The anarchic experimental schools of the 1970s

Re:The anarchic experimental schools of the 1970s by jtheory on Tuesday October 21, 2014 @07:33AM (#8486830)

I went through school always near the top, academically, but I wouldn't say I was well-served by the school system. My wife had much the same experience, though rather worse than mine; she very clearly remembers loving doing math with her older brothers when she was small, but schooling managed to replace that with almost a phobia of anything that looks like math.

Now we have small children, and they're obsessed with reading/writing, numbers, and creative play just like we were as kids -- so they're far ahead of their age group, generally -- but we've kept them out of school so far. We're trying to figure out a path for them through the available educational options, and we're strongly inclined towards more experimental approaches.

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Re:The anarchic experimental schools of the 1970s by mpthrapp on Tuesday October 21, 2014 @10:16AM (#8487425)

If I can evangelize for a sec, I went to a Sudbury[1] school and I would highly recommend it. It's a very free environment and, as someone who is fairly self-motivated, it was amazingly helpful for me. There aren't a ton of locations, but if there's one near you, I'd recommend at least checking it out.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school

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Re:The anarchic experimental schools of the 1970s by tormeh on Tuesday October 21, 2014 @09:59AM (#8487331)

International schools are good, I hear. I mean, they're conventional, but they usually attract smarter student/parents. International baccalaureate is more high school, but I wish I had taken it.

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Re:The anarchic experimental schools of the 1970s by jtheory on Tuesday October 21, 2014 @05:24PM (#8490134)

Thanks for mentioning that -- we're familiar with the international baccalaureate; my wife went to the United World College in New Mexico.

It was completely different from her educational experience before that (not unstructured, but still... much more open-minded about education, and smart about guiding students to think about their place in the world) and the experience had a huge positive effect on her life; we are in touch (and in some cases, close friends) with a startling high percentage of her classmates there, and we've met up with (and often been hosted by) UWC classmates in Austria, Netherlands, India, Australia, France, Malaysia, and various parts of the US (and probably some other places I'm forgetting at the moment...). And despite being quite a diverse group, they're generally pretty interesting people to talk to.

I didn't even know such options existed when I was in HS; and probably would have thought it wasn't for me, at that age. But looking back now, I wish I'd gone as well.

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