Boise workbook about How to make classes interesting

“I want you to be the director of
my college. You make class
more interesting.”
A workbook by students at
Boise Central High
Fred Banks
Josephine Lopez

Commentaries by Students at Boise Central High School 2 tinyURL.com/BoiseWorkbook
ISBN-13: 978-1539097709
ISBN-10: 1539097706
Copyleft © 2016
It’s okay to copy these pages.
Please do what we did:
show these quotes to students and teachers,
build discussions,
then ask for changes in the school.
Fred Banks
Josephine Lopez
Workbook committee
This book is ready for photocopying. You can also get the free ebook from
our OneDrive account.
TINYURL.com/BoiseWorkbook
Instructions: Print or photocopy pages 9-70 and put these pages on walls
in front of students.
Collect their comments and send the commentaries to
TrintaAnos@live.com
We’ll include the commentaries in the next edition of this workbook.
Send your comments to TrintaAnos@live.com

The lecturing by teachers is boring
us and leaves emotional scars in the
minds of students. The students are
handled like sheep. School is a
prison for students. We develop a
distaste for learning. We long for the
time to pass, and we wish for school
to simply be over.
Josephine Lopez
Liberty Academy
Boise Central High
School
(written before the
transformation of our school
into five academies)
Well equipped one-room
rural school (with desks,
blackboard, books, globe,
artwork, stove, piano) in
Oklahoma early 20th century
From Wikicommons

Letter to teachers, parents
and students
This collection of quotes and
commentaries is a workbook.
Our teachers at Boise Central
High asked us to read these
quotes. We wrote many
comments and those comments
went into a report. Then we sent
that report to our school
district’s superintendent, Dr.
Coberly.
Dr. Coberly wrote back to us
and said that he would take

these suggestions to the school
board.
Four months later, our school
was broken into five academies.
We went from a big school of
600 students to five smaller
schools, each with about 120
students each. This followed
the Big Picture school model
from Rhode Island. You can
read about it at BigPicture.org.

We like our small academies.
This workbook is a way of
saying “thank you” to Dr.
Coberly and the Board of
Trustees for our schools. We
collected quotes and made this
workbook for students and
parents and teachers to use.
Have fun and send us your
comments so we can add your
commentaries to our next
edition.
Fred Banks, class of 2017
trintaanos@live.com
We have formatted this workbook as 8.5
inches by 11 inches so it can be printed
easily by your teachers and parents. The

final copy of the book should be done in a
smaller size, we believe, so that students
and parents can carry the book with them.
Put the quotes in front of students. Invite
students to make comments about the
quotes.
Then type the commentaries into the
workbook. Distribute the workbook to the
district supervisor and wait for changes in
your school.
It worked for Boise Central High School.
Our five academies are called Liberty,
Peace, Unity, Equality, and Justice, named
after the academies at Big Picture School in
Providence, R.I.

http://www.themethighschool.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=384346&type=
d&pREC_ID=885572
Our five academies are called Liberty, Peace, Unity, Equality, and Justice,
named after the academies at Big Picture School in Providence, R.I.
You can photocopy pages 9 to 52 and put the pages around your
classroom. Who knows what students will respond to…?

To the students...
What are your comments about these quotes?
Quotes from Neil Postman
Now, what is it that students do in the
classroom? Well, mostly they sit and listen to
the teacher. Mostly, they are required to
believe in authorities, or at least pretend to
such belief when they take tests. Mostly they
are required to remember.
They are almost never required to make
observations, formulate definitions, or
perform any intellectual operations that
go beyond repeating what someone else
says is true. They are rarely encouraged
to ask substantive questions. permalink
Neil Postman
Teaching as a Subversive Activity (1969)
Here is the challenge to the students at Boise Central High School. Can
you put this quote into words that my grandmother will understand?
COMMENTARIES BY STUDENTS GO HERE
Explain your thoughts
_______________________________________________________
_________________________________
YOUR NAME (or “anonymous”)

What is Neil Postman’s solution?
Students should be asked:
1. to make observations,
2. To ___________ definitions, or
3. To perform any intellectual operations
that go beyond repeating what someone
else says is true.
FOR EXAMPLE:
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
4. to ask ___________ questions.
Neil Postman wrote something like this in his book
http://www.qotd.org/search/single.html?qid=69114
What words do you want to put in this
quote?
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How can we encourage
other people to look at
these books?
At Boise Central High
School, we created posters
and we used quotes from the
books. Maybe you can
create posters, too.

