Ethos Education Winter 2013/4 | Page 26

positive education for the future such endeavours, are for each unique school culture to determine. However, as serious educators, we ignore these issues at our peril. The good news and indeed the lighter side of this work is that it creates a kind of bond among students, and between teachers and students that is extraordinary. How does the magic work? A 2002 graduate of the Alternative School, Nora Lyons, put it this way in a local publication: “I don’t think it is possible to spend a day at the Alternative School and not hear the word ‘community.’ We are not bound together simply because of our enrolment in the A-School, but also by our support for each other. It didn’t take very long for me to realize what effect the A-School community would have on my own personal growth.” Nora was elected, at age 15, to take a variety of leadership roles in our school. It is important to note that she was a somewhat introverted young woman, not at all a star student or what educators in the US or UK might term “a natural leader.” Rather, she had the courage to speak her mind at public meetings however awkwardly. Instead of being met with smirks and eye-rolling, her remarks, sometimes controversial ones, were met with admiration both by peers and faculty. She graduated with a confidence that was not personality changing but lifechanging. She graduated with a sense of her own voice and with the realization that her voice was part of a chorus. More recently, just this past autumn, I received an e-mail from the mother of Dana Karin, the young woman and teacher who helped start the Peak School. She told me she was going to visit her daughter in Colorado and had been asked to speak at an evening meeting of parents of the students in this new school. She asked me to reflect on how their children were likely to benefit from the kind of education fostered by a school like Peak and the A-School. Here was my response: 24 “I’ll offer up what parents, students, and fellow A-School teachers have told me over the years: • our students learn how they learn best, which means they become their own best advocates, especially in college and in the work place • our students learn how to work with others, how to build teams, how to play a multiplicity of roles when part of a group that needs to solve a problem • our extroverts learn to listen more actively; our introverts develop a sense of obligation to add their voices to conversation • our students feel empowered to confront, politely and constructively, schooling that does not promote their learning • our students become more honest about their own obligations to work hard, think hard, and take intellectual risks • our students come to value unconventional thinking • parents serve progressive schools by partnering with