As a timely confirmation that we are not the only ones working on this, you might like to check the movie trailer for "Race to Nowhere", 3 minutes confirming that we are doing something that is sorely needed by many of our young citizens.
http://www.racetonowhere.com/
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Alter-Ed. Open Meeting: May 16, 2010
Present: Paul Scutt, Martin Smith, Joel Hammon, Sarah Bastian, Maggie Rose, Mark Leuchten, Patty Leuchten, Geoff Tilden, Brian Patton, Ajay Dravid
The meeting began with introductions and reasons for attending.
Joel summarized the work of the small committee in the months since the last large meeting. He introduced some of the big ideas that have been shaping the work so far.
People are inherently learners. Why is it that children are eager to learn to read, but by the time they leave high school “you can’t pay them to pick up a book.”
People learn in a lot of different ways. A lot of the traditional education model runs on a “one size fits all” approach.
We are aiming for a program in which the individual is respected, lifelong learning is nurtured, education is authentic and connected with the real-world and the community.
The model that has been most compelling is North Star in Massachusetts. It’s flexible enough to personalize students’ education, but structured enough to guide them effectively.
Ajay asked those here with home-schooled children to let us know what they are looking for.
Mark L. described his son Michael’s experience in Princeton High School. There is a powerful urge for conformity among adolescents in order to feel normal. He gravitates toward regular school because he doesn’t really want to be different or alternative. We need to be careful not to present an experience that will label kids as too different.
Patty: Maybe there are other kids who actually do want to be different. This model may be exactly what some families are looking for.
Martin: Peers are the most important influence in the lives of adolescents, but we need to keep handing the responsibility for their lives back to them. A lot of kids use school to avoid asking the question, Who am I?
Patty: Michael has been trying things that he never would have done had he spent the year in school. Yoga, for example. Spending time with his family. The year has been a positive one, simply by removing him from a toxic situation.
Sarah: Her children have been approached by neighborhood children with the question, “When are you going to go to “real” school?” She is experimenting with “un-schooling” – letting her 9 year-old take the lead in what they study.
Joel: When the context is changed, an apathetic student can turn around and recapture the joy of learning.
Geoff: We need to recognize that young people need a certain amount of structure. How can this venture provide this?
Martin: The key to it all is to detach from what students are learning, and focus more on the learning process itself. Kids respond and receive instruction differently if they are truly respected and given responsibility for their learning.
Paul: The idea here is that each student would have an individual plan. Lessons will be conducted during the day, and students will either participate in them or not depending on whether they fit in with their overall goals.
Geoff: Adolescents won’t necessarily know what they want to do. They will need a lot of help coming up with proposals.
Joel: There are many ways to structure the process of coming up with a plan – meetings,
Martin: This model removes the power struggle between the teenager and the adults – parents or teachers.
Mark: This is a lot about responsibility, learning to direct one’s own life many years earlier than we were expected to do when growing up.
Martin: The process isn’t necessarily easy, and lots of help can be offered. But students should also be expected to struggle a bit on their own before they’re offered a hand.
Joel: “Responsibility” is often discussed in terms of “compliance” rather than actual responsibility.
Paul: The content that used to be the power base of teachers is now readily available for all on the Internet. Mentors can guide students in the right direction.
Geoff: Content is really just a vehicle for learning how to learn.
Joel handed out a packet of information, including North Star materials. A discussion followed about what feedback students would receive on the work they do, and how colleges might interpret the “transcripts” that we would prepare. There are about two million home-schooled children in the U.S., and colleges are set up to handle unusual applications. North Star students who wish to attend the elite colleges are in a strong position, but there are also 4000 other colleges that serve students well and don’t necessarily have the same requirements as the Ivy League. We can’t underestimate the anxiety of parents with regard to college admissions. Might we establish a “North Star South,” linking our venture with a program that has been in existence and has a track record?
Who will be target market? The home-school community is certainly a possibility, but probably not the fundamentalist home-schoolers.
Joel guided the group through the chart that describes the program and curriculum, services provided, etc.
A discussion followed that touched on possible locations – Princeton? In the Arts Council building? Patty would like to follow up with Paul next week to explore the possibility of launching a pilot program in the fall of 2010.
Present: Paul Scutt, Martin Smith, Joel Hammon, Sarah Bastian, Maggie Rose, Mark Leuchten, Patty Leuchten, Geoff Tilden, Brian Patton, Ajay Dravid
The meeting began with introductions and reasons for attending.
Joel summarized the work of the small committee in the months since the last large meeting. He introduced some of the big ideas that have been shaping the work so far.
People are inherently learners. Why is it that children are eager to learn to read, but by the time they leave high school “you can’t pay them to pick up a book.”
