Alice Miller School and Candlebark, Macedon (Victoria, Australia)

Well.  What to say about this amazing opportunity I miraculously engineered through sheer will power and spontaneity? 

When I won one of the four 'New Zealand Spelling Bee Teacher Awards' I was awarded $2500 towards professional development that would benefit my teaching practice.  I had followed with interest through the years John Marsden's primary school - Candlebark - for its unique approach to education.

From Candlebark:

We encourage an active engagement with the world. That includes using public transport to explore Melbourne, playing in the school’s extensive gardens and 1100 acres of bush, riding bikes, climbing trees, going on many camps and trips.

We’ll be direct, honest, thorough and responsible in communicating information to students about sex and relationships, appropriate to the students’ age and developmental stages.

Students will be using toasters, stoves, blenders, microwaves, cutlery.

According to our assessment of students’ maturity and abilities, we may teach them to use axes, log splitters and chainsaws.

Similarly, we may teach students how to light fires, and may expect them to start and maintain fires in fireplaces, and fuel stoves in classrooms.

We comfort students who are upset, we hug, we’re tactile. We may play rambunctious roughhousing games like British Bulldog, Animal Ball or spotlight.

During maintenance activities students may be up ladders, on roofs, changing light globes, using hammers, saws, mattocks, vacuum cleaners and electrical tools.

We carefully assess children who want to come here, but previous academic success or failure is not a factor in that assessment. Destructive and/or self-destructive behaviour is a factor. We’re pleased to see evidence of creative interests, selflessness and empathy in students who apply for places here.

We are always happy to supply written reports on request, or to meet with parents and children to discuss progress.

We are very happy for parents to be involved in the life of the school, in all kinds of rich, exciting and rewarding ways. We work on an `invitation-acceptance’ or an `offer-acceptance’ basis. In other words, we may invite parents to contribute to the school in some way, and they may accept our invitation; equally they may offer to help us in some way and we may accept their invitation. However we are not happy with parents who want to impose their own agendas on the school, and we don’t tolerate parents who attempt to bully the school, teachers, or other students.

Please recognise that we will not suit everybody. If you are not comfortable with what you read here, we will not be the right school for you.

Of course as teachers it is up to us to raise students to a level where they can engage in the activities mentioned above in a safe and mature way. That is what a teacher does. That’s what the word teacher means. “Aim not where they are, but where they should be.”

 

When I heard that John Marsden had bought a high school near his primary school (it had gone bust) I started dreaming and wondering about the possibilities of a visit, using my prize.  I was interested in the arts-focus the school had and the holistic pedagogy espoused at Candlebark and to be continued at Alice Miller.  I reached out via Facebook (although the school hadn't opened yet!) and was amazed to hear back immediately from Sarita, the head of the school (which was set to open at the beginning of 2016).

From the seed of an idea plans were made, and I have so much gratitude and thanks owed to Sarita for her generosity and default to saying 'yes' to this stranger-teacher from Dunedin, New Zealand.  Not only was she encouraging in my plans, but also offered her house and the cottages at Candlebark for me, as their guest (so, free).

The lovely Sarita Ryan

Here is some information about Alice Miller School:

There is no point opening a new school if it merely replicates existing establishments. Most schools essentially use the same structure as each other: they have similar styles, espouse the same values and follow the same practices. The main point of difference between them is in the degree of their conservatism.

How then will Alice Miller differ? In other words, what is the rationale for starting a new school?

Some of the differences will be tangible. For example:

1. Alice Miller will operate from 10:30 AM to 5 PM, times designed to coincide more effectively with the sleep/work patterns of teenagers. However, the school and its facilities can be accessed by students from 9 AM each weekday. This will enable many students to practise music, work on art pieces, do homework, play chess, continue with projects or assignments. The school will run buses to and from Macedon (or a nearby) station, to meet trains on the Melbourne-Bendigo line that service the 10:30-5:00 timetable.

2. Space is a great luxury in many places. One of the greatest gifts we can offer young people is space to run, to explore, to be. Alice Miller is in an attractive setting, on an 80 acre bush campus, with a five-hole golf course. The property is shared with kangaroos, koalas, echidnas, wombats and platypus. The school is well resourced, with fifteen classrooms, dedicated science laboratories, a professional standard gymnasium, a 10 metre indoor heated pool, and tennis and basketball courts.