The Big Picture
By Dennis Littky
“The best way to
create a positive
school culture,
with a supportive,
nurturing
atmosphere, is to start by creating
a small school. The research has
shown over and over again that
students in small schools
perform better in math and
science and have better attitudes
towards learning, lower dropout
rates, better attendance” (page 66).

Teaching as a Subversive
Activity by Neil Postman
“Try listening to
your students for a
day or two. We do
not mean reacting
to what they say. We
mean listening. If you
are like most teachers, your
training has probably not
included learning how to listen.
The principal reason for your learning how
to listen to students is that you may
increase your understanding of what the
students perceive as relevant. The only
way to know where a kid is 'at' is to
listen to what he is saying. You can't do
this if you are talking.” (Chapter 12, page 168).

WORKBOOK ACTIVITY
To the students...
Quote f#1 from Neil Postman CHAPTER 12
What should a teacher do?
Your first act of teaching might be conducted in the
following way: write on a scrap of paper these questions:
What am I going to have my students do today?
What's it good for?
How do I know?
Tape the paper to the mirror in your bathroom or some
other place where you are likely to see it every morning If
nothing else, the questions will begin to make you uneasy
about shilling for someone else and might weaken your
interest in 'following the syllabus'.
You may even, after a while, become nauseous at the
prospect of teaching things which have a specious value
or for which there is no evidence that your anticipated
outcomes do, in fact, occur.
At their best, the questions will drive you to reconsider
almost everything you are doing.
In the end, it all may cost you your job or drive you out
of teaching altogether. Subversion is a risky business - as
risky for its agent as for its target.
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INSTRUCTIONS: (give your name or write “anonymous” or make up a name.
Explain why you think this is a good procedure or suggest another idea.

WORKBOOK ACTIVITY
To the students...
Quote #2 from Neil Postman CHAPTER 12
Try listening to your students for a day or two. We do
not mean reacting to what they say. We mean
listening. This may require that you do some role-playing.
Imagine, for example, that you are not their teacher but a
psychiatrist (or some such person) who is not primarily
trying to teach but who is trying to understand. Any
questions you ask or remarks you make would, therefore,
not be designed to instruct or judge. They would be
attempts to clarify what someone has said. If you are like
most teachers, your training has probably not included
learning how to listen.
Here is a particularly effective technique for teaching
listening: the students engage in a discussion of some
issue about which they have strong feelings. But their
discussion has an unusual rule applied to it. A student
may say anything he wishes but only after he has
restated what the previous speaker has said to that
speaker's satisfaction. Astounding things happen to
students when they go through this experience. They find
themselves concentrating on what others are saying
to the point, sometimes, of forgetting what they

themselves were going to say. In some cases, students
have a unique experience. They find that they have
projected themselves into the frame of mind of another
person. You might wish to make this special listening
game a permanent part of your weekly lessons.
The principal reason for your learning how to listen to
students is that you may increase your understanding of
what the students perceive as relevant. The only way to
know where a kid is 'at' is to listen to what he is
saying. You can't do this if you are talking.
Comments by students (write on the back of this page
INSTRUCTIONS
(give your name or write “anonymous” or make up a name. Explain
why you think this is a good procedure or suggest another idea.
What was your topic for conversation?
Did you take time to restate the other person’s view before
you said something? Give an example sl that a reader
can understand what the exercise did to you.
“What I heard you saying is that xxxxx ... Here’s my
response…”
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WORKBOOK ACTIVITY
To the students...
“At its best, schooling can be about
how to make a life, which is quite
different from how to make a
living.”
Neil Postman
Neil Postman died in 2003. What would
you say to him if he were to walk into the
room and observe your class?
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WORKBOOK ACTIVITY
To the students...
What should a teacher do? Page 34 The INQUIRY teacher
The teacher rarely tells the student what he thinks
they ought to know. He believes that telling, when used as a basic teaching
strategy, deprives students of the excitement of doing their own finding and of the opportunity
for increasing their power as learners.
His basic mode of discourse with students is questioning. While he uses both convergent
and divergent questions, he regards the latter as the more important tool. He emphatically does
not view questions as a means of seducing students into parroting the text or syllabus; rather,
he sees questions as instruments to open engaged minds to unsuspected possibilities.
Generally, he does not accept a single statement as
an answer to a question. In fact, he has a persisting aversion a anyone, any
syllabus, any text that offers the Right Answers. Not because answers and solutions are
unwelcome - indeed, he is trying to help students be more efficient problem solvers - but
because he knows how often the Right Answer saves only to terminate further thought. He
knows too, power of pluralizing.
He does not ask for the reason, but for the reasons. Not
for the cause, but the causes…. never the meaning, the meanings. He knows, too, the power
of contingent thinking. He is the most 'It depends' learners in his class.
He encourages student-student interaction as opposed to
student-teacher interaction.
Generally, each of his lessons poses a problem for students. Almost all of his questions,
proposed activities and assignments are aimed at having his students clarify a problem, make
observations relevant to the solution of the problem, and make generalizations based on their
observations.

