What School Can Be

Notes by Mark Guzdial

Our day care, Golden Tree Learning Center, is closing. We just found out last night. This has been a traumatic event for my family. My son, Matthew, started there four years ago and is now in kindergarten. My daughter, Katie, has been there since she was eight weeks old.

My son cried last night when we told him. Each night, he prays for all of his old classrooms at Golden Tree, even though he's been gone from there for awhile. Last night, I told him that all those classrooms were going away. He cried. "Where's Katie going to go?" He asked about his favorite teachers. "Where's Ms. L going to go? Ms. K?" (Names abbreviated for anonymity.)

When I arrived this morning, parents were gathered around the Director of the Center, asking about the decision and how it came to be. She was apologizing for the short notice (they'll try to remain open through the end of the month), but explained that these things are driven by business pressures -- and business is hard with tight profit margins for day cares. A recent closing in the area (the "Baby Depot" -- a horrible name!) occured over night. One morning, parents and staff arrived to find the doors locked and phones unanswered. The Director is concerned about the children and parents finding new, good day care (and had obviously been crying herself).

I stopped by to talk to several of our favorite teachers. In each room, there were parents doing the same as me.

  • Ms. A, a new teacher whom we've been highly impressed with, was actually already planning to leave. She had just been state certified as a Special Education teacher, and so was moving on to a new school.

  • Ms. D has decided not to go into a new day care. She's decided that she feels too deeply for the children in her care and it's too heart-breaking to see them go.

  • Ms. L, one of the most gifted teachers I've ever met, said that she's been getting phone calls all night from parents. She has a couple of offers of nanny positions, but she's also considering another day care. Ms. L is the kind of teacher who brings in enormous amount of learning materials from her own collection. She taught Matthew what really happens when you soak bones in vinegar -- they don't grow new bones as he and his friends originally thought. I asked her to keep us informed of where she goes.

    As a researcher in educational technology, I hear alot about schools that don't work, where teachers are disempowered and disinterested, where students don't care about school, where the parents are uninvolved, where the administration is out of touch with the parents and teachers. I realized that I've been fortunate to be part of a community at Golden Tree that worked -- without standardized tests, without holding curricular objectives over teachers' heads. There may be better day care centers -- that's not the point. In a society where education takes a lot of hits, it's refreshing to look back and realize that I've been part of an educational system where the pieces did come together, where parents talk to the teachers and care about where they go, where the teachers care deeply about their students and about teaching, where the kids cry when the school goes away.

    I will miss Golden Tree Learning Center. I think that's the way that parents are supposed to feel about their children's school.

    Last modified at 10/14/97; 9:35:54 PM
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