Editor
A richly eloquent, vaguely familiar voice transcends the babble of Nelson’s airport lounge. It is Peter Verstappen, here to bustle me off to his school in the little town of Wakefield, just a half hour drive from Nelson city. The trip gives us time to have an informal chat and solve the mystery of ‘the familiar sounding voice’. It turns out that school teaching was not Peter’s first career. He had been a television broadcaster, associate producer for the youth television show ‘What Now’, and in the `80s was briefly a presenter for the popular kids' show ‘Playschool’. Of course his voice sounded familiar. My own children were at the time ‘Playschool’ devotees. ‘What mattered to me most about the television days,’ he said, ‘were the educative aspects of the programmes I worked
on. I liked the idea that children were learning something from watching them.’ This notion of educating children gnawed at him until eventually he gave in to its needling. He said good-bye to his television career and headed off to Teachers’ Training College. ‘That was the best decision of my life,’ he proclaimed with a satisfied smile. ‘I can now devote all my energy [to] leading an education system for children based on sound values and pedagogy and give every child in my school the best start we possibly can.’ At the school, we continue the conversation in Peter’s very colourful and spacious office. Walls are papered in a series of topographical maps. ‘I’m a bit of a map freak,’ he says laughingly.
The staff enjoy a good laugh at morning tea time
Peter Verstappen, leading living democracy
He has a cabinet of curiosities which would draw delight from the it during the daytime to have small group story time and it is most reticent child, and it is impossible to ignore the ostentatious open to the students and parents during the summer holidays. brass trombone draped elegantly over a bench edge. ‘We also run a special summer reading programme targeting ‘I teach that learning is for life,’ says Peter, ‘so it’s important that children at risk,’ says Peter. ‘Those children have a contract and I model those values. That is why I am learning the trombone. agreed reading goals and if they reach their goals, they can win The kids keep me on task,’ he says. There is a brief pause before he a voucher, sponsored by Paper-Plus’, he said. Parents bring their continues in a lowered tone, ‘I have to play ‘Mary has a little lamb’ children along to get new books every Wednesday afternoon in at assembly this week and I’m not very good at it,’ he confides. the summer holidays and teachers who volunteer, are rostered to There is another reason for choosing the trombone and that supervise and support the children on the reading programme. is to participate in the horn section to back the school rock band. Music is important to Peter’s school community and children have many opportunities to learn an instrument and participate in various school music groups. Wakefield is a very connected small community. Parents are both willing and able to support their local school and do so with great generosity. They take much pride in the school which has been developing, changing and growing since 1843. Although the original buildings have long been replaced and replaced again, the original school bell still occupies a prominent position in the school yard as a symbol of the school’s long heritage. Wakefield is after all the oldest school in continuous use in New Zealand. Many Wakefield School activities extend beyond the school gate. The library, for example, is open to the community in Preschoolers enjoy story time at Wakefield school library different ways. The local pre-schoolers use
IN the MLE children work in small groups and smaller groups
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‘It’s a great opportunity for ‘at risk’ kids to practise their skills and keep reading over the holidays,’ said Peter. ‘That way they will be far more confident readers when school starts again,’ he said. The library isn’t the only facility Wakefield School shares with the community. The school also boasts substantial indoor aquatic facilities which parents can buy access to over the holidays. My two senior student tour guides, Sophia and Paige explain that parents can buy a key so that families can use both the big swimming pool and the smaller shallower pool over the holiday period. This is a very popular option and parents line up in droves to buy the keys. This summer 250 keys went out the door. The revenue goes a long way in helping to keep the pool in excellent condition. ‘We are so lucky here,’ says Peter, ‘Just look around you at this environment,’ he challenges. ‘There are absolutely no excuses for us. If we can’t succeed here, we can’t blame anyone,’ he said. I get the strong impression that Peter is not a leader who intends to fail either himself or his children. He is delighted that his school has drawn the attention of the NZ Principal magazine. He wants to share his vision to turn Wakefield School into a ‘living democracy’. The idea consumes and excites him and he is eager to talk about his dream and inspire his colleagues nationally. He describes democratic education as an amorphous movement, the essence of which is that students take increasing ownership of their learning. He is not a person to subscribe to particular ideologies so democratic education suits his thinking. It attracts him because from its inclusiveness, he can pluck and apply those aspects that fit comfortably with his school. All the same many would question how true democracy could possibly
