At This School, Students Decide What To Learn

At This School, Students Decide What To Learn Posted 2006-07-24
By Brad Jenkins



It sounds like the kind of school a child dreams about: Kids make the rules, and they decide what they want to learn and when.

It’s how Sarah Diener Beachy grew up, and it’s how she wants to teach other students.

Beachy, a 27-year-old who lives just outside Harrisonburg, is the founder of Shenandoah Valley Community School, which enters the scene as public-school alternatives continue to gain attention.

Beachy’s private school, which opens next month with three students, may be the most unorthodox of the local options.

The school, according to its written philosophy statement, is a "noncoercive educational community in which students are free to pursue their interests and direct their own learning."

Each morning, Beachy will meet with students and find out what they want to learn. Beachy, a former public school teacher, will teach or she’ll call on volunteers from the community to teach more specialized lessons.

"We believe everyone has an intrinsic desire to learn," said Beachy, who took a year off her studies at Eastern Mennonite University to visit other learner-centered schools.

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