Students have votes in democratic school
Monday, April 5, 2004 9:06 AM PDT
By Associated Press
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E-mail this articleEUGENE -- Emerald Valley School isn't a typical school. It's a place where students have an equal vote with adult staff members on policy, hiring and discipline matters, and they are free to choose what, when, how and even if they want to learn
Emerald Valley, which opened in 2000, sprang from the Sudbury Valley model, so-named for the Massachusetts school that's spawned dozens of other "democratic" schools in the past 35 years.
At Emerald Valley, students make all decisions, although grown-ups may overrule when there's a question of safety or legality.
"One day I came in, and they had set up a boxing ring," said Les Ditson, one of the school's founders and three staff members. "So I had to tell them to stop."
At its essence, the concept is the same as the home-based "unschooling" advocated by educator John Holt and others in the 1960s, with the schoolhouse taking the place of the home and other trusted adults as well as peers stepping in for parents.
"We've made this a little place where the so-called unschoolers can feel comfortable," Ditson says.
Ditson's four kids attended another local Sudbury-inspired school, 6-year-old Blue Mountain in Cottage Grove, before he and former teacher and homeschooler Linda Walling started Emerald Valley.
The school exists under Oregon's alternative education law, receiving public funds on a per-pupil basis through contracts with several school districts.
Taking up three connected classrooms in the Whiteaker Elementary building, Emerald Valley serves close to 50 students between the ages of 5 and 18. All of them are registered homeschoolers who must agree to be there at least 16 of the 24 hours the school is open each week.
On a recent morning, the band The Clash blares from a portable CD player in the "noisy room," where later a group of boys will gather for a boisterous round of Dungeons and Dragons.
There's also a music/computer room and a "quiet room" with a well-stocked library, meditation loft and several study nooks.
In one of the nooks sits Myles Gisel-Totman, 17, leafing through magazines and newspapers and working on a story written with pen and paper. He used to attend Fern Ridge Middle School, and shudders at the memory.
"The students were very mean," he says. "The lessons were at best confusing."
His four years at Emerald Valley have felt like a "vacation," he says one that he thinks has prepared him well for the real world. "There's an abundance of materials I can use here," he says. "I don't ever remember being bored."
Chaia Waterstone has three children at Emerald Valley, and is also the school cook. She considers herself an unschooler, although at home she occasionally brings in some workbooks and imposes some structure.
"From time to time I have my doubts are they really going to learn?" says Waterstone, getting ready to prepare Mexican casserole made from organic ingredients. "The one big concern I have is to make sure that they're exposed to things and know that they have a lot of choices."
At Emerald Valley, socializing is her kids' primary goal, something that is beneficial in itself, she says, especially for homeschoolers.
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