Arthur Morgan School: Burnsville, NC

An hour northeast of Asheville lives the Arthur Morgan School, a progressive learning community of 7th, 8th and 9th graders. The school was founded over 50 years ago, dedicated to supporting teens in becoming "compassionate, confident, and competent young men and women." While not technically a Montessori school, Arthur Morgan operates under Maria Montessori's teaching that adolescents thrive in a boarding setting with hands-on, real world work that is closely tied to nature. 

The land is owned by the Celo Community, a well-established intentional community of Quakers now stewarding 1,200 acres in the region. The schools leases the land for their classrooms, gardens, and community houses for the incredible sum of $1 per year, one of the many offerings of community support that helps keep their tuition as low as possible. In addition to a fairly large endowment that helps fund scholarships, the school is very open to working with families. For example, Nettle, the school cow, was accepted as partial tuition from a farming family.

Students live in groups of four in small farmhouses with two house-parents. The house we visited was beautiful: full of light, plants, instruments, crafts the children had made, cozy communal space, and a large garden outside with chickens and the school's free-roaming calf, who had proved difficult to corral. Children have tremendous responsibility to maintain the spaces. After breakfast and before bed in the boarding houses, students have chores. I was impressed by how clean and neat the group houses were (except for their bedrooms-- they are teenagers, after all). 

In the dining room and cafeteria, two teens were busy in the kitchen preparing lunch, and three girls were pulling corn kernels off of small, dried cobs, corn they had grown themselves in the garden adjoining the kitchen. One girl explained that when they were done, they'd have popcorn "for years!" The gardens and greenhouses provide a significant percentage of the food for students' meals, both in the cafeteria and their boarding home kitchens in the morning and evening.

In addition to classroom-oriented learning options, there are "internships," similar to Montessori's idea of "occupations." These are opportunities for students to participate with staff members in running different parts of the school program; the students we had seen in the  kitchen help keep food stocked and cook twice a week. The work in the kitchen is also a starting point for meaningful academic inquiry. For instance, the theme of the unit of internships was "grains." They spend each week learning about a different kind of grain that they're then cooking with throughout the week, different elements of biology or chemistry or history. Students can also participate as interns in the outdoor program, in the garden program, and in the maintenance program.

Off the kitchen is a cozy, couch-filled meeting room. Every day starts at 8:30 with a half-hour community sing. Community announcements follow, before students break for academic work. The weekly community meetings in the same space operate on consensus and are clerked by a rotation of 9th graders, the oldest students in the school. Always operating with Quaker influence, Arthur Morgan is now technically a provisional Quaker school.

Hopkins, the first academic building (pictured above), was built as a product of work camps in 1959-62. Elizabeth & Earnest Morgan, who founded the school, convinced their friends to stay in tents during the summers and drag river rocks to build the school. There are traditional classes held here in the mornings. Students rotate between math and language arts, and "Core Class". "Core Class" is a daily hour and a half block offering an integrated, interdisciplinary, theme-based class. Course offerings change each unit and year, driven by the passions of the staff, but always cover science, social studies, and art. The offerings during our visit were African-American history, Life on Planets, and Pottery.

Before lunch, the whole school joins together in a circle in silence, another Quaker inspired routine. Students came out of the woodwork from their projects all over campus and joined the circle, where we stood together quietly as the handful of campus dogs frolicked around. Announcements were made over the noise of the wind, and everyone ran inside for a delicious, home-cooked meal. Despite their friendly offer, I opted not to join the group of students & teachers who had an outdoor eating club (every day, any weather, no exceptions). Instead, I settled at a table with a few students who were incredibly excited that I lived in New York and wanted to hear everything I knew about Banksy's recent self-proclaimed art residency. 

There was so much more that was special about this school: 18-day road trips as capstone to student-directed inquiry, beautiful graduation gifts that 9th-grade classes had built for the school as a thank-you (cob oven, milking shed, etc), structured time for student-directed community improvement projects (we came across one student working independently to fix the wall-mounted pencil sharpener). Evidence of students' care for their community (people & spaces) abounded. 

