March 1, 1965

I become dorky over a book report

March 1, 1965

No rehearsal tonight! Instead, I worked on my book report. The book I read is "The Nongraded High School". It was pretty good and I hope I get a good mark on the outline - 4 1/2 typewritten pages. If I don't, I'll die. At least I'm working with good materials.

Double Talk!

March 1, 2006

OMG, I was such a dork, even then. What other 15-year-old reads B. Frank Brown's "The Nongraded High School for a book report? I picked it up, think it was about high schools that didn't give grades, and discovered it was about the idea of open high schools that did not separate students into grades by age. (Sort of a precursor to the whole open classroom experiments of the 1970s.) It was originally published in 1963, and I believe I bought a paperback copy at Caldor.

For the life of me, I can't imagine how I managed to read it, much less write a coherent book report about a volume about school policy reform written by an Ed.D.

A review of the book  ---

“In its heyday several years ago, the Melbourne (Florida) High School became the most prominent model of the nongraded secondary school in the U.S. Its architect was the principal, B. Frank Brown. Ten of 11 chapters in Brown's book, The Nongraded High School,1 deal with the historical basis, the rationale, and the operational aspects of the conceptualized model. It is exciting to read, and it attracted countless numbers of the curious and the faithful to visit the school. In the eleventh and final chapter, Brown instructs the educator on how to sell a nongraded secondary program to his community. It is quite clear that he is not describing how he sold the program to his community (if indeed he did), but how others should do the job. This type of reporting not only lacks credibility, it comes off in the final analysis as pure educational opportunism.

The book is not only interesting for what it contains but even more for what it does not contain. Nowhere is the word "evaluation" to be found. One must conclude that Brown regarded his program as so patently good that it was unnecessary to verify any of the results.”

Gee, I didn't notice...

March 1, 2023

Florida! Always on the leading edge! (For better or for worse.) I checked around on the Internet and found that the experiment was evaluated in several districts around the country, and found to be modestly successful in addressing truancy and educational achievement among “underperforming” students. But it was never a clear enough improvement to overcome resistance from parents, political leaders, and teachers who disliked the approach. 

It persists in some places as “blended” classes where students from two adjacent grades are mingled (my daughter was in a combined second and third grade). This made it easier to group kids who were in different grades but on the same level in reading or math. And my 40-plus career in higher ed was nearly always in “ungraded” classes. History of Textiles or Diversity in American Culture were as likely to enroll first-year students as super seniors, or even the occasional graduate student. Deep in my pedagogical soul dwells a belief that a beginner is a beginner, and the best learning is at one’s own pace.