Page 143 - Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company

124 The Disney Way

The depressing truth is that although Downtown School is no longer
an experiment, the Des Moines School District has not totally embraced its
philosophy. And when students leave Downtown School after fifth grade
and enter a traditional sixth grade class, the evidence of this is crystal clear.
One sixth grader, a former student of Downtown School, was given a work-
sheet with questions to answer on the subject of volcanoes. As she would
have done in her classroom at Downtown School, she took the worksheet
home, got on the Internet, and researched volcanoes for several hours. She
made notes all over the worksheet and gathered her thoughts for a presenta-
tion she intended to make to her class. When she sat down in her new class-
room on the following morning, the teacher asked students to pass in their
volcano worksheets. When the little girl asked if she could present her find-
ings to the class, the teacher denied her request and recorded a “zero” on her
worksheet. When the student questioned the grade, the teacher explained
that she had failed to answer the questions and that her worksheet was
“messed up” with all her notes. However, in a spirit of a benevolent dictator,
the teacher gave the girl a second chance to complete the worksheet. That
evening, this devastated child took the worksheet home and announced
to her parents, “I get it, they don’t care about learning at my new school.
They just want me to fill in the blanks.” For six years, this student loved
learning, loved coming to school, and now was poised to become a stagnant,
detached rote learner who felt only contempt for the educational system in
America. Hopefully, as students and parents experience travesties inflicted
by traditional school systems, they will demand an educational environment
such as Downtown School provides. If our children begin their education
in a place where they become self-motivated and take responsibility for
their own learning, where teachers establish a creative atmosphere of mutual
respect and trust, and where their potential is unleashed, shouldn’t we
expect this level of excellence to continue through high school?