Lais Schule, natural learning

Lais Schule is a homeschool for children between 3 and 19 and is situated in 'Klagenfurt am Wörthersee' in what once seemed to be a landlords property. Farmlike buildings surrounded by a garden inhabit the territory and are now used as a factory, a hotel, the Lais school and a salsa dance club, all next to each other.

The school started in September 2014 by Alexandra, Georges, Karin and Dieter and is inspired by the famous Russian Kin´s school, a Lycee school at Tekos, of Mikhail Petrovich Sjetinin. At the moment around 65 children are enjoying the Lais learning style.

It all started with a dream...

Alexandra once dreamt and visualized she would start a school. She wasn´t really serious about it until many years later, after studies in human sciences, she was expecting a child and remembering her dream. At that point she decided to visit the Tekos Kin´s school in Russia. Sjetinin and Alexandra got along well and he encouraged the idea of a similar school in Europe. From that day on, they started to exchange information. First the Lais institute was founded by Alexandra and Dieter (mentor), offering courses to parents & teachers. Many years later the Lais school for children was launched together with Karin (pedagogical advisor) & George (administration organization).

The word ‘Lais’ is derived of the word ‘learning’ and refers to ‘natural learning being playful, creative, spontaneous, curious and inspired’. The German word 'Begeisterung' (to enthuse, to spirit, to ensoul) is at the center of the Lais culture. Lais schule is in fact a culture, focussing on the conditions for 'learning'. How can curiosity and learning flow and thrive without being hindered?

Just like Anastasia in the books of Vladimir Megré, Lais aims to create a learning place where people can be who they naturally are. It brings us back to the core question education is about, mentioned by Jean Jacques Rousseau in his book 'Emile': 'You need to choose between training man for himself or training him for others, between nature and society.' Obviously Lais & Rousseau both chose to train kids for themselves while the current formal education system mainly chose the latter.

What if learning is fascinating, motivating and fun? Just think about learning in a regular school and then try to imagine a natural learning space. How would it look like? How much are we are conditioned by stress and fears from an early age on? How important are emotions in the learning process?

Natural learning begins with us… and that is exactly what we adults collectively forgot to acknowledge while listening too much to authorities and neglecting our inner wisdom. With natural learning we go back to the universal wisdom of Socrates in the quest for a meaningful life. Lais returns to the ancient meaning of the word school, ‘Scholè’ the Greek word for ‘free research space’, ‘Free time’ to question. Learning is about questioning, not about answering.

The Tekos Kin´s school and Lais schule are based on the work of the Russian psychologist, linguist and educator Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934), widely recognized as "the Mozart of psychology", who responded to the work of Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget and Maria Montessori.

The broad recognition of Vygotsky´s approach relates to his innovative view of the child´s learning and development processes: the child´s learning is the result of adult mediation, of the engagement of children in appropriate activities. When and how do adults promote new tools of thinking, problem solving and self-regulation to children? According to Vygotsky it is the 'cultural heredity' through mediation that determines how the child develops.

While Jean Piaget interpreted learning as the result of the interaction of the child with the physical world around him, Vygotsky saw learning as the result of the child´s social interaction with the surrounding people. Empathic interaction & attachment are in other words the original drive behind learning. The environment shapes who we are and who we become.

One of the most important contributions of Vygotsky is his concept of 'Zone of Proximal Development' (ZPD). ZPD is the difference between the level the child reaches with a new tool on his own and the level it can reach with adult assistance. For Vygotsky the learning ability is the ability to benefit from assistance.

The necessary skills for learning facilitators therefore are observing the pupils to see how ready they are, questioning, encouraging supportive peer interactions and assessing when to give children suggestions and ideas, and when to let them proceed on their own. Accompanying the learning process is all about letting kids develop the capacities for self-regulation. Through play significant learning between peers takes place.

Lais schule is also inspired by André Stern, unschooled musician and author, Richard Roar, writer and ecospiritualist, and by Gerald Hüther, neurobiologist.

