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Location: Vancouver, WA, United States

Teacher

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Somewhere John Dewey is smiling:

No assignments. No tests. No grades. It's "no problem" for Bothell school.

The music room sits empty on a recent gray morning at Clearwater School in Bothell. Four girls play cards in the "play" room nearby, and a half-dozen teenagers hang out in the "quiet" room across the way.

The crowd is in the computer room, where 20 students — about a third of this small, private school — are engrossed in strategy and shoot-'em-up video games.

Sounds good, but there are critics:

Even Alfie Kohn, a well-known author and harsh critic of public education, says Sudbury Valley is too radical for his taste. He prefers the Sudbury approach over what he considers public schools' "enormously counterproductive practices like grades and standardized tests." But he doesn't think students learn best left entirely on their own.

"There's a role for teachers to initiate possible avenues of inquiry, to spark interests that kids might not have had before. To coach and guide and observe," he said. "I don't take the view that the kids have to take the lead all the time. I think we miss a lot that way."

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