What do you think about the Montessori approach to adolescence; that is, send children to the country and have them work with their hands? How about the idea of intentionally segregating this age group from younger children? What do you see as an ideal balance of indoor and outdoor time for children? Does it depend on age?

It was clear that this was a group of extraordinarily skilled & happy young people (and adults). Thanks, Arthur Morgan!

Francine Delaney Charter School: Asheville, NC

Francine Delaney is a unique model for a public school: the teachers run the school (literally). There is no administration apart from the teachers themselves: they make all of the budget decisions, set the curriculum and the calendars, and make all decisions about their individual classrooms. As such, they have attracted and maintained a core group of highly committed, energetic and idealistic teacher-leaders who guide the school on both a macro and micro scale.

The school's round, modular-type buildings were built by a local green building company, Deltec. Pieces are shipped and seamed together on site. They use green building techniques and have a zero waste policy. The buildings are rounded and fit two large, airy-but-cozy classrooms to a floor. The space allows for nooks and crannies for a diversity of work spaces, with an open lay-out where the teachers can easily keep an eye on all of their students.

When we walked into the 5th grade classroom, I wanted to stay. It was reading time, and children obviously had the freedom to choose the environment that worked best for their individual needs.  There was one child, sitting by himself at a small desk overlooking the sunny yard, with a cluster of wind chimes over his head and a beautiful stained glass window. All of the other children were sitting in groups of two to four at round tables. One teacher was sitting on a small couch, working one on one with a reader. Another teacher was at another small table, working with two students. The room was quiet, except for hushed conversations. The walls were curved, holding the students in a really nice way. I thought of Waldorf school where the classrooms are as absent of right angles as possible, especially in the younger grades.

Evidence of high-quality and engaging lessons were all over the school. Next to a weather observation station outside the 7th grade classroom, our tour guide related that the class had built a weather balloon that recorded video and weather information from its release all the way into the stratosphere where it finally popped. It had a GPS aboard, so the children were able to track down and recover their prodigal balloon and analyze the data it had recorded.

Inside the 7th grade classroom the students were focused on their work writing assignment, soft music playing in the background. Their teacher spoke about the extreme freedom and responsibility that comes with the job. Every day, she incorporates music and movement in scheduled study breaks. For a long time she thought it would be too disruptive, but she's realized that it helps her students really be able to "drop in" to their academic work. Each day she follows a different workout routine: the seven minute workout from the NYTimes, Beyonce's dance workout designed for  Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign. Their teacher said it totally changed her classroom dynamic.

All special education services are push-in (served within the whole class environment) except for services such as physical and occupational therapy. The school originally used the free & reduced lunch program, but the reimbursement was so low that they decided to support needy families from their budget. Now, families in need are given a $50 gift card per child per month for the local grocery store. The school works very intensively with supporting overall health & nutrition of the students and their families. One parent bought the house adjacent to the campus, tore down the fence in the backyard, and turned it into a community garden. All students have access, and teachers incorporate work in the garden into lessons.

Our guide, a former parent and teacher herself, stated that often times charter schools struggle because they are started by parents who don't really understand everything that it takes to make a school successful. Here, the teachers really understand what it means to have great teaching happen. Every week there are directorate meanings and/or staff development meetings, so the teachers are all on the same page. Because the school is located in the city, teachers have the access to bring their students on regular trips. The 6th grade class was empty because the students were volunteering at the local food bank.

Francine Delaney was founded in 1997, the first year that North Carolina allowed public charter schools. Teachers set the class size because they create the budget. This year, they lost $20,000 dollars from the state. So instead of 17 students, there were 18 students per class/grade. To fit the budget, it came to either taking away their own dental insurance or increasing the class size, and I think rightfully they decided to admit another child per class. Still, 18 students is quite small for a public school classroom (as a reference point, I had 33 7th and 8th grade students per class last year). Because the school doesn't have to budget for administrator salaries, they can afford to keep class sizes reasonable.

Toward the end of our tour, a parent assisting the art class looking up from helping a student and, mistaking us for parents, told us: "It's the best place in the world. Good luck on winning the lottery!" I'm so grateful that I'm not in that particularly heart-wrenching rat-race right now.

