Cover story: Critical thinking: Las Lomitas School District has a rich history of progressive education. But standards-based learning keeps a lid on it today. Cover story: Critical thinking: Las Lomitas School District has a rich history of progressive education. But standards-based learning keeps a lid on it today. (October 06, 2004)

By David Boyce
Almanac Staff Writer

The Las Lomitas Elementary School District turns 100 this year. The district -- which covers parts of Menlo Park, Atherton and Woodside and unincorporated areas, including Ladera -- started with 21 students in one school. Now it enrolls about 1,000 in two schools: grades K-3 at the Las Lomitas Elementary School and grades 4-8 at La Entrada Middle School.

Today, the district's academic achievement on standardized tests ranks among the highest in the state, but for most of the two decades of the 1930s and 1940s, the Las Lomitas district was known for something else: a radical progressive education program.

Alumni from this era talk of self-paced classes, no grades or homework, and occasional long baseball games with the principal and nevermind the ringing of the recess bell. The methods engaged students and prepared them for high school and beyond, alumni say.

Is there a link between then and now? Las Lomitas has a "no letter-grade" policy for grades K-3, but are there other echoes from the district's progressive period?

The Almanac consulted a centennial booklet edited by former Las Lomitas district teacher Nancy Lund, and interviewed alumni and current superintendent Mary Ann Somerville to explore possible links to the past.

The Niederhauser effect

"Skepticism (is) the mark and even the pose of the educated mind," said John Dewey, a prominent philosopher of education in the 1930s and a wellspring of ideas for the progressive education movement.

"If we tell our children what to think and they accept it without question, then they are not free," said Charles Niederhauser in the July 24, 1950, edition of the Palo Alto Times. "Our greatest danger is that of having our young people in the schools become accustomed to mental and social subservience."

Mr. Niederhauser, who came to the Las Lomitas district in 1932 from Stanford University, was hired that year to fill three roles: principal, 7th- and 8th-grade teacher, and the first superintendent. Mr. Niederhauser -- or just Niederhauser, as he liked to be called by students -- brought a unique personality to the district during his 18 years there, alumni say.

"Charles Niederhauser was our mentor, teacher, educational guide, critical-thinking challenger and humorist," says 1940-graduate Chuck Wells. He "truly understood and, in practice, integrated the philosophy of John Dewey. ... and so we, to one degree or another, realized his work in our own lives."

"I got to like him because he was really interested in helping kids find their slot," says Menlo Park resident Paul Robbiano of the class of 1935.

"If somebody found a dead cat on the road, they'd bring it in and we'd dissect it," said Betty Everson, who graduated in 1945 and also lives in Menlo Park. "We stood there for half a day and cut away."

In reading-aloud exercises, partners would take turns reading while slowly backing away from each other, which required voice projection without yelling, recalls 1952-graduate Lynn Kramer McCallum. "We were learning a lot about public speaking, breath control and general good manners," she says.

During folk dancing classes, the principal would pose arithmetic questions to the dancing students, challenging them with "mental math." "It was sort of an amusement as well as an educational exercise," said Frank Helfrich, a 1943 graduate and Menlo Park resident.

The dark side

All was not roses and buttercups during Mr. Niederhauser's tenure. Rub him the wrong way and his wrath could come pouring out.

One boy -- considered rich, selfish and spoiled -- once rushed ahead to be the first to get a bottle of just-delivered milk, said Carol Roselyn in a 1949 account. Mr. Niederhauser "stomped over to the boy, grabbed him by the collar, and shook the poor boy until his teeth almost fell out," she says.

The principal gave him a choice, she says: he could change his manners or change his school. The boy changed his manners, Ms. Roselyn says, adding: "I do not think that the boy will ever be able to thank Mr. Niederhauser enough for teaching him that lesson."

When a kid misbehaved , the principal "would emerge from the back of the room and get right in their faces (and say something like): 'You've got a yellow streak a mile wide on your back,'" says Menlo Park resident Kirby Wilkins, who graduated in 1950 and went on to a teaching and writing career.

"It was a little like being put in the stocks in the town square ... but it worked," he says.

Mr. Wilkins says his Las Lomitas experiences -- including the freedom to choose to read and write stories during the day -- influenced his decision to go to Reed College in Oregon, a demanding liberal arts school that, at the time, gave no letter grades. Reed's intensity turned out to be too much for him, so he "fell back" to Stanford, he says.

