What is open optional?

The small group of families who started the discussion about Steller's philosophy stated in our position paper that our school has drifted from it's original ideals.

So what were those ideas? What does "open optional" or "progressive education" mean?

There's a large literature on this, but in many ways the ideas don't mean much until they are in practice. In other words, it's all easy to agree with until you have to make choices. Freedom is a good example. Who could be against freedom? The open optional concept that I grew up with put freedom first, with the idea that a student-centered education can only happen in an environment in which the student is free to make real choices (i.e.: not just choosing what color to paint a horse, but whether to paint or go riding).

The problem is, you can't have freedom without risk. If you're free to choose, you're free to make the wrong choice. Many parents and teachers (and a lot of student, too) aren't ready to go that far, and never have been. That's one reason why open optional education always served a minority of families.

Is the Steller community ready to trust students with real freedom? To find out, we need to think together about what the concepts mean in practice.