The Children’s School of Berwyn offers progressive alternative

BERWYN — At the progressive Children’s School in Berwyn, the faculty embraces a philosophy of child-centered education.

Or to put it in other terms, it’s all about the “gottas and the wannas.”

Located in the former St. Mary of Celle parish school at 1428 Wesley Ave. since 2006, the school started with 13 students in a combined kindergarten/first-grade class at the Gale House in Oak Park two years prior. Today, the school has 77 students in kindergarten through fifth grade.

Next year, it will add a middle school component for grades six through eight.

What differentiates the school from other public and private elementary schools is its project-based learning approach, Director of Administration Pam Freeze said.

“The teacher leads them to explore topics (that are) interesting to the group,” Freeze said. “The children are excited about learning, digging into research, exploring something meaningful to them while the teachers work in the skill and knowledge sets required in school. Of course we go through all the basics with them.”

The teachers marry together the things the students must have exposure to with the “I wanna knows” the student bring.

“The ‘gottas and the wannas,’” Freeze explained.

The students represent 12 communities in the area, including Berwyn, Cicero, Chicago, Elmhurst, Forest Park, La Grange, Maywood, North Riverside, Oak Park, River Forest, Riverside and Westchester.\

While the children are researching projects and reports, they are introduced to all genres of writing, mathematics and other subjects that are in line with state education standards, Freeze added.

However, students don’t take tests at The Children’s School. Freeze said by looking at students’ work, combined with their own expertise in teaching, staff can tell if a student is working at their class level.

“The teacher has more time to work with the kids individually,” Freeze said. “They can look at their writing work and say, ‘You already know about punctuation, so let’s incorporate that in your next draft.’ Another student may not be at that class level.”

Christy Martin, director of curriculum and instruction, said the curriculum, which is actually created through a collaborative effort of both teachers and students, reference state education standards. It’s not something written down and followed like a book.

For example, second- and third-graders were studying the senses, a standard topic for their age group, Martin said.

Teachers brought in all sorts of materials related to the subject. The students broke into small groups, each studying one of the senses, then built a gigantic head from many different materials to represent what they had learned. They then wrote about their findings.

“They are building discovery,” Martin said, adding the process is carefully guided by the teachers and children learn the lessons taught in other traditional school settings. “Content-wise, we get to the same place.”

But along with lack of testing, there are no grades given at The Children’s School, either.

“The teachers know the children extremely well, working with them one-on-one or in small and large groups,” Martin said. “We give narrative reports that are quite extensive and several pages (long), covering academic development as well as social/emotional development.”

Class sizes average about 14 students.

“That’s definitely one of our biggest assets here,” Martin said. “It’s impossible for a child to get lost here.”

Children's School origins
Daniel Ryan has been a life-long educator. When it was time for his young sons to go to school, he wanted something more for them.

“I had a lot of experience and passion for progressive education,” said Ryan, who founded the Children’s School and now serves on its Board of Directors. “I had two children in Oak Park and felt there was an opportunity to bring that kind of progressive education school to the west side of the city. I felt it important to have a school that did not succumb to the pressure of society with testing and rushing children through childhood.”

The results, he said, stand for themselves. The first graduating class of the Children’s School is now entering high schools with high grade-point averages.

It’s parents that are really behind the expansion of the school to include grades six through eight, Ryan said.

“There has been so much parental passion and desire to continue the K-5 to middle school and interest from people in the area,” he said. “What we’re offering is this intimate learning atmosphere."