Visiting Britain's Open Classrooms

...Classes are held in an old Victorian structure attached to the church...

...Most of the students transferring to Faraday have recently moved into new public housing nearby and have been unsuccessful in their original schools...

...Thus the school benefits not only from having older pupils teach younger ones, but from the emotional support that older brothers and sisters can provide their younger siblings...

...Indeed, there is a great vacuum of hard data about the open classroom approach...

...I noticed early in my visit that the pupils received a large amount of individual tutoring from their teachers...

...On two floors the walls have been knocked out to create extended learning and play spaces...

...All of the teachers I visited appreciated the importance of assessment as part of the on-going operation of the open classroom, for they were concerned about tailoring the curriculum to the needs of each student...

...Tomlin's method superior to Miss Duffin's...

...The important lesson I think the foreign observer can learn from the British experience is that it represents the efforts of many thoughtful and innovative teachers and administrators to cope with the learning problems their pupils bring to them...

...But the sheets do sharpen their awareness of each pupil's development and make them more sensitive to the goals encapsulated in the assessment scales...

...It is questionable, though, whether any of these phenomena can be casually connected with the open classroom movement...

...They do enough structured academic work to keep up with their peers in traditional classrooms, she explained, and the open plan's emphasis on individual choice and responsibility is much better for the pupils' character development than a structured curriculum...

...To help evaluate student progress and pinpoint specific problems, the staff has drawn up math assessment sheets...

...while encouraging freedom of movement for both pupils and teachers at all times...

...Conclusions Having completed my brief tour of a variety of open classrooms in England, let me return to the three questions I introduced at the outset: 1. How should teachers plan and organize the informal learning situation characteristic of the open classroom...

...Most of these visitors have read Joseph Featherstone, Charles Silberman or Lillian Weber, and are looking for a model to solve the problems of primary education in the United States...

...This, it seems to me, could be solved by setting aside a bloc of time every week to stress the distinctive methodology each discipline brings to bear on the topic under study...

...The last years stress the development of language skills and mathematics, and devote somewhat more time to organized classroom activities in small groups...

...This, too, was typical of all the open classrooms I visited...

...The major challenge now facing Faraday is that of assimilating pupils from structured, formal classroom backgrounds, for the school is in the process of enlarging its enrollment by over 100 per cent...

...Besides creating a focus of attention and sense of community for everyone, students and teachers alike, the exercise seemed to be generating considerable excitement and learning...

...Internal assessment procedures are almost nonexistent...

...As in the East Kennett School, the students are encouraged to keep notebooks...

...Since most children cannot move beyond the ITA during infant school, a teacher in St...

...2) How can the pupils' learning be objectively assessed without compromising the openness of nonstructured education...

...It shows, too, that the classroom can be open both for the students and for their community...

...The exceptions were the assessment instruments developed by Miss Duffin and the student workbooks used at East Kennett and Walworth...

...The interest in music at Parkwood is especially strong...

...It does not take long for them to become quite impressive documents, and especially the weaker students take obvious pride in watching them grow...

...2. How can the pupils' learning be assessed in a manner that provides relatively objective information about the children without compromising the openness of nonstructured education...

...Some of the teachers join to develop themes and projects for the week or month that all of their classes pursue simultaneously, but there is no organized team teaching or planning as at Faraday...

...In addition, small group activities are organized on a continuing and regular basis...

...In contrast, she says, leaving the choice of activity to the pupils gives her teachers a better opportunity to tailor each child's curriculum to his needs...

...I found in talking with individual teachers that most of them did have a pretty clear idea of the strengths and weaknesses of particular children...

...Proudly showing me her students' work in the plastic arts, painting, and writing, she asserted that the freedom of the school contributed to their creativity...

...A few teachers on each team specialize for example, one in math, another in language studies, still another in remedial subjects but they switch their specialties every year...

...Tomlin showed me how she did her class preparations every day: There was a separate stack of materials for each pupil, indicating considerable thought, planning and hard work on her part that made for a successful combination of structure and openness...

...with a different picture of what an open classroom is, depending upon the particular school indeed, the particular classrooms it observed and the individual lecturers it heard...

...But if the external exams are too rigid, the variety of assessment techniques used by most of the schools are too diverse and often too informal to be of any objective diagnostic value...

...It is certainly time that better techniques be developed for reaching students of exceptionally high potential...

...East Kennett School Tucked into the downs of Wiltshire, in southern England, East Kennett School is the proverbial country school...