3. Students will be encouraged to take VCE subjects early in their secondary school careers – from Year 8 where appropriate – to widen their knowledge, challenge them intellectually, help them acquire good study skills, and prepare them for Years 11, 12 and beyond.

4. The VCE will be offered in Years 11 and 12. A familiar complaint about small senior secondary schools is the limited number of subjects made available. However we can provide a good range of choices. Students who wish to study subjects not available at the school will be encouraged to take them through the Victorian School of Distance Education, and will be supported and tutored by Alice Miller teachers.

5. Students will clean the school at the end of each day. This is part of educating young people to accept responsibility for their own deeds (and misdeeds). The school does not believe that it is in the interests of students to pay adults to clean up messes the young people have left behind.

6. All food will be provided at school, at no additional cost to parents. This not only eliminates the chore of making packed lunches each morning, but also, and more importantly, aids in the growth of collegiality, as students and staff eat morning tea and lunch together. Students will take turns in preparing and serving food, as well as clearing away afterwards, thereby learning valuable lessons that will stand them in good stead in their adult lives.

Further differences between Alice Miller and other schools will be more abstract. For example:

1. As a small school, Alice Miller can offer a level of collegiality and pastoral care not easily available at larger schools.

2. As well as offering mainstream subjects, from Years 7 to 12, Alice Miller will offer courses for young people wishing to specialise in Drama, Art, Writing, Music or Dance. Such specialisation is a rarity in Victoria. Entrance to these courses will be by audition or, in the case of Art and Writing, by presentation of a folio of work. The school may also apply other criteria in the selection of students for arts courses; for example, requiring references from previous teachers or instructors.

3. Alice Miller will have a number of features in common with Candlebark, including:

(a) Staff selection: Teachers are appointed because they are pre-eminent in their fields, have a variety of life experiences, are intelligent, adventurous and creative, and are exceptional communicators in the classroom.

(b) An awareness of the difference between knowledge and wisdom and a commitment to helping young people advance in both. The western model of education, far from concerning itself with the acquisition of wisdom as well as knowledge, often fails to recognise, explicitly or implicitly, the difference between the two. An awareness of the difference would show in, for example, the treatment of a literary text as an opportunity to engage with issues such as social division, justice, morality, alienation, `othering’ and discrimination, and the core question of what it means to be human, as well as the more familiar studies of plot, characterisation, style and literary devices.

(c) An emphasis on first-hand experiences. One of the main reasons for the establishment of Candlebark was the belief that young people no longer have the opportunity for first-hand experiences, but instead gain `experiences’ by watching television, playing computer games, and, in the immediate future, using virtual reality devices. At Alice Miller, as at Candlebark, students will go on hikes, bike camps, canoe trips and snow camps, as well as trips to galleries, museums and festivals. Both schools aim to encourage the growth of confidence, independence, community and trust.

(d) Many schools pay lip-service to the notion that education should not end at the school gates. Alice Miller — and Candlebark – commit to that notion actively and explicitly. Not only do we facilitate students’ engagement with the world by frequent trips `off-campus’ but we bring the world to our students by inviting everyone from artists to shoemakers, footballers to backpackers, authors to architects, educators to jockeys. People from all walks of life and a variety of backgrounds come and take workshops, give presentations, chat, work collaboratively, or just hang out.

(e) Fluidity of movement between year levels. Many classes at Alice Miller will be available to students regardless of chronological age. Between Years 8 and 12 in particular, criteria, such as academic age and motivation will be given as much or more weight as chronological age.

(f) Alice Miller will have more of the flavour of a university than a typical Australian school. Guest tutors, lunchtime clubs and activities, coffee shop chats with staff and peers about matters philosophical, political and cultural – this is the style of the school. Online classes and online learning will be available, with some students able to spend up to a day a week working from home.


Whilst at Alice Miller, I spent a lot of time with Anne, the Head of English and Drama.  Her generosity at allowing me into her classes will stay with me for a long time.

The fabulous Anne Browning

 

















Thanks to all the teachers who were so generous with their time and space during the week I spent at Alice Miller and Candlebark, and John for allowing me to observe a writing class with his junior students - I learned a lot and am still churning it all over and will post more reflective entries on this experience as time progresses.