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Lessons Taught, Lessons Learned Vol. II
The Ideal School
by Jane Seaton
Lake and Peninsula Schools
It's a five mile commute from my home to
Newhalen, where our village school is located. A friend and I make
the drive through snowstorms, glare ice, pelting rain, and the
occasional fine day. During the course of our daily journey we often
engage in lofty conversations about the role of education in society,
the latest research on how children learn, and last week's episode of "Dallas." Sometimes we talk about what a school would be like if it
were "ideal." I'm glad to have the opportunity to express my thoughts
on this subject.
The parents of our students (mostly Yup'ik, to
one degree or another) are very supportive of education and want
their children to strive for academic excellence. In a recent mission
statement, members of the community expressed the hope that each
child would be helped to reach his/her fullest potential and develop
a positive self-image. This was a community-wide statement; beyond
this, students typically follow very diverse paths. Some attend
college or trade school, some join the military service, and others
remain in the village. Newhalen School must meet the needs of all
these futures.
Since this diversity is present almost
everywhere, the ideal school I propose for Newhalen would be an ideal
school anywhere. A good school is a good school no matter where it
is. Every school should be structured around its students. The
particular topics in the curriculum will vary from place to place,
but a child-centered structure will adapt to societal and individual
differences within its framework.
The ideal elementary school for rural Alaska
(or any place) would begin with family planning. Every child born in
the community would be wanted, welcomed, and loved. The child might
live with a mother and father in a nuclear family, with adoptive
parents, with one parent only, or with members of the extended
family. No matter what the arrangement, at least one person would be
committed to providing the time and care needed for that child to
feel valued and necessary to the community.
Primary Grades K-3
The Kindergarten curriculum would consist of
ample time to explore an environment rich in developmentally
appropriate materials - blocks, puzzles, water, sand, paint, crayon,
clay, musical instruments, animals, plants, books, magazines,
dress-up clothes, puppets, and foods. None of these need be
expensive. Many can and should be homemade or brought from home by
the child. Situations in which the children could safely make their
own decisions and learn to deal with the consequences would be
encouraged. An important component of the curriculum throughout the
school would be teaching children strategies forgetting along with
others. Children need to be taught by modeling and role-playing to
negotiate, to share, to defend themselves, to join a group, and to
find solutions to their own problems.
Although the children would listen to stories,
poems, and songs and would have chances to use writing tools, there
would be no formal instruction in reading and writing at the
Kindergarten level. The Math curriculum would consist of
child-gathered collections, picture graphs, simple measurement, and
counting games. Field trips to places in the community - post office,
city hall, airport, store, etc. - would occur frequently, with
drawings, stories, and group discussion the desired follow-up.
In the primary grades the active, experiential,
hands-on curriculum begun in Kindergarten would continue and expand.
The Whole Language Workshop I attended at the Rural Academy stressed
that the most important component of "whole language" philosophy is
that it is child-based. Children dictate or write their stories in
words they bring from home and community. They write about what is of
interest to them. They choose what they will read. This doesn't mean
kids are just turned loose to do whatever they please. On the
contrary, the teacher helps students learn strategies, rather than
isolated skills. Unity is stressed throughout the curriculum.
Grouping among the three primary grades would be flexible. Ideally
one teacher would be available per ten children. Older students would
be role models and informal teachers for the younger students. The
older kids would benefit as well by having built-in audiences for
plays and stories.
The Math and Science components of the
curriculum would be indivisible. The focus for primary students would
be exploring the natural world around them. The collection of weather
data, for example, would engage children in using and reading numbers
on a thermometer. Devising instruments for measuring precipitation
and wind speed would put creativity and critical thinking skills to
work. Charting and graphing the figures gathered would teach children
to apply organizational and communication skills. Comparing and
contrasting their data with that gathered in previous years would
provide experience at using figures to predict and analyze. Learning
about their own bioregion - its flora, fauna, and geographical
features - would be the objective of the Math/Science curriculum.
Learning the processes that are needed to learn more would be the
focus for the structure.
The Social Studies component, usually a
separate subject with its own textbook, would be closely tied to the
Language Arts, Science, and Math. Projects would encourage the
children to become familiar with the histories of their own families.
What was it like when their parents went to school? What foods did
they eat? How did they travel? If the children are lucky enough to
have grandparents living in the village, they can find out about life
two generations ago. Children at the Primary level are also
fascinated by the cultures of other people throughout the world. They
should be exposed to the art, music, dress, foods, and customs of
different societies and cultures. In this way they will be able to
view their own culture as a unique part of the whole.
The goal of the primary grades should be to
produce students who:
- like themselves and feel confident of their
abilities
- are interested in and know how to find out
about the world around them
- make as many of their own choices as
possible and deal reasonably with the consequences of their
actions.
Intermediate Grades 4-8
The child-centered, Whole Language approach
would still be used for the intermediate grades. In addition to the
curriculum areas already described, other components would be
added.
Since many of the residents of our area make
their living at the seasonal occupation of commercial fishing, they
are not formally employed for much of the year. Subsistence
activities that used to be necessary for survival have been
modernized, and the job of staying alive takes less time. This is
true not only for rural Alaska, but for most places in our country.