...Since its inception, however, the open classroom movement has paid greater attention to the problems of the underachiever, perhaps at the expense of neglecting the needs of the more gifted child...

...It will be recalled that Miss Duffin felt the external examinations taken by primary school children in Britain And...

...Nicholas' actually has real families in each group...

...Mrs...

...While I was dismayed by the dinginess and dirtiness of the building's exterior and the dilapidation of its interior, I was quickly struck by the brightness and vivacity of the art works that the children and staff members had produced and hung everywhere...

...Faraday Junior School Like St...

...Instead of using a text, the staff systematically prepares written materials and provides other resources appropriate to the topic of the week...

...Each child keeps a self-devised record book of the work he has done, an ever-growing and visible testament to his personal accomplishments...

...During her first year at Faraday, she and her staff organized a formal curriculum, although the classrooms were run in a very open manner...

...To enhance the relationship between the school and the village, Mrs...

...The teachers consult with one another extensively and share their special talents...

...The children were clearly caught up in her enthusiasm...

...Particularly noteworthy, though, was the correlation between the fairly free learning environment and the staff's readiness to experiment with new methods A consistent trait, I was to discover, among the vast majority of open classroom teachers...

...Tomlin was describing the traditions and practices of May Day in the area...

...I personally have known children with obvious academic ability who have been underachievers in open classroom situations and then, upon transferring to traditional schools, have performed at the top of their classes...

...Nicholas', the Michael Faraday Junior School in Southwark, London, occupies an old Victorian building whose inner walls have been knocked out so that a number of small rooms open off larger central work areas...

...The virtue of this school was the way it balanced the students' need for independence with their need for support A most important balance in a successful open classroom...

...Greater success appears to have been achieved with spelling: When I was there, 10 of Sister Audrey's students had already shifted to traditional spelling and she expected most of the others to do so before going on to junior school...

...The headmistress, Miss Duffin, explained that Faraday's operational design was developed out of her own personal experiences as a teacher...

...Still, most open classroom teachers lack the essential tools for improving the learning experience of their students: sensitive techniques for obtaining up-to-date information about each child's performance and problems...

...Reflecting a sophisticated knowledge of both the demands of the mathematical disciplines and the developmental psychology of children in this age bracket, the highly detailed forms have scales for recording mastery of different mathematical operations as well as behavioral characteristics that indicate understanding of general concepts...

...To help with the reading, the staff uses the Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA)A simplified alphabet that reduces the number of letters and relates the new symbols to their actual phonetic sounds...

...Tomlin strives for the ideal sort of one-to-one relationship between student and teacher that she thinks is still attainable in a village school...

...The Faraday teachers all agree that the benefits of the open classroom far outweigh the burdens...

...This spirit of taking a concept that is "in the air" and adapting it to the particular needs of a given group of children is the key, I believe, to successfully implementing the open classroom in other countries...

...Miss Duffin told me she thought the present educational system forces children to learn to read too early...

...Audrey Tomlin, headmistress and teacher, came to the village from a large comprehensive secondary school outside Swindon, a nearby industrial town, because she felt a small school with a heterogeneous student body would offer the best possible setting for education...

...The Walworth example suggests that secondary students can profit just as much from an open classroom arrangement with large blocks of free time as do infant and junior school pupils...

...As the week progresses, a number of audio-visual and independent-study projects chosen by the students are keyed to the subject area...

...To Miss Duffin, one of its strongest points is flexibility in staffing...

...She does not, however, impose a set regimen on her students...

...Rarely, however, is it a completely free-form situation: In every case I have seen the day has had a number of scheduled activities as well as blocs of relatively free time...

...I agree with her that modes of assessment must be developed that are compatible in spirit and procedure with the day-to-day life of the open classroom, so that the shock of the test itself does not destroy the pupils' performance...

...Such attempts at structure, she now thinks, tend to be artificial, provide nothing more than "make-work" for the students, and neglect the needs of the individual child...

...Miss Duffin reports that most of them are able to make the adjustment...

...The people at Faraday, for example, seem unable to share their ideas with others or to hear the ideas of those outside of their experimental community...

...Strictly speaking, the term'"open plan" denotes physical arrangements that allow children to be combined in groups of varying sizes at different times of the day...

...Unlike most schools that use this approach, St...

...As a systern or self-fulfilment and and self-assessment, creating this book becomes a valuable learning tool...