His goal is to engage students in those activities which produce knowledge: defining,
questioning, observing, classifying, generalizing, verifying, applying. As we have said, all
knowledge is a result of these activities. Whatever we think we 'know' about astronomy,
sociology, chemistry, biology,, etc, was discovered or invented by someone who was more or
less an expert in using inductive methods of inquiry. Thus, our inquiry, or 'inductive', teacher is
largely interested in helping his students to become more proficient as users of these methods.
He measures his success in terms of behavioral changes in students:
How often do they ask questions;
the increase in the relevance of their questions;
the frequency and conviction of their challenges to assertions made by other students or
teachers or textbooks;
the relevance and clarity of the standards on which they base their challenges;
their willingness to suspend judgments when they have insufficient data;
their willingness to modify or change their position when data warrant such change; the
increase in their skill in observing, classifying, generalizing, etc;
the increase in their tolerance for diverse answers;
their ability to apply generalizations, attitudes and information to novel situations.
Comments by students (write on the back of this page)
INSTRUCTIONS
COMMENTARY
Which of these actions by the “Inquiry teacher” do you
like? Why?
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Why is the teacher called “an inquiry teacher”?
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WORKBOOK ACTIVITY
To the students...
HERE IS A LONG quote. It is worth looking at the dialog
below.
For example, the following incident - in this case outside of
a classroom - is representative of the difference between a
stereotypic and a suspended judgment.
A man and his seventeen-year-old son on Monday evening had a 'discussion' about the need
for the son to defer his social activities on week nights until he has finished doing all of the
homework he has for school the next day. It is now Wednesday evening, forty-eight hours later,
about 7.30 p.m. Father is watching TV. Son emerges from his room and begins to put on a
jacket.
FATHER: Where are you going?
SON: Out.
FATHER: Out where?
SON: Just out.
FATHER: Have you finished your homework?
SON: Not yet.
FATHER: I thought we decided (that's the way parents talk) that you wouldn't go out on
weeknights until you'd finished your homework.
SON: But I have to go out.
FATHER: What do you mean you 'have to'?
SON: I just do.
FATHER: Well, you're not going out. You just have to learn to live up to the terms of the
agreements you make.
SON: But...
FATHER: That's all. I want no back talk.
MOTHER: Please. Let him go out. He'll be back soon
FATHER: I don't want you butting in.
MOTHER (to son): Go ahead. It will be all right. (Son exits.)
FATHER (in a rage): What the hell do you mean by encouraging his impertinence. How do you
expect him to learn responsibility if you side with him in an argument with me) How...
MOTHER (interrupting): Do you know what tomorrow is?
FATHER: What the hell has that got to do with it? Tomorrow's Thursday.
MOTHER: Yes, and it's your birthday.

FATHER: (Silence.)
MOTHER: Your son has been making a birthday gift for you at Jack's house. He wanted it to be
a surprise for you tomorrow morning. A nice start for the day. He has just a bit more work to do
on it to finish it. He wanted to get it done as early as possible tonight so he could bring it home
and wrap it up for tomorrow and then he'd still have time to do his homework.
Well, you see how easy it is to judge someone as
something on the basis of x amount of data.
Learning to suspend judgment can be most liberating. You
might find that it makes you a better learner, too.
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WORKBOOK ACTIVITY
To the students...
Quote #6 from Neil Postman page 22
Teacher asks. Student answers.
Have you ever heard of a student who replied to a
question,
'Does anyone know the answer to that question?' or
'I don't understand what I would have to do in order to find
an answer', or
'I have been asked that question before and, frankly, I've
never understood what it meant? Such behavior would
invariably result in some form of penalty and is avoided,
except by 'wise guys'. Thus, students learn not to value it.
They get the message. And yet few teachers consciously
articulate such a message. It is not part of the 'content' of
their instruction.
No teacher even said: 'Don't value uncertainty and tentativeness. Don't question questions.
Above all, don't think.' The message is communicated quietly, insidiously,
relentlessly and effectively through the structure of the classroom: through the role of the
teacher, the role of the student, the rules of their verbal game, the rights that are assigned, the
arrangements made for communication, the 'doings' that are praised or censured. In other
words, the medium is the message.
Have you ever heard of a student taking notes on the remarks of
another student? Probably not. Because the organization of the classroom makes it clear

