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By Pam Hyde, April 1996. This is an excerpt from a letter written by Meghan Hyde's Mom, during Meghan's (and the School's) first year, 1996:
I'm not sure how much I wrote at Christmas about Meghan's school. No doubt your Mom and Dad mentioned it to you. Your Dad was concerned. I could tell.
Meghan goes to a very small school that is based on the philosophy called "democratic free schooling." There are no grades, no tests (unless one wants to be tested), but there are classes and there is a great deal of learning going on. The student is responsible for deciding how to spend his time at school. The student is responsible for designing his own curriculum. The manner in which he learns, the person from whom he learns are entirely up to him.
Meghan decided in October that she wanted to have reading class three times a week with another student and one of her teachers. This is the only "formal" class she has set up. Still, throughout the past several months, she has learned to tell time (analog clock), learned the value of coins and how to combine them to make common sums (2 quarters = $.50), learned to add and subtract one digit numbers, improved her drawing skills tremendously, learned a great deal about early Greek, Egyptian, and Roman peoples and their customs, discussed the Vietnam War, war in general, and why people make monuments, learned to write neatly using "1st grade paper", learned to identify compound words, to determine the boundaries of syllables in words to aid her decoding in reading, learned to write a sentence, learned to use Windows 6.0, written a letter to her favorite TV network, Nickelodeon, and sent it via the Internet, learned when and why one uses a dictionary and an encyclopedia, improved her reading skills to at least a third grade level -- she reads chapter books with no pictures -- memorized lines in a short play of an African folktale, created a clay figurine of a dinosaur, learned to rollerblade, hand-sewn a stuffed animal of her own design. She learned to express her wishes by voting on matters of importance to her at the School Meeting, served on the Judicial Committee of the school -- where she was expected to interview plaintiffs, defendants, witnesses, render fair judgment on guilt or innocence, and determine the appropriate consequences -- learned to use the school grievance procedures to settle disputes with her classmates -- Oh my goodness!! As I wrote that I just kept thinking of more and more things. She did all this without being bored one minute -- all without boring worksheets -- all while laughing and "playing" with her friends. And it's only the beginning of April...
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