Welcome to this week’s issue of Traversing, as always if you find this newsletter to be interesting, if it helps to inform your thinking about progressive education or if you think it might help others, please subscribe, share it with your friends and neighbors and share your comments and questions.
To Start a School Part II
This week I am going to continue with some more thoughts on starting a school based on my experience opening City of Bridges High School. Before, I delve into my thoughts, I do want to acknowledge that I am by no means an expert. I have had a hand in opening a number of schools, one of which happens to be City of Bridges High School and I have certainly learned lessons along the way. That being said, I haven’t completed extensive research of those experiences or even considered as deeply as I could the contextual particulars about the schools that I have started or helped to start. As with any one’s experience, I hope this is a good starting point and I am happy to talk about the details of my experience with anyone who is curious.
Last week I shared the revised version of Gleicher’s formula, ““…the product of dissatisfaction (D) with the present situation, a vision (V) of what is possible, and the first steps (F) towards reaching that vision are greater than the resistance to change (R)” (Dannemiller and Jacobs 483)[i]. My journey to starting this most recent school also started with a vison and a statement of belief.
In fact, here is the statement of belief that my wife and I wrote in its entirety on October 9, 2021:
Children
We believe children have inherent worth and value in a community. In addition, they have valid opinions and thoughts and therefore need to be listened to and engaged in the decision-making process for a school and a community.
We believe children need time to play and explore, with other children and with people of different ages. They need to be able to experience discovery and they need to be able to make mistakes and learn from them.
We believe that children are innately curious and that learning about the world is a fundamental function of their life. Therefore, they need to be able to explore and learn through actual experience and by following their own interests.
We believe that children are social beings and that part of their work in childhood is exploring social dynamics. We also believe that kindness and respect are the greatest social values. Therefore, children must be provided with time to explore social interactions, to make mistakes and learn, but at the same time be enmeshed in an environment that models and practices respect and kindness.
Learning
We believe that learning is most effective when children are able to follow their interests and engage in the process of discovery in an environment that is flexible to their individual needs.
We believe that there are some fundamental skills that students need to acquire, Literacy, Mathematical competence, Scientific knowledge, Historical awareness and Artistic expression, but that each child may learn these fundamental skills at a different pace and in a different order.
We believe that all knowledge is interconnected and that subject separation is artificial. Therefore, the learning in a school should integrate the curriculum, as this is the most authentic and effective way to learn.
We believe that the teacher is present to guide and facilitate the learning of the students in the community. In order to provide students with the skills and knowledge they need on their journey the teach will also instruct.
Community
We believe that a school is a fundamental institution in a community and that the school must be involved in the community and the community must be involved in the school. Therefore, the students should spend time in the real life of the community and members of the community should spend time in the real life of the school.
We believe that the foundation of a successful school community is respect. Therefore, the school community will be run in a manner that allows every voice to be heard and integrated into the decisions and culture of the community.
We believe that a school community should reflect the larger community. People should spend time with people of different ages, backgrounds, races and experiences in order to have a community of respect and kindness. This is extended to a school as well, where students should spend time with people different than they are, experiencing life.
We believe that a school’s relationship to a community is reciprocal. Therefore, the school must give back to the community, the physical community, the parental community and the educational community. In addition, we hope that the communities in which the school exists offer support to the school.
This belief statement did not arise out of thin air, in fact it was informed, inspired and shaped by many other schools, individuals and learning organizations, which leads me to my first thought, (I came up with 8, four I’ll share this week and four next week):
1. Don’t Reinvent the Wheel, Refine it.
There are very few completely unique ideas in any field and in fact there are likely people and organizations who have already figured out some of the hurdles that you will likely face. City of Bridges is not necessarily exactly like any other school, but many of its systems, structures and ideas are derived from best practices from other schools and learning organizations that I had the honor of visiting and who shared their work with me. (As I have noted before, in the progressive learning world there runs a deep vein of compassion and a desire to help others doing this work.
The culture of sharing and support also leads me to my second thought:
2. Make Friends
City of Bridges exists because of the hard work of the founding students, faculty, board, families and community partners. It also exists because of the friends who supported, guided and shared our work along the way. When I was working to open the school, I had the advantage of more than 20 years of work in education and I was able to reach out. Some of these long-term relationships were instrumental to getting the school up and running. At the same time, I continue to build new relationships of mutual support.
Which leads to my third thought:
3. Share your work
This thought has two meanings. First, just as others share with you, please also share your work. I always take the time to share my experience, ideas, advice, templates, systems etc. with anyone doing this work, because other people have and continued to share with me. Second, share your work with the larger community, let people see what you are doing and what your school is all about. If your school is shrouded in mystery then no one will know how to support you in the myriad of ways that people can help a new institution. We have experienced so much support including the donation of a baby grand piano, telling a friend to enroll their child, offers to teach a pastry baking class and of course financial donations as well.
One of the most important things that you need to share your work leads me to my fourth thought:
4. Tell a Heart Story
As we have talked about before, humane education is heart work, it is about the connection between members of a community who say, “I value your inherent worth and therefore will do whatever I can to help you build the life you want to live.” The numbers and the curriculum and the logistics are important, but the most important thing that you can do is to tell a story to people’s hearts. Let them know that you care about them, their children and that your school exists to do good things, collectively, communally and individually. Just a quick note, in order to tell a heart story, it has to be true.
Thank you for exploring the first four of my thoughts and I look forward to sharing the rest with you next week.
With Gratitude
People, Places and Things
In this section of the newsletter I share people, places and things that have inspired and taught me valuable lessons about rethinking learning.
The day that this issue will be posted, I will be at Oberlin College, facilitating a college visit for some of the students who attend City of Bridges High School. Although, I have many things about Oberlin that inspire me, I would instead like to share a place that I learned about while a student at Oberlin. In one of her classes my wife learned about a Lake Eire island with glacial grooves, rare habitats and fossil strewn shores, this island was only a short drive and ferry ride away.
As a result, we have been going to Kelley’s Island, for decades and it is still one of my favorite places. It is a great example of small place where the opportunities for integrated learning are immense. The glacial grooves and limestone quarry offer ways to examine geology and the shipping that resulted from the limestone offers ways to examine economics. The fossils, which really do cover the shore offer ways to examine history and paleontology and the alvar habitat offers ways to examine ecology and botany. I could go on and on, but essentially the size of the island allows you to see the interconnections of systems and to explore the ways those systems interact.
I was also recently speaking with a student who has spent time there and they remarked that the small size also offers children a freedom to ramble, roam and explore that is often lacking in other environments (even if sometimes their visits don’t allow them to ramble, roam or explore).
It is also true that it is a beautiful place and supports time to reflect, relax and recharge, something we can all use.
See you next week!
[i] Dannemiller, Kathleen and Robert Jacobs. “Changing the Way Organizations Change: A Revolution of Common Sense.” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 28.4 (1992): 480-98. Print.