Re: KIPP

["ElsaHaas" <ElsaHaas@si.rr.com>]

Kimberly, 

I enjoyed reading the details in your post and I agree with your overall
point. 

But I think that "rigid, controlled instruction" that emphasizes conformity
does damage at any age (unless, perhaps, it's freely chosen by the learner
in order to reach some specific goal). 

Kids who are subjected to "rigid, controlled instruction" through grade 4
are unlikely to later "move into their own, think on their own, learn how to
be creative." 

Unschoolers (unschooling is a form of homeschooling in which the kids
largely choose what to learn, and how) often talk about their kids having to
go through a sometimes lengthy process of "deschooling" - undoing the damage
done by coercive schooling.  

We unschool. Our son, who is 7, has never been to school, and it's mostly
because we want him to CONTINUE to think on his own and to be creative
(something that is innate in our species). We didn't want to have to undo
any damage. We didn't want, as you call it, a "Stepford child."    

Have you ever read John Holt's How Children Fail (revised edition)?

Elsa Haas 

-----Original Message-----
From: arn-l-owner@interversity.org [mailto:arn-l-owner@interversity.org] On
Behalf Of Kimberly Reeves
Sent: Monday, January 01, 2007 3:39 AM
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Subject: [arn-l] KIPP

Sorry for lurking and posting, but I can rarely let a KIPP reference  
pass without making some kind of comment. [...]

I was on a KIPP campus recently in Austin, and I have to tell you it  
was odd to me. It appears the drill-and-skill fast-paced parrot-the- 
teacher sort of activity is now a high art form on KIPP campuses.  
Margaret Spellings, who was with us, called it inspiring. (One kid  
came up to here and told her he had been accepted at an exclusive  
Eastern seaboard prep school, and I am sure that was inspiring to the  
child and his family.)  Most of it, however, is what I would call  
creepy as hell. You wouldn't call this a place where children were  
encouraged to think. it was classroom after classroom of creepy  
Stepford children.

I'm a high school journalism teacher who values children who know how  
to think. That is not what is valued at KIPP. Conformity is what is  
valued at all cost. I think rigid controlled instruction is fine at  
the 4th grade, but if you're still controlling children that way at  
the 8th grade, you have problems. (I think that is why KIPPsters have  
such a problem going on to high school and why Feinberg has a problem  
pulling the KIPP experience into the high school grades.) This is a  
school that instills the discipline that most children could and  
should learn at 8 or 10. They just like to hammer it home at 10, 12  
and even 14.

My own thought? At some point in the middle school years, kids need  
to move into their own, think on their own, learn how to be creative.  
I'm sure others would argue with me, but that just didn't happen at  
KIPP, in my mind. KIPP and I parted ways after I wanted to take the  
kids to a junior high journalism conference in San Antonio, and  
Feinberg wouldn't agree because the kids hadn't "earned" the trip. It  
occurred to me -- and I probably am not as artful I could be when I  
say this -- that when a rigid discipline code trumps valuable student  
learning, then the ones who lose are the kids. Period.

To me, that was profound. No system of discipline, no method of  
teaching, should ever get in the way of learning.

[...]
kimberly