that what students say is not the 'content' of instruction. Therefore, it will not be included on
tests. Therefore, they can ignore it.
Have you ever heard of a student indicating an interest in how a textbook writer arrived at
his conclusions? Rarely, we would guess. Most students are unaware that textbooks are
written by human beings. Besides, the classroom structure does not suggest that the processes
of inquiry are of any importance.
Have you ever heard of a student suggesting a more useful definition of something that
the teacher has already defined? Or of a student who asked, 'Whose facts are those?' Or of a
student who asked, 'What is a fact?' Or of a student who asked, 'Why are we doing this work?'
Comments by students (write on the back of this page
INSTRUCTIONS
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WORKBOOK ACTIVITY
To the students...
Quote f#7 from Neil Postman CHAPTER 12
G. B. Shaw's line that the only time his education was
interrupted was when he was in school captures the
sense of this alienation. The learner comes to understand
that what he is asked to think about in school has no
value for what he needs to learn to think about outside
school.
PARODY ("Well, children, what shall we study today?'
''Gee, teacher, can't you tell us what we went to study
for a change?')
a teacher can, without injuring the learning process,
suggest all sorts of things for study.
No one has ever said that children themselves are the
only, or necessarily the best, source for articulating
relevant areas of inquiry.
unless the learner perceives an inquiry as relevant, no
significant learning will take place.

No one will learn anything he doesn't want to know.
And if he is made to - that is, forced to act as if he does -
he and his teacher will regret it.
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WORKBOOK ACTIVITY
To the students...
Quote #8 From a book called “Let’s Lecture Less”
Two teachers shared with me how they work as “guides
on the side.”
I teach college level students and find peer tutoring to be a
good strategy. Being able to show others how to solve
problems and discuss different approaches is
effective. It builds their confidence in their skills and the
small group is less intimidating. As the semester goes on I
often find students in our math lab working together on
assignments and studying for exams. Eileen Perez
It is important to learn by doing. I teach students ages 5 to
7 and I ask them to teach each other (“peer tutoring”).
They learn from each other so well and the teacher
can accomplish the same objectives without lecturing.
Hands-on-activities also help students retain information. I
agree with the quote by Zull (2002), since lecturing does
not help me retain very much information. Aparna Bhargava
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This is a section for young men who think it’s “cool” to pester a young woman until she agrees
to go on a date with him.
. I’m curious. Do young men have a hard time admitting that women are superior?
More women attend college than men.
Butterflies
Don't take women for granted,
They have a hard time
Don't misunderstand them
Don’t play with their minds
Treat them so gently,
it will pay you in time
You've got to know
They are the sensitive kind
Many women can sense a change in temperature sooner than most men.
Many women can hear a sound while they are sleeping.
Most men will sleep through noises.
Eight times the blood flows through the emotional center of the female brain.
The same emotional center in men receives only 1/8th of the volume of blood.
Women are more sensitive.
The physical differences between men and women provide functional
advantages and have survival value.

Men usually have greater upper body strength, build muscle easily, have
thicker skin, bruise less easily and have a lower threshold of awareness of
injuries to their extremities. Men are essentially built for physical
confrontation and the use of force.
The joints of men are well suited for throwing objects. A man’s skull is
almost always thicker and stronger than a women’s.
A man’s "thick headedness" help him look for risky behavior that usually
involve collisions with other males or automobiles.
Men invented the game "chicken", not women.
Men, and a number of other male species of animals charge and crash into
each other in their spare time.
Women on the other hand have four times as many brain cells
(neurons) connecting the right and left side of their brain.
Men use their left brain to solve one problem one step
at a time. Women have more efficient access to both
sides of their brain and therefore greater use of their
right brain.
Women can
focus on more
than one problem
at one time and
frequently prefer
to solve problems
through multiple
activities at a
time.
Young girls find
the conversations
of young boys
"boring".