Children give and receive feedback on their work
work in a primary school. Isn’t it placing too much responsibility as personalised learning,’ he said. He uses the symbol of a on young children’s shoulders to expect them to behave continuum to describe what he means. ‘At one end you have a democratically about everything that goes on in the school? highly teacher directed curriculum and at the other, the students Should children be exercising freedom of speech and freedom lead and own the curriculum,’ he explains. Peter believes that a of choice at such a tender age? Once given the power to decide successful school today needs to comfortably occupy a broad would children be capable of making reasonable decisions? range of the spectrum to meet the needs of all students. ‘We ‘This [Democratic Education] is not a new c o n c e p t ,’ s a y s P e t e r. ‘Already there are New Zealand schools applying the democratic principles.’ He cites ‘Discovery School’ and ‘Unlimited School’ in Christchurch as examples. ‘ T he e ss e nc e of t h i s approach is placing the child at the centre,’ says Peter. ‘This gives the child the responsibility of discovering and owning t heir own learning. It is student-led learning. It is moving the power balance their way and allowing them to create their own place in the world.’ He refers to an idea Steve Maharey promoted way back when he was Minister of Education. ‘It is the same The school swimming pool is popular both during term time and at weekends
created from two original classrooms, incorporating several smaller breakout spaces. Children work in the larger classroom-type spaces for large group work, in smaller spaces for smaller group activities and sometimes they work alone. What becomes immediately obvious in the MLE is the absence of sets of desks. The children are just as likely to be working on bean bags at low tables as sitting at a table or desk. The environment is light and airy and very busy. The children tell me they raised money to buy a pet for their new MLE but they had to choose democratically. The bank is currently out of bounds but has a great future Nominations for the types have been deficit thinkers,’ says Peter, ‘but now we see that the of pets that would be suitable for the classroom space were called children are capable of managing their own learning and we for and the children voted. The winner was a pet rat. ‘I didn’t vote expect them to do that.’ for the rat,’ said my informant. ‘But the majority wins so that’s So what does Democratic Education look like in practice? I visit okay with me because that’s democratic. Most people wanted the recently established ‘Modern Learning Environment’ (MLE) the rat and I’ve got quite used to him and actually quite like him where sixty children and two teachers occupy one large space now,’ he said calmly.
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Not everyone voted for rat, but he got there democratically
Wakefield School tour guides, Sophia Radcliffe and Paige Gallacher
Astonishingly, there was no sense of resentment that his own preference didn’t win on the day. There was full acceptance that a fair and just process had been applied and so the outcome was adopted. The MLE provides an important impetus for advancing the democratic ideals and during the summer holidays Wakefield School has built two more MLEs comprising four traditional classrooms including a student kitchen. ‘It’s a gradual process,’ says Peter, ‘and we have to make sure we enable our community to keep pace with the changes.’ He knows that innovation such as this will not be successful if he doesn’t have his parents with him. He holds ‘open days’ to engage them and help them feel a sense of ownership, focus groups to get greater understanding and ‘big picture’ discussions to help the parents see the virtues of this approach. Another group of children in the MLE gather to discuss their next moves in the restoration of the school bank project. There are concerns that the vegetation on the bank is getting damaged from overuse so it is currently out of bounds to rejuvenate. The process of choosing future activities for the area, like everything else, is done democratically. ‘We go around all the classes,’ says the group’s spokesperson, ‘and get them to vote on the ideas we think up. Tree huts and rope swings are the most popular. Some of the other ideas are the obstacle course, puppet theatre, outdoor stage and skate park,’ she said. Last year was general election year. This provided an excellent