People learn in a lot of different ways. A lot of the traditional education model runs on a “one size fits all” approach.
We are aiming for a program in which the individual is respected, lifelong learning is nurtured, education is authentic and connected with the real-world and the community.
The model that has been most compelling is North Star in Massachusetts. It’s flexible enough to personalize students’ education, but structured enough to guide them effectively.
Ajay asked those here with home-schooled children to let us know what they are looking for.
Mark L. described his son Michael’s experience in Princeton High School. There is a powerful urge for conformity among adolescents in order to feel normal. He gravitates toward regular school because he doesn’t really want to be different or alternative. We need to be careful not to present an experience that will label kids as too different.
Patty: Maybe there are other kids who actually do want to be different. This model may be exactly what some families are looking for.
Martin: Peers are the most important influence in the lives of adolescents, but we need to keep handing the responsibility for their lives back to them. A lot of kids use school to avoid asking the question, Who am I?
Patty: Michael has been trying things that he never would have done had he spent the year in school. Yoga, for example. Spending time with his family. The year has been a positive one, simply by removing him from a toxic situation.
Sarah: Her children have been approached by neighborhood children with the question, “When are you going to go to “real” school?” She is experimenting with “un-schooling” – letting her 9 year-old take the lead in what they study.
Joel: When the context is changed, an apathetic student can turn around and recapture the joy of learning.
Geoff: We need to recognize that young people need a certain amount of structure. How can this venture provide this?
Martin: The key to it all is to detach from what students are learning, and focus more on the learning process itself. Kids respond and receive instruction differently if they are truly respected and given responsibility for their learning.
Paul: The idea here is that each student would have an individual plan. Lessons will be conducted during the day, and students will either participate in them or not depending on whether they fit in with their overall goals.
Geoff: Adolescents won’t necessarily know what they want to do. They will need a lot of help coming up with proposals.
Joel: There are many ways to structure the process of coming up with a plan – meetings,
Martin: This model removes the power struggle between the teenager and the adults – parents or teachers.
Mark: This is a lot about responsibility, learning to direct one’s own life many years earlier than we were expected to do when growing up.
Martin: The process isn’t necessarily easy, and lots of help can be offered. But students should also be expected to struggle a bit on their own before they’re offered a hand.
Joel: “Responsibility” is often discussed in terms of “compliance” rather than actual responsibility.
Paul: The content that used to be the power base of teachers is now readily available for all on the Internet. Mentors can guide students in the right direction.
Geoff: Content is really just a vehicle for learning how to learn.
Joel handed out a packet of information, including North Star materials. A discussion followed about what feedback students would receive on the work they do, and how colleges might interpret the “transcripts” that we would prepare. There are about two million home-schooled children in the U.S., and colleges are set up to handle unusual applications. North Star students who wish to attend the elite colleges are in a strong position, but there are also 4000 other colleges that serve students well and don’t necessarily have the same requirements as the Ivy League. We can’t underestimate the anxiety of parents with regard to college admissions. Might we establish a “North Star South,” linking our venture with a program that has been in existence and has a track record?
Who will be target market? The home-school community is certainly a possibility, but probably not the fundamentalist home-schoolers.
Joel guided the group through the chart that describes the program and curriculum, services provided, etc.
A discussion followed that touched on possible locations – Princeton? In the Arts Council building? Patty would like to follow up with Paul next week to explore the possibility of launching a pilot program in the fall of 2010.
Hi friends,
It has been a while since our last communication but a group of four us have been working on getting your and our collective ideas into some less amorphous form.
Though we still have a way to go, and the path may not be as straight as we think, the following concepts will be guiding us initially:
Venue could be Yardley, Newtown, Doylestown or perhaps even Princeton.
It will comprise a small community of 20 to 50 students and the equivalent of two full time staff.
Students will be registered as home-schoolers.
Monthly meetings or communications with parents and students will determine the amount of ongoing structure or freedom appropriate for each individual.
We will provide optional classes to cover the basics up to GED level.
In addition, we will invite friends, volunteers, students, to offer classes in a wide variety of topics that may be of interest to teenagers.
We will take advantage of the many learning resources available on the internet.
We will provide help, if necessary, in the college application process.
Optional educational visits to sites of historical interest, museums, etc will be arranged.
:
In short, we will be using many of the ideas of North Star Teens and Ken Danforth.( http://northstarteens.org/ )
We hope you will all come to a gathering on the afternoon of Sunday 16th May to discuss the above and also, very important, generate a name for the entity. We need you! and, please, if you have interested friends invite or bring them along.