In a complicated conversation, young boys express confusion and would
rather play sports.
Young men do not want to be in a conversation between 5 girls who are
discussing three subjects at once!
COMMENTARIES BY MALE STUDENTS
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COMMENTARIES BY FEMALE STUDENTS
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What questions should we ask in class?
These are question that Neil Postman suggests. Put the questions on a wall and leave space
for students to write their responses.
We have framed - as we asked you to do - some questions, which, in our judgment, are
responsive to the actual and immediate as against the fancied and future needs of learners in
the world as it is (not as it was).
In this, we have not surveyed thousands of students, but have consulted with many, mostly in
junior and senior high school. We have tried variations of these questions with children in
primary grades. By and large, the response was enthusiastic - end serious. There seemed to be
little doubt that, from the point of view of the students, these questions made
much more sense than the ones they usually have to
memorize the right answers to in school.
At this point it might be worth noting that our list of questions is intended to 'educate' students.
Contrary to conventional school practice, what that means is that we want to elicit from
students the meanings that they have already stored up so that they may subject those
meanings to a testing and verifying, reordering and reclassifying, modifying and
extending process. In this process, the student is not a passive 'recipient'; he
becomes an active producer of knowledge.
The word 'educate' is closely related to the word 'educe'. …..this meant drawing out of a
person something potential or latent. We can, after all, learn only in relation to what we
already know.
Again, contrary to common misconceptions, this means that if we don't know very much, our
capability for learning is not very great.
This idea - virtually by itself - requires a major revision in most of the metaphors that shape
school policies and procedures.
Reflect on these questions - and others that these can generate.
Please do not merely react to them.
These questions can be posted on a classroom wall and students can put comments below the
questions.

What do you worry about most?
What are the causes of your worries?
Can any of your worries be eliminated?
How? Which of them might you deal with
first?
How do you decide? Are there other people
with the same problems? How do you
know? How can you find out?
Commentaries by students
You can put your comments on other pages
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If you had an important idea that you
wanted to let everyone (in the world) know
about, how might you go about letting them
know?
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What bothers you most about adults? Why?
How do you want to be similar to or
different from adults you know when you
become an adult?
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What, if anything, seems to you to be worth
dying for? How did you come to believe
this?
What seems worth living for? How did you
come to believe this?
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At the present moment, what would you
most like to be - or be able to do? Why?
What would you have to know in order to be
able to do it? What would you have to do in
order to get to know it?
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How can you tell 'good guys' from 'bad
guys'?
How can 'good' be distinguished from 'evil'?
What kind of a person would you most like
to be? How might you get to be this kind of
person?
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At the present moment, what would you
most like to be doing? Five years from now?
Ten years from now? Why? What might you
have to do to realize these hopes? What
might you have to give up in order to do
some or all of these things?
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When you hear or read or observe
something, how do you know what it
means? Where does meaning 'come from'?
What does 'meaning' mean? How can you
tell what something 'is' or whether it is?
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Where do words come from?
Where do symbols come from? Why do
symbols change?
Where does knowledge come from? What
do you think are sane of man's most
important ideas? Where did they come
from? Why? How? Now what?
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What's a 'good idea'? How do you know
when a good or live idea becomes a bad or
dead idea? Which of man's ideas would we
be better off forgetting? How do you
decide?
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What is 'progress'? What is 'change'? What
are the most obvious causes of change?
What are the least apparent? What
conditions are necessary in order for change
to occur? What kinds of changes are going
on right now? Which are important? How
are they similar to or different from other
changes that have occurred? What are the
relationships between new ideas and
change?
Where do new ideas come from? How
come? So what?
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If you wanted to stop one of the changes
going on now (pick one), how would you go
about it? What consequences would you
have to consider?
Of the important changes going on in our
society, which should be encouraged and
which resisted? Why? How?
What are the most important changes that
have occurred in the past ten years? Twenty
years? Fifty years? In the last year? In the
last six months? Last month?
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What will be the most important changes
next month? Next year? Next decade? How
can you tell? So what? What would you
change if you could? How might you go
about it?
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Of those changes, which are going, to occur,
which would you stop if you could? Why?
How? So what?

