At Tallgrass, we understand that choosing an alternative education path, like the Sudbury model, can cause some anxiety, and we expect that a family’s early days at school will involve plenty of questions and a bit of soul searching. We strive to maintain a strong parent community that provides ongoing support between parents, and an environment to ask questions and voice concerns as the students take this adventure.
We welcome the opportunity to discuss these and other questions and concerns in person at a school tour, public event, or open house.
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This term has many definitions. We are absolutely an alternative in that we have a very different approach to education.
We are not:
A behavioral modification program
A diploma-completion program
A therapeutic school
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Tallgrass is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Students must be in attendance at least 5.5 hours per day, 5 days per week to meet student attendance policies. Students may attend all day or attend for any 5.5 hours within our school day depending on what works best for each student and their family.
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Sudbury schools do not have a specific academic curriculum. We believe, and have witnessed, that children learn traditional academics when they are ready for them.
Traditional schools push children to learn specific things at specific times in their lives. This can hold some children back, and push other children to learn things that they may not be ready for, at the expense of other, equally important, development. (Read one parent’s story of how Tallgrass has helped in her son’s development.)
When a child does decide to pursue something like math, they will have a higher likelihood of having the information stick with them, as opposed to just remembering it until the test is over.
It is common for children who are self-directed learners to be "ahead" in some subjects and "behind" in others during their time at school. However, more than 50 years of Sudbury education have shown that Sudbury students leave school with the skills and knowledge necessary to follow their chosen path. Learn more about the pros and cons of Sudbury schools.
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Students with special needs like ADHD, learning differences, and autism spectrum disorders have thrived at our school. However, we are not a therapeutic school, and do not have staff trained specifically in special needs. All students must be able to function safely in our school environment and communicate well enough to understand and follow school rules. If you have questions about your child’s special needs, please call (708) 328-8546 or email us and we'd be happy to discuss whether our school would be a good fit for your family.
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Students at Tallgrass are in charge of their own education, which means balancing freedom and responsibility. Students are expected to sign in and out every day, do chores, participate in RC and the occasional mandatory school meeting, and be able to follow school rules and exist peaceably with the other members of school.
Many adults are surprised at how well most children, in this environment, rise to meet these expectations. We expect a transition period when a student transfers to Tallgrass, and maintain open communication with families during this time, so that any issues with transitioning can be addressed. However, as with any school, sometimes Sudbury education is not a good fit for a particular student. Learn more about which students do best at Sudbury schools. Or download our free e-book, Is Self-Directed Education Right for Your Child?
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Tallgrass follows state guidelines regarding COVID-19, and our policies are similar to many other public and private schools.
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Children seek information when they are ready to learn it. When they come across situations where they need higher math skills they will acquire them.
Basic math skills are learned in everyday life, at school and at home. Things like using money, playing video games, creating art, and reading the time, are all examples of using basic math daily. If "being taught" is the path to learning the student chooses, staff are capable and prepared to teach many different subjects at a student's request.
Check out this TED Talk from a conventional math teacher.
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Our graduates have gone on to university, community college, trade programs, and directly into the work world. Watch one of our alumni panels to learn more about some of their journeys.
Tallgrass supports students in pursuing their future plans, whether or not that includes college. Ultimately, it is the student’s responsibility to ensure they are prepared for that future. The staff are here to support the student in their pursuits.
Tallgrass has a voluntary diploma program for students who have been enrolled 2 or more years, and who successfully defend a thesis at a school Assembly Meeting. -
We discourage families from enrolling as a “stop gap” or “year out” from conventional school. The different orientation to learning takes time to adapt to for both the student and the parents. We encourage families to plan on committing for at least two years, and hope that it will continue to be a good fit through the end of your child’s K-12 education.
That said, if a student wishes to return to a more conventional school, they are usually able to do so with little difficulty. Many students transition back to a more conventional setting seamlessly or, for selective high schools, with some targeted test preparation.
