The Crefeld Courier A Biannual Newsletter
Fall/Winter 2012
The Newsletter for Alumni, Parents, and Friends of The Miquon Upper School and The Crefeld School
Choosing Crefeld
by Michael Tanenbaum
Rarely is the importance of an education lost in discussions of a path to future success and prosperity. Parents and children are constantly urged to embrace achievement in school as the foundation for a life of opportunity, yet despite so much alarm, the direct, immediate goals of a child’s educational experience are often not addressed with persistent and critical attention. The legacy of progressive education, from Francis Parker and John Dewey to Alfie Kohn and Arnold Greenberg, nevertheless continues to preoccupy the minds of many whose school experience placed stringency ahead of learning, community, and personal growth. With so much emphasis given to future consequence, educational models discounting immediate purpose and life understanding run the timeless risks of student apathy, discouragement, and opposition. In 1970 Arnold Greenberg founded Chestnut Hill’s Crefeld School, originally the Miquon Upper School, after years of searching for an answer to the problem of how an education can best support and inspire young people on the way to assured, meaningful adult lives. “Why can’t schools allow people to follow their interests, their passions?” Greenberg asked in Adventures on
Arnold’s Island. “Why don’t they trust that most people want to learn? Why must everyone follow the same rigid curriculum? Why can’t schools be more flexible, more positive, more experiential?” Greenberg’s eventual model for The Crefeld School, formed in concentrated discussions with likeminded educators at the time, was aimed at providing students with a “pole of reality” in their education. Without sacrificing substance or quality, The Crefeld School’s ethos was established on the basis of trust, mutual respect, and a firm belief that young people are responsible when given the opportunity to fully engage in the power of collaborative learning. The theory of progressive education extends far beyond mastery of subject matter and into the realm of how a substantial education can support personal growth, community involvement, and a spirit of citizenship among students—both in and out of school settings. As any fair expectation of student responsibility depends on the willingness of faculty and administrators to let students exercise an authentic range of choice, Crefeld’s progressive philosophy of education is fundamentally a studentcentered, humane, and learner-friendly approach.