John Axtell (newlife@theofficenet.com)
Wed, 04 Apr 2001 16:41:40 -0700
Marko,
I disagree. I believe the results of any experiment are valid. Those who do
not keep results of their experiments simply have not done an experiment.
The SV model is not an experiment it is a concept implemented differently
by different people on different people.
When you have a small sub population as is the case in every SV model
school the data can only be suggestive. However, if a school was to keep
track of their graduates it would certainly give a lot more credibility to
the concept.
I am developing material for our school and to participate you must agree
to respond to surveys for ten years after leaving the school. Now obviously
I have no idea how many will respond but I think that those that have gone
through the school will really want to provide feedback as to how their
experience could have been better and how well we have helped prepare them
for their life. I find that if I show a caring interest in students they
usually return the feeling and are very willing to share with us their
frustrations and victories.
I also disagree with your conclusion. Most people want to believe but are
afraid it is too good to be true. I will be doing everything to maintain
the kind of records that in fifteen years someone can look at what we have
created and say "it was good" or "what a disaster". If I do not do this
nothing will have been learned about the concepts we are implementing and
certainly it will not be easy to market the concept to others.
John
Marko Koskinen wrote:
> The problem with numbers is that they really don't tell anything
> important about Sudbury Model schools. People who have hard time
> believing in the model have equally hard time with it even if they saw
> the data. This is because it totally wrecks all that they are made to
> believe in. Such an enormous change in thinking cannot happen without
> effort and the effort needed is for them to think and usually people who
> don't believe in Sudbury Model are also taught not to think for
> themselves. They believe in authorities, but if the authority tells them
> to think themselves, they are in deep trouble and usually rather try to
> avoid such trouble...
>
> So, the the point of the data is mostly to be able to say that it is
> available and anyone is free to examine it. But even then many people
> say that "it's not from an objective source". And even if it was they
> could say "but they are all some special kids, it couldn't work with our
> kids", or "yeah, but it's a middle-class school, but how about the poor
> kids".
>
> So, the lesson I'm slowly starting to learn is not to waste my time with
> people who clearly DON'T WANT TO believe, but rather find people who are
> genuinely interested and give them SOME information and let them do the
> learning themselves. We cannot make people believe something they don't
> want to, so why bother.
>
> Marko
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