I'll do my best to write more posts getting in to the specifics, but my observation so far is that none of the extreme possibilities happen. There are problems. There are expulsions. Not many, but they do happen. The students don't magically learn everything on their own, but they do seem to develop in to competent, thoughtful, curious adults on their own...
Thanks for interesting blog posts. Answers to those questions help to understand what's good or bad about that system. Or any educational system. It's interesting, do they develop into curiosity, or they had it from the beginning.
There's no silver bullet in education, it's very complex thing. And to disregard traditional system on any ground could be too hasty. I've attended two schools. Both traditional system, but second one (last 2 years of education) had good reputation and to get there you had to pass exams (not very hard though). 100% of my class got into college (not US). And much less people from my first school did. The main difference was all the students in my class got in that school specifically because they wanted to go to higher education (also good teachers :).
There's no silver bullet in education, it's very complex thing. And to disregard traditional system on any ground could be too hasty. I've attended two schools. Both traditional system, but second one (last 2 years of education) had good reputation and to get there you had to pass exams (not very hard though). 100% of my class got into college (not US). And much less people from my first school did. The main difference was all the students in my class got in that school specifically because they wanted to go to higher education (also good teachers :).