Thank you for your excellent hosting, Francine Delaney! 

Upstate NY Homeschooling: Part 2

Quaker-inspired Community Life

Marcy & Lee are raising five beautiful children and a menagerie of animals, living close to the land in a Quaker intentional community. A flock of chickens provide eggs, meat, and entertainment, a garden supplies them with veggies, and a herd of sheep gives meat and wool. Marcy works the wool with her daughters, teaching them valuable crafting skills. Their best friends live next door with pigs, goats, more chickens, and another beautiful garden and greenhouse.

Each family on the property has their own garden and often a set of farm animals of their own. Families share the bounty weekly at a community potluck in the beautiful central farmhouse, the communal gathering space.

Their two oldest children attend public school, by choice. Marcy works with the three youngest at home, following a blended curriculum incorporating large elements of Waldorf as well as a more traditional reading & writing curriculum. The girls (ages 3 and 5) were eager to show me what they had learned, reciting autumnal verses that they had memorized, singing me songs, and showing me around their “schoolroom,” the former living room now dedicated to their lesson space.

           

The girls follow a daily rhythm, posted on a bulletin board alongside other images and words from their lessons.

Their rhythm, in Marcy’s own words:

The littles begin waking up around 7/7:30. They'll have some breakfast, get dressed, and have some quiet/free time until about 10am. During that time the girls may go outside and play, check chickens or go on a walk with Dad if he's home. It really depends on the day.

We begin lessons around 10:30. This is our time to do whatever book work we have, learn math concepts, writing, reading, and our social studies/science blocks. We typically finish our lessons within two hours or so. It depends on the depth of projects we're doing. We'll have lunch after we've finished (or we'll stop half way through, again, it depends on how the girls are feeling that day. I'm pretty child led in most instances.)

Our afternoons consist of some reading, playing, mindful work in the home, or painting.

I was impressed by how Marcy incorporates lessons around the homestead into the learning day. When the father found a cache of eggs buried in a corner of the henhouse, Marcy and the girls worked together to float the eggs to see if any were still edible. One egg was partially hatched but stone cold with a motionless chick inside. Marcy peeled off the rest of the shell to show the girls what a newborn looked like, and in the warmth of her hand, the chilly little chick began to stir and move its beak, much to everyone’s astonishment! They quickly worked to candle the rest of the eggs and put any that looked like they might be viable into the incubator. Amazingly, two more of the eggs ended up hatching into chicks, weeks later, and the newer baby chicks imprinted onto the older miracle chick. They now sleep nestled under the bigger mama-chick’s wings. I can imagine of no better, more exciting and heart-warming series of lessons than every piece of this baby-chick salvation epic.

The Quaker Intentional Village hosts a community-wide potluck every Friday that I was excited to attend: I knew that I would meet other interesting people involved in education. Gold Mine! First on the list is an incredible 14 year old who is homeschooling for the first time this year. He casually mentioned to me that he traveled to the Manhattan Free School to “help them set up their 3D printer.” This young person blew me away with his expertise, and his whole set-up is quite extraordinary. He and his father worked together to build a “TV B Gone,” a small device that sends out the signals required to turn off any of the major brands of TVs. His father designed a case for the device, the boy printed it out, and the two of them took a field trip to Wal-Mart to turn off all of their TVs, surreptitiously. Home-schooling at its finest!

The family has two beautiful blogs to chronicle their family life that I highly recommend you follow. Thank you, Marcy & Lee, for your inspiration!

http://hearthearthandhomestead.blogspot.com/2013/08/home-educating.html

http://rhythmicsilence.blogspot.com/

I just arrived in Asheville, NC, where I have an action-packed week of school & community visits planned. Looking forward to more inspiration! Stay tuned!

Upstate NY visit: Homeschooling!

For years I’ve been wishing to visit family friends who home school and learn more about their thoroughly intentioned choices. I timed it perfectly with the riotous fall colors, where my mother and I spent days experimenting with new ways to process the bumper crop of apples from her modest orchard (I made apple cider in a food processor! Just puree and strain through cheesecloth! Delicious!). In between canning apple sauce & jam, I visited two nearby families and was very inspired by what I saw. Enjoy!

