New 6-12 School in Keene - Monadnock area

[JMSEEEL]

We are conducting a survey to ascertain the interest of the local community in a free ]6-12 Independent School whose mission uses the natural world as the integrated context for learning. We will also use project based, experiential and expeditionary learning. Our School develops the whole person knowing that academic and intellectual development are not enough. Community Service and Civic engagement will also serve as cornerstones of our school.

Teacher to student ratio will be 1:8 and there will be 8 students in one class and 16 student per grade level at capacity. We will start with 6th and 9th grades and add a grade per year until we reach capacity

We feel that there are not enough reasonable alternatives to the current system. Thank you for taking the time to answer our survey

[Kat Kanning]

Does support mean sending my kid there or giving money?

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Does support mean sending my kid there or giving money?

It could also mean protesting when the bureaucrats start looking for ways to shut them down.

[CNHT]

We are conducting a survey to ascertain the interest of the local community in a free ]6-12 Independent School whose mission uses the natural world as the integrated context for learning. We will also use project based, experiential and expeditionary learning. Our School develops the whole person knowing that academic and intellectual development are not enough. Community Service and Civic engagement will also serve as cornerstones of our school.

Teacher to student ratio will be 1:8 and there will be 8 students in one class and 16 student per grade level at capacity. We will start with 6th and 9th grades and add a grade per year until we reach capacity

We feel that there are not enough reasonable alternatives to the current system. Thank you for taking the time to answer our survey

I am always amazed at how many private schools fall for the same nonsense that is being perpetrated on our public school kids....

I would be concerned with both 'project-based learning' as to its effectiveness and purpose, as well as 'Community Service and Civic engagement' with regards to how it is enforced.


See this excerpt from an article which is no longer archived but is posted elsewhere:

"Public education in America is a mess. No amount of money or fixing is going to turn it around. Humanists, cultural Marxists, the psychologically oriented social engineers and gurus are in charge. Those who seek to deconstruct America, its values, its institutions and its history, as well as its future as a sovereign state, are running the show called American public education.

The Intellectual 'Gods' of the American Educational Wasteland

In order to achieve a temporary teaching certificate back in the late '80s, I experienced what nearly every teacher in the U.S. today has to learn or absorb. Included in my studies were the theories and philosophies of education gurus like Jung, Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Adler, William Glasser, John Dewey, Wundt, Pavlov, B.F. Skinner and Watson.

The problem, as I concluded, is that a little valuable information or objective studies were mixed in with junk, the political, the manipulative, psycho-sociological theory.


It is important for a teacher to know at what stage or age a child learns what. But it is even more important that a teacher have something valuable to teach. That is not what is happening in our public schools, high schools or the colleges of education these days.

Rather, feelings, techniques, self actualization and the ever-popular sensitivity training and "project learning" have replaced solid facts and information and workable teaching techniques. You know ? the kind of knowledge that children learned in most schools before the radicalized '60s generation captured the culture and the schools.


These are the new totalitarians, who adopted psychological tools that have created the dumbed-down, tuned-out, easily manipulated, irrational people that most public schools turn out by the millions.

As I discovered in much of my course work, the gods of modern education and psychology didn't simply stop with objective studies of child development. They veered into an area where they had no business.

In the mindset of the psycho-social educational guru, the child became an object, human capital, silly putty if you will, for creating a political creature easily manipulated by those who think they know better.

The manipulators are the kind of folks who believe that their collectivist vision is what mankind needs in a collectivized, hive-like world. All this is based on Maslow and Roger's theories, called Third Force psychology. Third Force psychology gave us "stuff" like "values clarification" and the wonders of "mastery learning" and these days it has been recycled into "project learning."

Worse yet, however, is that the "stuff" foisted upon the American educational system has replaced the teaching of absolutes or fact-based learning. Manipulative tools like the Delphi Technique and Saul Alinsky's political tools are used by the radicalized progressives, the left and those who hate American society, Western cultural tradition and its values and underpinnings."

The software did not allow me to post the rest of the article but you can read the whole thing here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/724190/posts

It is a great summary of why public education has become a nightmare and I'm always shocked at private schools that end up falling for the same fads in education.

[JMSEEEL]

Hi All:

Thank you for your responses: In answer to what does Support mean, there are many ways to support us. Sending your child to us would be one way, another way would be to vote to have the local and state goverment approve our application. I saw somone say protesting when there is a movement to shut us down, sure that is another way too.

We will not be charging tuition and we would accept donations and to be honest there will most likely be times when we hold funraisrers, etc.  The point is that there are different ways to support us or any other organization and we would only want people supporting us in ways they feel comfortable with.

