Ninth graders use a poetry text in the spring entitled Structure, Sound & Sense. I like the title, and I like to play with words. So let's look at structure at this school as sound and sensible.
It's no secret that exploring ironies is a theme on this site. With teenagers, life is filled with rich irony. Here's the one we want to explore today: in an industry in which Proctor is more informal, egalitarian and non-adversarial than the norm, we have surprising hidden structure.
The structure is not hidden from students. But first, let's consider the reasons people might be confused on the matter. At Proctor, structure exists where the faculty sees it as necessary, and it is limited to those arenas.
Notice that I credit the faculty. At most schools, policies and structures are communicated from the administration to faculty and students. Here, for the past thirty-seven years, they have been forged through an extraordinary, democratic process that empowers teachers to create the school at which they want to teach.
The outcome of this process is a set of rules and regulations that allow students the freedom to choose where and when to eat, what to wear (within a neat-and-clean concept) and the right to study late when necessary. So, what's the hidden structure?
Well, most schools that equate structure with formality do not respond as quickly and effectively to nascent academic problems as do we. The Notice To the Advisor system electronically informs a whole team (including parents!) when work is late, or poor.
Students meet with advisors (in groups that average about 5) every Tuesday morning for 40 minutes. Approximately 100 students meet four times per week with 16 learning skills specialists who know--in great detail--the nature of each kid's academic life.
Structured study halls are held five nights a week for students who benefit from closer supervision than that offered in dorm rooms. So, to summarize, ironies abound. We don't have chapel; community values are cultivated--not taught--at open-forum assemblies. We don't require formal dress, so students voluntarily dress up on game days and Fridays (some students, at least.) Here's one last irony: I left a page praising girls basketball up for a whole week, and got scolded for not featuring the Dansereau sisters! Kayla and Patty are picture at left and right, below, with Eliza and Lizie:
