Parents of three school-age kids, Jim and Dana Strickland want to start a conversation. The topic is education.
First, some logistics: Three mornings a week, Dana Strickland drives their two older children, Avery, 12, and Jamison, 9, east on U.S. 2 to a public Montessori program at the Sky Valley Education Center in Monroe. With friends helping, she also gets their 6-year-old, Owen, to the Marysville Cooperative Education Program at Quil Ceda Elementary School.
At the end of the day, she jumps in her minivan and makes the commute all over again. Jim Strickland works in Marysville and has to be on the job by 7:30 a.m. Oh, and the family lives in north Everett, a community they love.
Theirs may be an extreme example of the lengths to which parents go for what they see as the right educational fit for their children. The Stricklands aren’t alone in their willingness to take on a grueling routine in the quest of schooling that fits their philosophy.
Jim Strickland isn’t some disgruntled dad. He has no ax to grind with schools closer to home. He is, in fact, a public school teacher. He teaches special education at Totem Middle School in Marysville.
His career has given him a close view of how, when it comes to individual kids, one size definitely does not fit all. Many students he sees find the traditional school system “a frustrating environment,” Strickland said.
“They have no voice,” he said. “It’s given in a top-down way, and that goes right up against human nature. A lot of kids have the ego strength to take it with a grain of salt, and maintain their sense of self. But there are kids who need something else.”
For his own children, that something has been Montessori. Named for an Italian educator, the Montessori method emphasizes children’s developmental stages and self-directed learning.
“We believe in the basic philosophy of Montessori, respect for the child and self-direction,” Jim Strickland said. There’s no grading, but there are goals and lessons.
While Everett has a private Montessori program, Strickland is surprised that a community this large and progressive doesn’t have more options. There’s no fee at the Monroe Montessori, part of a home-school partnership in the Monroe School District.
“We’re operating on educational ideas that are outdated. They don’t offer a continuum of options,” Strickland said.
To begin what he hopes will be a community conversation, Jim Strickland has invited an official from the Whidbey Island Waldorf School to answer questions at a Green Everett meeting this weekend. Adam Fawcett, enrollment director at the Waldorf School, will talk at 4 p.m. Sunday at Zippy’s Java Lounge, 1804 Hewitt Ave. The event is open to the public.
Green Everett is a group with an environmental focus, but Strickland sees educational options as one pillar of a sustainable community.
One of about 135 Waldorf Education schools in North America, the Whidbey Island Waldorf School is a private, nonprofit school with about 140 students in preschool through eighth grade.
“Waldorf is the fastest growing independent alternative school in the country,” said Fawcett, who has two sons at the Whidbey school. He called the annual tuition of $7,000 a bargain among some private schools, “but a big jump from free.”
Located on 100 acres near the Clinton ferry dock, the school has a number of students commuting from Everett and Mukilteo.
“We address the entire child, the feeling realm, the intellectual realm, and how and why they do things in the world,” Fawcett said. Art, music and the practical skills of gardening and sewing are big parts of the curriculum, he added.
There are Waldorf schools in Seattle, including a high school, but most Whidbey Waldorf students go on to South Whidbey High School. “They’re appreciated by the teachers over there,” Fawcett said.
Jim Strickland doesn’t know much about Waldorf, but he wants to find out.
“The first step is putting the issue on the table,” Strickland said. “I’m hoping to get a conversation going.”
Why would someone who cares about the environment do all that driving? The answer is education, and how much some parents will sacrifice for it.
“The transportation is a strain on us,” Strickland said. “We’re concerned about how much gas we’re burning. But we haven’t found a way we can make our circle of living any smaller right now.”
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Waldorf School talk in Everett
Adam Fawcett, enrollment director for the Whidbey Island Waldorf School, will present a program and answer questions about the school at a Green Everett meeting at 4 p.m. Sunday at Zippy’s Java Lounge, 1804 Hewitt Ave., Everett. Eric Owl, an educator working to include sustainable agriculture in curriculum, will also speak. Information: www.wiws.org.
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