I have posted much of the documentation so far generated at this web address: http://hiveoflearning.blogspot.com/ if you would like to recharge that initial enthusiasm.
As before, an RSVP would be appreciated but not necessary.
Many thanks for your support in this important endeavor.
Paul
ps suggested words to stimulate the invention of a name.
Beehive, Pathfinder, Lighthouse, Compass, ...
It has been a while since our last communication but a group of four us have been working on getting your and our collective ideas into some less amorphous form.
Though we still have a way to go, and the path may not be as straight as we think, the following concepts will be guiding us initially:
Venue could be Yardley, Newtown, Doylestown or perhaps even Princeton.
It will comprise a small community of 20 to 50 students and the equivalent of two full time staff.
Students will be registered as home-schoolers.
Monthly meetings or communications with parents and students will determine the amount of ongoing structure or freedom appropriate for each individual.
We will provide optional classes to cover the basics up to GED level.
In addition, we will invite friends, volunteers, students, to offer classes in a wide variety of topics that may be of interest to teenagers.
We will take advantage of the many learning resources available on the internet.
We will provide help, if necessary, in the college application process.
Optional educational visits to sites of historical interest, museums, etc will be arranged.
:
In short, we will be using many of the ideas of North Star Teens and Ken Danforth.( http://northstarteens.org/ )
We hope you will all come to a gathering on the afternoon of Sunday 16th May to discuss the above and also, very important, generate a name for the entity. We need you! and, please, if you have interested friends invite or bring them along.
I have posted much of the documentation so far generated at this web address: http://hiveoflearning.blogspot.com/ if you would like to recharge that initial enthusiasm.
As before, an RSVP would be appreciated but not necessary.
Many thanks for your support in this important endeavor.
Paul
ps suggested words to stimulate the invention of a name.
Beehive, Pathfinder, Lighthouse, Compass, ...
Dear Friends,
Our first two meetings gave us a lot to think about and really inspired us to keep moving towards doing something concrete to help the teenagers that will shortly inherit the society we live in.
To that end Joel, Martin, Ajay and I met on the 7th February and after more conversation on educational matters came up with some goals:
2015 – an established permanent home;
September 2011 – open with 10 to 20 students meeting in a space yet to be determined;
January 2011 – establish an “office” with website and promotional materials together with a marketing plan;
June 2010 – have a name, mission statement, bye laws and be incorporated as a legal entity.
May 2010 - most important, establish a board of trustees.
A suggested philosophy statement that still needs work might be:
“Learning is natural and individual. We hope to inspire and nurture self-directed learning in a respectful, non-coercive environment.”
Any words of wisdom on any part are welcome but in particular, we could not think of a satisfactory non-negative alternative term for “non-coercive”, which could be construed as a criticism of other schools.... does anyone have any up-beat and positive suggestions?
Another interesting discussion point was the importance of lunch to teenagers and we thought about the need for a kitchen and common dining area in our future space. Making this an integral part of the educational experience could also have the desirable effect of modeling a healthy diet and strengthening the community of learners. (I would recommend a visit to Tinicum Arts and Science to see this in action.)
There is a lot of work to do, it will be stimulating and good fun but it does have a serious purpose. We are extremely lucky to have such good hearted and capable friends interested in moving this project forward.
Sincere thanks,
Paul
Our first two meetings gave us a lot to think about and really inspired us to keep moving towards doing something concrete to help the teenagers that will shortly inherit the society we live in.
To that end Joel, Martin, Ajay and I met on the 7th February and after more conversation on educational matters came up with some goals:
2015 – an established permanent home;
September 2011 – open with 10 to 20 students meeting in a space yet to be determined;
January 2011 – establish an “office” with website and promotional materials together with a marketing plan;
June 2010 – have a name, mission statement, bye laws and be incorporated as a legal entity.
May 2010 - most important, establish a board of trustees.
A suggested philosophy statement that still needs work might be:
“Learning is natural and individual. We hope to inspire and nurture self-directed learning in a respectful, non-coercive environment.”
Any words of wisdom on any part are welcome but in particular, we could not think of a satisfactory non-negative alternative term for “non-coercive”, which could be construed as a criticism of other schools.... does anyone have any up-beat and positive suggestions?
Another interesting discussion point was the importance of lunch to teenagers and we thought about the need for a kitchen and common dining area in our future space. Making this an integral part of the educational experience could also have the desirable effect of modeling a healthy diet and strengthening the community of learners. (I would recommend a visit to Tinicum Arts and Science to see this in action.)
There is a lot of work to do, it will be stimulating and good fun but it does have a serious purpose. We are extremely lucky to have such good hearted and capable friends interested in moving this project forward.
Sincere thanks,
Paul
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