Weekly Update 6.12.09

One of the things I think our public school system must do well is to train men and women to be citizens in a democracy. It sounds like an easy task (all it takes is being born, right?) but it’s deceptive. One of the primary arguments against democracy and freedom for thousands of years were that people were too stupid, too selfish, and too fickle to be in control of their own lives. The average individual needed to be subject to the state, not a citizen of it.

If we accept that our schools are to be teachers of the skills needed for democracy, we ought to be terrified when those institutions—such as the school board—don’t have the representation of the people to do their task effectively.

Presently the Monadnock Regional School Board has two member vacancies—and it has been this way for months, one from Roxbury and one from Troy. The Roxbury position has been vacant since Karen Cota resigned in November 2008, and the Troy vacancy occurred with the resignation of Doug Lyman in April 2009.

This ought to scare Joe Average. It certainly scares me. When the average person ceases to be involved, the fanatics are empowered—the margins assume greater prominence over the middle. It’s vital that citizens serve the state—even if only for a few hours each month.

The MRSD school Board meets the first and third Tuesday of each month September through June. There is one meeting held in July and August.

Know somebody? Tell them. Are somebody? Contact Dr. Dassau.

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Terrifying article.

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Thursday night was the first of two senior project nights, and it went very well. As usual, it was astounding what the kids have done and the quality of some of the work. Stepping back and seeing what’s possible—and the extent to which the senior project has the potential to drive student success and achievement—it merely reinforces how much the students are capable and how much they’ve learned.

But there’s something else I like—that it brings the whole school out, that it brings, to some extent, the community out. You see people that haven’t been in the school in years, and they come because what they see is worthwhile, because it’s amazing, and because it’s a chance to come into the building and see good things.

Personally, I would love it were it an hour longer—or even, just a half-hour, with that first half hour with all the projects on display throughout the school and a chance for the whole community to come into the school, see what’s been done, talk to the students, and then choose which one they would like to see.

That’d be cool.

If the first night was missed, the second night is equally great—this Tuesday, 6pm.

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Thoughts worth mining in this article. We move a little at a time.

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I noticed Seth Godin agreeing with me about textbooks.