Sudbury valley school, a true LO? LO28681

From: AM de Lange (amdelange@postino.up.ac.za)
Date: 06/18/02


Replying to LO28635 --

Dear Organlearners,

Alfred Rheeder <alfred@pvm.co.za> writes:

>I read everything I could regarding the Sudbury School
>on their website. I would like to make some observations.
>Nothing is mentioned about a learning plan nor the
>facilitation of emergences of the pupils.

Greetings dear Alfred,

You are right.

When I worked through the site, it hindered me that I could not find any
indications to learning plans. To learn by chance can lead to an
incredible waste of energy. The reason is that whatever has to be learned,
has an implicate order to it. Should the learner jump around in that order
without taking it into consideration, few relationships will be
discovered.

With "emergences" I presume that you mean the "midwivery of Socrates". I
must admit that I did not notice the lack of reference to it in whatever
kind of articulation of it. This "midwivery" is the very reason why
learners of all ages need teachers (and organisation who want to make
major changes need consultants ;-) Here the teacher must have experienced
such emergences self so as to be an effective facillitator in them.

>Apart from this I could not detect a sensitivity for a increase in
>complexity of learning.

Again you are right. But I ascribed it to a lack of information on any
learning plans. I am doing research for an essay on the "History of the
act of learning". It strikes me once again how outstanding teachers
through the ages gradually became aware of the vital importance to heed to
this "increase in complexity". For example, one cannot learn fractions
(which are more complex) before one has learnt natural numbers. One cannot
compose sentences before one has learned the words to be used in them.
Should the "steps" into complexity be skipped, then the following apply:

>The insensitivity towards the Law of Requisite
>Complexity will lead to imergences even though it is
>a "free" and "democratic" process.

Alfred, thank you for your most valuable comments. I assumed that the
information at the site is kept "short and sweet". But obviously, such an
assumption can be false.

With care and best wishes,

-- 

At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa

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