Reschool Yourself

Author Archive: mjdicker

What’s to Come for RSY

Today I concluded my official reschooling at St. Vincent High School, even though I wish I could spend more time there. In particular, the conversations about education, many of them informal and impromptu, that I’ve had with my old teachers and the current students have been so rich that I want to have more. However, travel plans call. In fact, I have to catch an aiporter at the inhumane hour of 3:55 a.m, in four hours.

Here’s the plan for the next few weeks:

  • Through 11/16: Public Allies board meeting in Milwaukee, and the weekend in Chicago with friends.
  • 11/16 – 12/3: In Jackson visiting Darren. I’ll be processing the K-12 journey and writing about many of the experiences I’ve been dying to share but haven’t had time. Expect flashbacks all the way to the start of my reschooling in kindergarten, and handouts galore.
  • 12/3 – 12/6: Santa Clara University. I get to stay in the dorms and visit classes. I’ll also be making a presentation to a UC Berkeley Education class about Reschool Yourself.
  • 12/6 – 12/24: School follow-ups and educational autobiography. As I draft the book proposal, I’ll pop back into my old classrooms to snap photos and ask follow-up questions. I’ll also go through old photos and keepsakes from each grade to piece together an “educational autobiography” that traces my evolution through school. I think everyone could benefit from doing this, and I’ll share my own process.
  • Spring – I promise to write an update in the next few days about what the spring will hold.

Stay tuned. I’m looking forward to sharing amusing anecdotes and my conclusions thus far, as well as hearing about your school experiences. Thanks to those of you who are sharing — I’ve always intended for the site to be a forum for people to reflect on their education and story-swap. To those of you who are reading but don’t comment….PLEASE COMMENT! It would be nice to know that you’re out there.

November 13, 2008 About the Project 3 Read more >

Gratitude Upon Graduation

I have just a few minutes to post before I leave St. Vincent High School, so this post will be much shorter and more off the cuff than usual. I spent my lunch period talking with my old principal — who now teaches World History — and I ended up skipping Literature class because we were having such an in-depth conversation. We talked about how the school has changed and remained the same, what we hope formal education does for students, and how we’ve changed as individuals over the years. The conversation reminded me of how much I love St. Vincent High School, and that feeling has stayed with me all day. I’ve had similar conversations with several of my old teachers during the last couple of weeks, and they’ve been the highlight of my visit. I am trying to make sense of this paradox: I suffered quite a bit in the school system and believe it’s in need of major change, but I love this school that is a part of that system.

Even when I was a student, I always appreciated the teachers and the community. Even the teachers that have a traditional authoritative style sincerely care about their students, respect their opinions, and get to know them on a personal level. They make it clear to students that they matter. Although I believe that the school system has gone wrong in many ways — including memorization of specialized material, strict rules, and competitive grading — something is right with my high school, and with my elementary and middle schools. What’s right with my schools is the people. Generally speaking, the teachers are doing their best within a very complicated system that has taken on a life of its own, perpetuated by thousands of people and institutions, parents and administrators and the whole University of California system. Most don’t even realize that schools can look completely different than the norm, and that they may not need some of the components we assume they do.

(more…)

November 12, 2008 Educational Philosophy & Practice, High School 0 Read more >

First Week Back at High School: Highlight Reel

My first week back at high school was so overwhelming that I’ve been procrastinating writing about it. I participated in classes taught by my old teachers, took a few tests, ate lunch with current students, and had a lot of thoughts and memories flood my brain along the way.

As I’ve mentioned, I’m packing my high school experience into an intense couple of weeks, so I’ve already shadowed a freshman, sophomore, and a junior so far. I’d forgotten that shadowing was common practice at St. Vincent…for eighth graders scoping out the school, that is. The high schoolers deduce that I’m not in eighth grade and ask me, puzzled, “Are you coming here?” “What grade are you in?”

(more…)

November 10, 2008 About the Project, High School 0 Read more >

Five Assumptions About High Schoolers

In addition to helping process school memories, Reschool Yourself involves raising questions about the practice and philosophy of traditional schooling in general. I want to be clear that I love and respect all of my schools, and although I’m using examples from their campuses, I’m talking about school in general. I’m truly curious about why schools tend to operate the way they do, and what changes are possible within their circumstances.

This week, I’ve noticed a few underlying assumptions about students — which I’ve noticed at other schools, too — that give me pause. Whether stated or not, they seem to be taken for granted, and include the following:

1. Students wouldn’t come to school if they didn’t have to and are therefore thrilled to have days off.

My observation: The general merriment around the Veteran’s Day holiday. When one teacher reminded the students about it, one guy said sarcastically, “Oh yeahhh, I almost forgot. It’s not like I’ve been looking forward to it for weeks.”

(more…)

November 10, 2008 Educational Philosophy & Practice, High School, 4 Read more >

If These Halls Could Talk

Walking into St. Vincent High School on Monday morning was like entering a time warp. Though I’d taken a tour recently during my 10-year high school reunion weekend, it had been on a Sunday morning, when the campus was nearly deserted. This week, seeing the school swarming with teenagers and squeezing my way through the crowded hallways has played tricks on my brain, transporting me back to the mid-90s when I was a high school student. This feeling has hit me at various times this week, as I sit in my old desks in classes taught by my old teachers, most of whom are still at the school. I’ve had more powerful memories at SV than I’ve had at my other schools, because I attended the school more recently and knew most of the 400 students by sight.

(more…)

November 6, 2008 High School, School Memories, 4 Read more >

Returning to High School 10 Years Later

I’m spending this week and half of next at St. Vincent de Paul High School in Petaluma. Having gone to public schools through 8th grade, I chose to attend St. Vincent — a private, Catholic school — rather than the big Sonoma high school for a few reasons. The most significant was that Katie, a girl I’d become close friends with through our youth group, planned to go to St. Vincent and encouraged me to apply as well. Being very shy and insecure at the time, I thought that a more personalized environment would suit me well. I had gotten a little lost in the crowd of around 800 students at Altimira Middle School (there are only around 500 now), and I felt connected to very few of them. Though attending SV meant a 30-minute commute and a work-study commitment to help offset my tuition, I decided that the opportunity for a change would be worth the effort. I carpooled to and from Petaluma every day with several other students from Sonoma until I could drive myself.

(more…)

November 5, 2008 About the Project, Childhood, High School 5 Read more >

100th Post: Proud Again to Be an Amer-I-Can

As you can see from the archives, I had written only a handful of posts when I kicked off Reschool Yourself a few months ago. The post that you’re reading now, I am proud to say, is my 100th. I find the timing excellent, because I want to take this opportunity to digress from reschooling and celebrate the election of our new president.

Tonight I want to flood the streets with my fellow Americans, whooping and carrying on like the Europeans do after their team wins a soccer match. Tonight I can say that I’m proud to be an American, and I haven’t said that in a long time.

I studied in Spain in the Fall of 2000, during the infamous election that would make the name “Chad” as unpopular for new babies as “Judas.” I voted absentee. When I went to bed the night of the election, the news channels favored Gore as the winner. When I woke up the next morning, it looked like Bush had won, but there was much rapid debate in a language I was just beginning to understand. I felt incredibly confused and desperately wanted to know what was happening. I now know I would have felt the same way if I’d been watching the coverage in the U.S. in English. When Bush was finally declared president, a lot of my American classmates said that they wished they didn’t have to go back to the U.S. We predicted the Bush presidency would be bad, but we couldn’t have imagined the magnitude of what was in store for our country.

(more…)

November 4, 2008 Uncategorized 6 Read more >