Home School 1: Organic Farm Life                       

Early afternoon, I pulled into the farmyard after waiting for a few beautifully plumed guinea hens to stalk out of my way. Two little tow-headed boys raced around on bikes, out-doing each other with tricks. (I later saw their father grab the smallest bike and ride it in a quick circle, to the delight of the boys—“Do a wheelie, dad!”— instead, he hopped off the tiny thing, laughing).

The mother/teacher, who I’ll call K., graciously invited me to visit their farm and her “classroom”. A successful and eager student through an advanced degree, she opted to home school not out of a negative experience with schools, but rather as both a practical choice to enable more time with her children, as well as a desire to surround them with as much loving care as possible. As successful entrepreneurs and farmers, she and her husband are at their busiest during the summer when schools are out, and have the most free time during the winter, when the children would otherwise be in classes.

The school day starts at 8am around a table in the family’s cozy living room. At noon, the four children are free to explore on their own. On the afternoon I was visiting, the oldest girl, a 5^th grader, was snuggled on the couch deeply engrossed in her book, the two boys were practicing tricks on bikes, and the littlest girl wanted desperately to tag along with us, but K. convinced her to go spend time with the horses.

In this 4-hour block of daily lessons, the children follow a Waldorf-inspired home school curriculum called Live Ed. The curriculum maps out lessons for each child, as well as a chunk of math & spelling words for the week for the older children. Each child has a blackboard to keep track of their work, chores, etc, as well as various notebooks to organize their different lessons. On Wednesdays, the three youngest head out with a group of 14 other homeschoolers with an outdoor adventure group, exploring the county by rock-climbing, canoeing, and other escapades. During this time, K. has the time to focus more closely on studies with her eldest.

We spoke a bit about the vast range of the structures possible in homeschooling. Some families have very structured lessons but complete time flexibility: children are free to complete their workbooks, online lessons, etc. at their leisure. Others have structured times for home school lessons, but the lessons themselves are completely open-ended, following the curiosity of the child. K.’s approach is fairly structured both in terms of time and content, in that children have a four hour daily block for lessons, and she follows a curriculum. That said, she clearly has tremendous flexibility to tailor lessons to each child’s needs.

We were on the same page about easing back on the push for aged-based milestones. K.’s one big regret was giving into the pressure of reading too early with her oldest child. After a family member trained as a reading specialist offered to work one on one with the oldest girl when she was 5, K. gave in (generally with a Waldorf approach, children begin reading much later, around 2^nd grade). The result was four years of “I can’t do it, I’m not a reader,” and it was incredibly painful. Happily, the child is now reading avidly (she’s the one I saw tucked away with a book), yet this lesson has stuck: pressuring a child too strongly and too early can result in insecurity and pressure that are antithetical to learning. 

I learned that in New York State, homeschoolers are required to take the same standardized tests as their public school peers, beginning in 4^th grade. The 5^th grader took the exams last year for the first time and came in on all subjects at an 8^th-11^th grade level. With one exception: she (the daughter) was horrified to find that she was spelling at a 2^nd grade level. It did encourage her to redouble efforts on spelling, a subject that doesn’t come easily to her, and as she did exceedingly well on everything else, it wasn’t a crushing blow.  

Some friends of K.’s in the homeschooling community are intentionally not teaching their children to type or use computers because they don’t want their child to be stuck at a desk job later in life. However, K. wants to keep all options open. While the children currently use no media whatsoever (except for a little football around Superbowl season), K. wants them to be ready for college-level work by age 18, which will involve some computer literacy and typing skills later on.

Like myself, K. has many questions as answers about the “best” way to educate. She is scrupulously thoughtful about the choices she makes as a teacher/mother. It’s plain to see that there’s a lot of joyful and authentic learning and time spent in the family and on the farm, and she has gives herself completely as a teacher & support to her children. It’s inspiring.

