ABSTRACT
Children become successful learners through performing as learners. In spite of the recognition that play is critical in children's development and learning, schools are becoming not more playful but less so. The task of the learning directors is to lead the students and each other in the creative, relational activity of creating a developmental learning environment performing the school a new each day. The Barbara Taylor School is performatory with its dominant activity, improvisational performance. When the Barbara Taylor School was founded in Harlem, New York in 1985, two progressive traditions that of African-American community schools and the free school movement came together. Barbara Taylor School students' achievement scores on standardized tests exceeded those of public school students in the district and they learned without being coerced or abused. The radically democratic nature of the Barbara Taylor School goes beyond the participatory, parliamentary structure of the Sudbury Valley School.