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That's great! Society often views play as a waste of time, but at Tallgrass we consider it an essential form of learning. Through play, children learn to express creativity, cope in social situations, learn about their interests and develop their sense of right and wrong, among many other skills.
Here is a blog post on "Mind/Shift" about the importance of play.
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In a conventional school, students are largely isolated from the world around them, then “exposed” by teachers to select knowledge and opportunities deemed appropriate for that population of students. At Tallgrass, students are exposed to widely varying ideas and activities simply because the students exist both within the school community and beyond, so that parents, siblings, friends, and media are all considered valid influences and sources of knowledge. Students learn about opportunities and ideas through conversations, play, and by seeing what other students and staff are doing. If a student becomes passionate about one interest, he or she has the time and space to pursue it intensely.
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Religion is not part of any school activities at Tallgrass. Students are free to follow their own religious beliefs while attending Tallgrass. Our school is located on the bottom floor of the First Congregational Church of LaGrange, but we are not affiliated with that or any other church or religion.
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Of course! As at most schools, parents are not generally present during the school day. Parents are welcome to stop in for a few minutes during drop off or pickup. Our parent volunteer group organizes parent volunteer opportunities as well as community activities, like parent coffees and camping trips.
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Tallgrass Sudbury School was founded in 2008 by Melissa Bradford and a group of unschooling families, most of whom had unschooler teens.
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For more help in deciding whether self-directed education is right for your family, download our free-ebook.
In 2016, Tallgrass was featured in a story on NPR. We have also been featured in the Riverside-Brookfield Landmark.
A past volunteer has written about his experiences at Tallgrass.
Michael Goldberg, an educator on a mission to learn more about meaningful education, shared his thoughts about Tallgrass.
Check out psychology professor Peter Gray's wonderful Psychology Today blog, Freedom to Learn, about the roles of play and curiosity as foundations for learning. Gray and colleagues have published a study of Hudson Valley Sudbury School alumni and their experiences with Sudbury education.
Peter Gray has also published a book, Free to Learn.Want to raise safe, self-reliant kids without going nuts with worry? Read Free Range Kids.
Drive by Daniel Pink explores how we find our true motivation when we have the freedom to self-direct our own lives.
You can find the closest Sudbury school to you by viewing the Google Map created by Alpine Valley School in Colorado.
TALLGRASS BLOG
Sudbury Is a Village
Guest Post from Sudbury International by Aaron Broder
Emma arrives at school at 10:15am. Most of her friends are already here, doing school without her. She puts her backpack into her cubby and goes into the common room to see what everyone is up to.
Zoe, 12, is working on a jigsaw puzzle at a table—the one she started yesterday. It’s a 500-piece puzzle so it will take a while to finish. Noah, 5, and Mason, 7, are building a pretend city out of magnet tiles on the floor. Emma finds her best friends, Elena and Claire (8 and 10) making paper fortune tellers, and she hurries over to catch up on the latest happenings.
After chatting for a bit, Emma has her fortune told. She picks a corner of the paper and unfolds it. At 6 years old she can’t read yet, so she has Claire read the fortune to her. “You will become rich and live in a mansion,” it says.
Emma is hungry, so the girls decide to head over to the kitchen to see what they can find. Miles, 15, is just carrying in a big box of single-serving chip bags and sets it on the counter. “Are you selling these?” Emma asks.
“Yes,” Miles says. “I still need to make the sign, but they’re $1.50 each.” Miles is raising money for his share of the school trip to New York.
Emma grabs a check to pay with her school bank account. She writes her name at the top, then asks Claire, “How do you spell ‘chips’?”
“C-H-I-P-S.”
“How do you spell ‘Miles’?”
“M-I-L-E-S.”
“What’s the date?”
“Ten slash twelve.”
Aaron, a staff member, appears at the doorway and lets them know it’s time for the Halloween party planning meeting. Emma hastily finishes the check, hands it to Miles, and selects her bag of chips. Then the girls make their way to the other side of the building.
