Learning About My Own Learning: A Hearty Thank You to Rita Koklauner

Usually, a facebook reconnect involves getting in touch with friends, but I had a recent friend who was able to reconnect me with ... well, me. At least my learning.

A distant friend that I vaguely remember, Chris Sanyk, wrote an incredibly detailed account of what it was like at Forest Elementary School in North Olmsted, Ohio. Through his words, I realize how lucky I was to receive the education that I did as a first and second grader. I really am so truly lucky.

I don't know how Chris remembered everything with such vivid detail, but it created an internal awakening of a time many years ago. He came from another school and described what we had described in the first time at Forest:

Our teacher, Mrs. Koklauner, was a nice old gray-haired grandma type, and had a very calm and wise air about her. On one of the first days of classes, we set up the rules for the class. At Pine, we had had a list of a dozen or fifteen rules such as "always raise your hand and wait to be called on before talking" and "don't chew gum" "don't fight" etc. Instead of making us memorize a bunch of dumb rules like that, we held a class discussion and worked out our own moral/ethical principles which we all agreed we should abide by. Our classroom had only three rules: Respect yourself, respect others, and respect that which does not belong to you.

Compared to the way things were at Forest school, Pine was a like a petty military dictatorship, and Forest virtually a Utopia. As students, even the youngest of us, we governed ourselves as we saw fit. If we felt that we needed permission for something, we asked for it. Those of us who were more independent were accorded that bit of self-authority that we needed. If absolutely necessary, we sometimes might have to get permission to do something retroactively. Requirements were only made of us in terms of doing our work, being prepared when our study groups had their meetings, and conducting ourselves in a manner which enabled everyone to get along and do what they needed to get done.

And this part made me laugh:

"Mike Ma was my chess playing nemesis. Out of all the kids in the class who played chess regularly, he was the only one who I could never seem to beat. Other than that, we didn't really do much. He was a year younger than me, and I think moved away or something because after I went to third grade I don't remember hearing anything about him."

A few things I take from this:
1. I am reaffirmed in the fact that I am sending Sean to a Montessori School. I basically think what I was doing was a Montessori school on steroids now.

2. Traditional classrooms suck. I moved away from North Olmsted to Westlake. My new school system didn't know what to do with a 3rd grade kid who was doing 6th grade math and 5th grade english ... so they just made me repeat everything. I remember being bored from 3rd grade to high school, with the exception of all four years of honors english at Westlake. I think perhaps this is where my intellectual impatience stems from ... so many years of being bored.

3. Thank your teachers now ... today. Yesterday. This stroll down memory lane promted me to google stalk Mrs. Koklauner, but unfortunately, all I found was that she passed just 11 months ago. Damn.