Tripod Home | New | TriTeca | Work/Money | Politics/Community | Living/Travel | Planet T | Daily ScoopWORK & MONEY
John DeGrazia-Sanders
interviewed by Anthony Qaiyum on January 4, 1996
"In a traditional school, students have less control over their environment than any other place in their lives."
John is the headmaster of Cyber High School, the first college preparatory school run completely online.
Tripod: Can you explain the origin of Cyber High School?
JDS: Cyber High School grew from a recognition that traditional education was supposed to prepare students for the "Information Age", but it was taking place under an "Industrial Age" model. In this Industrial Age model, as in a factory, students were to show up at the same time in the same place, do the same work and, after putting in their time, get promoted. In essence, traditional education is a model which prepares students for a world which will soon cease to exist.
Cyber High is the product of teachers talking about what they COULD do, if it weren't for the limitations of a physical classroom. When Cyber High teachers realized the potential for high quality communication using the Internet, we realized that we could do what we loved -- teaching -- with students anywhere in the world, students willing to invest the time and effort necessary to achieve an Information Age education. In the process, Cyber High is preparing students to work independently and collaboratively, skills required to succeed in the market that they will be entering.
Tripod: How many students are enrolled right now?
JDS: At this time, we have two students enrolled in what we call our "shakedown cruise". Because no one has tried to do what we are doing, we wanted to commence classes in a situation where we could easily make adjustments as they were needed. In order to see if time zone differences would pose a serious problem, we have one student who can look out of her window and see the Atlantic Ocean, and another who can do the same and see the Pacific. We've found that the geographic and time issues were easily dealt with, and we are currently processing applications for the 1996-1997 school year. We plan to limit enrollment for next year at 100 students, grades 9 to 12.
Tripod: Would you say that there is a certain type of person who is a Cyber High student? I would imagine that they would be very technically oriented.
JDS: There are traits that we look for in a Cyber High student, but technical orientation is not one. None of the founders of the school are particularly technically oriented -- available software now makes it possible for technical neophytes to work effectively on the Internet. Rather than technical expertise, Cyber High is looking for students who do not need someone standing over their shoulder to be able to focus. We are looking for students who are eager to ask questions, who are excited about doing something new, and who believe that, ultimately, they are responsible for their own education. All students are, actually, but only a few of them recognize that in the first couple of years of high school.
Tripod: What is the yearly tuition? What does that cover, exactly?
JDS: The annual tuition is $4,200. That covers everything a traditional school provides except for books and, in some classes, lab materials.
Tripod: I understand that you don't discriminate based on sex, race, religion, gender, etc., but what about technological discrimination? If you're an independent worker, but don't have access to the Web, is there no chance of "attending" Cyber High?
JDS: Not only do we not discriminate based on sex, race, religion, physical limitations, etc., but we may not know about such issues, unless the student chooses to tell us. How would we know if "Chris" is male or female, Anglo or Hispanic? How would we know if "Morgan" is hearing impaired, mute, or paraplegic? If a person's background, orientation or physical characteristics do not impair their ability to communicate via their computer, it is not important to their attendance at Cyber High.
With regard to Web access, it is true: if you do not have an Internet connection, then you cannot attend Cyber High School. What you are identifying is an economic issue, but it is one that is very real. We are a private high school. We do not receive any public funds or any private funds from any persons or organizations other than our students. Internet access is a requirement for attendance; however, Internet connections are now available through a variety of sources, including many public schools.
Tripod: How many classes does a student take each semester?
JDS: Just as in a neighborhood public school, each student takes six classes every semester. However, at Cyber High, the course progression has been established to ensure that an incoming freshman can prepare him/herself to take, in the junior and senior years, the AP tests in English, U.S. History, Latin, Economics, Calculus, and Physics.
Tripod: Is it possible to do "hands on" learning like art classes and labs without having some type of physical facility?
JDS: Absolutely, if by physical facility you mean a centralized lab or studio. Everyone can have some access to plant and animal life, to minerals and the weather. With a student body that lives on separate continents, in the northern and the southern hemispheres, in rural and urban environments, the opportunity for comparative studies and research is tremendous. It also drives home the point that what we are studying, the physical world, is not something that exists "in the lab" - it exists all around us, and the lab offers us some specialized tools and methods that we can use to make sense of it.
Tripod: Do you have discussions in a chat space, or some type of conferencing system?
JDS: We have class discussions, and the teachers hold office hours, on Internet Relay Chat.
