Description

THE ASSIGNMENT:

Watch these short videos and any others you might find on YouTube about SUDBURY VALLEY SCHOOLS:

hhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg9lf7wyQRo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y08sDPQdSC4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdLKpjxOtuQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gC37_JnJ1c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOH6H3pvtn0

Then imagine that the thinkers you have read for Weeks 2 through 5 (see list below) have been appointed as an official government committee to make a recommendation on whether the democratic school model should be adopted as a “flagship model” for US public schools. They have just visited Sudbury Valley School, and are gathered to deliberate. Write a dialogue—like the script of a play—in which they testify as to whether they approve or disapprove this proposal, and give reasons for their judgment based on what you have read of them. Make it lively, that so we hear their voices, whether agreeing, disagreeing and why. That is, write it as a performance piece. We might call this play “The Argument.” Be sure to include at least five (5) of the thinkers listed below. Those will be your chief protagonists, and you can drop in other voices here or there as you wish. You can personify specific theories as well—for example, Ms. Temperament could speak, or Mr. Augustine (Christian) or Ms. Yetzer Harov (Judaism).

  1. John Taylor Gatto, “Dumbing Us Down”
  2. Ron Miller, “The World is Changing, But Schools Aren’t Keeping Up”
  3. Mencius, “On Human Nature”
  4. Hsun Tzu, “On Human Nature”
  5. Plato, “The Three Parts of the Soul”
  6. Thomas Hobbes, “The State of Nature”
  7. Sigmund Freud, “Id, Ego and Superego”
  8. Peter Kropotkin, “Mutual Aid”
  9. Christianity, Mr. Augustine”
  10. Judaism, “Ms Yetzer Harov”
  11. Temperament Theory (call this one Mr or Ms Temperament)
  12. Eric Fromm, “To Have and to Be”
  13. H. Patterson, “The Self-Actualized Person”
  14. Robert Bellah,”Is Capitalism Compatible with Traditional Morality?”
  15. Joel Westheimer & Joseph Kahne, “What Kind of Citizen?”
  16. Jane Elliott, “Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes”
  17. Stanley Milgram, “Obedience”
  18. Tomasello, “Why We Coooperate”
  19. Malaguzzi, “The Image of the Child”
  20. Sulzer, “From a German Child Rearing Manual”
  21. Rousseau, “Selections from Emile”

HERE’S AN EXAMPLE:

Miller: Well obviously what we have seen here is the beginning of a transformation of the schools. The liberation of children to think for themselves and act for themselves is the beginning of an educational transformation which will take us into the contemporary world, instead of running on empty with an old model.

Kropotkin: I agree completely. At this school, children have a chance to act out and internalize the cooperative tendencies that are part of our human nature, and need only be encouraged in order to grow and thrive. The species will not survive much longer without it. Disaster produced by dog-eat-dog capitalism is already upon us.

Hsun Tzu: It’s all an illusion, my friend. Just selfishness disguised as independence. Human nature is evil. Until we realize that, we cannot act to correct it. These children are just being reinforced in their own fantasy of independence.

Freud: I’m afraid, my friends, that we must admit that illusion is our condition. We are all afloat on an ocean of unconsciousness, and the struggle of the ego to establish solid ground is undermined again and again. Basically, human beings are neurotic, not evil. Given this situation, at least authoritarian models exercise more control over the Id, which is dangerous when not somehow held in check. Some level of repression is necessary for individual and social survival.

Fromm: I don’t agree. It depends on what kind of nature we’re socialized into, if you’ll forgive the paradox. Having or being, that is the question.

Kropotkin: I agree. Humans are dual in nature: good impulses and bad impulses. The secret is to find a form of life that teaches people cooperation, not by telling but by doing. We must find a cooperative model of education if people are to become more cooperative.

Hobbes: Look, you had better just face it: without a strong, centralized authority, humans will natural live in a state of warfare, whether declared or undeclared. A school system like this will just encourage chaos, anarchy, and I would add, dumbed down skill-sets. Such a system will promote ignorance, individualism, and general disrespect.

Milgram: I take issue with your call for centralized authority, Mr. Hobbes. As my experiment proves, people are already crippled by conformism and social fear, and will follow orders to commit atrocities without questioning. We need a school system that encourages people to question authority at every step, not to produce robotic obedience.

& ETC. . . . .