Inspired by Vygotsky, children are put in age groups, but only during the 'Natural Learning hours'. The age groups cover Kindergarten (3-6), ‘lower school’ from 6 till 9 years, a ‘middle school’ from 10 till 14 and a ‘high school’ from 15 till 19 years. The groups count 6 till 12 people and are facilitated by a learning facilitator or ‘Lernbegleiter’. Each age group is facilitated in a different way, from protecting to guiding, to accompanying and finally to releasing or loosening.

A school year covers all traditional subjects like maths, languages, geography, history, biology, art and music. Pupils participate in the state exams in the surrounding schools. What differs is the day schedule, which is flexible concerning content but every day the same.

In traditional schools every subject is taught every week. Pupils can never really focuss on one subject and don´t have the opportunity to see the totality of the subject matter. In Lais only two subjects are dealt with at a time. During a certain period, pupils focuss on two very different subjects (in 'natural learning'), decided by the learning facilitators.

Children cook the meals, prepare breakfast, clean and can also help in practical matters such as making tire racks for school material. In 'movement' pupils chose between 3 or 4 activities, depending on what volunteers, Lernbegleiters or pupils themselves offer that day. Clearly Lais prepares for life by engaging kids in real life learning experiences.

This is a homeschool without subsidies. For now pupils pay +- 180 euro a month as a tuition fee which includes the vegetarian meals. The school has a lot of volunteers, who can either be parents or learning facilitators from anywhere and from all kinds of backgrounds. To be a volunteering learning facilitator a teacher degree is not required, as you will learn the Lais way on your own pace. Most of the learning facilitators are in Lais for a personal transforming experience with a mission to bring healthy education to kids.

After the school hours, the same building is used for the Lais institute. This institute offers all kinds of Lais courses in German to teachers, educators, learning facilitators, parents and anyone interested in natural learning. These courses are attracting a lot of German speaking foreigners, people who want to spread natural learning to different contexts, and parents who want to understand and learn how to nurture fascination. I´d rather not call these modules courses as the participants are not instructed. Participants investigate together. It is an awesome way to build a strong school community, internally and externally.

From conversations with the kids I got to understand how much they like the Lais way. I saw autonomous children who were simply being and embodying themselves, pupils playing together, enjoying time alone or investigating subjects. It looks more chaotic than in regular classic schools as pupils are free to move anywhere but it is also more quiet and calm.

Extremely interesting to me where the social interaction, the freedom, the awareness and the simplicity. Freedom does not mean 'the absence of structure'. In fact the day structure in Lais is far more comprehensive than a traditional week structure in secondary schools. You don´t see kids lost, trying to figure out which class they have. I didn´t see kids carrying big bags full of books. The day structure makes it easier to organise, to focuss, to let new ideas pop up and to deal with unforeseen situations. Structure can be given in many different ways. What kind of structure is really important?

In fact everything is so simple in this school and so clear that you experience a lot of space for self-awareness. Imagine a place where people don´t judge each other all the time... what effect would it have on you & your thoughts? In general I admired the social culture. There aren´t as many underlying tensions, and tensions are dealt with in a way so natural that its simplicity almost seems complex.

But more impressive were the inner changes I experienced in this school culture and in the Lais modules. As an education activist I have visited awesome schools, where autonomous pupils suprised me, where I could learn community participatory tools and skills to horizontalize, to stimulate self-regulation, to collaborate in a natural way. Lais was the first school that showed me a way to construct a social culture, to build community by investigating together with peers, by experiencing the relation between theory and practice, words versus actions, by understanding the difference between societal uncomprehensive conditioning and natural direct ways. And that is exactly what I was looking for already a long time. 'Be the change you want to see in the world' for educators & parents!

Lais.Weis – Schloss Ehrenhausen, 69

Suppanstrasse, Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, Austria

www.laisschule.at

Similar schools or centers inspired by Lais(ing) and/or Tekos are the Weinbergschule, Colearning Wien, Lais Canada, ...

Author: Sofie Baeke, apprentice at Lais schule in 2016

Other source: Vygotsky for Educators, Yuriy V. Karpov, Cambridge University Press