Tour of Our Lives
After receiving our Metrocards (this was an all subway all the time tour), and a quick chance to get to know each other, we were off to do what we came to do: see four innovative, breakthrough schools, each with different histories, instructional models and student populations. (Monday: NYC iSchool, The Green School; Tuesday: Urban Academy, Calhoun School). We were especially interested in the culture and climate of each school"each one was considered "successful” and was popular with its students and parents. But what made each one different? What made their cultures coherent and powerful? What lessons could we learn from seeing them to take back to our own schools and our own work?
After two days of intense, on-the-ground classroom visiting, stairwell climbing, principal-question-asking, student discussions, processing with each other on the subway and at every meal and late into the night, here were some of the things we learned, or decided we were going to think about more…
Schools that work well put love at the center. On this tour we were blessed to have a delegation of school leaders from Nuestra Escuela, in Puerto Rico, a school for students who have disengaged from education or have been rejected by conventional schools. “This is a school founded on love,” says the school's co-director, Justo Mendez Aramburu. Amid much talk about the accountability environments of New York City and the Department of Education, the schools that we saw that truly seemed coherent, were educating students to use their minds confidently and well, and were creating challenging and supportive environments for everyone in their community, had a message of love at their center.“We are like a family here,” said Ann Cook, legendary director of Urban Academy. “Everyone knows everyone else,” said a student tour guide at the Calhoun School. “We don't have to force kids to talk to each other, said, Alisa Berger, Executive Director of the NYC iSchool. “We value our time together in person so much everyone wants to be present.” In a harsh accountability world where prioritizing love and connection can seem like an extra we can't afford, the truly breakthrough schools we saw understand that we learn from people we love and trust, and that real education doesn't happen without these things. We found ourselves thinking about how to realign policy at our schools to reflect this.
Read the rest of this post at Cooperative Catalyst.
Learn more about IDEA's upcoming Innovation Tours.
Posted in DemEd in Real LifeSchools on Apr 11, 2011 - 09:11 PM
Last week 37 educators from 10 states and 4 countries gathered at the headquarters of Project Reach and Fertile Grounds in Manhattan to begin the Institute for Democratic Education in America's (IDEA's) first ever Innovation School tour.After receiving our Metrocards (this was an all subway all the time tour), and a quick chance to get to know each other, we were off to do what we came to do: see four innovative, breakthrough schools, each with different histories, instructional models and student populations. (Monday: NYC iSchool, The Green School; Tuesday: Urban Academy, Calhoun School). We were especially interested in the culture and climate of each school"each one was considered "successful” and was popular with its students and parents. But what made each one different? What made their cultures coherent and powerful? What lessons could we learn from seeing them to take back to our own schools and our own work?
After two days of intense, on-the-ground classroom visiting, stairwell climbing, principal-question-asking, student discussions, processing with each other on the subway and at every meal and late into the night, here were some of the things we learned, or decided we were going to think about more…
Schools that work well put love at the center. On this tour we were blessed to have a delegation of school leaders from Nuestra Escuela, in Puerto Rico, a school for students who have disengaged from education or have been rejected by conventional schools. “This is a school founded on love,” says the school's co-director, Justo Mendez Aramburu. Amid much talk about the accountability environments of New York City and the Department of Education, the schools that we saw that truly seemed coherent, were educating students to use their minds confidently and well, and were creating challenging and supportive environments for everyone in their community, had a message of love at their center.“We are like a family here,” said Ann Cook, legendary director of Urban Academy. “Everyone knows everyone else,” said a student tour guide at the Calhoun School. “We don't have to force kids to talk to each other, said, Alisa Berger, Executive Director of the NYC iSchool. “We value our time together in person so much everyone wants to be present.” In a harsh accountability world where prioritizing love and connection can seem like an extra we can't afford, the truly breakthrough schools we saw understand that we learn from people we love and trust, and that real education doesn't happen without these things. We found ourselves thinking about how to realign policy at our schools to reflect this.
Read the rest of this post at Cooperative Catalyst.
Learn more about IDEA's upcoming Innovation Tours.
Tags for this entry:
school culture,
love,
school climate,
new york city,
innovation tours