Who do you think has the most important
things to say today? To whom? How? Why?
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What are the dumbest and more dangerous
ideas that are 'popular' today? Why do you
think so? Where did these ideas come from?
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What are the conditions necessary for life to
survive? Plants? Animals? Humans? Which
of these conditions are necessary for all life
Which ones for plants? Which ones for
animals? Which ones for humans?
What are the greatest threats to all forms of
life? To plants? To animals? To humans?
What are some of the 'strategies' living
things use to survive'? Which unique to
plants? Which unique to animals? Which
unique to humans?
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What kinds of human survival strategies are
(1) similar to those of animals and plants;
(2) different from animals and plants?
What does man's language permit him to
develop as survival strategies that animals
cannot develop? How might man's survival
activities be different from what they are if
he did not have language? What other
'languages' does man have besides those
consisting of words? What functions do
these 'languages' serve? Why and how do
they originate?
Can you invent a new one? How might you
start?
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What would happen, what difference would
it make, what would man not be able to do
if he had no number (mathematical)
languages?
How many symbol systems does man have?
How come? So what? What are some good
symbols? Some bad? What good symbols
could we use that we do not have? What bad
symbols do we have that we'd be better off
without?
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What's worth knowing? How do you
decide? What are some ways to go about
getting to know what's worth knowing?
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Neil Postman gives these instructions to teachers...
It is necessary for us to say at once that these questions are not intended to present a
catechism for the new education. These are samples and illustrations of the kinds of questions
we think worth answering.
Our set of questions is best regarded as a metaphor of our sense of relevance.
The new education is a process and will not suffer from
the applied imaginations of all who wish to be a part of it.
But in evaluating your own questions, as well as ours,
bear in mind that there are certain standards that must be
used. These standards may also be stated in the form of
questions:
Will your questions increase the learner's will as
well as his capacity to learn?
Will they help to give him a sense of joy in
learning?
Will they help to provide the learners with
confidence in his ability to learn?
In order to get answers, will the learner be
required to make inquiries? (Ask further
questions, clarify terms, make observations,
classify data, etc.?)
Does each question allow for alternative answers
(which implies alternative modes of inquiry) Will

the process of answering the questions tend to
stress the uniqueness of the learner?
Would the questions produce different answers if
asked at different stages of the learner's
development?
Will the answers help the learner to sense and
understand the universals in the human condition
and so enhance his ability to draw closer to other
people?
Commentaries by students (after reading the questions on
this page) You can put your comments on other pages
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Commentaries by Students about Boise Central High
We are happy that the superintendent Dr. Coberly decided
in 2010 to split up the school into five academies. Each
academy has 120 students (approximately). The principal
took a risk because he had to cut his salary to help pay for
the changes. Instead of having over 600 students in one
school, with a bigger budget, he is one of five principals of
the little academies.
He got this idea from Big Picture Schools in Providence,
R.I. You can read more about “the size of schools” by
reading pages 66 to 70 in Littky’s book, The Big Picture:
education is Everyone’s Business.
Here’s what Littky writes:
Small Schools
I want to go to The Met because I feel I could do better in a
smaller school. Without being nervous. When I get nervous, I
can’t think right and stay focused. Sometimes I’m afraid to speak
in class because I think people might not understand how I see
things in a different way. So it’s hard to explain myself in
classroom discussions. When things like that occur, I don’t feel
like going to school. I start to lose interest in school. I feel like if I
lose interest, I fail. But I wanna do good in school. So I think if I
go to this school, I would do much better ’cause it’s a small
school.
~ From an 8th grader’s Met application essay
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The best way to create a positive school culture, with a supportive,
nurturing atmosphere, is to start by creating a small school. The research
has shown over and over again that students in small schools perform
better in math and science and have better attitudes towards learning,
lower dropout rates, better attendance—the list goes on and on.
Self-concept, sense of belonging, and interpersonal skills are much higher
in students who go to small schools than in those who attend larger
schools. Small schools also have a much higher rate of parent involvement,
which we know contributes to higher academic performance. Finally, the
research shows that small schools are safer and easier to secure. Think
about this: A large public school system may spend more than 50
million dollars per year on school security! Instead of spending all that
money to make their huge schools safer, why don’t they just use the money
to make smaller schools?
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[In small schools,] the learning needs of students, not the
organizational needs of the school, drive school operations.
~ Kathleen Cotton
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to Education Week, 60 percent of today’s high school students
attend schools with at least 1,000 students (and, the article notes, many big
schools are much, much bigger than that). Some small-school advocates
blame one-time Harvard president James Conant as the instigator of
today’s giant, impersonal high schools. In his 1959 book, The American
High School Today, Conant argued that high schools could get
academically stronger if they got bigger. He did, in fact, say this. But by
“bigger,” Conant meant schools of 400 students, not thousands. It is sad
that a simple misinterpretation of Conant’s words has led us to the
warehouses we now call schools.
We need to look at the most current research and update our
understanding of what schools should be. Thankfully, more people seem to
be doing this, and there is at least lots of talk these days about how to