...When I visited Faraday, the upper school was emphasizing the concept of classification, with students encouraged to practice it in all of their activities in various ways...

...Nicholas' Junior School concentrates on assisting pupils with the transition to the standard alphabet...

...She told her pupils they could help bring the culture May Day represented to life again: In future years, they could organize a Maypole and various other celebrations for the whole village...

...Yet he expressed concern about the difficulty the staff has encountered in challenging some of the stronger students...

...A staff member who is gifted in music has taught the rest how to play the guitar and given pointers about how music lessons can be integrated into other activities...

...Each teacher has developed for himself a subtly different open classroom from all others...

...The integrated humanities course, like every open classroom experiment, makes great demands on the time of the teachers, who must develop new materials as a team...

...Despite their learning difficulties in other areas, the children at St...

...If she had her students for a longer period of time, she said, she would postpone reading until after the junior school years...

...Unfortunately, like many institutions in the midst of self-conscious innovation, it is overly preoccupied with its own activities...

...staff reports about the pupils are informal and strictly impressionistic, a weakness Brookes himself recognizes...

...Nicholas' Infant School draws children aged 4-7 from the city's Irish ghetto, where the unemployment rate is rumored to be over 60 per cent...

...But the role of assessment in the open classroom remains extremely underdeveloped...

...The main value of any assessment instrument, after all, is the information it provides the teacher and student about how well the child is learning...

...Parkwood does not have a formal curriculum plan...

...Walworth Comprehensive My final stop was the lower forms (grades) of a large comprehensive secondary school in a working-class section of London, the Walworth School...

...As more schools convert to open classroom programs, it is crucial that we learn how the "model" might be modified to increase its benefits and minimize its defects...

...It is difficult to judge the long-term success of Park-wood's open classrooms, since the school has been in operation only two years...

...By presenting the child with a range of alternatives and letting him decide on the time and pace for mastering the material, she fulfilled the most important developmental objective of the open classroom without sacrificing educational content...

...I was impressed, too...

...The rule of the open classroom at Faraday is that when one child cannot solve a problem, another goes to help him...

...I would add, the equivalent exams given in most other countriestend to subvert the cooperative spirit of the open classroom...

...Parkwood Primary School The most physically appealing school I studied was the Parkwood Primary School in Hackney, London, now midway through its third year in a modern and extraordinarily adaptable building...

...Much empirical research must be done before we can say why some schools have had good results and identify the practices that should be adopted elsewhere...

...Most of the difficulties and some of the achievements of British education over the past few years have been blamed on or credited to the explosion of open classrooms throughout the nation...

...Approximately half of the students are immigrants, mainly West Indians, with a fair sampling of Cypriots, Italians, Indians, and Pakistanis...

...Nicholas' Infant School Situated in the shadow of Liverpool's famous Catholic cathedral, St...

...Nicholas' seemed somewhat limited...

...Mothers and fathers are frequently invited to attend school activities, and on such occasions they are encouraged to talk with the children and admire their work...

...The fact that learning seemed exciting and fun in an urban neighborhood suffering all the ills of our modern cities is itself a testament to the open classrooms provided by Brookes and his colleagues...

...Beyond that, diversity is their most striking characteristic...

...Some students and some teachers, she notes, simply never get along, yet the same people in different combinations hit it off and work very well together...

...When the Faraday students took it at the end of the last academic year, they had difficulty simply sitting out the exam: They were so used to cooperating in the solution of problems that working entirely alone seemed unnatural to them...

...During my visit, the topic was the Ice Age...

...It does not appear that sub-teens and teenagers create any more disciplinary problems in a freer learning environment than younger children...

...Before moving on to secondary school, the students must take a "comparability" examination...

...This is true of even the youngest child...

...Each of the five schools I studied took markedly different approaches to this question, ranging from Miss Duffin's totally nonstructured style at Faraday to Mrs...

...In my estimation, Parkwood has established a remarkably positive atmosphere and learning program for children from diverse backgrounds, many of whom would be called educationally deprived and probably would not perform as well in a traditional school...

...In fact, it is not unusual for one family to have children in the school at every age level, and the groupings are organized to make the most of these biological relationships...

...the original central hall has been enlarged and carpeted, with part of it used as a library for the entire lower school and the rest serving as a humanities resource center...

...The students and staff were preparing to take a flight on a BAC-111 sometime before the end of the academic year, and a number of activities had been planned leading up to this event...