We also understand that along with support there will be opposition, we believe that this is a great thing, it shows that people can and will think for themselves, hopefully based on facts and complete information.

We believe that there is room in the educational community for choice and alternatives.  Thank you.

[CNHT]

We will also use project based, experiential and expeditionary learning. Our School develops the whole person knowing that academic and intellectual development are not enough. Community Service and Civic engagement will also serve as cornerstones of our school.

This is the part that concerns me: By 'whole person' do you mean social dissection and indoctrination such as is done in the leftist public schools who have gone too far because they don't stick to and value the three R's?

[Russell Kanning]

I guess ladies from Bedford are concerned. Maybe ladies from Keene will be less so.

[CNHT]

I guess ladies from Bedford are concerned. Maybe ladies from Keene will be less so.

What is that supposed to mean?

Keene is already very enamored of the public school system so they might not care about a new school enough to look into it.

And if someone is not familiar with what is wrong with our public schools as I am, they would not recognize the 'fads' and overreaching that some private schools pick up on as well.

You seem to be very hung up on where I live. It has nothing to do with the takeover of ALL U.S. schools by the UN-style of educating and indoctrinating our students.
In fact we were told they care less about education with real facts and skills as they do about instilling certain attitudes in them.

I have yet to see a private school that doesn't veer from that politically correct agenda of wanting to 'mold' the whole child.
Dammit if you had me tutor your kid in English, that's all they'd get ? English. I should think you would be incensed if I took the liberty of trying to influence them politically! (As you should be)

But that is just what this 'whole child' education is doing.

[Russell Kanning]

See .... some ladies in Bedford are very uptight.

[CNHT]

See .... some ladies in Bedford are very uptight.

I could say that about some men in Keene as well. 

So then what is your objection to the public schools if it's all the same to you and doesn't matter?

[Rosie the Riveter]

JMSEEEL I am all the way in Manchester, but would support you in any way that I can. I would think that running a private school without charging tuition would be virtually impossible -- I would love to hear about how you plan do it.

Have you seen http://www.educationrevolution.org/

[CNHT]

JMSEEEL I am all the way in Manchester, but would support you in any way that I can. I would think that running a private school without charging tuition would be virtually impossible -- I would love to hear about how you plan do it.

Have you seen http://www.educationrevolution.org/

I saw it and saw the red flag right away: 'A Radical Experiment in Education'.

I would not want them experimenting on MY KID, just as they are doing in the public schools in the area of mind control and attitude shifts.

I don't get how someone who pulls their kid out of these public schools for the very reason above, jumps right at the same thing or worse just because it has the word 'private' attached to it?

My question is what are they going to be learning that is of value and whether they will be left to have their own family's values respected and not have to be brainwashed into socialistic values. (i.e. 'democratic' school)

Pretty scary stuff.

[Rosie the Riveter]

I would not want them experimenting on MY KID, just as they are doing in the public schools in the area of mind control and attitude shifts.

You don't need to let "them" experiment on your kid-- I'll gladly let "them" experiment on mine 

When you have to time you may consider reading about some nontraditional schools and their success. If we do, in education, what we've always done we're going get the same shit we always have -- It is time for some new ideas in education.

[JMSEEEL]

Hi All:

Again thank you for taking the time to respond.  In response to the insightful and great question regading indoctrination, one of our vision statments reads " students will not be indoctrinated no matter the idealogy".

I was not aware that "educating the whole person" translates to indoctrination.  We believe that educating the whole person means you are aware that a person is more than just her or his mind, they have a heart and emotions and a physical body too.  In order to teach "just english", science , etc., and teach the facts you have to know that the whole person needs to be addressed. This doesn't mean indoctrination this simply means that you need to know when to be compassionate and understanding and when to practice "tough love" and when to draw a line.

In reponse to how we will be able to have a private school without charging tuition, it's a matter of getting funding from foundations and individuals who believe in what we're doing. Thank you.

[Rosie the Riveter]

Hi All:

Again thank you for taking the time to respond.  In response to the insightful and great question regading indoctrination, one of our vision statments reads " students will not be indoctrinated no matter the idealogy".

I was not aware that "educating the whole person" translates to indoctrination.  We believe that educating the whole person means you are aware that a person is more than just her or his mind, they have a heart and emotions and a physical body too.  In order to teach "just english", science , etc., and teach the facts you have to know that the whole person needs to be addressed. This doesn't mean indoctrination this simply means that you need to know when to be compassionate and understanding and when to practice "tough love" and when to draw a line.

In reponse to how we will be able to have a private school without charging tuition, it's a matter of getting funding from foundations and individuals who believe in what we're doing. Thank you.

I wish you all the best of luck and please keep me posted on your progress.