On the way, they pass through the game room, where six kids have just started a session of the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Then they arrive at the library, where Juan, 16, is developing a video game on his laptop, and across the room another staff member is giving a Spanish lesson to a small group of students.
This is a typical scene in Sudbury schools, which are set up less like academic institutions and more like villages. In a village, people are living life together in community. There is no academic curriculum, but learning certainly does happen, as I hope you can see from the vignette. This is a place where kids grow up, develop skills like how to get along with others, how to do business, and how to follow through on their obligations, and have space to pursue their passions.
Community is the Sudbury model’s secret ingredient. Virtually all other school models single-mindedly pursue learning. Unschooling, meanwhile, single-mindedly pursues children’s autonomy. Both are missing the essential piece of community. And while this may not have been as pressing of an issue in 1968 when the Sudbury model was invented, at the moment, at least in the West and especially in the U.S. where I live, we are in the midst of a community crisis.
In his influential book Bowling Alone (2000), Robert Putnam showed us that in the U.S. all forms of community have gradually been going out of fashion since the mid-1900s. As the title implies, people no longer bowl in leagues, but also people no longer join clubs or organizations (like the PTA), no longer attend religious services, no longer have dinner parties with friends, no longer live near extended family… I could go on for a while, but you could also just read the book or watch the recent Netflix documentary based on the book, Join or Die.
While none of these developments are necessarily bad on their own, taken together they paint a picture that many readers will recognize all too well. We no longer trust our neighbors; we’re suffering from epidemic levels of loneliness; and lacking contact with a diverse array of people, we’ve become politically polarized. And we get further off track with each passing year.
I believe that Sudbury schools are uniquely positioned among educational models to provide real community, buffering against the harms of an unraveling social fabric. Here are a few traits found in my school (The Open School), and commonly found in Sudbury schools, that promote community:
Family Feel. Sudbury schools are small, typically less than 100 students, and ages mix freely. Older students look out for and teach younger students, and there is an expectation that we are all looking out for each other. We also have ample quality time together to have fun and build relationships. As a result, a Sudbury school feels more like a big family than an institution.
Commitment. People in modern society love the freedom to leave as soon as they aren’t feeling satisfied. In contrast, at The Open School, students make a one-year commitment, and they are required to attend at least 5 hours per day and at least 4 days per week. This creates an environment where people can trust that others will be there. It grants the community stability, and provides the time needed for people to work through their crises rather than withrdawing at the first discomfort.
Contribution. Unlike in other school models, being enrolled in a Sudbury school is not all about your learning. And unlike in unschooling, being enrolled in a Sudbury school is not all about your freedom and your interests. In other words, it’s not all about you! In Sudbury schools, students are expected to participate and contribute for the welfare of the community, not just for themselves. At The Open School students must attend the weekly School Meeting, help clean the school daily, and hold themselves and their peers accountable for their actions (and of course, show up every day).
Democracy. A unique feature of Sudbury schools is that students participate in making the rules and conducting other school business. This not only gives students buy-in and a sense that the community belongs to them, but through debate and collaboration they learn how to see things from others’ perspectives, how to work with others, and how to compromise.
Community is also an excellent way to promote learning. Maybe you never would have been interested in learning Spanish, but two of your friends signed up for the class and you would love to learn alongside them.
People struggle to learn anything if they’re not internally motivated, right? Well, it turns out that community provides people with internal motivation to do basically whatever others in their community are doing. This is how we end up with students voluntarily doing cool activities all the time like baking cookies, designing board games, planting a garden, studying math (yes—many do), building a fort, putting on a play, and so on. It only has to begin with one person’s interest, and soon everyone is doing it.
It’s time that we recognize the power and importance of community not only in children’s educations but in their lives and well-being. And the Sudbury model is the best foundation we have to do this.
Is your family ready to make the leap to self-directed learning? Get our free guide to some of the most important questions to consider.