...This notion, of course, is quite mistaken...

...According to Sister Audrey, the charming and imaginative headmistress, the students' background is that of the typical urban Irish family in England?matriarchal, with little interest or participation by either parent in the educational life of their children...

...Nevertheless, the conventional wisdom has come to hold that a detailed plan does exist that can be implemented elsewhere...

...3. Is the open classroom an appropriate learning environment for all children...

...Furthermore, it is clear from the fact that the school had to call on a clinic for assistance that continuing assessment procedures in the school were rather lax...

...It also spills over into three temporary buildings specifically designed for the open plan approach...

...only one child scored above 100, and most were clustered in the 80s and 90s...

...Integrated day" usually suggests an arrangement that leaves the choice of specific activities to the child throughout most of his hours in school...

...Some infant classes go over to the junior side to participate in various activities on a regular basis, further allowing substantial integration of ages...

...I watched one teacher help a group of his students design a graph to reproduce the results of a science experiment, while the remainder of his class was busily drawing and playing musical instruments...

...Former cloakrooms have been turned into working areas for students and staff, and many of the classrooms have had their walls replaced by large doors...

...Under the open plan arrangement, the teacher is able to concentrate on the problems of a few students at a time because the others are occupied with their own interests and projects...

...3 ) Is the open classroom an appropriate learning environment for all children'.' In search of the answers...

...By having larger numbers of students and teachers interacting, each is able to find his or her best learning companions...

...Children coming out of English primary schools during the last decade are reported to have shown a marked increase in creativity but, if not a deterioration, at least no improvement in reading ability...

...It has two teachers and a little box-like building with three classrooms, two of which can be formed into one...

...The psychologists found that the students' IQs fell in the 60-106 range...

...I watched one of the students draw a beautiful picture of the new Liverpool Cathedral, using a wide array of bright colors to spectacular effect...

...Overall, I must say that this small country school offers an example of the open classroom unsurpassed by any other I have seen...

...Despite the newcomers' inevitable difficulty in learning to contend with the independence and cooperation that characterize the open classroom...

...If the diversity of open classrooms makes generalizations unwise, the similarities that persist are perhaps especially revealing because they provide a clue to the basic structure of seemingly nonstructured education...

...In a conversational manner that included much give-and-take, she related her account of May Day songs, dances and the Maypole to the concept of regional heritage and its significance to people living today...

...Tomlin keeps separate detailed records of each student's performance to aid her in providing appropriate, individualized curricula...

...Nicholas' has to contend with all the learning problems common to urban ghettos in modern Western cities...

...These classes occupy a 50-year-old, three-story building modified for open plan use...

...There are booths for private study and special areas for viewing films, slides, or television...

...Each teacher is responsible for the total education of the group of students assigned to him...

...The school's 250 infants and juniors are separated in different wings of the structure, but within each division the pupils are organized heterogeneously in modified family groups...

...The lower school, then concentrating on texture, had assembled a series of displays highlighting the contrasting textures of different objects...

...Above all, Mrs...

...Still, overall, I felt the pupils were making the most of the open classroom environment at St...

...The head of the lower school, Mr...

...Since it was May 1, Mrs...

...the label, as advocates are generally careful to stress, is used to cover a wide range of teaching styles and techniques...

...Price expressed some doubt about whether their schools provided adequate stimulation to the "high flyer...

...This method has stimulated much controversy in both England and America, but Sister Audrey has been quite pleased with it...

...One of her basic tenets is that a teacher can not teach a pupil who does not want to learn...

...Besides the advantage of allowing teachers to develop specialties, it enables them to focus on children with problems requiring remedial attention and on the "high flyers" who need extra stimulation...

...Yet there is evidence to support her view...

...It was not clear to me whether the school offered them an alternative to a usually highly disciplined home life, or whether it served to enrich a home life that otherwise left them largely to their own devices...

...It has a central auditorium, surrounded by a number of large rooms that open onto each other and to the auditorium...

...The problem, of course, is by no means unique to the open classroom at the secondary level...

...Apparently it suffers from its reputation in the traditional classroom, where it is often criticized for being a grading exercise divorced from the learning process that serves only to encourage self-destructive competition among the students...

...Here walls and doors have been reduced to a minimum...

...The children were obviously responding to the highly supportive atmosphere generated by all the teachers helping them in drawing and writing: They were encouraged to feel that they could master the tasks set before them, and they were allowed to select the particular activities to be attempted, thereby actively consenting to each assignment...

