When Kids Rule the School

In “Let Kids Rule the School,” Susan Engel recounts an intriguing experience:

I recently followed a group of eight public high school students, aged 15 to 17, in western Massachusetts as they designed and ran their own school within a school. They represented the usual range: two were close to dropping out before they started the project, while others were honors students. They named their school the Independent Project

Their guidance counselor was their adviser, consulting with them when the group flagged in energy or encountered an obstacle. Though they sought advice from English, math and science teachers, they were responsible for monitoring one another’s work and giving one another feedback. There were no grades, but at the end of the semester, the students wrote evaluations of their classmates.

The students describe the experience as “life-changing” and Engel remarks that “[t]he results of their experiment have been transformative.”  She goes on to suggest that “children don’t need another reform imposed on them,” but instead “need to be the authors of their own education.”

Imagine that you have been given immediate and almost unilateral administrative control over Brewster High School.  You now have the authority to determine any of the following:

1. Start time and end times
2. Rules and punishments
3. Graduation requirements
4. Length of each period
5. Weekly schedule
6. Personnel hiring and firing
7. How each subject is taught
8. What subjects are taught
9. What other skills and knowledge are taught
10. How you are tested or otherwise assessed

Unfortunately for you, you can’t change everything, so there are a few restrictions on your power:

1. You still have to attend school, so you can’t cancel it entirely
2. You have to be in class 180 days a year, although you can change when you’re there
3. You can’t reintroduce corporal punishment, which is the use of force/violence
4. You cannot break any local, state, or federal laws

Use the comments section to talk about the changes you would make.

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