'Progressing' into fall

This is, no doubt, on my mind because the girls and I are now deep into the new term of school. The girls and I are also living that experiment named "progressive education"--and I'm in the middle of deep thought about organizational systems at my progressive school that I believe is spawned right from that same historical stream. The girls and I are also pondering why there doesn't seem to be anything very progressive happening in the real world that relates to the ideals of either management theory or so-called progressive education.
What's interesting is that in the way my world seems to work, it's also on the minds of the guy who started Facebook and Oprah (although it was on my mind first, I'm sure of it). I don't have big money to throw at it --or to get somebody to do my research so I have more time to think before I write these papers that will soon be past due. But I do have plenty of thoughts.
Why pay anywhere from $10,000 to $40,000 a year so your kid or grandkid can get something you theoretically already paid for in taxes? My best answer is, "hope." Most of us live where the public school system is at best harmless and at worst broken. A 'harmless' education is never what I hoped for for my kids. I hoped, and am still hoping, for a dangerous education, something that lights them up, heats them up, and sends them out in the world inspired to make it better. With that thought in mind, I enrolled Sydney in what seemed like a pretty progressive place. They had Alfie Kohn as the fall speaker! They said they did a lot of learning outside the classroom. They said there would be no homework. After last year I knew our road to hell was paved with their good intentions. There was too much homework, too many lectures, too many tests and not a whole lot of flexibility for individual learning styles, abilities or even a nod to the more universal tasks of intellectual development. Sidney wanted to return anyway. She loves her friends. And I volunteered for the school program council in hope that I might light some fires.
Adel arrived from Indonesia this year full of hope for her new school. We're only in the second week and her hope is diminishing. She's not a complainer. She's somebody who has always loved school. Her experience at her new school has so far been sitting in classrooms where the teachers assign too much homework, don't give enough feedback, seem unwilling to explain the "how and why" of things and prepare poorly.
Then there's my school. I haven't given up hope, but I miss sincere interaction. Despite good intentions, ("You don't have to post just so we know you are there") that is exactly what we seem to be doing--when the system works. It doesn't seem very reliable so far. We are excited to learn the skills for sustained organizational change, but I get the idea, like at Sydney's school, that under pressure we revert to Theory X "because I said so."
But I didn't get up to blog on a Saturday morning just to confirm hopelessness in America. After all there's a new documentary out and Oprah wants me to see it. (And I'm hopeful that I will find the time.) My own new documentary about the Mudd engineering students' second trip to Kenya will be shown next week. It's hard not to be hopeful when you see what these talented kids accomplished and the impact that experience made on them. And Sidney, Adel and I are proposing some independent studies for this year in hopes that if we do it well enough it may ignite a spark in a sagging curriculum. I hope so.