Dialogue: Conformity is out of place in last-chance classroom

It would be foolish to close Metropolitan College when the Mt Eden school still meets an important need in the community, writes ERNIE BARRINGTON*.

Yet again Auckland Metropolitan College, the state-run alternative school, is under threat of closure by the Education Ministry.

Last Monday, I was part of a well-attended public meeting offered by the ministry as part of the consultation process before a decision is made by the Minister of Education, Trevor Mallard.

I hope the ministry takes the consultation seriously because if ever there were evidence that the city needs Metropolitan College, it was provided at this meeting.

The concerned citizens, former parents, former teachers, former students and the present school community (even a former school inspector) gave cogent examples of the success of the school.

Themes were constantly aired. "My son/daughter was not coping at all at their conventional school and Metro saved him/her."

"My son/daughter now loves school and has taken responsibility for his/her own learning."

"I am a former pupil of Metro and I want my son/daughter to go there because of the values that it teaches."

"The college has been constantly harassed by the Education Review Office, which uses mainstream secondary education criteria for judging the effectiveness of the school."

The last point illustrates clearly the frustration that the school has always had with the inspectorate and, latterly, the review office.

Set up as an alternative school in 1978, Metropolitan College offered a completely different way of educating secondary students in the Auckland area.

But persistently, the ministry seems to refuse to acknowledge or to understand the alternative nature of the college and tries to foist conformist mainstream educational ideologies on the school.

What is the point of trying to mainstream an alternative school?

The review office then criticises the school for not meeting the needs of what it thinks are mainstream students.

Of course much of the curriculum is different; of course the numbers of students in class fluctuate; and of course there are no detentions and other rigid ways of controlling students.

Instead, the school regulates itself through "school meeting" - a much more effective way of behaviour modification.

It is not uncommon for alternative schools to feel the heat of conservative educational forces.

Summerhill, the famous alternative school in England set up by A. S. Neill in 1921, always received a lot of criticism from Her Majesty's inspectors, who could find little in the school to recommend continuance.

Yet the school is still functioning and attracting an enthusiastic clientele 80 years later.

The guiding ethos of Metropolitan College, Summerhill and other alternative schools of this type is that the students are given the power to take responsibility for their own learning.

Released from rigid, controlling discipline to attend all classes and to choose subjects that they see as relevant, students who had formerly hated school often become enthusiastic about learning.

This self-directed learning they experience is the reason students who choose to go on to tertiary education often do very well.

The other important distinction between conventional secondary education and an alternative school such as Metropolitan College is that the school seeks to be democratic.

Teachers and students join forces at school meetings to make joint decisions for the benefit of the whole community.

Students in this situation will act responsibly and, since the leadership has not been forced on them from a teacher hierarchy, it is owned by all members of the community and has much greater moral authority.

At Summerhill and Metropolitan College I have seen students speak at school meetings in highly articulate ways and reach innovative solutions to deal with day-to-day problems.

This sense of genuinely belonging to a community in which one is valued as an individual has a powerful effect on students.

Time and again at the consultation meeting, former students, former parents and present students spoke - sometimes with great emotion - about the wonderful values that they picked up at Metro.

The spirit of community cooperation, the openness, the closeness to teachers and the freedom to speak up and to be themselves all engender lifetime values.

Auckland Metropolitan College is fulfilling an important need in the city for at least three major groups of students - those who feel they are different and who find it difficult to cope in a conventional setting, those who, for one reason or another, have had troubled experiences at school and who are often not wanted and those whose parents are attracted to an alternative approach to education.

Auckland and the country need more alternative schools, not fewer. There is also the issue of choice. Why should it be just the privilege of the wealthy to choose a special education for their children?

Because Metropolitan College is financed by the Government it offers a free special education for those who choose it and sometimes urgently need it.

Many students in Auckland since 1978 have been given a second chance to succeed in their schooling.

Some have also gone on to succeed very well in tertiary education as well.

Most of all, though, students emerge from Metro with a new belief in education and a new belief in themselves.

* Ernie Barrington, a former teacher at Metropolitan College, is a senior tutor at Auckland University's centre for professional development.