents can take students out during the day.

If a child wants to spend his days catching caterpillars, founders say that's fine because it builds patience. Coming to school dressed as a princess is a form of expression. And when students plan a field trip, discussing the cost is a practical way to learn math.

Still, the founders say it's not for everyone. The students have to want to be there, and setting their own agendas adds responsibilities.

Every day each student meets with three to four adult staffers and discusses the day's plan. Students police the rules and have a judicial committee that talks with violators about the consequences of breaking a rule.

The school, which charges $6,600 a year for full-time tuition, would like to grow to about 20 students and will have an open house from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.

Veezie Bowden, whose 4-year-old son Julian attends the school, said she thought he'd spend most of his day playing. Instead he developed an interest in writing after mingling with his peers.

She admits she had reservations in the beginning.

"It's not easy grappling with the idea that your kid is not going to get a traditional high school diploma or take the FCAT,'' said Bowden. "But at the end of the day, I saw what graduates of Sudbury schools were doing with their lives. They were eloquent, responsible and mature.

"My feeling was that if I could have that for my children, all of the other stuff doesn't matter.''

"Cool in School" is a weekly look at some of the interesting people, events and programs in schools and universities throughout South Florida. For more on what's going on in South Florida schools, go to SunSentinel.com/schools and see our blogs at SunSentinel.com/schoolblog

Exhibit 2:

Eureka!

FINALLY, the answer to what's wrong with education at Cairo Junior/Senior High School!!!

The nationally and internationally recognized mathematics teacher (Thomas Gaffey) in the article below is dazzling the media...students using laptops while sitting in rolling chairs at trapezoidal tables spaced out in hexagonal classrooms.

Damn those Cairo teachers! I've been there, seen this...Cairo students sitting in rolling chairs at hexagonal tables spaced out in trapezoidal classrooms!! Bass-ackwards!!!

Laptops? Sorry...please don't hold that against the teachers. The Cairo Board of Education spent that money on lawyers!

As for the scintillating "snippet of student-driven discussion (that) is a glimpse of the style and approach that have earned Gaffey (his)national and international recognition...I have seen and heard similar dialogue in CJSHS classrooms.

Hell...it even happened in MY classroom! Where's my national and international recognition??? I was a "Guide on the Side" and didn't know it...didn't take/get credit for it!!!

BTW...national and international recognition? I'll have you know that CAT Tracks is read in Washington DC, Rio de Janeiro, Ghana, Kenya...and this week in the Sudan. (My sister-in-law Rachel just won't stay put! And, although we haven't seen each other lately, Rachel still "recognizes" me when we finally hook up. So there!)

Anyway...

The article below doesn't really fit into the "insanity theme", but it was definitely an "eye roller". I mean...whoop dee doo! All CJSHS lacks is a good PR agent!

Incidentally...

In the article, they mention the school's "math proficiency rate" on state tests...15%. Just goes to show...with a good PR person, you can turn lemons into lemonade.

From the philly.com website...

Link to Original Story

Class Acts
Philadelphia teacher's methods make math add up

By Stephen Jiwanmall
Inquirer Staff Writer

No textbooks, no paper, no chalk, no desks, and no assigned seats.

Instead, students in Thomas Gaffey's ninth-grade algebra class at Philadelphia's High School of the Future use laptops while sitting in rolling chairs at trapezoidal tables spaced out in hexagonal classrooms.

And Gaffey, 28, encourages his students to find answers to their own questions.

"Is this an obtuse triangle?" one student asks.

"Well, what can you tell me about an obtuse triangle?" Gaffey replies.

"One of the angles has to be more than 90 degrees," the student answers.

"Are any of the angles here like that?"

"Yeah. Oh, I get it now!"

This snippet of student-driven discussion is a glimpse of the style and approach that have earned Gaffey national and international recognition. He placed second in Microsoft's U.S. Innovative Education Forum in August, then represented the United States at the Worldwide Innovative Education Forum in South Africa and was named a semifinalist.

Les Foltos, one of the judges who reviewed Gaffey's work, was impressed by his emphasis on "actively engaging students in solving real-world problems."

In his classroom on a recent Tuesday, Gaffey's challenge to his "learners" - as students in the Parkside public school are called - was to estimate Earth's land area.

To solve the problem, the class first covered basic concepts about area and polygons - shapes with three or more straight sides.

Gaffey then asked, "If a shape has four sides, is it always a polygon?"

Learners who answered yes (the wrong answer) were asked to redefine what a polygon is, while those who answered no were asked to draw a four-sided shape that was not a polygon on the class "smart board."

Gaffey drew a shape with three straight sides and one curved side.

"Is this a polygon?" he asked.

"No," the class responded.

"I'm not teaching polygons," Gaffey later explained. "I'm teaching a process."

