Different approach gets a look

Skateboarding. Strumming an electric guitar. Watching the movie, ''Pulp Fiction." It's all part of a typical school day at the far-from-typical Sudbury Valley School in Framingham.

But there was one activity that stood out from the rest this week. A Japanese film crew arrived at the 37-year-old private school to try to capture what it looks like when young minds are molding themselves.

''It's still weird," said director Chie Uehara, through an interpreter, after having been at the school only a few hours. ''The most surprising . . . was to see kids eating stuff everywhere, chewing candy bars."

There have been a lot of problems lately at schools in Japan, she said, including high-profile conflicts between teachers and students. And some are wondering whether the system needs to be revamped.

''There's no school like this in Japan right now," Uehara said. ''Teachers say, 'Do this, do that.' It's all kind of forced."

Her 30-minute segment on Sudbury Valley, to air across Japan on the Fuji Television Network this winter, will be part of a three-hour program on alternative-education systems.

With no grades, no tests, and few organized classes, Sudbury Valley would seem the antithesis of a Japanese classroom. And that's the point, said Daniel Greenberg, cofounder of the school. (His title is staff member, which is true of everyone who works there.)

''Everyone else is copying the Japanese model, and the Japanese are very unsatisfied with their model," he said.

There, creativity is squeezed aside in favor of rote memorization, Greenberg said.

Hiroko Yamashita, an associate professor of Japanese language and linguistics at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, said education has always been a hot topic in her native country, but it is even more so now. That's because the rigid system in place since the end of World War II has started to show signs of age in the last decade. Bullying became a problem in schools and truancy rates shot up, she said, so there is a search for a better way.

''The system is obviously not working," she said. ''The Japanese school system was known as the stringent one -- more rules, more expectations, more group education instead of bringing up individuals. . . . Japanese people are changing."

Fuji TV is a major network in Japan, comparable to ABC or NBC, she said.

A couple of dozen schools around the world already have borrowed the Sudbury approach, which emphasizes student independence. The idea is that children should be trusted to explore the things that most interest them, so there is no curriculum, only adult guidance available for the asking.

The Framingham school, which charges about $5,600 in annual tuition, has about 150 students, ages 4 through 19, and there are roughly 1,000 students worldwide enrolled at similar schools, according to Mimsy Sadofsky, a staff member and cofounder.

Uehara's film crew was planning to sample a wide variety of activities this week -- math and French classes, singing and yoga lessons, and student elections for the School Meeting, during which rules and decisions are made.

On Monday, the crew filmed pottery-making and a meeting of some students and staff members who were setting the rules for playing on a new pool table.

Each student figures out what he or she wants to do on any given day.

Take Francesca Matisoo, 17, who got to school on Monday at about 1 p.m. Students are required to spend five hours a day there but when they come and go is up to them, as long as it's between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. After Matisoo got to school, she hung out with friends and watched fellow students playing football. She said it was a relaxed day and that other days for her this week would be more scheduled. She spends most of her time at Sudbury Valley drawing, painting, and singing.

Matisoo, whose father is a staff member, has been enrolled at the school since she was 4. She said she used to wonder what traditional schools were like, but she doesn't anymore.

''From what I've seen, I don't think I'm missing anything," she said. ''I'm self-conscious about my math skills, but that's the only thing I would do differently. I'm pretty much confident in my abilities to do anything."

After graduating, probably next year if her fellow students vote approval, Matisoo plans to train to be a hairstylist and eventually pursue business school so she can open her own salon.

For a 364-page report published this year, staff members interviewed 119 alumni, ages 21 to 49. The study found that, compared with the general population, Sudbury Valley graduates were more likely to hold jobs in arts and design, community and social services, or the computer and math fields. They've become doctors and lawyers and circus performers and physicists. More than 80 percent went to college. And most said they were happy with their lives.

''We start with the kid," Greenberg said of the school's approach, ''with what children are interested in, and let them carry the ball for their education, and provide a supportive environment for them to do that."

Lisa Kocian can be reached at 508-820-4231 or by e-mail at lkocian@globe.com.