autozoom3

I found this topic extremely interesting, so I started looking up the effectiveness of Sudbury-like schools (ie. democratic education systems). From one of the research papers I was able to find (http://studentliberation.com/pdfs/gray-sudbury-study.pdf):

"More surprising than the observation that SVS graduates have done well in jobs and careers is the observation that they have also done well in college. Not having taken the usual high school courses, many if not most of these individuals must have been behind most of their college classmates in knowledge of materials taught in such courses, yet they seem to have had little trouble catching up. As we have seen, the graduates themselves explain this in terms of their positive attitude about learning, their feeling of responsibility for their own learning, their ability to find things out on their own, and their lack of inhibitions about communicating with their professors and asking for help when needed--characteristics that they regard as having been fostered by their SVS experience. This view is consistent with that of directors of at least some college learning centers, who have found that the distinction between those who do well in college and those who do not has more to do with "learning to learn" skills than the knowledge of content area (Heiman, in press)."

I'm not sure if the Heiman paper cites whether this "learning to learn" skill is as valuable across all majors/subjects, so that is certainly up for discussion.

I would also like to make a point that your self-described "laziness" in 10-12th grade was potentially a cause/result of the education that you were apart of. Actually, I was the same way when I was in 10-12th grade (so I know how you feel), and wonder if I was in a school that promoting learning, that I would've been more intrinsically motivated.

edit: grammar.

I wanted to get more information on how the voting/learning system works. Because I assume there are a finite # of funds available to spend on resources and such a wide array of things to learn, how does the school accommodate everyone?

I worry about the relying on the power of the majority. Wouldn't this system by subject to groupthink? Is there a lot of politics (if you vote for this for me, I'll vote for this for you?) involved in the voting?