Tripod: Don't you think there are emotions involved in discussions which can't be accurately conveyed through text? :-) How do you deal with this problem?
JDS: Absolutely not. At this point, full real-time audio-visual conferencing is not a practical reality on the Internet, so facial and vocal cues will not be seen and heard. Instead, our students will need to become proficient in a rather old-fashioned skill: thinking about what they say before they say it, and then saying what they mean. The range of human emotions can be expressed with words. It is often called poetry. Sometimes it is rhetoric. One of the side-effects of the Internet is that letter writing, an endangered activity, is returning. In the "Civil War" series on PBS, one of the fascinating aspects of the presentation was the letters that the soldiers had written. Because writing was the only available form of communication, people learned to communicate thoughts and feelings in their writing, and letters from 16 year old soldiers contained some of the most moving prose that I'd ever heard. It is a skill to communicate effectively using only words, but it is one that can be taught and learned.
Tripod: Are all of the texts needed online, or do students also buy books? If you don't buy books, wouldn't you be missing out on many contemporary texts which aren't available online?
JDS: Not all of the texts are online. There are, for example, Latin texts online, but these are not suitable for beginning students. Therefore, the answer to your question is that it will vary with the course. I envision the Government course being taught entirely with online resources, but there are several courses which will use traditional texts.
Tripod: Do you have an interesting story that could only have happened in a cyber school?
JDS: A Latin student was asked to take a test via IRC [Internet Relay Chat]. The process involved answering cues given by the instructor in Latin. The student was not very confident that she could perform the task and was quite nervous. The teacher assured the student that it could be done and the test began.
The test was sort of like an oral exam but the teacher and student were separated by hundreds of miles, and since the medium involved typed text the student needed to spell correctly to be understood and do so in seconds to keep the test pace. The task was difficult to say the least, yet the student rose to the challenge, answering 95% of the cues correctly. At the end of the test session, the student was amazed at her own ability and her grasp of the material.
I don't believe that this kind of experience is available in conventional settings where teacher/student ratios, discipline issues, and time constraints would make such activities impossible.
Tripod: How do you deal with discipline problems? You can't really make a student stay after school to clean erasers, can you?
JDS: What discipline problems? Someone speaking out of turn? Shooting spitwads in class? Throwing food in the cafeteria? Burning rubber in the parking lot? In a traditional school, there are a number of students in the same location at the same time, and there are a number of management and safety issues that accompany such a situation. It becomes the school's job to "instill discipline". At Cyber High School, the students are physically in their own houses, in their parent's office, or maybe at the beach with a laptop and a cell phone. It is not an issue for the school if they don't clean up their room, or if they are eating at their desk.
On the other hand, if a student fails to complete certain course work, that will be reflected in their grades. Parents are notified on line and in snail mail of the progress of the student, so that if the student is not working up to the parent's expectations, they will be aware of the situation.
Tripod: Many people would argue that the socialization process of high school is just as important as the classroom education. Do you agree with this philosophy? How do you deal with the missing social aspects of your school?
JDS: I agree that both socialization and formal education are important to our students. Formal education is the specific charge laid on our schools, and it is our primary responsibility. Students will socialize. The question is with whom and under what conditions. For instance, I have a teenage daughter who has played organized soccer for years, run on track teams, played on basketball teams, is a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and is involved in theater. None of this is through her school. In a traditional school, students have little choice as to where they will be, and who will be sitting next to them. In a traditional school, students have less control over their environment than any other place in their lives. I believe that Cyber High affords the students and their parents more choice over the context of their socialization. In addition, our students will be able to socialize with peers from all over the world, from countries and cultures far different than their own. This is an amazingly rich environment, and one that has been impossible until now.
Tripod: Do you think that online education is the wave of the future?
JDS: I think that it is one of the "waves". What appears to be happening is that educational options are expanding -- public schools, parochial schools, magnet schools, private schools, boarding schools, home schools -- we are one new option that can offer specific benefits to our students.
Tripod: Will you start having competitors anytime soon?
JDS: I hope so. So far what we are offering is unique -- a complete, college preparatory curriculum offered on-line and with full instruction and interaction with teachers and with other students. I believe that we are the first, but I'm sure that there will be others. Otherwise, with whom will we be able to arrange on-line computer game competitions?
Want to learn more about Cyber High School? Visit the homepage at:
http://www.webcom.com/~cyberhi
Map | Search | Help | Send Us Comments
