THE SCATTERGOOD IDEA AND THE NATIONAL EDUCATION DEBATE

A Commentary by The School Committee of the Iowa Yearly Meeting

 

THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION: HOW DO WE DEFINE EDUCATION?

IS IT SCHOOLING OR SOMETHING MORE?

How would Americans respond to a poll that asked: "True or false, the School is the only setting where important learning takes place?" As we have asked ourselves and others that question the answer is always "False".  How then can it be that in the sixteen years of the National Education Debate the focus has been entirely on The School?

It is a fact that our children and youth spend only 19% of their annual waking time in school, spending the other 81% with their families, neighbors, among their peers, in their churches, absorbed with television, the internet or other media, working at part-time jobs or by themselves. When we asked ourselves and others whether important learning takes place in these 81% settings the answer is always "Yes". There is growing body of research which underlines such common sense judgments. How then can it be that in the sixteen years of the National Education Debate there has been no effort to strengthen the "curricula" of these settings and get them to work together with each other and the schools?  The simple answer is we don't have a vocabulary, an institution or a profession to help us define or guide the large learning process. Isn't it time we did? The School Committee found it useful to look back at the founding of its charge, the Scattergood Friends School, back in 1890 and saw more clearly the "connections" between the Iowa Quaker families, the Monthly Meetings AND the School. In searching for a better vocabulary we found the descriptions of the American "ecology of learning" in the writing of the nation's top education historian, Lawrence Cremin, helpful and recommend it to our Iowa neighbors as a better framework within which we can strengthen our children's learning and development

 

THE SCATTERGOOD IDEA AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR IOWA

Proceeding from the simple truths THAT LEARNING OCCURS IN MANY SETTINGS, THAT THEY ARE ALL IMPORTANT and THAT THEY MUST ALL WORK TOGETHER the School Committee and the Scattergood Friends School staff began to see its tasks in a very different perspective. Let us share those with you now and offer some suggestion for the strengthening of the Iowa "ecology of learning"

 

A FIRST PRIORITY: COMMUNICATING THE IDEA

Although Quaker families, their Monthly Meetings and their School are still close, the embedded "connections" among and between them are nowhere as close as they were in 1890 or the earlier decades of the century. Therefore a first priority for the School Committee was to counter the "school-only" focus of the National Education Debate and remind Iowa Quakers that their families, Meetings and the other "81%" settings are important and need to be strengthened. For the past two years the Annual Meeting of the Iowa Yearly Meeting has focused on the Scattergood Idea and the implications for Quaker family life and the Monthly Meetings fully explored. We have seen our parents and members empowered to see that they can still make a vital difference. We therefore recommend that the Iowa political, education, civic, religious and business leadership organize to remind Iowans of the simple truth of the "ecology of learning" idea.

 

THE NEXT PRIORITY: SUPPORTING THE FAMILY "CURRICULUM"

Since we are all comfortable in talking about the school "curriculum" we have decided to become as comfortable in talking about the family "curriculum" and doing what we can to support and strengthen that "curriculum". Of course, more and more parents work at parenting in an intentional way. But when we compare the support available to schools and teachers in the strengthening of their "curricula" and the support available to parents it is clear there is much to be done.

The School Committee is organizing a Quaker Family Network in Iowa, has already organized QuakerNet, an internet information and communications system, and will be recruiting volunteer experts from Quaker and other colleges and universities to provide useful information for the strengthening of Quaker family "curriculum" thus empowering parents to participate in a revitalized home-school connection.

We strongly recommend that Iowa undertake to support and strengthen the family "curriculum" for all of its families. In the early decades of this century the evangelical fervor of The Land Grant Idea provided such support and it is clearly time to update the model. Once Iowa families are so empowered and supported a new kind of home-school connection can be built using the telecomputing technologies in ways that they are now not being utilized.

 

ANOTHER PRIORITY: THE OTHER SCHOOL "CURRICULA"

At the outset of our Long Range Planning Process the School Committee conceived of the task of strengthening the Scattergood Friends School as limited to the strengthening of the academic curriculum for the computer age. As we began to see learning in the larger context we could see that Scattergood Friends School, a boarding high school, as housing more than an academic curriculum. It is a residential learning "community" with several "curricula" including the peer group "curriculum", the work "curriculum, family-like and mentoring relationships and, as a Quaker institution, a spiritual "curriculum". We have much to understand how these, mostly embedded "curricula" work but have set such understanding and more intentional guidance as important goals to work toward, again involving such volunteer experts as we can find.

The School Committee is well aware of the devoted and innovative work going on within the nation's schools. But we are still at the frontier of understanding the embedded "curricula" within our schools and in the "connections" between the schools and the other learning settings. We urge that they become another top Iowa priority.

 

ANOTHER PRIORITY: STRENGTHENING SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING

In exploring the emerging uses of the computer and the internet the School Committee began to educate itself on the "HOW" of learning. Most of us rather automatically accept "teaching" and "instruction" as comprising the HOW of learning. Yet we soon saw that much learning is self-directed, situational as in peer group learning, Pavlovian as practiced by the media, role model driven, etc. We also learned that the computer technologies are creating a fundamental shift away from "teaching" and "instruction" within corporate sponsored training programs. The internet alone is changing the nation's pedagogy in dramatic ways. Yet the exploration of the "HOW" of learning has received scant attention in the National Education Debate.

Given Scattergood's informal and small learning community environment the support of self-directedness within its students has always been a strong value. But we are agreed to sharpen the goal-setting that undergirds self-directed learning and to use the technologies in the service of such sharper goals.

We can only recommend that all Iowans become more familiar with the issues involved in the HOW of learning, understand the shift toward self-directed learning and not just use the new technologies as an "add-on" to traditional methods.

 

A FINAL PRIORITY: WHO GUIDES THE ECOLOGY OF LEARNING?

Like any local school board, the School Committee consists of ordinary citizens with no special expertise in education research or practice. Our preference would be to delegate to the experts or professionals in such matters. But we soon discovered there are no experts in understanding, managing or guiding a community's ecology of learning. In historical perspective the church used to provide such "system management" in an embedded way. But the church has moved out of that role for most of us in the past century as our freedoms and choices have expanded. Yet, as we have found there is a need for ecological understanding and guidance. How to do it is a pressing issue.

The School Committee has sought to stimulate such understanding within the Iowa Quaker community and is working to provide better guidance to all of its learning settings while expecting its School staff to do the same within the Scattergood boarding school setting.

The task of developing such ecological understanding and guidance within the larger Iowa community is clear and we can only recommend that it be undertaken with great sensitivity to and respect for all of the learning settings. We hope that our example will be only one of many in the coming years.

A FINAL WORD

After 16 years of the National Education Debate it is interesting that 79% of the electorate see "education" as the number one issue. Clearly the narrow focus of the debate on the 19% of learner time spent in school has not done the job. We strongly urge that Iowa begin to understand the learning challenge in these larger terms and to work on the other 81% settings. We can make a much needed contribution to the National Education Debate and perhaps enliven the Year 2000 elections.. We offer the Scattergood Idea as grist for that mill.