ExpertDabbler

APR is an education start-up. And it still functions in start-up mode. Both the teachers and students put in long hours each day. It was found by a Harvard Business School graduate who had earlier visited Japan and was inspired by the Japanese methods of teaching.

The author Po Bronson happens to interact with a young school teacher in APR of Chinese origin for his book project. He is a Yale alumni himself. Much of what we know is through this teacher. It was interesting to see his ideas of teaching and interacting with kids and how it has evolved in his stint in APR.

Initially he too has notions that what these kids need is nothing but unconditional love. So if they were disorderly in class, he would let it go away as a way of making friends with them. And the kids kicked and abused him. If he would give an inch, the kids would take a mile in terms of liberty. His class would be disturbed regularly.

Later on, he has learned the hard way that what kids need is someone to teach them habits which would lead to success in their later. He thinks it’s important to teach kids where they go wrong, how to handle social situations, how to take responsibilities and how not to make excuses. He calls this tough love. Tough love, that’s how things work in APR.

APR occupies two floors of an old glass factory. In those two floors, there’s not a scribble or graffiti anywhere. School days begin with a school wide gathering for announcements. Every morning, one student is chosen for having shown excellent character, and their teacher gives them the Gambette Award. Gambatte means Fight to the end in Japanese.

Students are not allowed to ruin the learning environment. They can’t go to lunch until they vaccum their homeroom’s carpet. The night custodian only cleans the bathroom, the rest of the work are to be done by the students.

When a student is drifting off in class, he is not just punished, but made to sit one-on-one with the superviser and go through the incident thoroughly. This is to make him to introspect and understand what he has done.

But it’s not just all rules and regulations. The teacher says they also teach character. Like How? The students are made to understand that its they who make choices and are responsible for those choices. In the English classes, they write essays on whether high school students should be required to do community service. In their history classes, they debate Supreme Court cases, and are pushed to justify how they would vote. Every Friday, the students are presented with a moral dilemma and are asked to write their own journals about how they would handle it.

They are never asked to memorize. They are only asked to demonstrate exemplary character: perseverance, respect, integrity, responsibility and courage. The highest honor in the school is not a 4.0 CGPA, but the Gambette Award.

This school goes to show what we’ve been talking about often. The things that matter most to the kids are character and good teacher. Not necessarily great marks and popular schools. Rather than crib about 5 star schools, I thought its better to highlight how a public chartered school with no selection criteria, no great infrastructure, can still mould ordinary kids to terrific students - in all aspects. I just wanted to point out the ills of our present ‘marks alone matters’ education system with a positive case study.

Note:
This APR contents are base don my reading of Po Bronsons’ What should i do with my life

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 16th, 2006 at 8:33 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.