 |
How
to Grow a School
Starting and
Sustaining Schools That Work
by Chris Mercogliano
First Edition Softcover
|
Don’t be misled by the title. How to Grow a
School: Starting and Sustaining Schools That Work is not your
typical how-to book. This is because author Chris Mercogliano firmly
believes no two schools should be alike, while it is the nature of
how-to books to dish out formulas that readers are expected to
follow like recipes.
No, How to Grow a School doesn’t contain any blueprints. Instead it
is an exploration of the art of the possible, a reference point, a
confidence builder, a troubleshooting guide—a tool, if you will.
Above all, it is an attempt to demythologize the artificial
construct known as "school," which, like the Wizard of Oz behind his
curtain of illusion, has inflated itself into something mysterious
and foreboding. "It is time to throw back the curtain," writes
Mercogliano, who for the past thirty-three years has helped to staff
and run the Albany Free School, the nation’s oldest independent,
inner-city non-coercive school, "so that all may see how simple and
basic is the process of educating children, and so that we can
reclaim it from the jealous hands of experts, bureaucrats, and
academicians."
The book, the first ever of its kind, provides valuable information
and guidance to parents, educators, homeschooling families—anyone
with an interest in the future of our children. In addition to
examining the core characteristics of any good learning environment
and the basic steps involved in starting one, it chronicles the
start-up of 18 uncommon schools and learning centers—whenever
possible in the voices of their founders. There is great wisdom in
these stories. Each one is a unique example of how an individual or
group managed to bring to life their vision of education. There is
abundant inspiration in them, too, because in nearly every instance
the explorers were faced with navigating the shoal-filled waters
beyond convention without reliable charts, often relying on
serendipity and synchronicity to keep them on course. Not all of the
examples are "success stories," for lack of a better term, because
there is much to be learned from others' misfortunes and mistakes.
You will find the words "sprout" and "grow" throughout the
discussion because in addition to being a teacher and a writer, the
author is an inveterate gardener, too. To him a good learning
environment, the kind that meets children's real physical,
intellectual, emotional, and spiritual needs, is like a garden. It
begins with a seed, a vision of a better way. Then emerges a sprout
that must be carefully tended until it matures and bears the fruit
of happy, competent, purposeful, autonomous young people.
How to Grow a School promises to be a good read, too, for as Ron
Miller, publisher and author of What are Schools For?, said
about Mercogliano’s first book, Making It Up As We Go Along:
"This is the most soulful and authentic book about education since
the writings of the radical critics of the 1960s, Holt, Kozol,
Dennison, Kohl, and Herndon. . . . Mercogliano reminds us once again
that true education is not a management technique but a human
encounter."
Chris Mercogliano has been a teacher at the Albany Free
School since 1973, and co-director since 1985. His writing has
appeared in numerous publications and he is the author of
Making It Up As We Go Along and
Teaching the Restless. He
lives in Albany, New York.
|
"How to Grow a School"
