IDEA Blog

If you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived

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When a Parent’s ‘I Love You’ Means ‘Do as I Say’

More than 50 years ago, the psychologist Carl Rogers suggested that simply loving our children wasn’t enough. We have to love them unconditionally, he said, for who they are, not for what they do.

As a father, I know this is a tall order, but it becomes even more challenging now that so much of the advice we are given amounts to exactly the opposite. In effect, we’re given tips in conditional parenting, which comes in two flavors: turn up the affection when they’re good, withhold affection when they’re not. ...

... In practice, according to an impressive collection of data by Dr. Deci* and others, unconditional acceptance by parents as well as teachers should be accompanied by “autonomy support”: explaining reasons for requests, maximizing opportunities for the child to participate in making decisions, being encouraging without manipulating, and actively imagining how things look from the child’s point of view.

* Edward L. Deci, a leading American expert on the psychology of motivation

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What Is Uncharted Parenting?

For anyone dedicated to the ideals of democracy, peace, and equality in education, parenting can be just as complex as it is beautiful; just as frustrating as satisfying. That's because we're in new territory, endeavoring to respond to a failed schooling system and a troubled society in need of new solutions. We want to raise happy families that are resilient enough to find purpose and security despite our economic and educational systems showing ever greater signs of distress. We know that, to create the world we want, we must begin where we are. So we pour our hearts and souls into parenting our children in way that reflects our courage and hope for a better society.

The story of...

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Get It Wrong Before You Google to Learn It Better

We live in an era where the answer to almost any fact-based question is no further than a Google search away, but Scientific American highlights a study suggesting subjects forced to get something wrong before being told the answer learn it better.

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Teens’ 12-screen theater project premieres

Searchlights will mark the VIP opening for a new movie complex in Petaluma tonight, but it will really be a celebration of the tenacity of seven teenage girls who shared a dream and made it come true.

If not for the “Superb Seven,” as the girls have dubbed themselves, Petaluma’s 55,000 or so residents would still have to trek to Rohnert Park or Novato to catch a film.

Through sheer will and charm, the girls lobbied local politicians, negotiated with theater owners, won support from Lucasfilm executives and ultimately persuaded a developer to build a theater as the anchor of a $100 million downtown redevelopment project that otherwise might not have gotten off the ground.

“If they didn’t believe in us in the beginning, they sure as hell believe us now,” said one of the teens, 16-year-old Ashley Ditmer.

The girls—Noëlle Bisson, Elizabeth Comstock, Ditmer, Liza Hall, Sarah Marcia, Taylor Norman and Madison Webb—are all 16, except Comstock, who is 15.

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The 3 R’s? A Fourth Is Crucial, Too: Recess

The best way to improve children’s performance in the classroom may be to take them out of it.

New research suggests that play and down time may be as important to a child’s academic experience as reading, science and math, and that regular recess, fitness or nature time can influence behavior, concentration and even grades.

A study published this month in the journal Pediatrics studied the links between recess and classroom behavior among about 11,000 children age 8 and 9. Those who had more than 15 minutes of recess a day showed better behavior in class than those who had little or none. Although disadvantaged children were more likely to be denied recess, the association between better behavior and recess time held up even after researchers controlled for a number of variables, including sex, ethnicity, public or private school and class size.

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14-year-old invents surgical technique

Tony Hansberry II isn(tm)t waiting to finish medical school to contribute to improved medical care. He has already developed a stitching technique that can be used to reduce surgical complications, as well as the chance of error among less experienced surgeons.

•I(tm)ve always had a passion for medicine,• he said in a recent interview. “The project I did was, basically, the comparison of novel laparoscopic instruments in doing a hysterectomy repair.”

By the way, Hansberry is a 14-year-old high school freshman.

In April, the brilliant teen presented his findings at a medical conference at the University of Florida before an audience of doctors and board-certified surgeons.

Hansberry attends Darnell-Cookman, a special medical magnet school that allows him to take advanced classes in medicine. Students at the school master suturing in eighth grade.

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Prisoners or Students?

I'm 5'2" and about 105 lbs. I'm small--so walking through the hallways of the new school in which I just got a teaching position, I get mistaken all the time as a student, by students and teachers alike. This gives my students the impression that I'm a pushover, and staff the idea that I won't last in this school past a couple of months. But what my misleading physique grants me is a world into the daily feelings of my students inside a building they will spend four of their formative years in--if they make it through four.

"Hey! Where's your pass?"

"Where are you going? Get to class!"

"Who let you in this copy room?"

"Get to the back of the line!"

All of these are greetings given to...

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Taking school choice to a whole new level

To most people, this school probably looks like chaos.

But at The Village Free School, chaos is part of the equation.
In this “free democratic” school, kids call the shots on most things. They decide what they want to learn, when they want to learn and how they want that learning to look.

The school’s philosophy? The most substantive learning takes place when students initiate the learning process themselves.
“Kids are learning all the time,” Executive Director Scott Nine says. “It’s not just in certain classes or during certain periods of the day.”

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Welcome to ‘Got Questions?’

Welcome. Before I begin responding to your questions I would like to say two things about what I will be doing here.

The first has to do with my own life as a young person. I remember being very excited about the concept of democracy: People coming together to decide, through discussion and compromise, through an open exchange of ideas, the best course of action that they, as a group, should take. Perhaps that is why I never understood censorship or indoctrination. If you believe an idea to be wrong, let it out in the world so it can be proven wrong. Don't turn it into a precious subversive commodity that people can rally around without being given the space to truly understand it or its...

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