break up big schools and turn them into smaller ones. Bill and Melinda
Gates have actually taken on the call for smaller schools as their own
personal mission:
In less than four years of grantmaking, the Gates Foundation has
transformed the notion of replacing large, “comprehensive” high schools
with smaller, more personal models into a national movement. The world’s
wealthiest philanthropy has earmarked nearly $700 million to states, school
systems, and a range of nonprofit organizations to create 1,400 mostly
urban high schools of 400 or fewer students each—some of them in new
locations, some of them in large, existing high school buildings that have
been subdivided.
But even in light of this, progress is slow and difficult. Debbie Meier told me
about a town (one, I’m sure, that is not unique in its thinking) that wanted
smaller schools, but was afraid that too much competition would arise in
the community if there were more than one school serving the same grade
levels. The town “compromised” by decreasing the number of grade levels
per building. The thing is, it now has a school with 800 7th and 8th graders,
and a K–2 school with nearly 1,000 kids. To avoid competition, the town set
up “smaller” schools that are nowhere near small. Of course, inside these
schools, teachers are still giving grades and tests and handing out honors
that are mired in competition. Rather than thinking of small schools as
creating unnecessary competition, why not think of them as creating very
necessary choice for parents and kids about where they go to learn?
When we started Shoreham-Wading River, we had 300 kids, and we added
more every year. When enrollment reached 600, I broke the school up into
three small “schools”: one for 6th grade, one for 7th, and one for 8th. It
seemed like a natural division; plus, we had approximately 200 students in
each of these grade levels. After a while, though, we realized that
separating the grade levels in this way meant that every year, teachers
were getting kids they’d never met before. So we changed things up,
putting 6th, 7th, and 8th graders together in three small, 200-student
“schools,” which would allow teachers who worked together to share
the same small group of kids over time. That was in 1972. I didn’t do it
because “schools-within-schools” was a cool idea at the time. I did it
because I wanted my teachers to know their kids as well as possible,
and I knew that size mattered.

From an educator’s point of view, nearly everything is easier in a small
school. It’s easier to lead a small staff, easier to coordinate activities, and,
most importantly, easier to know the students personally. The downside, to
some people, is that small schools don’t always have all the specialists (like
art or music teachers) or the powerhouse sports programs. But the upside
is you have a community that can include everyone. As Debbie Meier has
pointed out so perceptively, kids will find “small schools” within big
schools anyway. That’s what cliques and teams and gangs and clubs
are all about!
In 2001, public school construction was the largest category of public
construction spending in the United States, according to the Commerce
Department. Great. But the problem is they keep building big schools! In
addition, the U.S. Department of Education is still giving out the usual
money to build and support big schools. Recently, the Feds have started to
give out more money to break down big schools into small schools. But the
question is so obvious. Why don’t they just build small schools in the
first place?
Commentaries by students (after reading the questions on
this page) You can put your comments on other pages
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From a speech by Bill Gates
These are schools built on principles that can be applied anywhere – the new three R’s,
the basic building blocks of better high schools:
● The first R is Rigor – making sure all students are
given a challenging curriculum that prepares them for
college or work;
● The second R is Relevance – making sure kids
have courses and projects that clearly relate to their
lives and their goals;
● The third R is Relationships – making sure kids
have a number of adults who know them, look out for
them, and push them to achieve.
The three R’s are almost always easier to promote in smaller high schools. The smaller
size gives teachers and staff the chance to create an environment where students achieve
at a higher level and rarely fall through the cracks. Students in smaller schools are more
motivated, have higher attendance rates, feel safer, and graduate and attend college in
higher numbers.
Commentaries by students (after reading the questions
on this page) You can put your comments on other pages
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The teacher of the future is a
GUIDE on the SIDE, not a sage on
the stage. Aphorism*
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Education is NOT the filling of a
pail, but rather the LIGHTING of a
FIRE. W. Yeats
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Most students might forget what
you taught them, but they will
always remember how you treated
them. Aphorism*
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I never let school get in the way of
my education. Mark Twain
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Drive out fear.
W. Edwards Deming
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Keep "Talking Time" to a
minimum.
Aphorism*
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The greatest sign of success for a
teacher is to be able to say, "The
children are now working as if I did
not exist.”
Maria Montessori
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Let’s create people who are
capable of doing new things, not
simply of repeating what other
generations have done.
Jean Piaget
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Many teachers believe that they
need to control how they teach and
how they test. Other teachers
negotiate with their students what
they will learn, when they will learn
it and how we will check that they
have learned it.
Dennis Yuzenas, WhatDoYaKnow.com
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Until we find the child’s passion,
it’s just school. When the child
finds his passion, we teach to that
passion. We can find internships
for high school students: Kids say,
“I love this internship!”
Dennis Littky, www.MetCenter.org
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Unfortunately, to most people,
teaching is the giving of
knowledge. What are you going to
tell the students? What is your
expertise? But teaching is really
about bringing out what's already
inside people.
Dennis Littky, www.MetCenter.org
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If individuals have different kinds of
minds, with varied strengths,
interests and strategies, then could
biology, math and history be taught
AND ASSESSED in a variety of
ways?
Howard Gardner, Intelligence Reframed, p. 167.
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Trust. Truth. No Put-downs.
Active Listening. Personal Best.
Seen on a banner at www.NewCitySchool.org, St.
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We hope you enjoy this workbook.
Send your comments to Boise Central High School
Attention: Workbook Project
Email TrintaAnos@live.com
THANK YOU
Fred Banks
Josephine Lopez
Workbook committee

