I was surprised by my own response to Ted Sizer's obituary last month. I had never met him--had never seen him. Yet, like many career educators, I knew him through his extraordinary work. His influence on modern American education is unparalleled. At its heart, Ted Sizer's teaching focused not on curricula or credits, but on the teacher-student relationship as the vehicle for meaningful learning. This immediately brings Proctor into the mix.



 

Appointed Dean of Harvard's Graduate School of Education at the age of 31 (youngest in history) in 1964, he served as Head of Phillips Academy from 1972-81. In the '80s, Ted left the comfort of a relatively ideal educational setting to change the world. Securing foundation support for a three year project named "A Study of High Schools," he assembled a team that followed students and teachers at urban, suburban and rural schools across the nation. The product was Horace's Compromise, a scathing exposé of under-staffed factory-like schools in which teachers strike this deal with students: Don't give me trouble, and I'll pass you.

 

That same year, 1984, he founded The Coalition of Essential Schools, an ever-growing set of schools committed to ten "Common Principles" that stand as a blueprint for the salvation of American education. No longer would curricula demanding basic "coverage" suffice. Teacher/student ratios must allow each student to be appreciated as an individual learner. Every school must be free to be unique. Education must be appreciated as complex and--yes--difficult.

 

Lecturing to a crowd, after wasting time taking attendance and listening to PA announcements, doesn't cut it. Students must be elevated into an equitable, democratic partnership with teachers. Students are workers; teachers are their coaches.

 

"No two students are alike," Ted insisted, "It is terribly inconvenient, but there it is."

 

Sizer went on to serve as the Chair of the Education Department at Brown University, and in 1994 as Director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, but the shock waves created by Horace's Compromise continued to rattle schools everywhere. Frivolous electives that invite kids to graduate without deep mastery of core academics are a waste of resources. In all things, less is more, allowing for specialization and the thrill of expertise and mastery.

 

Multiple, flexible assessments must allow students to demonstrate mastery of subject matter. Writing--the art of effective, exacting communication--is the essential skill for developing the emerging, critical mind. Therefore, students should revise written work, and revise again, and revise again. The teacher must be wholly dedicated to the student's success.

 

The power of the Essential Schools movement was never contained to the Coalition. Its principles are universal and transplantable. In the mid-'90s, they shaped the nature of teaching and learning at Proctor in a profound manner. Here, many key, defined components already existed: decency and trust, democracy and equity, and--above all--personalization and education through relationship. 

 

So, Ted Sizer's obituary struck me personally. Here was a man with the courage to tackle over-arching dilemmas with a scientific approach. He observed, gathered data, offered hypotheses and tested them. They worked, and spread like a virus of health and reform.



His vision changed the world, including the microcosm of Proctor Academy.

 

Not all of his teachings have been embraced universally, of course. Although he championed exercise, he favored organized intramurals over interscholastic competition, which he viewed as unnecessary diversion and a waste of resources. This observation is obviously rejected by most independent schools, many of which are seemingly berserk in their expenditures for greater and greater facilities and athletic dominance.



Former Proctor Head Steve Wilkins--an admirer of Sizer--once made this profound observation: "Proctor isn't just a great school; it is an important school." That is the kind of standard to which every school should aspire!

 

And so, at this time of giving thanks, I extend my admiration and gratitude to a man I never knew. John Merrow writes, "The greatest tribute we can pay to Ted Sizer is to keep alive his vision—that students must be respected, and that the highest form of respect teachers can show their students is to challenge them with work that stretches their minds."