...Given the diversity of ages in the school, organizing the students' materials is a major task...

...Sister Audrey characterized its pupils as extremely dull, betraying the kind of expectation that can make for self-fulfilling prophecies of failure...

...Yet no matter how attractive the open classroom may be, some children will always feel more comfortable in a structured learning situation...

...The team members work closely together and plan the curriculum in a very informal way...

...In other words, the theory of the open classroom that children should have alternatives and not be forced to adapt themselves to a single, homogeneous learning environment should inform the entire educational system...

...If a child in the infant school seems mature and bright, he is moved directly into the junior school regardless of his calendar age...

...Parkwood's approach to teaching those who speak another language is unique among the schools I have seen: An older student "brother" or "sister" is assigned to help the new pupil master the rudiments of English, a task that is a valuable learning experience for the older child, too...

...The school has some structured classroom activities, mainly in reading and math, but the students (ages 8-11) are allowed a great deal of variety in their participation...

...They also point up three questions that must be confronted in any attempt to tailor the British experience to different social and national contexts: (1) How should teachers plan and organize the informal learning situation characteristic of the open classroom...

...Obviously, new testing techniques must be devised for such "external" assessments, geared to the differences engendered by nontraditional forms of class organization...

...Often, though not always, this is complemented by team teaching...

...This avoidance of specialization is not unusual in primary schools, but it is still a rare event at the secondary level...

...At its best, the open classroom ought to be an appropriate educational environment for both the slow learner and the talented student...

...The important point was that the teachers were always available to the students: When a child was "left alone," it was by his own choice...

...According to Headmaster Brookes, the results of this method have been amazing: Within a year most immigrant children are able to communicate at a respectable level...

...She sees the village as a perfect learning environment for children, and uses it as an important educational resource...

...Each term the school adopts a major project for all the children...

...They may even be better behaved than their peers in traditional classrooms...

...The most important aspect of the open classroom, in Miss Duffin's view, is the opportunity it gives every student and teacher to develop several different personal relationships...

...A first- and second-year students' program, the humanities course focuses on man's evolutionary development as a unifying theme and leaves large blocks of classroom time for relatively unstructured learning experiences...

...A lecture is given every Monday, followed by small-group discussion...

...The teachers are divided into five-man teams, each responsible for 125-150 pupils...

...The school uses both an open plan arrangement and an integrated day...

...The teacher also undertakes formal instruction, but the staff has found that the non-English-speaking child learns more from his pupil tutor...

...Those who were doing well in their home schools continue to take buses to them...

...Nicholas...

...Both Miss Duffin and Mr...

...when he wanted assistance, there was a teacher at hand to provide it...

...It seems extraordinary to have to characterize the situation as being extraordinary, but compared to the trivial rules and norms of dependence in standard primary classrooms, it is no less than that...

...Even a couple of traditional classrooms have been provided...

...The rooms opening off the central hall are furnished with tables and chairs rather than desks...

...The 89 pupils are divided into four "family groups" of about 22, each containing children who span the age range of the school...

...The staff believes this arrangement has worked very well within the open classroom structure, helping to provide a sense of discipline in the free learning environment...

...by the warmth and friendliness of the children...

...later on, when they began to feel the need to read for other purposes, she believes she could teach them more efficiently and in a way they would find far more enjoyable...

...I found Faraday to be a very dynamic school that is coping effectively with tough educational problems...

...The written assessments, Miss Duffin maintains, only codify what teachers already know...

...Another problem common to most integrated courses at the secondary level is giving the students a sense of the special approach taken by each of the correlated disciplines...

...Many of them have language problems, and every term there are a few entrants who do not speak any English...

...I was struck by the variety of musical instruments available in the school and the number of pupils who spontaneously took advantage of the opportunity to play them...

...The most imaginative reconstruction has been done on the floor used by an integrated humanities course (correlated English-history-geography...

...I find Mrs...

...But she insists that staff members devote a considerable amount of time to planning their teaching strategies and talking with one another about what they intend to do with every student tasks made easier by the team-teaching approach...

...Tomlin's detailed though noncoercive and choice-extensive preparation of an individualized curriculum for every child at East Kennett...

...Miss Duffin is opposed to having structured materials in an open classroom...

...The students, whose parents range from farm laborers to members of the landed gentry, are divided into infants and juniors...

...Although the comparability exam is not the kind of achievement test the eleven-plus was, it does have both achievement and intelligence parameters that govern the placement of children in secondary school...

...With the exception of reading, the formal planning at St...

...Staff members told me they are now trying to develop information for each subject unit relating a child's behavioral performance to specific work objectives...

...They are allowed to deal with the problems presented in the materials at their own pace and in the order they prefer...

...Despite the likelihood of a cultural bias in the test, the results do indicate learning problems...

...They devoted a large proportion of their time to art, and the results were always creditable...

...Each week the staff A team of teachers drawn from the participating departmentsprepares a work unit that raises questions about the historical period under study...

...Sister Audrey granted that little was done in this area beyond informal consultation among teachers about their impressions of individual children...

...As I looked around, I could see two teachers helping students with their independent work in the open areas, another holding a discussion with a group of students in one of the classrooms opening off the integrated area, a fourth leading an English class totally unrelated to the problems of the Ice Age, and a part-time teacher giving two students remedial assistance off to the side...

...But there is no single model of the open classroom...

...ideas were not being imported from other schools...

...Thus, whenever a student wants to sharpen a pencil or fetch a book, he simply gets up and does so for himself without asking permission or aid...

...This has replaced the infamous "eleven-plus" exam that used to label British children as successes or failures for the rest of their lives at age 11...

...I set about studying the five open classroom schools described in the pages that follow...

...Every summer hundreds of American teachers invade England to participate in workshops on Britain's famous ''open classrooms" and "integrated days...

...Later I learned it was the school's policy to give every child personalized instruction in a number of different subject areas at some point in the week...

...Work sheets developed by the teachers and completed by the students are continually being added to these notebooks...

...During the first two years, the program is loosely structured, with an emphasis on such subjects as drama, art, and movement (something like physical education in America...

...This blend of progressive and behavioralist approaches to curriculum development, also evident at Faraday, is an impressive sign of the teachers' dedication...

...Consequently, each group of educators returns to the U.S...

...In the workroom where the teachers confer, a list is posted stating the various criteria that can be used for evaluating the performance of the children in the course...

...On the comparability tests, its students scored at or about the norm for London as a whole, a significant achievement in view of the language problems faced by the immigrant children...

...Although I found the noise level rather high in the study areas, it was evident that every student was pursuing his own individual project or participating in a cooperative exercise...

...Similar sheets are in preparation for verbal skills...

...but if the amount of attention it is receiving at Walworth is any indication, some improvement should soon be forthcoming...

...In addition, it permits them to spend more time on in-service training courses and on the development of new curriculum ideas...

...Since all of them cooperate in the preparation and the teaching, they are undergoing a challenging self-education experience themselves...

...When I first arrived at East Kennett, the children were in a combined open assembly...

...She had found, especially in dealing with troubled teenage girls, that the informal, open and free classroom offered the best learning environment...

...Nicholas' seemed capable of doing quite creative work in the arts and crafts...

...The children were following television and radio broadcasts about airplanes, as well as preparing reports about flights they had seen, read about, or enjoyed themselves...

...Occasionally English is taught apart from the rest of the course, but the teachers are trying to integrate it more completely...

...Accordingly, the staff commits much energy to persuading the children to want to read...

...Tomlin has sought to integrate the parents into the school's activities...

...Tomlin runs her school on an open classroom basis, believing it conducive to "the greater mental health" of the children...

...Price, who has been the driving force behind the course, said he was on the whole satisfied with its impact...

...Eventually, this could warp their perspective and seriously weaken the effective environment they have created...

...All that most open classrooms-or, more appropriately, the teachers in them have in ?common is a general attitude toward the educational process best summarized by the cliche "child-centered...

...Recognizing the difficulty many children were having with reading, the school invited Sisters from a child guidance clinic to test them...

...I think it is vital, therefore, that the traditional classroom remain available to those who prefer it because they will undoubtedly learn better in it...

...I had to agree that their efforts appeared imaginative...

...For brief periods, four people are willing to cope with the work of five, knowing that they in turn will have an opportunity to pursue an individual project...

...During my visit, it was airplanes and aviation...

...The school encourages the children to act independently, on the reasonable grounds that they will have to do so in later life...

...The teams devise themes for various periods of time, often open-ended, which then provide a focus for the entire curriculum...

...To be sure, this approach requires a very low teacher-student ratio and a close teacher-student relationship, making it difficult if not impossible to implement in large, underfunded and understaffed urban schools...