Social and Emotional Development: The Mortar in the Foundation

Before I began teaching adolescent special education, I taught preschool. Despite the huge age gap, I found that many skills I had gained as a preschool teacher were useful to me in my new career as a middle and high school teacher, including of course, loads of patience. In addition, I noticed parallels in developmental stages. For instance, adolescents go through their own version of the “Terrible Twos,” in that they are suddenly awash in a sea of new emotions that they may not be able to identify or control. Like two years olds, they are also experimenting with their independence and agency in a way that often perceived as defiant. 

Social & emotional development is a central focus in preschool education. Early childhood curriculum recognizes the importance of helping children understand their emotions, learn how to self-regulate, and identify emotions in others and react appropriately. However, social and emotional development is largely absent in middle & high school curricula. 

My hunch is that if students’ social and emotional lives were as explicitly valued as any other part of learning, that far fewer adolescents would struggle with depression, anxiety, bullying, and risky behaviors. What’s more, I imagine that students who are emotionally healthy would be much better able to be engaged, successful learners. Yet this neglect of mental health is not included in the debate around how to help our “failing” schools.

Years ago when I began talking about this idea, I told anyone who would listen that we were mistakenly looking for chinks in the armor, for drafts around the windows and doors of this institution of education that we had built. Instead, what we needed to do was turn around and see that one of the walls was blown open. That missing wall is social and emotional development.

One simple step for schools to take: teach children to meditate. There is ample empirical evidence that meditation can improve mental health and decreases stress, to name just a few of many benefits.

What are your thoughts? Which schools & learning communities place great value on social & emotional knowledge? What are the best ways to support children in taking care of their mental and social health?

The Writing is on the Wall (A study in contrasts)

In the past two days, I've visited classrooms in three radically different schools, and I found myself comparing the displays of student work. First, the Brooklyn Waldorf School (see my previous post for more). Second, a Kindergarten classroom at St. Luke's, a small private school in the West Village in Manhattan. And today, an open classroom at Pono, a democratic school in Harlem.


Waldorf School

These watercolors are the product of a particular process. First, paper is dampened with a sponge. The children are given two primary colors, water, and a large brush. As the teacher tells a story that incorporates the elements of the colors, all the children work on their own painting.

Because the paper is damp, the lines and edges fade away as the tint moves. The primary colors blend together to form a secondary, in this case, orange. Each child works with minimal guidance from the teacher. Each student's work is displayed.


St. Luke's School

These pieces were constructed by the teacher with a sentence starter and a box in which the children were to draw acts of kindness, inspired by their group reading of The Giving Tree.

One child wrote words to accompany their picture, two children had the teacher write words for them, one is image-only. All the students used finer-pointed magic markers, so they were able to practice fine-motor skills (a prerequisite for learning to write legibly). Each child created images suggested by the assignment. Four students' work was displayed.


Pono Learning 

This wall painting was created collaboratively by seven children ages 2-6. All students unanimously voted to paint the wall, decided on which wall, and worked together. Because the school is a democracy, the children have the agency to make these kinds of choices.

At Pono, learning is self-initiated, self-directed, and self-regulated. There are no compulsory classes, tests, homework, or grades. Students are free to follow whatever they would like to do at any moment, as long as it abides by the agreements that the community has elected based on consensus. (Agreements include things both large and small, such as "We speak and act kindly to one another" and "We take 3 minutes turns on the swings").

The founder of the school told me that after children complete art work, they are asked what they'd like to do with it. They often choose to take it home, or store it in their personal, private box. One child who comes from a traditional preschool setting will occasionally ask to have her work hung on the wall.

* * *

Two years ago when I was teaching public high school, there was a tremendous emphasis placed on having the walls plastered with "high quality, authentic student work." I was required to update the bulletin boards in the hallways monthly, along with a description of the assignment, the rubric used for to evaluate the work product, and individual comments sticky noted to each piece.

A month before the dreaded SQR (School Quality Review), my principal sat us down with highlighted photocopies of the assessment that the evaluators would use, drawing attention to the items that received more emphasis during the review. He stressed to us the importance of getting "double-credit" where we could, including, of course, the bulletin boards. In a school that had below a 20% pass rate on some of the Regents scores required for graduation, our principal was trying to squeeze in the points where we could-- and anyone can make a bulletin board look good.