The ideal school would expose students to meaningful, creative
leisure-time activities. Photography, painting, drawing, carving,
skin sewing, basket weaving, gardening, playing musical instruments,
and participating in group or individual sports should be a part of
the curriculum.
Extensive use of the Artist-in-Residence
program would be one way of teaching students about the possibilities
in the various arts. Many times local craft persons could be the
teachers. School districts might also hire an expert in one of the
arts for a nine-month period. This expert would travel from school to
school in the district, giving intensive workshops at each site. The
traveling expert plan could utilize the regular teachers of the
district. A teacher with an exciting unit on paper-making and
book-binding, for example, might switch sites for one or two weeks
with a teacher who can take students through a unit on air
pressure.
Since villages are usually quite isolated and
some children have little opportunity to see what lies beyond their
own domain, the school would give students the chance to travel more
widely. Students in Naknek visit nearby Katmai National Park after
earning part of the money for the trip and studying many aspects -
historical, geographical, cultural - of the area. In the ideal
school, working on fund raising projects would be an integral part of
the curriculum. This would help students with their abilities to
plan, gather information, show responsibility, and keep accounts. The
travel should have specific objectives that the students understand.
A trip to Anchorage might have as one objective that each student
will pass a lifesaving course at a public pool. Another objective of
the same trip might be to have students watch a professional
performance of a play, concert, or sporting event and use what
they've seen to put on an original performance back in the village.
The destination, objectives, and duration of the travel would depend
on the needs of the particular students. Ideally, students would
travel at least once each year in the intermediate grades.
Evaluation
In the ideal school no standardized testing and
no assigning of letter grades would be done at the primary level.
Instead, a developmental file would be kept for each child. Samples
of the children's writing would track progress through the stages of
handwriting, spelling, organization, syntax, word usage, and clarity
of content. Teacher notes would be needed to show the activities and
strategies used if a child was having difficulty progressing from one
stage to another. A cassette tape of the child's reading would also
be kept in this permanent file. The date of each reading and the
approximate reading level of the material would be noted on the tape
by the teacher. An example of the type of operations the child has
mastered in Math would be included, as would an anecdotal record
prepared by the teacher relating strengths and weaknesses.
By the intermediate grades standardized testing
could probably not be held at bay, even in the ideal school. Indeed,
in our society it is important to be able to take and pass tests in
order to show qualification for everything from getting a pilot's
license to entering the armed services. Students should be taught
strategies for test taking. They should know how to take notes and
study certain material. But a continuation of the file begun at the
primary level would provide the best information for the student's
teachers. At the intermediate level letter grades would be given,
based on completion of assignments and mastery of objectives. It
would be recognized in the ideal school that not all students
progress at the same rate. The amount of effort and cooperation with
others, which is so hard to quantify, would be important.
Conclusion
It is easy to see by the quality of the
workshops, the commitment of the teachers, and the thoughtfulness of
authors of articles in Lessons Taught, Lessons Learned that we are
striving for ideal schools throughout Alaska. The vision of the ideal
school may vary from one community to another, from one educator to
another, but as long as the development of each child's fullest
potential remains a central goal, we are moving in the right
direction.
Foreword
Ray Barnhardt
Part I *
Rural School Ideals
"My
Goodness, People Come and Go So Quickly Around
Here"
Lance C. Blackwood
Parental Involvement
in a Cross-Cultural Environment
Monte Boston
Teachers and
Administrators for Rural Alaska
Claudia Caffee
The Mentor Teacher
Program
Judy Charles
Building
Networks
Helen Eckelman
Ideal Curriculum and
Teaching Approaches for a School in Rural
Alaska
Teresa McConnell
Some Observations
Concerning Excellent Rural Alaskan Schools
Bob Moore
The Ideal Rural
Alaska Village School
Samuel Moses
From Then To Now:
The Value of Experiential Learning
Clara Carol Potterville
The Ideal
School
Jane Seaton
Toward an Integrated,
Nonlinear, Community-Oriented Curriculum
Unit
Mary Short
A Letter from
Idealogak, Alaska
Timothy Stathis
Preparing
Rural Students for the Future
Michael Stockburger
The Ideal
Rural School
Dawn Weyiouanna
Alternative
Approaches to the High School Curriculum
Mark J. Zintek
Part II *
Rural Curriculum Ideas
"Masking" the
Curriculum
Irene Bowie
On Punks and
Culture
Louise J. Britton
Literature to Meet
the Needs of Rural Students
Debra Buchanan
Reaching the Gifted
Student Via the Regular Classroom
Patricia S. Caldwell
Early Childhood Special
Education in Rural Alaska
Colleen Chinn
Technically
Speaking
Wayne Day
Process Learning
Through the School Newspaper
Marilyn Harmon
Glacier Bay
History: A Unit in Cultural Education
David Jaynes
Principals of
Technology
Brian Marsh
Here's Looking
at You and Whole Language
Susan Nugent
Inside, Outside and
all-Around: Learning to Read and Write
Mary L. Olsen
Science Across
the Curriculum
Alice Porter
Here's Looking at
You 2000 Workshop
Cheryl Severns
School-Based
Enterprises
Gerald Sheehan
King Island
Christmas: A Language Arts Unit
Christine Pearsall Villano
Using Student-Produced
Dialogues
Michael A. Wilson
We-Search and
Curriculum Integration in the Community
Sally Young
Artist's
Credits
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