opportunity for practising democracy right across the school. The election became a very real event at Wakefield. The children conducted a parallel election at the school. Children chose parties to affiliate to, created policies for the school and presented them. Everyone got to vote for their chosen candidates. Post-election, one candidate was heard to say ‘I’m glad I wasn’t elected because I had promised things we couldn’t afford!’ The winning party governed the senior syndicate for a day to implement its policies and spend the budget. The Prime Minister admitted at the end of the day that governance was an exhausting business. These learning experiences are incredibly powerful as is the day to day learning going on in the classrooms. As part of the school’s emerging democratic curriculum, the school last year held two market days to give the children opportunities to develop financial literacy and raise money for real causes of their choice. One class wanted to donate their share of the profits to a charity. By democratic voting, Greenpeace was chosen. The pre-vote discussion raised a number of other worthy charities and the children (democratically of course) agreed that orphan children in Africa could do with some books. Having already given the funds to Greenpeace the agreed solution was to make books themselves. I was privileged to watch the completion of some of these story books entirely created, written and illustrated by the children. Children in the MLE space are now into their second year. I was eager to speak with the teachers to find out how they were
Putting the final touches to a story book for African orphans
adapting to the MLE environment and whether there were any for example branched away from having instructional reading advantages from adopting the democratic approach to learning. I groups.’ wanted to know how learning was progressing and how children One of the key factors was learning to trust the children and could judge their own learning and their judgements and giving them time. work out their own next steps when ‘We learned we could rely on them and they couldn’t know what they didn’t for us we had to learn how to relinquish know! control to help them be informed and I asked one of the two teachers, Julie skilled,’ said Julie. McIntosh how successful the approach The current goal is that the children had been so far. will set their own learning goals. ‘It is my second year with these ‘As teachers we do a lot of modelling children,’ says Julie. ‘There has been and give lots of feedback,’ says Julie. ‘We enormous development through ask a lot of questions. The children mark the change in style of teaching and each other’s work and give feedback learning,’ she said. to each other and also give out credits ‘The children respect each other’s towards school awards.’ ideas and value everyone’s contribution. There are some controlled choices They are also very accepting of majority such as the boxes of reading material. decisions and quite capable of making ‘We get the appropriate levelled books those decisions.’ and mix of genres and the children then ‘They are also good at listening to choose the books from that collection,’ each other’s ideas but in the end still she said. make their own choices.’ ‘What we have now become,’ says ‘The key has been not rushing into Julie is a community of learners and it. We’ve been gentle and careful and anyone in the community could be the actually began with an instructional teacher. We are all learning together, approach, then moved to inquiry based going through the same process. We learning and then multiple things as teachers just have different levels were happening as the children built of knowledge and experiences and The original Wakefield school bell is a constant up their skills. Writing and reading different responsibilities,’ she said reminder of the school’s heritage
A class of children practise a Christmas song accompanied by . . .
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As my day at Wakefield comes to a close, I am more and more confident that Peter Verstappen’s dream to turn his school into a living democracy is well on the way to fulfilment. Democratic education, the Wakefield way is a visible success story. With the children taking ever more responsibility and decision making for their own learning, teachers are relinquishing their traditional roles as directors, leaders and managers. Their role is now more facilitative. They are monitoring and offering feedback and asking good questions whilst the children are thriving in their new roles as leaders of their own learning. Of course teachers remain mindful of the NZ Curriculum and its requirements, not to mention all the other compliance issues. The great joy is that at Wakefield you can achieve all of that and still empower your children.
Peter insists that his school is at the beginning of the journey and has a long way to go. ‘I wouldn’t call us experts by any means and we certainly do not have all the answers,’ he said Role reversals are part of the landscape at Wakefield and I suspect it won’t be long before Peter Verstappen can step back from having any concerns about whether his community is on board with him. The children will be doing the promotions for him. They know they are valued in this system, that everything is fair, everything is just, everyone contributes and everyone’s engaged. The school is driven by positivity and participation which is infectious. It would be hard to imagine kids more ready to take their place in society as participating, responsible citizens than the kids from Wakefield School.
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