This monthly exercise in non-learning and busy-work on my part gave me ample time to think about the point of bulletin boards. Ostensibly, they are to demonstrate the learning that is happening inside the classroom. However, I regularly had students who did not want their work displayed publicly, and yet, if the work was high quality, I felt pressure to try to convince them to allow me to use their work, as I was being assessed in part on the work that I displayed in the hallway.

I also struggled with what to do with the work of my students who demonstrated effort in class, but because of a learning disability or a language barrier, were unable to complete the level of work that I was expected to display. I hated that I felt coerced to marginalize my special needs students in this way.

What are your reactions? When is it appropriate to display student work? Is it right to push some students who may feel protective or self-conscious to display their work publicly? What type of visible work shows "authentic student learning?" 

Visit to the Brooklyn Waldorf School Kindergarten

Entering a Waldorf kindergarten is like entering a sacred space. Colored silks on the windows filter in a soft light. I trade my shoes for slippers. Here and there through the classroom are thoughtfully placed offerings from nature: a bouquet of dried flowers, a whirled piece of driftwood with a parade of small felted animals nestled in the curve, a bowl of apples and squashes. The toys are beautiful; handmade felted hats & fairy capes, a intricately carved kitchen "store" full of wooden cups & saucers, knotted colorful rope swings beneath the birch wood treehouse. 

Each day follows a careful ritual, informed by the training as well as the intuition of the lead teacher, and supported by the assistant teacher. Mindful to not disturb the routine with my presence, I slid into a tiny wooden chair in the corner and kept my hands busy winding large skeins into small balls of yarn that the children would later use for a handwork lesson. 

The rhythms of the day are lead through song. After greeting each child at the door and inviting them to come into the classroom, wash hands and settle themselves, the lead teacher began singing "Now we are a circle, now we are a star... " The children quickly joined in and made a circle around the large round carpet in the center of the room, reaching out their arms and legs to form stars. After the daily verses, the class was joined by the eurythmy teacher, who guided the children on a poetry-fueled journey, prancing, galloping & stretching their way around the carpet. Eurythmy is an "art of the soul," according to Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf education. I still have much to learn about the teachings behind this form of movement therapy.   

During free play time, I noticed that the teachers both spoke very little. The assistant teacher spent much of her time engaged in preparing a full lunch for the children, and the lead teacher was constantly observing the children, but rarely intervened in their play. Children who were having difficulty with another child came to her, and she often prompted them to talk through their difficulty until a solution arose from the child's imagination. Twice I saw her call over a child who may have been heading toward a conflict, and direct them to assist her with a mindful task around the classroom, such as setting the table with placemats & cloth napkins, or filling each child's mug with water before snack time. 

Just as the energy of the free play time started to crescendo, the teacher sang the words that cued the children that it was time to clean up. Incredibly quickly, the children worked together to put all the toys back into their places (after teaching preschool for 4 years, I understand that cleanup time can often be challenging for some children). The teacher took her lyre from a high shelf and sat down to play. The children all lay down on the carpet. The energy that had been rising quickly faded away as the children relaxed, slowed down and listened to the music. After a few moments of this, she exchanged the lyre for a 4- note chime. As the children lay quietly, she slipped around the room, ringing a tone for each child and very gently brushing the mallet across each forehead. At this signal, each child rose, washed their hands and sat for lunch. I saw the anticipation of each child being called for the meal in this special way; it was beautiful. 

I'll be visiting a different kindergarten class tomorrow, as well as the middle school. It's definitely a lovely place. 

Next week I'll start my internship at Pono, a free/democratic school in Harlem. Very curious to see and feel the differences between these two schools, each very invested in nurturing the whole child, but one following the intuition of the teacher, and one following the intuition of the child. 

What are your thoughts? Do children benefit from structures established by teachers, or are learning experiences best when the children themselves decide what they would like to do or learn in any given moment? (With limits, of course; at Pono, all children & adults follow a set of democratically-established classroom agreements).