So, how to attack the land area of Earth?

The class drew lines through each of the continents, chopping them up into complex polygons, then simple polygons.

The final phase was to derive formulas for the areas of the simple polygons, and add up the areas.

Geometry, algebra, and estimation are the three fixtures of Gaffey's Project 100 course, created two years ago as an elective that supplements the core Algebra 1 class for ninth graders.

Brian Cohen teaches Algebra 1 parallel with Gaffey's class. They collaborate to address weaknesses in students in this school, where over the last two years fewer than 15 percent of 11th graders were proficient in math, according to state tests.

"Math education, more than any other subject, is in need of drastic reform," Gaffey said. "Mathematics is a tool that we use, and that fact is almost nonexistent in traditional math education."

Colleagues said they considered Gaffey a prime example of the school's mission of progressive learning.

"His approach allows the learners to develop a sense of self-sufficiency in learning, using the tools at their disposal to understand a concept," Cohen said. "It's pretty awesome."

Students who took his class last year credit Gaffey with creating a math class that is fun, educational, and effective.

"There's never a boring day with him," sophomore Tysheka Spencer said. "Students want to do something that they're interested in and hope to remember later on in life."

"I went into the class thinking that I would fail and walked out with a new sense of accomplishment," Bria Lawrence said.

"Project 100 is never a class I dread to go to," Brandi Wells said. "It's a class that most learners believe is a step above a regular math class."

Current student Christian Gimeno said Gaffey "has a different perspective of what math is and how it should be taught. I enjoy his method, because he really challenges you. It's not just meaningless equations."

Gaffey hopes the class serves as a model for math education.

"If we want to teach math to learners, we should teach math how it is actually used," he said. "It doesn't matter how much you know. It matters what you can do."

Exhibit 3:

Sweet Jesus.

Without further ado...

From the UnionLeader.com Website...

Link to Original Story

Parents outraged over finance class reading

By GREG KWASNIK
Union Leader Correspondent

BEDFORD – The parents of a Bedford teen are calling for the ouster of school officials who assigned their son a book that refers to Jesus Christ as a "wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist."

"We had almost PhD people letting this fumble through their fingers, and they all said it was grand," said Dennis Taylor, a conservative Christian. "I think there should be a review of these individuals and perhaps some firing done."

Taylor and his wife Aimee became upset when they learned that their son had been assigned the book "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America," in his personal finance class at Bedford High School.

"Nickel and Dimed" is a first-person account of author Barbara Ehrenreich's failed attempts to make a living at various minimum wage jobs across the country. Written in response to 1996 welfare reform, the book offers a serious critique of the current economic system, which Ehrenreich argues preys on the poor.

This fall, Dennis and Aimee Taylor complained about the book to the school district, citing its occasional use of obscene dialogue and anti-capitalist message.

"The author is a known social Marxist, hates everything American, everything that America stands for or was built on," Aimee Taylor said. "I mean when you read the book you see that strongly in this woman's agenda. It's horrible."

The Taylors also took issue with the book's portrayal of Christians. In one scene, Ehrenreich attends a tent revival meeting, and is troubled by its emphasis on Jesus Christ's crucifixion, rather than his social teachings.

"Jesus makes his appearance here only as a corpse; the living man, the wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist, is never once mentioned, nor anything he ever had to say," Ehrenreich writes.

In response to the Taylors' complaint, school district officials convened a materials review committee of teachers, administrators and community members to assess the book. Upon review, the committee ruled that the book's educational merit outweighed its shortcomings.

"We found the book provided valuable insight into the circumstances of the working poor and an opportunity for students to demonstrate mastery of the 'Financial Impact' competency," the committee reported.

Assistant Superintendent Chip McGee said the committee looked at the value of the book as a whole, rather than judging it on its objectionable passages.

"We need to balance the instructional value of the book against its shortcomings, rather than looking at any isolated passage, and rather than looking at the belief system of the author," McGee said.

Though the committee ruled in the book's favor, district officials are now requiring teachers to notify parents before they assign the book in class. If parents object to the book, an alternative will be provided.

McGee said school district officials will also perform an evaluation of the personal finance class, and consider the possibility of replacing "Nickel and Dimed" with a book that does not have its controversial content.

Dennis and Aimee Taylor have already taken their son out of Bedford High School, and have begun teaching him at home. Both parents plan to attend the Dec. 13 meeting of the Bedford School Board to ask that the book be removed from the curriculum.

Dennis Taylor said Bedford taxpayers should not have to pay for "Nickel and Dimed," which he said presents a biased portrayal of capitalism.

"Nobody gets out of the hole in this book," Taylor said. "Really, is that the message we want to teach children in Bedford, who of all Americans ought to be capitalists, and produce the wealth that other people enjoy?"`