Don't erase history: Keep Mark's Meadow open

By MICHAEL GREENEBAUM

Published on February 06, 2009

The news that the School Committee is thinking about closing Mark's Meadow school is disturbing. I am not disinterested; I was principal for 21 years and am proud of those years, of the school and of the community of North Amherst it served. It may seem like ancient history now, but for those years Mark's Meadow was a laboratory school, both in name and in fact. It theoretically served the School of Education as a laboratory, but in truth the town was more interested in its laboratory role than the university. Many practices were tried out first at Mark's Meadow in the 1970s and then incorporated throughout the elementary schools. Here are some of them: kindergarten; whole-day kindergarten; breakfast; after-school childcare; and a governance council of teachers and parents.

More important were ideas that were tried out and successfully implemented but could not survive the peculiar test-based nature of education reform in Massachusetts: multi-age classrooms; a developmentally focused checklist in lieu of report cards; a workshop program which allowed teachers to specialize in areas of particular strength and interest; multiple transition points so children could move from one setting to another at various times of the year; making the arts central to the curriculum; and external evaluation of the school and its program by nationally recognized educators adapting the model employed for secondary schools, including self-study.

More important than any of these, however, was the special and unique bond Mark's Meadow enjoyed with the community of North Amherst, a wonderfully diverse community, but one marked by transiency, poverty, single-parent child rearing, racial and ethnic diversity, and many, many first languages. Many Mark's Meadow parents felt isolated, unsure of their English, and frightened of the school as an institution. Many parents clung to their own traditions while, at the same time, desiring their children to learn English and learn how to negotiate an English-based culture.

It was difficult for many Mark's Meadow parents to figure out the culture of Amherst, but we were determined that they should feel at home at their neighborhood school. This meant that the Mark's Meadow staff had a lot of learning to do, a lot of assumptions to question, a lot of attitudes to change. That learning, questioning and changing never stopped at Mark's Meadow, and I know that it is central to the culture of the school today.

So, if Mark's Meadow were to close there would be tremendous losses to a community that has often been underrepresented on school committees and which has often had difficulty finding its voice in the Amherst dialog. Perhaps that is why Mark's Meadow teacher John Keins was so passionate in his letter in a recent Bulletin. This is not the first time a teacher's voice has been raised in support of the North Amherst parent community; indeed, John Keins is in a long and valued Mark's Meadow tradition. The challenges facing the Amherst School Committee are many, and tough budgetary decisions are at the top of the list. I hope, though, that the committee considers both the intended and unintended consequences of closing Mark's Meadow. It would be writing "finis" to a distinguished 50-year history of questioning, innovating and succeeding, and it would take away a community center from a fragile but exciting North Amherst community.

It is also the case that an important link to Amherst's history would be destroyed: The "Mark" of Mark's Meadow was Capt. Marquis F. Dickinson, and the "F" in his name was Fayette, so his whole name was in honor of the French hero of the American Revolution and great friend of grandfather John Dickinson. Mark's Meadow was the name of the Dickinson farm, whose gentle slopes above the school still provide one of the loveliest vistas in town. In this 250th anniversary of Amherst's incorporation as a town, it would be a special sadness to see this history erased.

Michael Greenebaum is the retired principal of Mark's Meadow Elementary School.