"I hope there are public schools preparing students to think for themselves," Mr. Wilkins says. "But I wonder. Free-thinking students might not do so well on (standardized) tests, and they might ask too many impertinent questions of the authorities, and they might also find it difficult to accept either/or thinking of the sort now current in public life."

Critical minds?

Is skepticism still being cultured among Las Lomitas district students today as it was 60 years ago? "I'd say that still is a strongly held belief by our people," says Superintendent Somerville.

Critical thinking is an essential aspect of teacher training today, particularly with the rise of the Internet as a principal source of information, Ms. Somerville says.

When they're online, kids need to evaluate what they're reading, consider the veracity of the source, and identify points of view, she says. "All of that is something that I think all of our teachers attempt to do now."

In social studies classes, current events are mined for biases and explored to separate fact from fiction, Ms. Somerville says. One 8th-grade course examines the U.S. constitutional convention, with students studying the British and American points of view to consider -- hypothetically -- whether the American Revolution was an act by patriots or terrorists.

New pressures

Mr. Niederhauser retired in 1950. With the onset of the Cold War, many parents -- including at Las Lomitas, according to Ms. Lund's account -- rejected the progressive approach in favor of a back-to-basics curriculum to help the country compete with the Soviet Union, Ms. Somerville says.

Since then, the pendulum has swung several times, she says. The progressive 1970s were replaced by the back-to-basics 1980s. In the 1990s, children were supposed to learn teamwork. Today, the emphasis is on core knowledge.

On a spectrum of educational theory, with back-to-basics at one end and a progressive approach at the other, the Las Lomitas district falls somewhere in between, Ms. Somerville says. "I think we're forced to be in the middle because of the accountability movement," she says.

The No Child Left Behind act, passed by Congress in 2001, requires "all students" to achieve proficient- or advanced-level scores on standardized tests in language arts and math by 2014. But today, many more children -- "perfectly bright and capable kids" -- are coming to school with "real problems in traditional styles of learning," Ms. Somerville says.

"There's a lot of pressure from the outside, but the thing that we pride ourselves on is that there isn't just one way" to get students to pass the tests, she says. With brain research suggesting that people learn differently -- for example, by touch, by reading, by listening -- a good teacher "has a whole bag full of tricks," she says.

Do such government standards have an up side? "We all fuss about it," Ms. Somerville says. "The good thing, I think, (is that) it has forced us to focus on making decisions on data as opposed to just how we think things are, (but) I think all of us feel that it's a little oppressive and that there's an over-emphasis on the test scores."

Without so much oversight, "I think you'd find a more relaxed approach to the curriculum," she says. If a class got excited about a particular topic, the discussion could go deeper. That sort of thing can't happen as it did before World War II. "It's too bad," she says.

Are we due for another swing of the pendulum? Ms. Somerville says it's unlikely: "The pressure now on schools from business and industry is: 'You've got to prepare these kids for the work force. You've got to prepare them for the global economy.'"

Passing the test

The Las Lomitas district appears to have what it needs to provide students with an education that exceeds state academic standards. The district has won eight academic achievement awards since 1988, and has ranked well above average since state monitoring of standardized test scores began in 1999.

Is there a formula behind such a track record? A rich learning environment needs well-trained and creative teachers, a good selection of class materials, a calm atmosphere, and a diverse student population, Ms. Somerville says.

If one of these elements is missing, as is the case in many urban settings, "It makes it hard," Ms. Somerville says. "It makes it really hard. We are very lucky to be in a community that values education, and to have the wherewithal to support it."

Few would argue that the Las Lomitas district meets the first three criteria, but diversity in the student body may seem a bit ephemeral with an enrollment coming mostly from upscale Atherton and West Menlo Park.

"We have a more diverse population than I think people think we have," she says, noting the Tinsley Voluntary Transfer Program, a 1986 court-ordered integration plan that brings the district about 100 students from East Palo Alto and eastern Menlo Park.

In addition, Las Lomitas serves children from other countries when families relocate to be near Stanford or Silicon Valley, Ms. Somerville says.

"To participate in the world that we have now (via first-hand contact with visitors) is incredibly important for our children," she says.

Centennial publication

"100 Years of Excellence," a publication of the Las Lomitas School District, provides more information on the district's history and centennial events. It was inserted in last week's Almanac.

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