To most of us, school means classes, teachers, schedules,
grades and tests. But for the children at Sudbury Valley School in
Massachusetts, school is very different.
Firstly, there are no lessons.
All the children, aged between 4 and 19, do whatever they want. There are no
teachers, only “staff members”. The idea behind this is that you do not need to make children
learn, because children want to learn anyway. “You
do not need to say to a three-year-old, ‘Go
explore your environment.’ You can’t
stop them!”says
Daniel Greenberg, a founder of the school. “But
if you make children do what you want all day…
they will lose all taste of learning.” At Sudbury Valley School, you
will find children talking, reading, painting, cooking, working on computers,
studying French, playing the piano, climbing trees, or just running around. Two
boys spent three years just fishing!
The other way that Sudbury Valley
School is different is that the children can decide the rules. Every week,
there is a school meeting where both children and staff have one vote (投票)each—even the four-year-olds. They decide the school rules, how to spend
the school money, and even which staff they want and do not want anymore.
When the school first opened in
1968, people said it would never work. But today, the school has 200 students,
and 80% of its students go on to college. Even the two boys who went fishing
all the time have successful careers today. One of them is a musician
and the other is a computer scientist.
1.What's special about the school?
A.
There is nobody but students there.
B.
All the students are of the same age.
C.
There are no classes for the students.
D.
There are no rules in the school.
2.What do the students do in the
school?
A.
They learn everything there from the staff members.
B.
They grow up there without learning anything.
C.
They spend all the time with their parents.
D.
They do whatever they are interested in.
3.The school seems to believe that
children________.
A.
learn best when they are doing what they want
B.
are too young to learn anything by themselves
C.
can look after themselves without any help
D. can't go to college without any hard work
4.The last paragraph wants to tell
us that_
.
A.
the writer doesn't like the idea of the school
B.
the school is quite successful in its work
C.
most of the parents don't believe in the school
D.
younger students learn better there than older ones
5.The underlined word career
in the last paragraph most probably means_.
A.
family B. money C. lifestyle d. job