DESCRIPTION for the ebook
This book is ready for photocopying. You can also get the
free ebook from our OneDrive account.
TINYURL.com/BoiseWorkbook
Instructions: Print or photocopy pages 9-70 and put these
pages on walls in front of students.
Collect their comments and send the commentaries to
TrintaAnos AT live.com
We’ll include the commentaries in the next edition of this
workbook.
The lecturing by teachers is boring us and leaves
emotional scars in the minds of students. The students
are handled like sheep. School is a prison for students.
We develop a distaste for learning. We long for the time
to pass, and we wish for school to simply be over.
Josephine Lopez
Liberty Academy
Boise Central High School
(written before the transformation of our school into five
academies)

Well equipped one-room rural school (with desks,
blackboard, books, globe, artwork, stove, piano) in
Oklahoma early 20th century
From Wikicommons
Letter to teachers, parents and students
This collection of quotes and commentaries is a workbook.
Our teachers at Boise Central High asked us to read these
quotes. We wrote many comments and those comments
went into a report. Then we sent that report to our school
district’s superintendent, Dr. Coberly.
Dr. Coberly wrote back to us and said that he would take
these suggestions to the school board.
Four months later, our school was broken into five
academies. We went from a big school of 600 students to
five smaller schools, each with about 120 students each.
This followed the Big Picture school model from Rhode
Island. You can read about it at BigPicture.org.
We like our small academies. This workbook is a way of
saying “thank you” to Dr. Coberly and the Board of
Trustees for our schools. We collected quotes and made
this workbook for students and parents and teachers to
use. Have fun and send us your comments so we can
add your commentaries to our next edition.
Fred Banks, class of 2017
trintaanos AT live.com

We have formatted this workbook as 8.5 inches by 11
inches so it can be printed easily by your teachers and
parents. The final copy of the book should be done in a
smaller size, we believe, so that students and parents can
carry the book with them.
Put the quotes in front of students. Invite students to
make comments about the quotes.
Then type the commentaries into the workbook.
Distribute the workbook to the district supervisor and wait
for changes in your school.
It worked for Boise Central High School. Our five
academies are called Liberty, Peace, Unity, Equality, and
Justice, named after the academies at Big Picture School
in Providence, R.I.
Our five academies are called Liberty, Peace, Unity,
Equality, and Justice, named after the academies at Big
Picture School in Providence, R.I.
You can photocopy pages 9 to 69 and put the pages
around your classroom. Who knows what students will
respond to…?
To the students...
Quotes from Neil Postman

Now, what is it that students do in the classroom? Well,
mostly they sit and listen to the teacher. Mostly, they are
required to believe in authorities, or at least pretend to
such belief when they take tests. Mostly they are required
to remember.
They are almost never required to make observations,
formulate definitions, or perform any intellectual operations
that go beyond repeating what someone else says is true.
They are rarely encouraged to ask substantive questions.
permalink
Neil Postman
Here is the challenge to the students at Boise Central High
School. Can you put this quote into words that my
grandmother will understand?
Explain your thoughts
(This shows you how the book is laid out)
Send your comments to TrintaAnos AT live.com

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